The Salt Line

The apartment in Port Grimshaw wasn’t much to look at: a converted cannery with exposed beams and a view of the slate-gray bay. I moved there with my two boys, Theo and Marcus, after the divorce. It was supposed to be a fresh start, a place where the salt air would scour away the old life. The building was old, yes, but the apartments themselves were newly renovated, and we were the first tenants in ours. For the first three months, it was just us: the groan of the floorboards, the hiss of the radiator, the waves against the pilings. Nothing strange.

Then, for Theo’s birthday, I made the mistake of buying him a curiosity shop’s Ouija board. He’d seen it in a movie and wouldn’t shut up about it. Marcus, two years younger, was terrified, but I thought it would be a fun, spooky game. We tried it one evening, candles lit, fingertips resting on the planchette. Nothing. The planchette stayed stuck to the board like a barnacle. After an hour, I put it away, tucked it behind my winter boots in the hall closet. I forgot about it for a week. But I didn’t stop my nightly ritual: I read ghost stories, the kind with creaking doors and echoing footsteps, before turning off the light. I also liked to soak in the bath until the water went cold, and I always left the balcony door open, even in October, to let in the sea breeze.

The first sign was the name. I’d be in the kitchen, and I’d hear what sounded like a child’s voice, thin and distant, calling, ‘Nadia?’ I’d spin around, but no one was there. Theo started asking, ‘Mom, who’s calling me?’ with a tremor in his voice. Marcus refused to sleep alone. We never heard the same voice twice; it was always different, sometimes a whisper, sometimes a cracked tenor, but always calling one of our names. It was the sound of the sea if it could speak through a hollow tube.

Then the kitchen started its nightly performance. At exactly midnight, every single night, a clatter came from the kitchen table, as if something—a mug, a spoon, a plate—was being knocked to the floor. But when I ran in, the table was pristine. Nothing had moved. The sound was a thud, a crash, a sizzle like water hitting a hot pan. Each night, it grew louder. One night, I woke up with a start, my heart pounding, and I couldn’t breathe. I was hovering above my bed, my back arched, my face inches from the ceiling. I could see the water stains from a long-ago leak. Panic seized me, and I squeezed my eyes shut, and when I opened them again, I was lying in my bed, the sheets tangled, the nightlight glowing.

I told myself it was sleep paralysis. I told myself the board was a piece of wood. I told myself everything was fine. But the noises continued, and the names got more insistent. Then the real change happened. I was in the bathroom, soaking, the water tepid, the mirror fogged. I heard Theo shouting, ‘Mom! There’s a man on the balcony!’

I jumped out of the tub, wrapped in a towel, and ran to the living room. Theo was pointing at the balcony door, which was still ajar, the curtain billowing. I looked out, but there was nothing but the railing, the bay black and oily under the moon. But when I turned to go back to the bathroom, I caught my reflection in the dark window of the television. I wasn’t alone. A shape stood behind me, made of the same dark as the water, with indistinct edges that flickered like static. It was tall, with two hollows where eyes should be, and it was reaching out a long, pale arm. I didn’t scream. I just stared, and it mouthed, ‘Nadia.’

That night, I locked the balcony door. I took the Ouija board from the closet, intending to burn it in the sink, but the flame wouldn’t catch. The wood felt greasy, and the board was cold, colder than the metal. I threw it into a garbage bag and carried it down to the dumpster behind the cannery. I came back, took a deep breath, and lay down. But at midnight, the kitchen clatter was louder than ever, and I felt a cold breath on my neck as I lay frozen in bed. I heard Marcus whisper from the doorway, ‘Mom, there’s something under my bed.’

I went to his room, and he was huddled against the wall, pointing at the gap between the bed and the floor. I knelt down and looked. There was nothing there—just dust and a stray toy. But as I knelt, I heard a voice, clear as day, coming from under the bed, crooning, ‘Marcus, come down here. We have a game.’ It was my mother’s voice. My mother, who had been dead for six years.

I grabbed Marcus and Theo, and we spent the rest of the night in the living room with every light on. I didn’t sleep. I just watched the windows, the ceiling, the corners. The next morning, I called a priest. He came, an old man named Father Marchetti, with a tired face and a weathered Bible. He walked through the apartment, sprinkling holy water, and when he reached the kitchen table, he stopped. He knelt, squinting at the floorboards. ‘There’s salt here,’ he said. And indeed, there was a line of salt, trickling from under the table leg to the wall, as if someone had spilled a salt cellar and left it. ‘When did you pour this?’ he asked. I shook my head. ‘I never did.’

Father Marchetti frowned. He recited a prayer, but as he did, the wind outside picked up, and the balcony door, which I had locked, rattled with force. The glass began to vibrate. ‘This is not a haunting,’ he said quietly, ‘This is a summoning. You let something in. The board, the open door, your obsession—it all formed a path. Now it’s here, and it wants to take one of you with it.’ He told me to leave, to take the boys and never come back. I didn’t argue.

We packed a few bags, and as I opened the front door, I heard a crash from the kitchen. I ignored it. But as I stepped over the threshold, I felt a tug on my sleeve, and I looked down: Theo had a grip on my arm, his face pale. ‘Mom,’ he said, ‘I’m not allowed to leave.’ I knelt, hugging him. ‘Who said that?’ I asked. ‘The lady in the salt,’ he said, pointing at the kitchen floor. I looked, and the salt line had spread, tracing a circle around the kitchen table, and in the center, on the floor, was a small wet footprint, as if someone had stepped in seawater. The footprint was fresh.

I dragged them out. We moved in with my sister in the city, and I never spoke of that apartment again. But sometimes, at night, I hear a sound like something falling onto a wooden table. And once, when I was alone in the shower, I heard a voice rasping, ‘You left the door open, Nadia. Come back and close it.’ I always close all the doors now, but I still feel the salt under my skin, and I know that thing is waiting, patient, in the place where the sea meets the floorboards, for the moment I forget to lock the door.