The Unfinished Sudoku

I never thought I’d be the one telling this. I’m not a writer, and I’ve never posted anything online before. But after what happened last week, I feel like I have to get it out, or it’ll just keep gnawing at me.

My grandmother lives in a big, old brick building called Marlowe House, a block of flats that used to be an Edwardian school. There are eighteen units, each with high ceilings and sash windows that rattle when the wind blows. My grandad, Arthur, passed away on the twentieth of August, just a month ago. He’d been the heart of that place, always in his worn leather armchair by the bay window, doing the crossword or Sudoku in his neat, tiny handwriting. Since he left, I’ve felt a constant presence, like someone standing just behind my shoulder, watching me with a gentle smile. It’s not menacing, more like the way you’d watch a child you love. I’ve mentioned it to Mum, but she says it’s grief playing tricks.

Last Tuesday, I was over at Nana’s with Mum. We were having tea in the living room. The late afternoon sun slanted through the dusty glass, creating long amber rectangles on the worn carpet. Nana was dozing in her chair, Mum was reading a magazine, and I was restless. I picked up the newspaper lying on the low table in front of Grandad’s chair. It was folded exactly in half, the way he always did it. The date was from a few days ago, but I flipped through it anyway.

I landed on an article about a TV presenter whose father had died of lung cancer. The obituary said he passed away on the nineteenth of August, the day before Grandad. Weird coincidence, I thought. Then I turned to the puzzles page, Grandad’s favorite. The Sudoku grid was half-filled in his distinctive, almost mechanically precise script. I stared at the numbers, and my skin prickled. The given clues were in positions that formed a pattern I swore I’d seen before, but I couldn’t place it. I decided to try to finish it, partly to feel closer to him.

I picked up a pen and started filling in the blanks. As I wrote a ‘5’ in the top right corner, the room seemed to dim a little. Then I filled a ‘7’ and I felt a faint warmth on the back of my neck, like a breath. I shivered. I looked at the mirror on the stairwell wall, visible from where I sat. In the reflection, I could see the top of the stairs, and for a split second, I saw a silhouette, a man’s shape, standing on the landing, leaning against the banister. But when I turned, no one was there. I swallowed hard and went back to the Sudoku.

The next number I placed was a ‘9’, and as I wrote it, the house seemed to contract. The walls groaned, and I heard a faint, high-pitched squeak, like something being dragged across the floor above. Nana stirred but didn’t wake. Mum looked up, frowning. ‘You hear that?’ she asked. I nodded, my hand trembling slightly.

I kept going. I filled in a ‘3’, and then I heard a soft, rhythmic sound, like muffled footsteps on the stairs. They stopped at the bottom. I held my breath, expecting the door to the living room to swing open. It didn’t. I forced myself to look at the mirror again. There, just at the edge, I saw the reflection of the coat rack by the door. But on it, where Grandad’s old brown coat used to hang, there was a shape that looked like a person, dark and still, watching.

I put down the pen and took a deep breath. I was being silly, I told myself. But I couldn’t shake it. I turned the page to the crossword, trying to distract myself. But it was Grandad’s crossword, and he only ever did them in pencil. I looked back at the Sudoku. I had only three numbers left to place. I filled in a ‘2’. The air grew cold, and I heard a whisper, so faint I thought I’d imagined it: ‘Six.’ I placed the ‘6’. Then there was only one blank. I placed the ‘4’. The moment I wrote it, the whole room seemed to exhale. The lights flickered. Nana sat upright, eyes wide. ‘He just sat there, smiling at me,’ she said, her voice trembling. ‘Arthur was here.’

I looked at the finished Sudoku. The numbers formed a pattern I finally recognized: it was a date, my birth date, the positions of the even numbers spelling out 14-02-XX, the day I was born. And the centre of the grid had a single grey dot, like a pen mark, where I had accidentally pressed too hard. That dot was right over my heart on the paper. I hadn’t thought anything of it until now.

Since that day, I haven’t been able to shake the feeling that Grandad isn’t just watching me with love, but with a warning. The Sudoku is now framed on the wall in my bedroom. Sometimes, in the early hours, I swear I can hear the faint scratching of a pen on paper, and when I look at the grid, there’s an extra number in a blank, not in my handwriting. Last night, it was a ‘1’ in the corner. When I called Nana, she said that was the number of the flat where the previous tenant, old Mrs. Higgins, died of a broken heart after her husband was murdered. I don’t know what he’s trying to tell me, but the Sudoku isn’t finished anymore. It’s waiting for me to put in the final clue.