Standing in the kitchen, I hear the sound of someone coming down the back stairs — slow, cautious . . . almost stealthy.
But when I go to check, of course, no one is there.
It takes a few minutes for the hair on my arms to lay back down again. My skin is electric, almost burning.
Woken by my daughter early this morning, unable to get back to sleep so I head downstairs to sit in the predawn dark, looking up from my book from time to time as little beads of shadow stream across the floor like dark mercury.
An hour or so later, I hear footfalls overhead.
They move through the laundry room to the back stairs. But they do not descend.
Later that morning, I ask my wife if she got up earlier. She did not.
After dinner, my wife runs to the store. My daughter and I play in my office.
The whole time, my skin is crawling. I have a sense that someone — or multiple someones — is passing through my office, moving past us unseen.
The sensation is uncanny, disquieting. My daughter seems not to notice.
When my wife returns, I make no mention of it.
As we’re getting our daughter ready for bath time, my wife heads upstairs for a towel.
She comes back into the room a minute later, unsettled. “I just saw a light move across the stairs.”
It was a white light, smallish. She saw it briefly. But she saw it.
We nod, matter of fact. Just another thing to add to the growing list of things we’ve noticed in the new house.
Later that night…
I’m finishing up a few things in my office, getting ready to head up to bed. I hear footsteps on the back stairs. They stop for a moment, then continue down.
I go out to look, assuming my wife came down to get some water.
She isn’t there.
I go back in my office. A few moments later, the footsteps again. This time on the front stairs.
I open both doors of my office, looking to the front and back of the house.
No one.
It’s worth noting that there is no odd feeling, no crawling skin or discomfort or fear.
No sense that anything is wrong.