Martha slipped on a wet kitchen floor while preparing a pie, fracturing her hip in two places. While she was away at a rehabilitation facility, the house felt unnervingly empty. It was during those long, lonely evenings that I began to hear it—a rhythmic, purposeful scratching coming from the attic. It didn’t sound like a squirrel or a stray critter; it sounded like furniture being dragged across floorboards. My Navy training won’t let me ignore an anomaly, so I decided to investigate. After failing to find the key on Martha’s master ring—a strange omission in itself—I took a screwdriver and pried the lock off the door.
The air inside the attic was thick with the scent of aged paper and something vaguely metallic. In the far corner sat an old oak trunk with greening brass corners, secured by a padlock even more formidable than the one on the door. The next day, I visited Martha and mentioned the sounds and the trunk. The reaction was visceral; the color drained from her face, and she gripped her sheets in a state of pure panic, begging me to tell her I hadn’t opened it.
