First, the gloves vanished. Then, the keyring. After that, an old handkerchief. She could have blamed age, absentmindedness, tiredness. But when the fifth thing disappeared in a month—the sewing box of needles and thread, always kept on the parlour shelf—Margaret Whitaker could take no more. She sank slowly into her chair, feeling her heart pound not with fear but with a dull, growing anger. Her small, orderly world, like fraying fabric, was coming apart at the seams, and someone unseen was pulling the threads with eerie precision.
“Fine, you want to play?” she said to the emptiness, her voice trembling not with weakness but with defiance, sharp as the wind rattling the windowpanes.
The flat held its breath. Only the old pendulum clock in the next room ticked away, its rhythm merciless and exact. Margaret had lived alone for eight years. Her husband had slipped away quietly in his sleep, right there on the settee, an unfinished newspaper on his lap. After his death, she’d left everything untouched—the same worn table, the same curtains, even his chipped mug with its faded inscription: *World’s Best Husband.*
Her son visited sparingly, every few months. He brought grocery bags, medicine, grumbled about her not answering the phone, then hurried off. His words were clipped, torn from the tight weave of work and family life. She never minded. She understood—he had his own burdens, his children, his debts. It was simple. She accepted his gifts, nodded, smiled, saw him to the door, then lingered in the dim hallway, staring at the peeling paint until the silence became something she could almost touch.
But a month ago, something odd had moved in. Not suddenly, not sharply—more like an invisible hand carefully reshaping her world, like a tailor trimming the edges of cloth. First came the scent—subtle, like dry leaves smouldering in a corner, like her grandfather’s old house on the outskirts of the village. Then, the draughts. The curtains stirred even when the windows were shut tight. And the shadows. They slithered along the walls, out of step with the light, as though someone glided through the room without touching the floor. The house seemed to breathe to a rhythm not her own.
Margaret said nothing. She only sat by the window more often, legs tucked beneath her, a cooling cup in hand, watching the snow drift over the quiet Yorkshire town. She watched the wind spin the flakes, settle them on rooftops, and remembered. Her father guiding her fingers as she wove baskets, untangling the reeds when she faltered. How she and her husband had huddled by the old stove in the nineties, laughing as they struggled to light damp wood. The first time they’d seen a mobile phone, arguing half the night about how it worked before dozing off, curled together.
Then things began to vanish. Trifles at first—a button, a handkerchief, a hairpin. Then, more—her favourite scarf, her reading glasses, the photo album. Each time, without trace or reason. As though someone unseen was carefully snipping pieces of her life away, leaving only gaps.
“Where did you go?” she asked the empty room one day. Her voice rang too loud, as if the walls flinched. She froze.
From the bedroom came a whisper: *”Here.”*
The voice was soft, almost childlike—not menacing. Not frightening. Just *other.* And that made it real enough to raise gooseflesh.
She didn’t go in straight away. She brewed tea, sat, waited. Watched the steam curl from her cup as though it might hold answers. Then she stood, straightened her shoulders, and stepped into the bedroom. The door creaked as though sharing her hesitation. The room was ordinary—bed neatly made, curtains drawn. On the nightstand, a slightly faded photo of her son in his school uniform, framed in plain wood. But the air had shifted. The silence hummed, like someone holding their breath. A presence, faint but warm, like the brush of fingertips.
“Who are you?” she asked, calm, unafraid, as though she already knew no harm would come.
No answer. Just a faint creak of floorboards, like a step taken and then stilled.
The next day, her old notebook disappeared—the one where she’d jotted poems and addresses of friends long gone. That evening, returning from the kitchen, she found a postcard on the table. No stamp, no signature. Just two words, scrawled in shaky script: *”I’m here.”*
From then on, they lived as two. The other—in corners, in shadows, in the flutter of curtains. Margaret—in daylight, in the whistle of the kettle, the clink of spoons. They didn’t speak. But once, opening the cupboard, she found every missing thing. Neatly stacked, clean, as though someone had gathered them with care.
And then it struck her: this wasn’t an intruder. It was *her.* The one she’d forgotten, the one she’d buried—when her husband died, when her son left, when the days blurred into grey sameness. The one who’d once sung by bonfires, danced to cassette tapes, written letters she never sent. The one who’d faded slowly, with every *”not now,”* every *”later.”*
Margaret took the scarf, draped it over her shoulders. It smelled of lavender and years. She stepped onto the balcony. Lit a cigarette—first in nine years. The smoke spiralled upward, carrying with it the weight, the loneliness, the borrowed restraint.
Below, snow fell. Soft, weightless. In its glow, the town’s lights shimmered, as though the world itself whispered: *”I’ve been waiting.”*
*Where did you go?* she wondered. *Ah. There you are.*
