The Stitches in the Floorboards

The first time I noticed it, I was fifteen, on the cusp of a growth spurt that would leave me gangly and prone to knocking things over. I lived with my grandmother in her creaking Victorian house, a place that smelled of mothballs and dried lavender. My room was at the top of the stairs, and the attic door stood at the end of the hall, sealed with a rusty padlock that Grandmother swore was never opened in her lifetime. I believed her, until the night I heard the crawling.

It was the sound of something heavy being dragged over bare wood, punctuated by tiny thumps, like a body moving on all fours. I sat up in bed, the sheets tangled around my legs, and listened. The sound came from the attic, right above my ceiling. It stopped when I held my breath, started again when I let it out, as if it were mocking me. I told myself it was a raccoon, a family of them, heavy-footed and clumsy. But the next night, the sound was in my room.

I was half-asleep when I felt a draft across my ankles, then a pressure, as if a small, cold hand was resting on my shin. I yanked my legs up, heart hammering. The room was dark, but the moonlight from the window cast silver stripes across the floor. And there, in the corner by my bookshelf, I saw a shape. It was low to the ground, bent over, its spine curving into a sharp ridge beneath a thin, gray shift. It had long, thin arms that ended in fingers that seemed too many, and it was rocking gently, back and forth. When I blinked, it was gone.

I didn’t sleep that night. I lay rigid, staring at the corner, until dawn crept through the curtains. In the morning, Grandmother made me porridge, and I asked her, as casually as I could, if the house had ever had children in it. She paused, spoon hovering over her bowl. ‘Your mother,’ she said, ‘used to have an imaginary friend. She called it Yonni. Said it liked to hide in the attic. I told her it was her mind playing tricks.’ She looked at me, her eyes sharp. ‘You haven’t been hearing things, have you?’ I lied and shook my head, but I could feel something cold on my back, like a small hand pressed between my shoulder blades.

The next week, I found the floorboard. My bedroom was in the oldest part of the house, with wide planks that creaked underfoot. But there was one, just beside my bed, that was patched with a different wood, darker and smooth. I hadn’t noticed it before, but now it seemed to call to me. I knelt down and pried at the edges with a nail file. It came up easily, revealing a hollow space underneath. In it was a child’s dress, white and stained with brown patches that might have been blood, and a small, leather journal. The pages were yellowed and crumbly, the handwriting wobbly, like a child’s. It was my mother’s.

I read it in the dim light of my bedside lamp. She described the same things I was experiencing, the footsteps, the tugs, the shadow in the corner. But she wrote more. She told of how Yonni would whisper to her at night, telling her to stay still, to let it crawl inside, to share her body. She wrote, ‘It says it’s lonely. It says it was a child too, but it got lost. It says if I help it, it will help me back.’ I flipped to the last entry. The handwriting was more hurried, the letters scrawled. ‘I said no. It got angry. It threw my dolls against the wall. It scratched me. I hid under the bed, but it was there too, its long arms reaching for me. I don’t know what it is, but it wants to wear me. I’m afraid it will make me do something.’ The page ended.

I closed the journal, my hands shaking. I didn’t want to believe it, but the cold presence behind me was stronger than ever. I could feel it breathing on my neck, a thin, sour breath. I spun around. The room was empty. But on the wall, I saw the shadow, stretched and distorted, its fingers reaching toward the patch in the floor. I looked down at the gap in the floorboards, at the dark hole, and I realized the shadow was not coming from the room. It was coming from inside the floor, rising up like smoke from the hollow space. The room grew colder. The shadow solidified, forming a crouched figure, its long arms dragging on the floor, its head tilted as if studying me.

I screamed and ran to the door, but it was stuck. I wrenched at the handle, my fingers slipping on the painted wood. I heard a giggle, high and childlike, behind me. I turned. The figure was closer now, its face hidden in the darkness, but I could see its mouth, a wet, red gash. It spoke in a voice that was not a voice but a vibration in my chest. ‘You have my dress,’ it said. ‘You have my words. I want them back. And I want you instead.’ It lunged, and I ducked, and I saw its arms, impossibly long, wrap around my bedpost, pulling itself up. It moved like a spider, fast and wrong. I grabbed the journal and threw it at the figure. It caught it in its spindly fingers and held it to its face, as if reading. The room seemed to sigh. The figure began to fade, but it spoke one last time.

‘You’ll come to the attic,’ it said. ‘They all do. Your mother came. Now you.’ And it vanished, leaving behind the smell of dust and rot and something sweet, like honey left in a hot room. The door swung open, and Grandmother stood there, her face pale. She looked at the open floorboard, at the empty space where the dress had been, and she said, ‘You found it. I was hoping you wouldn’t.’ She sat on the edge of my bed, and her voice was low and haunted. ‘That was your mother’s dress. She wore it the day she disappeared. We found her three days later in the attic, huddled in a corner, wearing a dress that was not hers. She was never the same. She used to say that Yonni had taken a piece of her, and that she could feel it shifting inside her, wanting to come out. She started the fire to burn the house down, but we put it out before it spread. She was put in a home. I never told you. I’m sorry.’

I looked at the hole in the floor, at the darkness that seemed to pulse like a heartbeat. I understood now. The stitched piece of wood was a patch, a bandage over a wound. But the stitches were coming undone, and something had crawled out. I looked at my grandmother, and I saw the fear in her eyes, the same fear I felt. I knew that I couldn’t stay. I knew that the only way to be free was to burn the house and everything in it, but as I thought it, I felt a small, cold hand grasp my ankle, and I heard a whisper, as clear as if it were in my ear: ‘I’ve been waiting for you.’ And I knew that some threads are sewn too deep to cut, and that the stitches in the floorboards were only a beginning.