The House That Ate Sound

It began with the floorboards.

They didn’t creak.

Not under my boots when I first stepped inside. Not when I rolled the heavy suitcase behind me. Not even when I jumped, just to test. The silence was absolute. Thick. The kind that coats your skin and fills your ears like cotton.

I should’ve found it peaceful — and at first, I did.

After the divorce, I told myself I needed solitude. A place to recalibrate. When I found the listing for a quiet cottage in the Appalachian foothills — “a sanctuary of peace,” the ad said — I didn’t hesitate. It looked like something out of a fairy tale, with ivy crawling up the stone chimney and morning mist resting lazily on the porch. The real estate agent seemed unnerved by it, but I didn’t ask why. I was used to ignoring red flags.

On my first night, I noticed the second thing.

The kitchen had no hum.

No refrigerator buzz. No clink of the old pipes. No wind whistling through gaps in the windows. I clapped once. The sound died immediately — as though swallowed. Not echoed. Not muffled. Eaten.

I spoke out loud just to break the stillness.

“Hello?”

It was like tossing a stone into a well and hearing nothing in return.

I chalked it up to thick insulation. Old buildings, maybe heavy walls. Still, something felt off. Every time I tried to make a noise — dropped a spoon, dragged a chair, coughed — the sound vanished the instant it was born. The silence wasn’t just present. It was active.

By day three, I started feeling it in my body.

My breathing became shallow. I realized I had been tiptoeing around, whispering to myself just to hear something. I played music from my phone, and it sounded…strange. The melody barely echoed from the speaker, like it was playing inside my skull but not in the room. It reminded me of those dreams where you scream, but no sound comes out.

I opened a window for relief. The breeze felt normal — cool and fresh. But the birdsong outside faded the moment it reached the frame, as if the air inside the house refused to let sound live.

I began testing it.

I boiled water and held my ear near the kettle. Nothing. I dropped a plate. It shattered, visibly, but the crash never reached me.

The silence had weight. It wasn’t just the absence of sound — it was the removal of it. A vacuum that stole noise before it could exist.

That night, I had the dream.

I was standing in the hallway. The walls were breathing — slow, rhythmic pulses, like a sleeping animal. I walked toward the bedroom, but it had vanished. The doorframe opened into a black, endless tunnel, and at the end, I could see a version of myself — younger, whole, talking to my ex-husband. Laughing. Her voice echoed all the way down the corridor. It was the only sound.

When I woke up, my ears were ringing.

That morning, I stood outside the front door with my suitcase. I was ready to leave. But as I reached for my keys, I hesitated.

Where would I go?

The city? Too loud. My sister’s house? Too full of pity. Back to him? Never.

I turned and looked at the cottage again. It was quiet. Still. And I realized… I needed the silence now. I had grown used to it. Dependent on it.

Inside, I made tea. I sat at the kitchen table and thought about everything I had lost — my voice, yes, but also my anger. My guilt. My shame.

There was something cleansing about it, in a way.

The silence had taken not only the sound, but the pain that came with it.

Eventually, I stopped trying to make noise. I stopped testing it. I stopped speaking altogether.

Now, the house and I exist in mutual agreement.

I no longer fight it.

And at night, when I dream of old wounds — broken promises, words shouted too loudly, or not loudly enough — the house swallows those, too.

It is a kind of peace.

A strange peace.

A dangerous one.

But peace, nonetheless.