The Seventh Night of Advent

It was three Decembers after the fire at the old Hargrove Mill, and we had finally settled into the new house on Cedar Lane. The place was modest, with a drafty living room and a wood stove that my father insisted on feeding all evening. My mother and my older sister, Beth, who was eight months pregnant, were on the couch, their faces glowing in the blue light of the television. I was curled on the rug, tracing the pattern in the carpet, feeling the weight of the season. The whole family was working late shifts at the cannery, except for us three, and the house was quiet save for the low murmur of a Christmas special.

Then I heard it. A knocking, soft at first, like a branch tapping the window. But we had no trees near the house. The sound was coming from the front door. I looked up, expecting my mother to rise, but she was fixed on the screen, her hand resting on Beth’s swollen belly. The knock came again, more insistent, rhythmic, three quick strikes. I shifted, trying to catch my mother’s eye, but she didn’t move. ‘Aren’t you going to answer that?’ I asked, my voice small.

My mother turned, her brow furrowed. ‘Answer what?’ ‘The knocking,’ I said, pointing to the door. ‘Someone’s out there.’ She exchanged a glance with Beth, who shook her head. ‘No one’s knocking, sweetie,’ my mother said, but she rose anyway, walking to the door with a sigh. She pulled it open, and the cold night air rushed in, carrying the smell of snow and something else, something sweet and rotten, like old fruit. The porch was empty. ‘See?’ she said, closing the door. ‘No one.’ I stared at the door, my heart thudding. I had heard it, clear as anything.

I tried to convince myself it was the wind, but the knocking continued on and off through the evening. Each time, I flinched, but my mother and sister seemed oblivious. Beth was rubbing her belly, talking to her unborn child, and my mother was laughing at the TV. I felt a growing unease, a prickle on my neck. I couldn’t shake the feeling that the knocking was for me alone.

That night, I lay in bed, listening to the wind howl outside. The house creaked and settled, and I pulled the covers over my head. In the dark, I heard it again, three slow knocks, right on my bedroom door. I sat up, my heart in my throat. ‘Mom?’ I called out. Silence. I crept to the door and pressed my ear against the cold wood. Not a sound. Then, three more knocks, so soft they were nearly imperceptible, but they vibrated through the door. I stepped back. The door slowly swung open with a low groan, revealing the dark hallway. The air grew colder, and I saw a faint outline at the end of the corridor, a shape that didn’t quite belong. It was standing there, motionless, and I realized it was in the form of a man, but it was too still, too silent.

I wanted to scream, but my voice caught. The figure took a step forward, and the knocking started again, but this time it was inside my head, a pounding that echoed in my skull. I squeezed my eyes shut, and when I opened them, the figure was gone. The door was closed. I was trembling, but I didn’t dare move. I stayed awake until dawn, watching the door.

The next night, the knocking returned, and it was louder. My mother was in the kitchen, and Beth was reading on the couch. They didn’t hear it. I pointed to the door, my hand shaking. ‘Please,’ I said, ‘please answer it.’ My mother sighed and opened the door, but only snow and darkness greeted her. She closed it, and I saw her frown. ‘You’re imagining things,’ she said, but her voice lacked conviction. I noticed she checked the lock.

By the third night, I was exhausted. I had barely slept, and I was starting to see shadows out of the corner of my eye. The knocking had become a constant companion, a dull thud that echoed whenever I was alone. I started to wonder if I was going mad. Then, on the sixth night of Advent, I happened to glance at the window in the living room, and there I saw a face pressed against the glass. It was pale, with hollow eyes, and it was staring directly at me. I opened my mouth to scream, but the face was gone, leaving only frost on the pane.

I couldn’t bear it any longer. I told my mother everything, the knocking, the face, the figure in the hallway. She listened, her face pale, and then she told me something that made my blood run cold. Years ago, when she was a girl, she lived in an old farmhouse. A man had come to the door one winter night, asking for shelter. She said he had a strange smile and a smell of decay. Her father had turned him away, and the man stood on the porch, knocking for hours, until finally, he vanished. Her father died that year. She had never told anyone, because no one believed her.

I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold. The knocking grew more frantic, as if something was trying to get in, not just into the house, but into our very minds. My mother clutched Beth’s arm, and Beth gasped, her face contorting in pain. ‘The baby,’ she whispered. ‘Something’s wrong.’ We rushed to the hospital, and I saw that as we drove away, the house was dark, but I could swear I saw a silhouette in the upstairs window, watching us leave.

Beth gave birth that night, a boy, healthy and screaming. But when she held him, she looked at me with terror in her eyes. ‘He doesn’t have any fingerprints,’ she said. I looked at the baby’s tiny hands, and sure enough, his fingers were smooth, devoid of any ridges. The doctors were baffled, but they dismissed it as a rare quirk. When we returned home, the knocking had stopped. The house felt empty, but wrong. I never heard the knocking again, but I knew, with a certainty that coil in my stomach, that it had not gone away. It had found a new vessel, a new door to knock on, and I would never be free of the memory, or the fear that one day, my nephew would hear it too.