The Paperweight of St. Elmo

It was the summer I turned seventeen, the summer I thought I’d outgrown the childish fear of the dark. My parents had left for the 24-hour pharmacy to pick up a prescription for my grandmother, leaving me alone in our creaking Victorian house on the edge of the marsh. The sky, which had been a hazy blue all day, began to bruise into purples and greens, and a low pressure settled over the wetlands like a damp blanket. I was in my room, the one with the bowed ceiling and the wallpaper that peeled in the corners, trying to coax a melody out of my secondhand keyboard. The window, a heavy sash from the 1920s, had been stuck open since spring; no amount of shoving could close it. I didn’t mind—I liked the smell of rain and the sound of the marsh grass rustling.

As I hunched over the keys, the air grew still and thick, and the house seemed to hold its breath. Then, from the direction of the attic access panel in my closet, I heard a faint, rhythmic scratching. I paused, finger hovering over a chord. The scratching stopped. I resumed playing, but it started again, a little louder, like nails dragging across old wood. I told myself it was a squirrel, or maybe a branch scraping the roof, but the sound was too deliberate, too patient. I turned off the keyboard and listened. The scratching stopped. I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. I got up and pressed my ear to the closet door. Nothing. I opened it cautiously, but the pull-down ladder was folded and the panel was closed. I reached up and tugged the cord, and the ladder clattered down with a sound that seemed too loud. I climbed up a few rungs and pushed the panel open, but I could only see a sliver of the attic—dim, dusty, empty except for some old boxes and my father’s winter coats. I called out, ‘Hello?’ My voice came back muffled, swallowed by the insulation. I climbed back down, my heart thumping with irrational dread.

I returned to my keyboard, but I couldn’t focus. I decided to channel my unease into music, turning the volume up higher than I usually did, letting the harsh synth notes fill the room. The scratching started again, but this time it was different—it was coming from the window, not the closet. I looked over, and my blood went cold. A small, gray hand, thin and skeletal, was resting on the windowsill. I saw it clearly for a second before it withdrew. I froze, my bowels turning to ice. I crept to the window and peered out into the gray twilight. There was nothing there, just the wet lawn and the edge of the marsh. I slammed the window shut with a tremendous effort, but it only slid down a few inches and stuck again.

Panic clawed at me. I ran to the phone to call my parents, but the line was dead—just static, like a distant radio. The scratching returned, now from the attic panel again, more insistent, like a desperate animal wanting to get in. I grabbed a heavy brass paperweight from my desk—a grotesque likeness of a screaming face, a gift from my eccentric aunt. I held it like a weapon and backed away from the closet. The scratching grew louder, and I heard a low, guttural breathing. The panel creaked and began to rise, just an inch, and I saw a pair of glowing, yellow eyes in the darkness. A voice, thin and reedy, seeped through the crack: ‘Let me in. I’ve been waiting since the last rain.’

I screamed and threw the paperweight at the panel. It hit the wood with a sickening thud, and the eyes disappeared. The breathing stopped. But now the whole house seemed to groan, and the walls began to sweat with moisture. The wind outside picked up, rattling the window, and I could hear the marsh gurgling as if something was churning beneath the surface. The paperweight lay on the floor, its face now contorted into an expression of pure agony. I couldn’t move. I was pinned by a terror that went beyond the physical.

Then, a low drone began to emanate from the speaker of my keyboard—a single, discordant note that swelled and swelled. The attic panel swung open fully, and a shape unfolded itself from the darkness. It was tall, emaciated, with skin like wet ash, and it had no face—just a blank expanse where features should have been. It glided toward me, its fingers brushing the walls, leaving streaks of black slime. It spoke in a voice that was everywhere at once: ‘You play the music of the dead.’ I stumbled backward, knocking over the keyboard, which let out a final, dying chord. The shape reached for me, its hand closing around my wrist, and the cold was immense, like being plunged into a frozen river. I felt my body go numb, and the world swam in a haze of gray.

I woke on the floor, the paperweight clutched in my hand. The attic panel was closed, the window was shut—though I knew I hadn’t closed it—and the sky outside was a sickly yellow. My keyboard was intact, but the power was off. I heard my parents’ car in the driveway. I scrambled to my feet, my wrist aching, and looked at it: there were five dark bruises, like fingers, on my skin. I never told anyone what happened. But I kept the paperweight, and I never played music in that room again. And sometimes, when it rains, I still hear that scratching, and a voice that whispers from the marsh, ‘Let me in.’ But I never open the window, no matter how hot it gets. The paperweight sits on my desk, and I swear, every once in a while, its screaming face changes expression.