The Pomegranate Rind

I was nineteen when my grandmother died, and my mother inherited her old house in the countryside of Provence. It had been in our family for generations, and I hadn’t visited since I was a child. The stone walls, the lavender fields, the scent of thyme—it was all a vague, golden memory. But my mother had to settle the estate, and I came along to help, my summer break stretching out into a haze of heat and cicadas.

I remember the first night I arrived. The house was stifling, even with the shutters closed. I lay in the guest room, the one that faced the courtyard, listening to the wind rattling the grapevines. My phone said 3:47 AM when I heard it: a sound like someone peeling fruit, dry and rhythmic, coming from behind the wall. I pressed my ear to the cool plaster. It stopped. I told myself it was a rat in the insulation.

The next morning, I found a pomegranate on the kitchen table. I hadn’t brought one. My mother was in town, and the house was empty. I touched it; it was cold, almost icy, as if it had been refrigerated. I split it open, and the seeds were black, not the vibrant red I knew. I didn’t eat them. I threw the whole thing in the yard.

That night, the sound returned, but it was louder, more insistent. It was coming from the bedroom above mine. The house had a locked room on the second floor, a narrow door at the end of the hall, painted grey and sealed with a brass bolt. My grandmother had always kept it locked. When I was eight, she caught me jiggling the handle and slapped my hand. ‘That is where we keep the bad things,’ she said.

I tried to sleep, but the sound grew into a soft, wet chewing. I got up, maybe foolishly, and crept up the stairs. The bolt was rusted, but it slid open with a grating noise. The door opened onto a small, dark space, empty except for a low shelf carved into the stone wall. On it sat a ceramic bowl, and in the bowl, another pomegranate—this one whole, glowing faintly with a greenish light. The air was cold, thick with the smell of overripe fruit and decay.

I reached out. The skin was warm, pulsing. A voice, my grandmother’s, crackled from the shadows: ‘Don’t.’

I jerked back. The door slammed shut by itself, the bolt sliding home. I ran down the stairs, my heart pounding. I didn’t sleep.

My mother returned the next afternoon, and I tried to tell her about the room, the pomegranate. She waved her hand. ‘That’s just old Granny’s storage. Don’t bother.’ But her eyes flickered to the staircase, and she bit her lip.

That evening, she set a bowl of grapes on the table. They were dusty, reddish, like dried blood. ‘These are better,’ she said, but her voice was off. I noticed her hands were shaking.

Sleep was impossible. At 2 AM, I heard footsteps in the hall, a dragging gait, like someone sweeping a heavy velvet dress. The sound of the chewing was now everywhere, as if the house itself had a mouth. I hid under the sheets, my face sweating, my breath ragged.

Then the door to my room creaked open. I peeked out. There, in the doorway, stood a figure—too tall, too thin, wearing a threadbare nightgown. It held a pomegranate in one clawed hand, and it was tearing the rind away with its teeth, black juice dripping down its chin. It took a step toward me. I screamed.

A sharp crack, and the figure vanished. I was left shaking in the dark. When dawn broke, I found a fresh pomegranate on the kitchen table, its rind half-pulled away, revealing a pattern like a face. I realized then that I had eaten one of the black seeds the first night. Something had planted itself inside me.

I called my uncle, the one who had taught me about the old ways. He listened, his breath heavy. ‘You broke the seal,’ he said. ‘The pomegranate is a key. Your grandmother’s great-grandmother planted that orchard to bind an angry spirit, but it needs a new keeper every generation. You must eat the entire fruit before the moon is full, or it will have you instead.’

I hung up. I stared at the fruit. The seeds seemed to pulse, inviting me. I knew what I had to do. I picked it up, the cold seeping into my palm, and I took a bite. The juice was bitter, like ash, but I chewed and swallowed until the whole thing was gone. The house fell silent.

I left that place the next day, telling my mother I had an early internship. But I could feel it inside me, a weight in my gut. And now, every night at 3 AM, I wake to the sound of something chewing, and I taste pomegranate on my tongue. The change is slow, but I know one day, I will be the one in the doorway, tearing at the skin, waiting for a new seed to plant.