We Kept My Sister Locked In The Attic

I grew up in a haunted house. My parents never admitted it. They explained most of the strangeness away. My mom couldn’t grow anything in the yard because the soil was bad. Water damage caused the black patches on my bedroom ceiling. The walls creaked because the house was old. The tightness in my chest was normal too. Mom said it ran in the family. She also said my dizzy spells were because I didn’t eat enough. Even the three lightning strikes on the old oak tree weren’t paranormal, just bad luck. Mom joked that our bad fortune was my dad’s fault. He drew in bad luck like a lightning rod. She was wrong, though. It wasn’t my dad’s fault. It was mine.

I realized the house was haunted when I was still a kid. I was sitting at the living room table folding paper cranes while my twin sister played on the floor behind me. My dad was the one who taught me origami. It was the perfect activity to keep my hands busy and ears open. He tried to teach my sister too, but she wouldn’t sit still long enough to learn. The two of us were opposites. She stomped around and roared with her plastic dinosaurs while I quietly folded paper. The sudden noises made me jump and wrinkle the paper, until my irritation boiled over and I snapped at her to shut up. A dinosaur hit the back of my head in response. I yelled and snatched the t-rex up, ready to hurl it right back, but when I turned around she was gone. I stormed around the room, searching behind the couch, the chair, under the table, but she had vanished. There was something off about the room as I searched. A heaviness in the air. I couldn’t put my finger on the source. Then I noticed footsteps down the hall. She must have run out of the room while I was distracted. I crouched, waited, and launched the t-rex when the footsteps got close enough. Too late I realized the footsteps weren’t hers. The t-rex hit my mother who flailed, tripped over the rest of the Jurassic mess, and collided with the table. I got in trouble for all of it, but I was too distracted to feel bad. My sister hadn’t been in the room when the t-rex hit me. Who had thrown it?

Mom bought a lot of toys when I was a kid. The problem wasn’t sharing, since I wasn’t interested in toys, but in the messes she made. My sister never cleaned up after herself, and Mom would blame both of us for her mess. Her scolding made my sister cry. The next day Mom would gift the two of us another doll or Lego set and apologize. She didn’t mean to yell. She never did, and it only happened because it hurt so much when she stepped on a Lego brick or tripped over a tea set and bumped her shin. I wished she would stop buying more things. That way my sister wouldn’t have new things on the floor for her to trip over. Eventually my sister stopped leaving her toys out because she stopped playing with them. That was my fault too. I always hounded her about her messes. I saw less and less of her around the house, but I still heard her every night. Her room was in the attic, directly above mine. I listened to her creak in chorus with the ghost pipes. Their rhythm matched the waves of tightness in my chest.

Our back yard was cursed. Only the old oak tree could survived. The bark on its trunk clung to the charred crust of its first lightning scar. Its thin branches shed leaves like dandruff in the fall. Every winter I wondered if it finally died, only for it to prove me wrong when it grew patchy leaves in the spring. Mom got excited when she saw the new growth. It inspired her to plant seeds for her dream garden. We watched the seeds sprout in the spring, shrivel in the summer, and crumble with the oak leaves in the fall. I hated that tree for getting her hopes up.

I was too young to remember the first lightning strike on the old oak tree, but I remember the second one very well. The sky was blanketed with dark clouds the wind couldn’t bother to push away. The air felt heavy and charged when I went downstairs to make myself lunch, like it did so many years ago when I couldn’t find my sister. My parents were in the living room watching TV together. I could see light of the lamp reflected in the bald spot on the back of my dad’s head. It disappeared with a pop when the power cut out. The room was left dark and silent. No crickets that sing in the night, or birdsong that lightens the day. Not even the pipes creaked. I cut my sandwich in half and put the knife in the sink, wincing at the clatter. I heard my mom shift and sigh in annoyance, mumble something to my dad. I decided to eat lunch upstairs.

I sat at the end of the hall with my back against the attic door. I could practically feel the storm clouds condense above the staircase on the opposite end. I picked at my food and closed my eyes and imagined grey mist drifting upstairs to gather at the end of the hall. The air decayed in my mind’s eye into the shape of a human figure. It raised a hand and beckoned me. I opened my eyes to dispel it, but there it was in real life, standing at the edge of the hall. It was there only for a moment. Just in the instant before the room flashed too bright with a terrible noise and the figure was gone. I ran to my room and hid under my blanket, but the next lightning bolt didn’t strike for years.

I didn’t leave my room until the next morning. The figure was gone when I poked my head out, so I crept to the attic door. My plate was still there, but whatever remained of my lunch had disappeared. Strangely, I could see a silhouette of half a sandwich imprinted on the plate, like an afterimage of the flash. I lightly knocked on the attic door and tried the handle. It was locked. My sister must have come out at some point during the night and eaten my food. Of course she left the plate out for me to clean. I snorted and picked it up to wash.

