Footsteps in the Attic

Sofia

I was lying on our king-sized bed and listening to the sound of birds woken by spring morning sun. They were sitting in a rowan tree, singing to each other. A ray of sun from the window touched the pinewood dresser in the bedroom, uncovering a thick layer of dust dancing on its rough surface. I could smell the silence in the mansion and it made me wary. Nicholas was out of town, and I always felt wary being alone in our home. He had inherited the mansion from his aunt. He had lived there as a child with his parents, but they had died in a fire, after which Nicholas was raised by his aunt and her husband. I thought the mansion was too big and spacious and it felt like time had stopped moving, trapping the whole house in the past. When we got married, I redecorated the mansion without any remorse, but you could still smell the pinewood and old fabric everywhere. It was part of the house. That smell was the one making me wary. After we moved in to the house, Nicholas had told me tales about ghosts in the attic, but I was convinced that it was just old pipes banging and old wooden floors creaking, nothing more. That did not mean, that I was not a little scared, though. I always felt like somebody was watching me and keeping an eye on what I was doing in the house.

I reminded myself, that I was not alone. I gently rested my hand on my now huge belly and waited for Jelly Bean to wake up, but she was still asleep. I called the baby Jelly Bean, even though I knew she would get Nicholas’ mother’s name Sylvia, after being born. I thought it was too fancy a name for a little baby on the womb, so before birth she would be known as Jelly Bean. I got up slowly and painstakingly since the pregnancy was nearing its end and my stomach was so big it reminded me of a round and heavy planet. Even walking and sitting were difficult tasks to perform and my groin was often throbbing. The room spun around me and I had to wait a couple of seconds before it stopped. Then I made my way to the dresser and opened a drawer. It was filled with beautiful clothes: dark-grey trousers, pretty blouses and girly dresses that I could not use. It made me sad. Instead of putting on nice clothes, I picked up my black sweatpants with an elastic waistband and big brown tunic with yellow flowers on it. Normally, when Nicholas was home, I tried to look decent, but being alone it did not matter. Yesterday I had worn just a bathrobe and a blanket all day.

I went downstairs to prepare breakfast. When it was ready I took it with me to the living-room and sat on the couch to watch morning news. That was when I heard it: the footsteps. They were coming from upstairs. It was just those ‘ghosts’ making noise, I thought to myself, but my skin got goosebumps, nevertheless. First time I heard the footsteps I had been utterly terrified. I had thought that somebody was in the house and I had frantically checked all the rooms to calm myself down. And later, when I told Nicholas about it, he just laughed and told me it was the ghosts. It made me wary and after that I always disliked going upstairs when I was alone. It always seemed as if it was coming from there. You could not hear any voices downstairs, but from upstairs came the noises as if someone was walking back and forth in the hallway and sometimes banging windows and doors. One time I even thought I heard a high-pitched scream. It was just the wind. But when I heard the footsteps, I could not help myself but to stare at the staircase that was visible from the living-room. I got an eerie feeling that someone was standing at the end of the stairs and waiting for me. Most times when I was alone in the mansion, I stayed downstairs the whole night, sleeping on the couch and went up only when the sun was already up and the darkness surrounding me at night had gone. Then I slept an hour or two in our bedroom before starting the day.

If someone would ask my opinion, I would say that the house was too grand for my liking. It had a large attic which was kept as a cold space for storage, but could easily be turned into bedrooms in the future, when we would have more children. Upstairs, there were four bedrooms as well as two bathrooms. Downstairs were two more bathrooms, a living-room and a room with a fireplace and a great kitchen. In addition to all that, the house had an enormous cellar were we had put all the old furniture. The nursery for Jelly Bean would be in the room next to our bedroom upstairs, so I could keep an eye on the baby. But the first months she would be sleeping in our room, of course.

