The Third Floor Tenant

I grew up in a cramped apartment above a closed bakery in a town that no longer appears on any map. The building was three stories, but the third floor was sealed off with a rusted door that had no handle, only a keyhole that let in a thin, cold draft. My mother and I lived on the second floor, in two rooms that smelled of stale flour and damp wood. My father had left when I was a baby, and my older siblings had scattered to the city to find work, so it was just the two of us. I was a restless child, always running up and down the creaking stairs, but I never dared to touch the third-floor door. Not after what happened when I was six.

I started having the dreams that winter. In them, I was standing in a long, narrow hallway with peeling wallpaper, and at the end was a door—not the rusted one, but a polished oak door with a brass knob. Behind it, I could hear a family. A low, rumbling voice of a man, a soft, humming woman, and the patter of small feet. They never seemed to notice me, but I felt a deep, suffocating loneliness from them, as if they were waiting for someone to join them. The dreams always ended with a child’s voice whispering, ‘Come closer, we have room.’

At first, I thought it was just my imagination, because Mom always said I had an overactive mind. But the dreams grew more vivid. I began to see faces—the man with sunken eyes, the woman with hair that moved like smoke, and the child with no mouth. They would press their faces against the door, and the wood would bulge as if they were trying to push through. I woke up screaming, and Mom would hold me, but her hands were always cold, and she never looked me in the eye when I told her about the family. Instead, she said, ‘The third floor is off-limits. Don’t go up there.’

One Sunday, when Mom was at the market, I crept to the third-floor door. The keyhole was larger than I remembered, and through it, I saw a dim, yellow light. On the other side, there was a room with furniture covered in white sheets, and in the center stood a small, wooden cradle. The child from my dreams was rocking the cradle, but when it turned to the keyhole, its face was blank where its mouth should have been. It let out a sound like wind through a crack, and then the door rattled as if something heavy slammed against it from inside. I stumbled back, and the keyhole snapped shut, leaving only the cold draft.

I never told Mom, but the dreams changed. Now, the family was always in the hallway, standing just outside my bedroom door. They would knock, three slow knocks, and then the child would whisper, ‘We are so lonely here. The floor above is empty, but you could fill it.’ I started leaving My room at night, walking to the stairwell, and I would see the third-floor door ajar, just a crack, with a sliver of yellow light spilling out. One night, I made it to the landing, and I saw the man’s hand—long and pale—reach through the crack and beckon me. I ran back to bed, but the whole building seemed to groan, and in the walls, I heard the sound of tiny feet pacing above my ceiling.

A week later, I woke to find Mom standing at my door, her face blank, her eyes fixed on the ceiling. She was muttering, ‘They need a child. The Bakery family lost theirs. They want to adopt.’ I grabbed her arm, but she didn’t react. That’s when I noticed the keys in her hand—the brass key to the third floor. She walked to the stairwell, and I followed, my bare feet cold on the wood. She unlocked the door, and it swung open silently, revealing a room that was not the one I had seen through the keyhole. It was a nursery, painted a sickly yellow, with a crib lined with moth-eaten blankets. And standing by the crib were the three figures from my dreams, but now they were solid, and their mouths were open, showing needles for teeth.

Mom kneeled down and whispered, ‘Take him. He is yours.’ The man stepped forward, and I felt a cold hand on my shoulder. I tried to scream, but the child’s hand was over my mouth, and it was soft and damp like a wet cloth. As they dragged me toward the crib, I saw my own face in the mirror on the wall—and I had no mouth.

They put me in the crib, and the yellow light dimmed until it was only the sound of their breathing. The man said, ‘Finally, we have a family again.’ The woman hummed a lullaby, the same tune I had heard in my dreams, and the child crawled in beside me, its eye sockets empty. I couldn’t scream, because I had no mouth, but I could feel the dust settling over me, and I knew that this was where I would stay, until the next lonely child came to the door.

Now, I am the one who knocks. I press my face against the keyhole, and I wait. Sometimes, I see a small boy on the stairwell, just like me, and I whisper, ‘Come closer, we have room.’ And I rock the cradle, and the door rattles, and the draft breathes out the smell of old bread and forgotten things.