Footprints in the Dust

Nighttime was when I felt most alive. When the moonlight shone through the windows and a soft breeze would stir up glittering dust motes to dance in the silvery brilliance. The tiny pads of mouse feet tickled the floor boards, the quiet tapping of their claws against wood reverberating through me.

The soft pad of small, human feet stopped outside my door. Little hands pressed against the wood. I paused. It had been years since a human had entered through my door. No one had stepped foot on the floorboards since the little girl I had last watched over. The one full of life and laughter who had run across the floor with such light in her steps.

Dust had settled along my furniture since, a thick coating stirred only by the wind that slipped through my window, still ajar from the night the little girl’s parents hadn’t come back to close it. Sometimes, on the darkest nights of winter, I missed the little fire the girl would have lit in the fireplace. The soft melody of her mama singing her back into sleep when she’d wake in the dead of the night, gasping with fear. I missed the flickering golden light that spilled from the lamp she kept beside her bed, to ward away the monsters of the darkness.

I could almost hear the hesitancy in the breath of the little human on the other side of my door. Then…slowly…my door creaked open. Soft light bathed cold wooden boards that hadn’t felt its creeping warmth since our little girl had gone. Boards the light from the window could never quite reach. They creaked as I settled myself, waiting to see what the small human would do.

The little one held its breath as it crept forward on uncertain legs. It reminded me of the young mouse that had taken up residence months after the little girl had vanished. The mouse had snuck through the shadows on faltering little feet, crouched low, as though scared that a human might catch it. It had taken a few weeks before the little mouse was scampering across the floor without a care in the world, small bits and pieces carried in its mouth for the nest it built behind the chest of drawers.

When nothing happened to the child upon entry to the room, much like the little mouse, its back straightened just a little. It took more steps along the floor boards, further in. It neared the bed, reaching for that golden, flickering lamp. A click, and that warm light flooded through me once again. It flickered like a candle against the darkness as the small creature explored.

Footprints appeared in the dust that had gathered along my floorboards, tiny hand prints along the furniture and shelves as it clambered over everything, trying to see as much as possible. It was so full of wonder, the same way the little girl was. The way its eyes caught on the pebbles the little girl had collected and maintained with such care. So interested in everything the little girl had carefully curated, then left behind.

Eventually, after exploring every inch of the room, the little one settled in a corner next to the bed with a floppy toy the girl had always taken with her when she left, hugging it close as it spoke in soft whispers to it. It had been a long time since I’d heard the quiet ramblings of a child talking to itself. The way this one spoke was reminiscent of the little girl too.

Movement near my door drew my attention as their mama watched her little one chatter happily to her little girl’s favourite toy. She looked as though something in her ached. Her stricken look was stark against the warm light pooling onto the floor. Her arms wrapped around herself as though she could hold in all of the pain if she just hugged herself a little tighter.

The moment paused for a time, the little one utterly oblivious as its mama watched. Soon though, its eyes started to droop, the babbling petering off, and its mama finally broke the moment, time pushing forward one more.

“What are you doing in here bubba?”

Her voice was gentle as she pushed into the room. The little one looked up, curling in on itself again like that little mouse.

“I’m sorry mama.”

She pulled the child into her arms, murmuring reassurance to it as she carried it back through the door, pulling it to as she went. Light still spilled through that little crack as I listened to the rest of the house. It whispered that the child had been returned to its own bed.

My door creaked open once more as their mama returned. She moved towards the lamp, that flickering warmth, but paused halfway, looking around her. Her face screwed up with that aching again, and a few tears slipped down her cheeks. She quietly picked up the toy that the little one had been talking to, pressing it to her forehead.

Then, she moved toward the light, plunging me into quiet shadow again with a click. With only the moonlight to keep me company, she quietly padded across the floor and shut my door with a soft click, taking the toy with her.