The Toy at the Top of the Stairs

I was eight when we moved into the house on Marrow Lane, a narrow, damp terraced place wedged between a launderette and a boarded-up butcher’s shop. The estate was called Blackfen, and it had the feel of a place where secrets went to rot. My parents, my older brother Carl, and my little sister Lily and I arrived on a grey October morning, our breath fogging in the cold air. I remember stepping through the front door and feeling a weight press on my chest, as if the house had exhaled something heavy and old.

At first, the oddities were small: a scuttling in the walls at night, the smell of stewed tea and burnt toast when the kitchen was empty, and the way the hallway mirror always seemed to be slightly askew no matter how many times we straightened it. But the strangest thing was the attic door. It was a low, narrow door in the ceiling at the top of the landing, painted a dark green that had peeled in places, revealing a sickly yellow undercoat. There was no pull cord, just a small brass latch, and the frame was so warped that the door didn’t sit flush. On our first night, I heard a rhythmic scratching from above, like fingernails dragging across wood, but when I told my mother, she said it was just mice and told me to go back to sleep.

One Saturday, about a month after we moved in, my mother decided to tackle the attic. She said it was full of old junk left by the previous tenants, and she wanted to see if there was anything worth keeping. She fetched a stepladder from the shed and, with Carl’s help, managed to push the attic door open. A cloud of dust and the smell of mothballs drifted down. My mother climbed up, her torch beam cutting through the gloom, and called back down that there was a pile of boxes and an old doll’s house. She asked me to come up and help her sort through it.

I climbed the ladder, my heart thudding. The attic was low and cramped, with beams you had to duck under. The floorboards were uneven, and there were gaps where you could see the lath and plaster below. In the corner, propped against a rafter, was a child’s toy: a faded, hand-painted wooden train, about a foot long, with a red cab and black wheels. Its paint was chipped, and one of its wheels was missing. I didn’t touch it, but I felt a strange pull toward it, as if it were waiting for me.

My mother found the doll’s house and decided to bring it down for Lily. She asked me to carry a box of old photo albums. As I bent to pick it up, the train rolled off the rafter and clattered to the floor, landing at my feet. I stared at it, and for a moment, I could swear I saw the tiny wheels turn on their own. My mother didn’t notice; she was already heading down the ladder. I left the train where it lay, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was watching me.

That night, I woke to find the train sitting on my nightstand. I hadn’t brought it down. I hadn’t told anyone about it. The air in my room felt thick, and I could hear a faint humming, like a distant engine. I pushed the train aside and tried to sleep, but the humming persisted, and I felt pressure on my chest, as if something were sitting on me. I managed to switch on my lamp, but the train was gone. In its place was a small piece of paper, yellowed and torn, with a pencil drawing of a child’s hand reaching out. Underneath, in shaky handwriting, were the words: ‘Come play.’

I didn’t sleep that night. I stayed awake, my eyes fixed on the door, listening to the creaks of the house. At dawn, I went downstairs to find my mother making tea. She looked tired, and I asked her if she had slept well. She said she had a dream about a little boy with dark eyes who kept asking her to open the attic. I felt a chill run down my spine.

The next day, I took the train back up to the attic. I placed it where I had found it, but as I turned to leave, I heard a scuttling behind me. I spun around, and the train was gone. The attic door swung shut with a bang, and I was plunged into darkness. I fumbled for the latch, but it wouldn’t budge. Panic set in as I pounded on the door, screaming for help. After what felt like an eternity, Carl heard me and pushed the door open. He was white as a sheet and said he had heard a child crying from inside, but no one else was up there but me.

From then on, the house became a living nightmare. My mother started sleepwalking, always ending up at the foot of the attic ladder, her hands reaching up. Lily refused to go upstairs alone, saying she saw a little boy with no shoes standing in her doorway. Carl began to hear voices whispering his name, and once, he found a drawing of himself on his mirror, done in what looked like ash, with X’s for eyes.

I became obsessed with the train. I started having waking dreams where I saw a boy, about my age, wearing a grey nightshirt, standing at the top of the stairs. He would beckon to me with a small, pale hand, and then point to a door at the end of the hallway. That door was always locked, but one night, I found it ajar. I pushed it open and stepped into a room that wasn’t there: a nursery with peeling wallpaper of faded ships, a broken rocking horse, and a small bed with a stained mattress. On the bed lay the train, its wheels turning slowly, as if it were on a track. The boy stood beside the bed, and he said, ‘You found me.’

He told me he had been trapped in the attic for a long time. He said he had been sick and had died in this house, and that his parents had tried to lock his toys away, but he couldn’t cross over. He wanted me to find his favorite toy, the train, and bring it to him. He said if I did, he could finally leave. But he warned me, ‘Don’t tell the others, or they’ll take it away.’

I wanted to help him. I went back to the attic, alone, and retrieved the train from a dusty corner where it had somehow hidden itself. I took it to the nursery, and the boy’s eyes lit up. He reached out to take it, but when his fingers touched the wood, he screamed. The train turned to ash in my hands, and the nursery began to crumble. The boy’s face contorted in rage, and he lunged at me, ‘You’ve ruined it! Now I’ll never leave!’

I woke up in my bed, gasping. The train was gone. My room was cold. I heard a low, guttural laugh echo from the hallway, and then a child’s voice, now distorted, whispered, ‘You’ll take his place.’ I ran to the door, but it was locked. I could hear footsteps in the attic, heavy and deliberate, and the sound of something being dragged across the floor.

I spent the rest of the night huddled under my blanket, trying to hum a song to drown out the noise. In the morning, my family looked hollow-eyed. Lily said she saw a shadow in the shape of a little boy sitting on my bed. My mother burned a bundle of sage that she found in the kitchen drawer, but the smell only seemed to make things worse.

We moved out two weeks later. We left everything behind, including the train, which I had absentmindedly packed in a box of my old books. On our last night, I went up to my room to get a forgotten blanket. The attic door was ajar, and I saw a glint of red inside. I climbed the ladder one last time, and there, in the center of the floor, was the train. Its wheels were turning, but the track was gone. A small hand reached out from the shadows, and I heard a giggle that turned into a sob.

I ran out of the house without looking back. We moved to a different town, and for a while, things seemed normal. But sometimes, at night, I hear the whistle of a train, even though the nearest tracks are miles away. And once, when I was unpacking a box of toys, I found a small piece of paper with a drawing of a boy holding a train. Underneath, the words were new: ‘I’m coming with you.’