The Spitfire’s Warning

The summer of 1984 in Red Deer, Alberta, was sticky with heat and boredom. I was sixteen, and my friend Danny had invited me to his cousin’s cabin on Sylvan Lake for the weekend. The plan was to meet at the cousin’s place, a creaky Victorian that had been in the family for generations, then drive out to the lake for a bonfire party.

I arrived on a Friday evening, the sky bruised with the last of the sun. Danny met me at the door, his grin wide. ‘Hey, glad you made it. Come in, everyone’s in the living room.’ I stepped inside, and the house smelled of old wood and dust. The living room was cluttered with mismatched furniture, and a few kids I vaguely knew were sprawled on the floor, listening to a cassette player. I said my hellos, then asked, ‘Hey, where’s the bathroom?’

Danny pointed up the stairs. ‘Up there, second door on the left. But whatever you do, don’t turn your back when you come down.’ I laughed. ‘What are you talking about?’ He lowered his voice, leaning in. ‘There’s a little old lady who lives up there. She doesn’t like people who turn their back on her. She’ll push you down the stairs.’

I thought it was a prank, some initiation for the new guy. But when I climbed the stairs, the floorboards groaned under my feet, and the air got colder. The bathroom was at the end of a narrow hall, its door slightly ajar. I did my business quickly, and as I stepped out, I caught a glimpse of a figure at the other end of the hall—a small, hunched shape in a floral dress, standing perfectly still. I froze. It was just a shadow, I told myself, a trick of the dim light. I turned to go down, but a voice—dry as autumn leaves—whispered, ‘Don’t turn your back.’

I half-ran down the stairs, my heart pounding. Danny was waiting at the bottom, grinning. ‘Scared you, huh?’ I laughed it off, but I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold. Later that night, after the party at the lake, we came back to the house, and the group decided to crash there instead of going home. I ended up in a bedroom on the second floor, sharing a mattress with two other guys. The house settled into silence, and I drifted off, the image of that old lady lingering in my mind.

I woke to a faint scraping sound, like a rocking chair on wood. In the moonlight, I saw a shape at the foot of my bed—an old woman with wispy white hair, her face gaunt, her eyes black holes. She was rocking, slowly, and she smiled, revealing brown teeth. ‘You turned your back,’ she croaked. I tried to scream, but my voice was gone. She reached out a bony hand, and I felt a cold push on my chest, and I tumbled off the bed, hitting the floor with a thud.

I scrambled to my feet, but she was gone. The other guys were stirring, mumbling, ‘What the hell?’ I didn’t sleep the rest of the night. The next morning, I told Danny what I saw, and his face went pale. ‘No one’s seen her in years,’ he said. ‘She died in the house. She was the original owner’s wife, and she hated people using her stairs.’ He pointed to a portrait in the hall—a stern-faced woman in a high collar, and it was her. The same features, the same empty stare.

I left that weekend, but I couldn’t shake it. I never went back to that house, but I still remember the feeling of those cold hands pushing me. And sometimes, on quiet nights, I hear that dry voice in my head: ‘Don’t turn your back.’ But it’s the scraping of her rocking chair that haunts me most—a sound that follows me. It’s the last thing I hear before I fall asleep, always. And I know, someday, she’ll push me one last time.

Years have passed, but I still don’t turn my back on staircases. And I wonder if the others from that night feel her too, waiting for them to make the same mistake. In the end, that old lady got what she wanted: she’s never alone. She has all of us, frozen in that moment, in that house, forever listening to the rock of her chair.