The first to vanish was a pair of gloves. Then the keychain went missing. Later, it was the old woolen scarf. At first, she might have blamed age, forgetfulness, exhaustion—but when the sixth thing disappeared in a month—the sewing box that always sat on the dresser—Margaret Whitaker could take no more. She sank into her chair with a heavy exhale, fingers trembling, not with fear but with anger. Her small, familiar world was unraveling, thread by thread, as if some unseen hand were plucking at its seams.
“Fine,” she said aloud, voice sharp as a blade. “Let’s play.”
The flat was silent. Only the antique clock in the hallway ticked stubbornly on. Margaret had lived alone for nine years. Her husband had gone suddenly, right there in the sitting room, teacup halfway to his lips, a joke forever unfinished. After his death, she changed nothing—the same frayed armchair, the same creaky floorboard, even his favourite mug still sat on the shelf, faded letters proclaiming *World’s Best Grandad*.
Her daughter visited twice a year. She brought groceries, scolded Margaret for ignoring her calls, then hurried away, her words clipped, squeezed between work, children, endless responsibilities. Margaret never resented it. She understood: her daughter had her own life, bills to pay, mouths to feed. So she accepted the bags of biscuits and pills, smiled stiffly, hugged awkwardly, and lingered in the empty corridor long after the door had shut, listening to the silence thicken.
But last month, something shifted. Not suddenly, not sharply—like a tailor quietly trimming the edges of fabric. First came the scent—faint, dry, like herbs smoldering in the corner. Then the drafts. Curtains shivered, though the windows were sealed. Finally, the shadows. They slid along the walls, unmoored from the light, as if something unseen prowled the room, leaving no footprint. The house breathed a rhythm not her own.
Margaret said nothing. She only sat by the window more often, legs tucked beneath her, cooling tea cradled in her palms, watching snow blanket the courtyard where children once played. She remembered cycling lessons from her father, his grip steadying her seat until she balanced. She remembered the winter of the blackouts in the nineties, huddling with her husband by the paraffin heater, giggling as they toasted bread on its scalding lid. The night they bought their first telly and bickered till dawn over which channel to watch before dozing off in each other’s arms.
Then things began to vanish. Trinkets at first—a button, a handkerchief, a brooch. Then the losses grew: her favourite scarf, her reading glasses, the notebook where she scribbled recipes and old phone numbers. No signs of theft, no explanations. As if something were carefully stealing fragments of her life.
“Where are you hiding?” she asked the emptiness one evening. Her voice rang louder than expected, the echo hanging midair.
Then, from the kitchen: *”Here.”*
The reply was soft, almost childlike—not menacing, not cruel. Just foreign. And that made it real.
She didn’t rush in. She brewed tea instead, sat, waited. Stared at the steam as if answers swirled there. Then she stood, squared her shoulders, and stepped into the kitchen. The door creaked like hesitation. Everything was in place—the checkered tablecloth, the pans on the shelf—but the air hummed. The silence wasn’t empty. It held its breath. A presence, nearly tangible, warm as a whispered touch.
“Who are you?” she asked, steady, unafraid, as if knowing no harm would come.
No answer. Just a floorboard’s faint groan, like a step taken and frozen.
The next day, her recipe book disappeared. That evening, returning from the balcony, she found a postcard on the table. No address, no name. Just two words scrawled unevenly: *”I’m here.”*
From then on, they shared the flat. The other—in shadows, in curtain tremors, in drafts that shouldn’t exist. Margaret—in daylight, in kettle whistles, in cutlery’s clatter. They never spoke. But one day, opening the cupboard under the stairs, she found every missing item. Neatly arranged, clean, as if tended.
And then she knew. This wasn’t a stranger. It was *her*. The one she’d buried—when her husband died, when her daughter left, when days bled into grey. The one who’d sung off-key to Bowie, danced barefoot to the wireless, tucked half-written poems into drawers. The one who’d slipped away with every *later*, every *not now*.
Margaret draped the scarf around her neck. It smelled of lavender and years. She stepped onto the balcony. Lit a cigarette—first in a decade. Smoke curled upward, taking with it the weight, the solitude, the borrowed restraint.
Snow fell below. Soft, weightless. In its glow, the city lights flickered like a whisper: *”I waited.”*
*Where did you hide?* she thought. *Ah. There you are.*
