The Old House on Maple Street

It was the summer of 1992. I was six years old. My family lived in a tall, gray house on Maple Street in a quiet town. My older brother liked to tell me the house was full of secrets. I would always tell my dad, and my brother would get a scolding.

After my brother got his own room down the hall, I was alone in the one next to the living room. One evening, long after everyone was asleep, I heard a low scraping sound from the ceiling above my bed. Then, a clear, sharp cry, like that of a young boy, cut through the silence. I leaped from my blankets and sprinted to my parents’ room, shaking my father awake. He told me it was just a bad dream and walked me back to bed.

For weeks, the noises returned. I was so frightened I began sleeping with my favorite blanket pulled over my head and a small toy truck clutched in my hand. Then my cousin came to stay with us for a while. She slept in my room on a spare mattress. On her first night, she whispered that she could hear the scraping, too. Then, just as suddenly as it started, it all ended. The house fell into a deep and lasting quiet.