Walter

Every summer my mother sends me to stay with my uncle, who lives in a big house just outside the village. It’s close enough that I still go into the village during the day, but his place always feels cut off from everything else—too quiet, too still, like it doesn’t fully belong where it is. I help around the house like usual, doing small chores, cleaning, fixing things, pretending it’s just another normal summer visit. My uncle is known in the village, people respect him for his delicious cooking and helping out around the village but at home he’s different. He barely talks, gives short answers, and moves like there are rules in the house I was never told about. There are locked rooms I’m never allowed to enter, and hallways that feel darker than they should be even when the lights are on. At night, the house changes. I start hearing faint movement under the floorboards, slow and careful, like someone trying not to be noticed. Sometimes there’s soft crying that feels too close to be outside, followed by sudden sharp smack sounds like something being hit, and laughter that doesn’t match anything human or warm. I ask my uncle about it once, but he goes completely quiet, like I crossed an invisible line. After that, I stop asking but I start noticing more. Doors that are slightly ajar when I’m sure they were locked. Shadows in places that should be empty. And always, the same name through the silence without explanation Walter. I don’t know who he is yet, but the house feels like it’s holding its breath around that name, like something inside it is waiting for me to understand there are rumors in the village that a man named Walter use to work in the village until he came to work for my uncle and nobody seen him again for 10 years