The Third Set of Footsteps

The farmhouse had been in the family for a century, and after our grandmother passed, my brother and I spent a summer clearing it out. Just the two of us, miles from the nearest neighbour, sleeping in the two front bedrooms at the top of a long wooden staircase that announced every footstep.

The stairs were how it started. We would go up together at night, one behind the other, and the old boards would pop and groan under our weight. Two people, two sets of steps. But every night, a moment after we reached the top and stopped, a third set of steps would climb the stairs behind us. Slow. Unhurried. Reaching the landing and then simply stopping, as if waiting.

The first time, we told each other it was the house settling. Houses do that. But settling does not have a rhythm, and it does not pause on the landing exactly where a person would pause to decide which room to enter.

We started leaving a light on. It did not help. One night the steps came all the way up, crossed the landing to my brother's door, and the old brass handle turned, slowly, all the way down, and then let go. He was standing right beside me in my room at the time. We spent the rest of that night in the truck.

We finished clearing the house in daylight only after that, both of us, never alone, and we sold it before the leaves turned. The new owners seem happy. I have never asked them how they sleep, and I do not intend to.