The Unseen Playmate

The first time Maya noticed it was the summer her son turned three. They had moved into the old Cartwright house on Maple Street, a sprawling Victorian with creaking floorboards and a musty attic that smelled of dust and forgotten things. Her husband, Daniel, laughed at her when she mentioned hearing footsteps above their heads, especially since the upper floor was empty and they spent most of their time in the large kitchen or the sunroom.

At first, it was the rhythmic thumping of a ball bouncing across the wooden floor above. It would start around 4 PM, while they were having afternoon tea or reading. The sound was precise, almost deliberate, a pattern of bounce… pause… bounce. Daniel would look up from his book and say, ‘Probably a branch hitting the roof.’ But Maya knew the difference. This was inside, a weight and resonance that vibrated through the ceiling.

One afternoon, she was alone in the house, folding laundry in the upstairs hallway. A faint, high-pitched giggle echoed from the direction of the spare bedroom. She froze, the towel in her hands slipping to the floor. The door was ajar. She tiptoed to it, pushed it open slowly. The room was empty; dust motes danced in the slanted light from the window. But on the floor, in the center, was a small, red rubber ball. She hadn’t seen it before. She picked it up, the rubber cold and slightly tacky, and placed it on a shelf, her heart hammering.

That evening, as they sat down to dinner, the bouncing resumed, directly above the dining room. Maya put down her fork. ‘Daniel, you have to hear that. It’s not a branch. It’s in the bedroom.’ Daniel listened, frowning. ‘I don’t hear anything, babe. Maybe you’re just stressed from the move.’ But then, a distinct thump, thump, thump, like small feet running from the bedroom to the bathroom. Daniel’s face paled. ‘Okay, I heard that. But there’s no one up there. The attic is sealed.’

They decided to investigate. The stairs to the second floor were narrow and dark. At the top, a long hallway stretched, with closed doors on either side. The bedroom they used was at the end. The spare bedroom was at the front. As they approached it, the door was shut. Daniel pushed it open. The room was bare, with a bare mattress on an old iron bed frame. The red ball was back on the floor, in the exact center, as if someone had just dropped it. Daniel picked it up, turning it over. ‘This wasn’t here earlier, was it?’ Maya shook her head. ‘I put it on the shelf.’ The shelf was empty.

They placed the ball in a drawer in the kitchen and locked the drawer. But the next morning, the ball was in the middle of the kitchen floor, wet, as if it had been licked. The pattern continued. The ball would move. The footsteps would run. The giggles would whisper in corners. Their son, Leo, started talking to someone named ‘Charlie’ in his room. When they asked him who Charlie was, he pointed to the corner, ‘The little boy who lives upstairs. He wants to play catch.’

Terrified, Daniel and Maya decided to have the house blessed. The priest came, sprinkled holy water, and prayed. For a week, there was silence. Then, on a Sunday afternoon, as they were all in the living room watching cartoons, a single, loud bounce echoed from the ceiling, followed by the sound of the ball rolling across the floorboards and stopping directly above Maya’s head. She looked up, and her heart sank. The sound was so close, it seemed to come from inside the room.

She turned to look at the corner where Leo often pointed. There, on the floor, was the red rubber ball, but now it was cracked and deflated, lying still. The air grew cold. A small voice, clear as crystal, whispered right next to her ear, ‘You broke my game.’ Maya screamed and scrambled back. Daniel grabbed Leo and ran outside. They never went back inside that house. They left that day, moving in with relatives, and later sold the house at a loss.

But even now, nine years later, Maya sometimes hears that soft bounce in the attic of their new home. And sometimes, when she walks past a closed door, she sees a shadow slip under it, a small shadow, the size of a child. And she knows that the unseen playmate followed her, waiting for a moment when she is alone. She never opens the door without fear, because she knows what she will find: a small, red ball, lying on the floor, waiting for a game to begin.