The Tenant of Crag’s Rest

Last summer, I rented a remote cottage named Crag’s Rest from a reclusive woman named Mrs. Holloway. The address was a blur of rural roads and pine forests, and I only found it because she’d left a handwritten map tucked under my windscreen wiper at the station. The cottage itself was charming enough: whitewashed walls, a slate roof, and a garden that ran wild with foxgloves and nettles. Mrs. Holloway, a thin woman with iron-grey hair and a distant gaze, handed me the keys with a warning: ‘The walls here have long memories. Don’t stay up too late.’ I laughed it off, thinking it was just local color.

The first night was uneventful, but the second night began with a strange unease. I had gone to bed early, exhausted from a long walk along the cliffs. I was just drifting off when I heard the unmistakable creak of the front door opening, followed by two voices, muffled but angry. One was a woman’s voice, high and strained; the other a man’s, low and rumbling. They argued over something, and then the man shouted, ‘Why is she here? I told you she shouldn’t be here!’ The woman replied, ‘She’s just a guest. What harm can she do?’ The man’s voice grew louder, ‘She’s in my room, my bed! How dare she?’ I sat bolt upright, my heart hammering. I fumbled for my glasses and stumbled out to the landing, but the hallway was empty. The front door was still bolted, and the latch hadn’t moved. I stood there, listening, but all I heard was the wind in the chimney. I convinced myself it was a trick of the house, maybe a draft and my own tired mind.

The next morning, I mentioned the voices to Mrs. Holloway when she came by to check the garden. She was weeding a flowerbed, and she looked up at me with those pale eyes. ‘I wasn’t here last night. I stayed at my sister’s in the village. You must have imagined it, dear. These old houses play tricks.’ I nodded, though a knot of doubt tightened in my stomach. For the rest of the week, nothing else happened, and I began to relax. I spent my days reading by the window, watching the sea, and exploring the overgrown paths. I even grew fond of the cottage’s quirks, the creaking floorboards and the way the light slanted through the warped glass.

But on the last night, I decided to have a drink to round off the trip. I had bought a bottle of local whisky, and I sat in the armchair, listening to the radio. Mrs. Holloway had popped in earlier to bring me some fresh eggs, and she had lingered, chatting about the history of the area. She told me that the cottage had once belonged to a lighthouse keeper and his wife, who had died in a storm many years ago. She said they were never found. I laughed it off, but her gaze was too intense. After she left, I poured myself a generous glass and settled in. The wind was picking up outside, rattling the windows. I was halfway through my drink when the television, which was unplugged, suddenly flickered on.

The screen showed static, but a voice broke through, thin and reedy. It was the same woman’s voice I had heard earlier. ‘You’re in his bed. You’re in his bed.’ The static twisted into a shape, a blurry figure that resolved into a man’s face, gaunt and dripping with seawater. I froze, my glass shaking. The man spoke, his voice hollow: ‘You’re in my bed, and I want it back.’ I scrambled to my feet, backing away. The television shut off as abruptly as it had started. The room was silent except for the wind. I grabbed my coat and fled the cottage, driving through the night to the village inn, where I spent the rest of my stay in a cramped, damp room.

I never went back to Crag’s Rest. Mrs. Holloway sent me a letter a month later, apologizing for the ‘unsettling atmosphere’ and offering a refund. She wrote that the cottage was now empty, that she was moving to the mainland, and that she hoped I’d found the stay ‘characterful.’ I threw the letter in the fire. But even now, back in my city flat, I sometimes hear that voice, faint and insistent, whispering from the static of my own television, ‘Why are you here? You’re not welcome.’ And I wonder if I ever truly left that cottage, or if it’s still there, waiting for me to return to that bed that was never mine.