The Unseen Tablemate

In the autumn of my twelfth year, I lived in a house that creaked like a ship at sea, surrounded by a forest that swallowed sound. My parents were kind, my sister was a pest, and school was tolerable. I had a best friend named Leo, and together we built forts and traded comics. I didn’t need anyone else. Yet, I began to sense a presence in my room, not a ghost, but something more like a brother I never had. I named him Corvin. He was lanky, with hair the color of wet straw, and he always sat in the same chair by the window, watching me with patient, gray eyes.

At first, Corvin was a game. I would leave the chair empty for him at dinner, and my parents, humoring me, would say, ‘And what does Corvin want for dessert?’ I would answer in a low voice, ‘He says the apple pie smells like burnt sugar.’ My mother would laugh, but I noticed she began to check the oven more carefully. After a week, Leo asked, ‘Who are you talking to?’ I shrugged, ‘Just a pretend friend.’ Leo rolled his eyes, but I caught him glancing at my shoulder as if he saw something there.

Then the bed began to make itself. Every morning, I would find the blankets pulled tight, the pillows fluffed, as if someone had slept beside me and tidied up. I thought it was my mother, but she denied it. One night, I stayed awake, feigning sleep. In the dim light of the moon, I saw the indentation on the other pillow deepen, as if a body were lying there. The blankets stretched and smoothed over the shape. I heard a soft breathing, in and out, in and out. The fear came like a cold syrup in my veins, but I couldn’t move. I whispered, ‘Corvin?’ The breathing stopped. A whisper, like wind through leaves, answered, ‘Not yet.’

The presence grew. In the bathroom mirror, I caught a flicker of a figure behind me, but when I spun, nothing. At school, my teacher asked, ‘Are you feeling well? You look pale.’ I nodded, but my eyes kept darting to the corner of the classroom where the air seemed thick. Leo began to bring his lunch to the library, avoiding me. ‘You’re acting weird,’ he said, ‘You keep talking to yourself.’ I hadn’t realized I was muttering, ‘He’s here, he’s here.’

The fever came two weeks later. My mother said it was the flu, but I saw red veins in my vision, and the world tilted when I stood. In my delirium, Corvin sat on the edge of my bed, his gray eyes now black, his smile too wide. ‘You forget,’ he said, ‘I was always here. You made me, but I became real. Now I need your body to stay.’ I tried to scream, but my voice was a gasp. He pressed a cold hand to my forehead, and I felt a tearing inside, like a page being ripped from a book.

I woke on the living room couch, my mother dabbing my forehead with a cool cloth. ‘You were so sick, sweetheart,’ she said, but her eyes flickered with something odd—a glint of gray. I tried to tell her about Corvin, but she shushed me. ‘There’s no one here, you just had a nightmare.’ But I knew what I saw. When I looked in the mirror, my reflection smiled a second too long, and my eyes, once brown, had flecks of gray.

Leo came to visit, but he wouldn’t step inside the house. He stood on the porch, shivering. ‘I found something,’ he said, gripping a worn photograph. It was a picture of me from last year, but in the background, by my shoulder, there was a blurry shape. ‘That wasn’t there before,’ he whispered. I reached for it, but he pulled back. ‘I think you have to forget him,’ he said. ‘He’s not real.’ But as he said it, I saw his eyes dart to the window behind me, and he went pale. ‘Who is that?’ he breathed. I turned, but the glass was fogged, and a faint silhouette stood just beyond.

That night, I decided to ask Corvin what he wanted. I sat in my room, the chair by the window empty. ‘What are you?’ I said. The air shimmered, and Corvin appeared, more solid than ever, his skin like old paper. ‘I am what you created,’ he said, ‘a friend to fill a void you didn’t know you had. But you don’t need me anymore. So I must take what you’ve given me.’ He reached out, and his hands closed around my wrists. ‘You gave me a place to exist. Now I give you a choice: forget me, and I’ll fade, but you’ll lose a part of yourself. Or remember, and I’ll stay, but I’ll grow.’ His voice echoed in my skull.

I chose to remember, out of stubbornness, or fear. Now Corvin is always there, a permanent shadow at my side. My parents think I’m odd, Leo has moved away, and I talk to the air, but I keep my grades up. Sometimes, when I look in the mirror, I see his eyes over my shoulder, and we smile in unison. The bed is always made, and the chair is always occupied. I don’t know if this was ever a choice. The house creaks like a ship, and the forest swallows the sound of my voice, but I’m never alone. And that’s the horror—you can’t unmake what you’ve made real. So be careful what you pretend to believe, because it might just start believing in you.