Nicholas

I could hear an uneasy tone in Sofia’s voice, when we talked on the phone. I recognized the feeling because I felt it too, every time I was alone in our house. I would never admit it to Sofia, but I was scared of the house. I had always been. To Sofia, I usually told jokingly that there were ghosts in the house, but to be honest I actually believed it to be true. A grown man who believed in ghosts, that was ridiculous! I could never admit that to anyone. However, I really believed in ghosts. I had grown up in that house and I had heard things and seen things I could not explain. I felt bad for Sofia every time she had to stay in there alone. But she was not alone. She had little Sylvia with her. We had turned my old bedroom, were I had slept as a child, into a room for the baby. I was worried because I had been scared to sleep in that room myself. There was something off about it.

As a child, I was so scared during nights, that I slept with my reading light on. But the light intervened with my sleep so much that my mom forced me to stop and instead she left the light in the hallway on and did not close my door all the way. That way I could see the light and that there was nothing scary going on. She was wrong, though. I started waking up in the middle of the night when the light flickered as if someone was walking past it, covering it for a second. I was petrified to close my eyes for I feared, that when I would open them again, there would be somebody standing at my door, watching me with one big black eye peeking through the hole. Childish imagination. But there were footsteps also. I could hear them pacing back and forth through the hallway. The sound was clear, it was footsteps for sure. And from time to time they sounded like they stopped right outside my room. Some nights I could hear the sound of footsteps coming from the attic as well. They were right above my bed. Sometimes I needed to use the bathroom during the night and every time I did, the light in the bathroom was turned off. That was weird because my mom used to never turn off the light in the bathroom, even during days. My father was always complaining about it: “Sylvia, is it really necessary for the god damn light to be on all the time? Could it not be turned off, when no one's using the bathroom?”

I knew fully well that Sofia had these same weird vibes in the house. I knew that she felt as if someone was standing at the end of the stairs watching, staring. There was something ill-willing living upstairs and in the attic, but it could never be felt downstairs. So I knew, that when I was away, Sofia would be sleeping downstairs, on the couch. I knew that, because I did so too, when alone. And everyone that came to the house felt it too, I could see it. They would sit in the living-room, drinking coffee and laughing, but you could see that they were staring at the staircase from the corner of their eye. They felt it too. Those were the ghosts. I did not remember much about my childhood but I remembered, that the ghosts had always been there.

Sofia

Earlier that day, I had called my parents and asked them if they would not mind coming here so I could have some company while Nicholas was away. They agreed open-heartedly and were willing to travel the 500 kilometers distance just for me. That made me feel better than in days. They would arrive here next evening and I could not wait for that. Feeling energetic, I put on warm clothes for outdoors and went to see our cows. They were enjoying the sunny weather. I finally got to talk to someone in person as our farm workers asked me about the baby and told me about their day in exchange. I really had missed some human contact. My little outdoors visit paid out in the evening though, as my feet were killing me from the walk on the heavy snow.

My thoughts turned back to my parents. They were very dear to me and that is why it had been hard moving here since it meant long distance between me and my childhood home. Nicholas’ parents had died when he was a little boy. There had been a fire in the house. At first, I was taken aback that Nicholas did not have any pictures of his parents and did not seem to want to talk about them. He explained to me that he really did not remember much of his parents at all, as if all the memories had just vanished.

Sylvia: memoir

I pitied the poor boy. Me and my husband, we were fighting constantly over little, meaningless things. This time Eric got mad over the fact that I had moved one shelf in the living-room to an other location without informing him first. I had not imagined that it would turn into a fight. Eric was so upset over our fight that he did not come to sleep that night, but instead stayed up and paced back and forth in the upstairs hallway. I had left the light on for little Nicholas and I could see how Eric’s almost two meter tall, heavy built body covered the light every time he walked past it. I prayed in my mind, that Eric would come to sleep but I knew better. It was the same every time. And as I had expected, after a while I heard the sound of Eric’s footsteps leading to the attic. That was where he kept his hunting gear and his rifle. Soon I could hear him on the stairs heading down and then the loud bang of him getting outside and slamming the door behind him. I got up from the bed and went to the window. I could see a tall and big figure disappearing in to the forest in the snowy winter’s night. I knew, that it would take days for Eric to come back.