My mom was smiling when I went downstairs. Before I could squeak out a greeting, she pointed out the window above the sink. The oak tree looked awful. Its old scar had been torn open and I wondered if it would finally die. I gave Mom a quizzical look, wondering why she was happy about it, but she waved it aside. She didn’t point at the oak tree, but at a tiny green sprout beside it. She beamed at me and she would finally have her garden.

The tomato plant she grew that year was the closest she ever got to one. It was a sad, shriveled thing that never bore fruit, but it did survive the summer. That was when I finally put the pieces together. The charge in the air happened for the first time when I ignored my sister, then snapped at her for playing. I had continued to neglect my sister for years, until it condensed into a phantom that struck the oak tree. It was my fault. I had bullied my sister to the point where she locked herself up in the attic, and I hadn’t even bothered to bring her food. That’s why the tomato plant finally grew. Because I started feeding my sister half of everything I hate.

I didn’t have a lot of friends at school. For starters there wasn’t much to talk about. I wasn’t interested in sports or fashion trends. Outings were a chore since I had to worry about food. The phantom would manifest if I didn’t feed my sister, and it had to be my food. Meals I made for her specifically were left out, and the air would get heavy again. I wasn’t allowed to skip meals either, or else she’d get loud stomping around in the attic . My chest hurt so bad on those nights I couldn’t sleep.

It wasn’t so bad on the fringes of the school. There was another kid, Sam, who didn’t get along with anyone either. They sat next to me on most days. Sometimes I was still hungry after my half of lunch, so I’d fold origami cranes to distract myself. Sam watched until one day they asked me to teach them. So I did. Teaching them made me think of my dad. They were delicate and precise when they folded the paper. They built with hands like my father’s.

It was nice to have Sam around. They listened when I spoke. I talked about the oak tree, my parents, the noise in the attic. Everything except my sister. My chest always got too tight before I could mention her. More than that, I didn’t want Sam to look at me weird. Mostly they were quiet, but sometimes they pushed. Once they suggested I convince my parents to hire pest control for the sounds in the attic. Another time it was about a plumber for the pipes. The creaking was concerning, even for an older house. I always brushed them off. I knew what caused the noise, but I couldn’t tell them without mentioning my sister. Sometimes they pushed too hard until I could feel pressure in the air. That made me snap. I always apologized later though. Sam knew I didn’t mean to, so it was okay.

There was a storm the night the third lightning strike finally happened. I was stuck at the kitchen sink scrubbing my sister’s used plate. The jelly had fermented into a dark goop that refused to wash off. I watched the old oak tree through the rain blurred window above the kitchen sink. It still clung to life, if it could be called that. Most of the wood on its trunk was dead. Its sparse patches of leaves swayed in the wind as I scraped at the jelly with a sponge much too soft.

My mom walked in while I was still cleaning. I stayed as still as I could at the sink, eyeing her reflection in the kitchen window. She stalked around, rooting among the shelves for something. She asked a barbed question about how my day was. I said it was fine. She asked if anything new happened. I said no, not really. She slammed a cupboard and asked if I had seen her favorite mug. I shook my head before I could process the question. She clicked her tongue and said it was fine, she shouldn’t have expected otherwise in the mess of a kitchen. At that moment, lightning split the sky open and struck a dark figure in the scar of the oak tree. Mom’s reflection lined up with the figure’s head, and for a second it smiled at me using her teeth. I dropped the plate as the sky went dark. The phantom outside died with the lightning, and thunder sang my mother’s encore to the sound of the broken plate.

The oak tree finally died. I didn’t realize until the following spring, when it failed to sprout for the first time. Good riddance, I thought. The stupid old tree never brought anything good with it. So why didn’t I feel relieved when I looked out the window at its bare branches? Thinking about it too much made me dizzy. Life went on regardless of the oak skeleton in the yard. I got older. So did my parents. It was strange. Older for me meant life milestones. I got my driver’s licence and was about to finish high school. Older for my parents just meant grey hairs and back pain. My back hurt too, and I worried about how much worse it would get at their age. It was nice to have a license at least. I liked driving at night when the world was cool and quiet. Sometimes Sam would tag along and we’d stay out for hours listening to the engine hum. Driving helped when I found myself thinking about the oak tree too much.

One night I was driving later and faster than usual. Sam kept asking if I was okay. I said I was fine. They kept insisting otherwise. It felt like a stage rehearsal. We both had a script and a part to play. It always started small and with good intentions. It was important to remember I didn’t mean anything by it, no matter what awful things I said. I’d tell them after the scene played out. Besides, it wasn’t really me who said it. At least, it didn’t feel like it. The ache in my chest seemed far away as I heard my voice echo words I had heard so many times before. A light too bright pulled my attention back to the road and I stared into oncoming headlights. The phantom stood in the core wearing my mother’s smile. There was a terrible sound. Not thunder, but a scream made with my voice from the throat of the phantom. Adrenaline forced feeling back into my hands and I yanked the steering wheel. I don’t remember what happened after that. That’s probably because I hit my head. The doctors said Sam and I were both lucky to be alive.

