I was wrong.
We live in an old Victorian house that we bought in 1972, when the children were small. From the first day, there was one room I never went into: the attic. The door was always locked with a heavy brass padlock.
Every time he asked, Elena gave the same answer:
“It’s just old junk, Ricardo.”
“My parents’ furniture.”
“Nothing important.”
I never insisted. Everyone deserves their privacy… don’t they?
But after more than half a century of passing by that door, curiosity began to grow.
The accident that changed everything
Two weeks ago, Elena was in the kitchen preparing her famous apple pie for our grandson’s birthday when she slipped near the sink.
I heard her scream from the living room.
—Ricardo, help me!
I found her on the floor, holding her hip, pale with pain.
Her hip was fractured in two places. At 75, that’s no small matter. She underwent surgery and then rehabilitation.
For the first time in decades, the house was empty.
And that’s when the noises started.
The sounds in the night
Every night, always at the same time, I would hear slow scratching , as if something heavy were crawling across the ceiling.
Directly above the kitchen.
The attic.
I tried to convince myself they were squirrels. But the sound was too constant. Too… intentional.
One night I took my naval flashlight and the spare key ring Elena kept in the kitchen. I tried all the keys against the padlock in the attic.
None of them worked.
That worried me more than the noise.
I went down to the workshop, grabbed a screwdriver… and forced the lock.