Following days were peaceful and quiet. I loved spending time with my son, just the two of us, but at the same time I felt wary because I was waiting for Eric to come home. I knew it was just calm before the storm.

I had an unexplainable ability to sense when Eric was coming home. I would wake up early in the morning and just know that he would be coming that day. Those mornings I would stand at the end of the staircase waiting, my eyes fixed on the door. And when I heard the key being turned in the lock, I would run to Nicholas’ room and ask the boy to go play downstairs so he could not hear what was coming. Then I went to our bedroom, sat on the bed and waited.

I sprayed my face with ice cold water. It felt numb. The tears had dried out. My left eye was swollen so that it was almost closed and I knew how terrifyingly scary I would look in the little boy’s eyes. I tried to cover darkening bruises with make up, and then I put on long trousers and a long sleeved shirt with a high collar. They could hide everything else but the face. The face I could not hide. I went downstairs and saw Nicholas playing with toy soldiers on the living-room floor. I moved closer to him, carefully.

“Mommy. Why are you sick?” He asked and I could see he was scared.

“Mommy is alright honey, there is no need to worry. I was just a bit clumsy and hurt myself accidentally, that's all. Come with me, honey. Would you like to help me in the kitchen? We could prepare that rabbit daddy got on his hunting trip.” Nicholas walked up to me cautiously. I could feel his anxiety as I hugged him. My hands hurt but I kept him tightly in my arms and fought back the tears that wanted to come. It would all be better soon, I knew.

Sofia

It was the footsteps. I could hear them coming from the hallway. They sounded like they were coming closer and then going away. I listened quietly and reminded myself that ghosts do not exist. I had been reading a book and tried to continue from where I had left off. Then the footsteps stopped. I had read almost an entire chapter when it started again. Now they were coming from the attic and it certainly sounded just like real footsteps! Suddenly there was a rustling noise as if someone was going through something. Mice, I thought to myself. I could not concentrate on what I was reading and noticed that I did not remember anything about the last few pages. The words looked unfamiliar to me. The footsteps in the attic continued. I felt sick. It can not be mice. I got up from the bed slowly. I wore a white, saggy men’s teeshirt that was getting tight around my belly and came down to almost my knees. I slipped into my slippers and went to the hallway. It was silent there and I did not see any sign of any kind of ghost or a human. I walked to the door that led to the attic. In front of it was a Joshua tree in a large vase and next to that some figurines on a table. I had never been in the attic and I thought that neither had Nicholas, at least not during the time we had been here together. I moved the plant away from the door so I could get it open. The door had not been used in a long time as it moved stiffly. Its hinges were creaking. At that point I realized that the noises I heard had stopped completely. I looked behind me and saw the staircase and I got that feeling again, somebody was watching me.

The stairs leading to the attic were narrow and I had a hard time getting up with my huge belly. When I finally got to the attic, I was looking for a light switch for a while until I found it. The yellow light flooded everywhere and I could see the spacious attic filled with dust dancing in the chilly air. There was nothing more than some hunting gear, a rifle and couple cardboard boxes. You see? No one. No mice, no men, no ghosts. Go back to bed, silly.

But one of the boxes was open as if someone had gone through it. I sat on the floor and instantly regretted it because I knew it would be hard to get back up. I started to go through the box. It was filled with pictures. I realized I had found the missing family photos. In the first picture there was a mother, father and a child. The father was tall and he had sharp eyes. He had a face that was hard to read. The mother had on her shoulders a green scarf and long, reddish curls. Her face was in the shadows so that I could not see her well. It looked as if there was something weird about her. In the middle of the picture was the boy who looked utterly miserable. On the bottom was written: Eric, Sylvia and Little-Nicholas. In the box, under the picture, was an article cut from a newspaper. The big letters read: Mother tried to kill her family by burning them alive – Only the six-year-old boy survived.