That was the last time I saw Sam. They sent me messages for weeks asking what they did wrong, why I wouldn’t answer them. That was the problem. They hadn’t done anything. Nothing at all to deserve any of it, yet they were always around when the air condensed until the phantom lashed out at my sins. Maybe I should have said something to them, explained any of it, but I couldn’t. The phantom had taken my voice. That was okay, though. I didn’t have any use for it. I just had to make sure Sam was far away where they couldn’t hear it.

Life went on. I finished high school and my parents smiled at me during graduation. My mom’s teeth made me shudder. After the ceremony my dad pulled me aside and handed me a paper crane. It hurt my chest to look at. I smiled when I took it, then tucked it away in the closet where I couldn’t see it. He left the next day.

The house went silent after that. My sister must have moved out after graduation, because I couldn’t hear her in the attic. No creaking in the walls either. Just dead and heavy air that only stirred when my whirlwind of a mother walked into the room. She brought up dad all the time, but never mentioned my sister. It was strange. She was upset at my dad for leaving, but said nothing about my sister’s move. I still left half my food for her, even if no one was around to eat it. By that point it was habit. I’d leave my dinner at the attic door and collect the plate the following morning. The food still rotted quickly. It was disgusting, but I preferred decay over the phantom.

Mom didn’t feel the same way. She started obsessing over my eating habits. It was almost funny. She never cared about the food I left out until everyone else had left. Her passive aggressive comments ground against my patience until I finally snapped again. I told her, loudly, that it wasn’t my fault everything was a mess. I had to do this because of my sister. That was the first and only time she hit me. I was so stunned I didn’t think to cry. My cheek stung for hours afterward.

She was soft when she knocked on my door and entered my room to tell me she didn’t mean it. That I shouldn’t have raised my voice at her, because it made her so upset. She hovered around longer than usual while I stared at her shoes and nodded along. Then she asked how I was feeling. That came out of nowhere. I said I was fine, but why? She finally mentioned my sister. She said I didn’t have one.

That night I lay awake listening to the silence in the attic. What had I been feeding? My chest tightened until I decided it was better to walk towards the lightning than suffocate in the dark. I got up and went to the attic door that I know belonged to my sister. It opened easily. I checked the knob and my blood ran cold. The door didn’t have a lock. There was a cobweb coated light switch on the inside wall. I flicked it and a yellow bulb wheezed light at the top of the staircase. When I walked the steps creaked in a song I had heard every night of my life.

It was dark at the top. There were no windows. The only light came from the dying bulb. I blinked in the dark until my eyes adjusted, then rubbed them again to make sure they were working. There were no signs anyone had ever lived there. The attic was empty save for a weak glint across the room. Slowly I crept towards it and realized the light was reflected in a giant mirror propped up against the far wall.

The lightbulb behind me illuminated my silhouette as I got closer. My outline was dark like a shadow. Only after I got close did I make the connection. I gasped, and the shadow’s teeth, my reflection’s teeth, glinted and twisted into a familiar smile. The pressure in the air returned but twisted in a way that popped my chest. My insides strained against my skin, like up until now I had been a balloon held underwater, crushed under the pressure. The instant I was let go, I shot out of the water and drifted up, up into the sky until the pressure reversed and I burst. All I could do was stand there and stare at my reflection. At the phantom that punished my sins. At my sister who didn’t exist.

The phantom reached to its chest as it gasped its last breath in my voice. I watched my father’s hands rip my chest apart, piece by piece, and feed the scraps to my mother’s smile. A light began to shine through the wound, and it kept clawing until it grew much too bright. There was a ringing in my ears that grew into a terrible noise as my head began to spin. It kept going until I could only see the light and hear the terror until my legs gave out and my eyes finally closed.

When I opened them again I was back in my bed. My chest hurt worse than ever. I curled up until my breath steadied and I convinced myself it was just a dream. Finally I got up and went to get dressed. I took off my shirt and froze. There was a giant bruise in the middle of my chest.

I checked the attic door. Or rather, I checked where the attic door used to be. There’s a faint outline that proves the door existed, so I can’t be crazy. I’m scared to ask my mom about it. More than that, I have a ringing in my ears that won’t go away. The pain in my chest keeps getting worse. I think it’s because the phantom is still hungry. I gave it my food. I gave it my voice. I gave it my flesh and my soul and my heart and it wants more. I don’t think I have anything left to feed it.