The Moth in the Hall Light

During the autumn of 1987, I was seven, and my brother was ten. We lived in a cramped railroad-style flat above a dusty antiques shop in a sleepy New England town. The stairwell to our apartment was narrow and dim, with a single bare bulb at the top that always seemed to flicker, casting jumping shadows that danced along the peeling wallpaper.

That evening, my parents attended a dinner party, leaving us with a sitter named Leanne, a high schooler from a few streets over. We were at the kitchen table, drawing with crayons, when I felt a pressing need to use the toilet. But to reach the bathroom, I had to climb that ominous stairwell to the second-floor hallway, which was lined with a linen closet and a window that looked out onto the fire escape. That hallway always gave me an uneasy feeling, even though I couldn’t say why. The wallpaper, covered in faded roses, seemed to press in on me, and the creaking of the floorboards were the footsteps of someone or something that existed just out of sight.

I pleaded with my brother, Todd, to come with me, but he was absorbed in his drawing of a rocket ship. ‘No,’ he’d snap, not even looking up, and my stomach twisted with dread. Leanne, annoyed by my repeated requests, finally directed her gaze away from her magazine and said firmly, ‘Ellie, just go. It’s not scary. Todd doesn’t have to babysit you.’ Defeated, I shuffled to the bottom of the stairs, my heart thumping like a captured bird.

I started climbing, each step a thunderclap in the quiet. The single bulb at the top cast a sickly yellow glow, and moths fluttered around it, their wings like dusty velvet. As I reached the landing, I noticed the bathroom door was closed, which was unusual. I tried the knob, but it wouldn’t budge. A cold draft swept through the hallway, making the bulb swing, and the moth shadows swirled. I pushed again, my palm growing slick, but the door held. Then, from inside the bathroom, I heard a faint, rhythmic tapping, as if a finger was bouncing lightly on the tile wall.

‘Who’s in there?’ I called, my voice a shaky whisper. The tapping stopped. The silence that followed was worse. The bathroom was directly at the end of the hall, and the only source of light was the hall bulb. I noticed a thin thread of dust trailing from the keyhole, and then I saw that the doorknob was slightly polished, as if someone had been trying to open it from the inside. I dropped to my knees and peered through the keyhole, but I saw only darkness, an emptiness that felt hungry. Then, a sweet, sickly-scented odor seeped from under the door, like rotting flowers buried in an old trunk.

I scrambled to my feet and ran down the stairs, nearly tripping. I slammed into the kitchen, breathless, and told Leanne, ‘The bathroom is locked, and something is in there.’ Leanne rolled her eyes and marched up the stairs, muttering. I followed reluctantly, hiding behind her. She grasped the knob, and with a single, firm twist, the door swung open. ‘See?’ she said, but her voice caught as she looked inside. The room was empty, but the window above the bathtub was open, and the wind rattled the glass. The shower curtain billowed out, as if it had just been thrown aside, and the floor was wet, though no one had used it that night.

Leanne quickly closed the window and looked at me with a forced smile. ‘It was just the wind,’ she said, but her eyes were wide. She guided us back to the table, and we resumed coloring, but I couldn’t concentrate. Silence filled the apartment, and I kept glancing toward the stairs. At nine o’clock, our parents came home. When they asked about our evening, Leanne spoke first, ‘We colored, and Ellie was scared of the bathroom, but it was fine.’ My mother gave me a questioning look, and I felt a lump in my throat, but I didn’t say anything. I was too old for imaginary monsters.

That night, as I lay in bed, I heard the toilet flush upstairs. I assumed it was my father, but the footsteps that followed were not his heavy tread. They were light, and they stopped just outside my door. The door creaked open a crack, and I saw a shadow shift in the hallway, but when I looked, there was nothing. I heard a soft thud from the attic above, and then a faint, rhythmic tapping, like the muffled beat of a moth’s wings against a lamp. It was coming from the bathroom. It continued all night, a gentle, persistent sound, as if something was patiently waiting for me to come back alone. The next morning, the bathroom door was sealed shut, the keyhole filled with a dark, waxy substance, and my mother remarked how the hall light had burned out in the night. But I knew better. It had been the moth that kept the light, fluttering against the bulb, waiting to lead me into the dark.