The Knock

It was a quarter past eleven when the knock came.

Mr. George Henshaw had retired early to his study, as he often did, with a decanter of port and the evening paper. The fire was reduced to embers, the gas lamps casting a yellow gloom across shelves of leather-bound volumes. Outside, fog pressed against the windows, muting the small village beyond.

The knock came suddenly. Three hard raps on the front door.

He froze. No one should be visiting at this hour. His estate sat at the far end of the lane, well away from neighbors or chance callers.

Another three raps in same measured rhythm.

George rose, lamp in hand, and crossed the hall. He hesitated a few feet from the door, heart beating quickly.

“Who’s there?”

A pause that lasts a little too long, then a woman’s voice answered. It was steady, low, and strangely certain.

“You have something of mine.”

He frowned, confused.

“What are you talking about?”

Silence.

Cautiously, he slid the chain across and cracked the door. She stood on the step, fog curling around her. A woman in dark traveling clothes, her hat shadowing her face. In her gloved hand she held up a brass key, its metal dulled with age, a faded green ribbon looped through it.

“This belongs to me,” she said.

George shook his head. “No, I’ve never seen that in my life.”

Her lips curved, not quite a smile. “Look again.”

Something about the way she said it chilled him. He slammed the door shut and slide the bolt. For a moment there was only silence. Then came the scrape of metal. The unmistakable sound of a key sliding into the lock.

George stumbled back, breath catching in his throat. The lock held, but the testing was deliberate and confident.

“Stop that!” he shouted, his voice cracking in the empty hall.

The noise ceased. Then three slow knocks thudded through the wood.

He turned and fled down the corridor, the lamp swinging wildly. The gaslights above him flickered once, as if reacting to his fear.

He made it to the library and pressed his back against the shelves, forcing his breathing to steady. The silence stretched, broken only by the faint crackle of the dying fire.

And then, hinges creaked.

The front door.

He had locked it. He knew he had. Yet he heard it opening. He felt the shift of air as if the house itself exhaled. Footsteps followed. Slow. Unhurried. Coming straight down the corridor toward him.

He gripped the lamp tighter, though the flame inside guttered. The footsteps stopped outside the library. For a moment, everything was still. Then her voice, muffled through the door:

“You shouldn’t have kept it, Mr. Henshaw.”

His blood ran cold. She knew his name.

The handle rattled. The door was locked, but then came the same metallic scrape. The sound of a key sliding into the keyhole.

Click.

The door swung inward.

No one stood there. Only the brass key, hanging from the inside the keyhole. The green ribbon swaying ever so slightly.

The lamp sputtered and went out, plunging the room into shadow. In that darkness, George heard her footsteps again, no longer muffled, but inside the room, moving slowly toward him.

George stumbled backward, shoulder striking the shelves, volumes toppling around him. He clawed for something to hold, and his hand closed on a heavy book. He hurled it into the dark. It struck nothing.

The footsteps did not falter.

“Show yourself!” His voice cracked, too shakey to sound commanding. “What do you want from me?”

The reply came soft and close, though he saw no one. “What was taken must be returned.”

He felt a rush of cold air, sharp as water plunging into his lungs. His eyes darted to the key in the door. It no longer hung there. It lay in the center of the rug, ribbon spread like a stain.

A memory flickered: his father unlocking a hidden drawer in this very study, whispering that some things should never leave the house. George had never found the drawer after his father’s death. He’d assumed it was a childish fancy. Yet the key, this key, had found him all the same.

The footsteps stopped. He dared to look up.

The woman stood before him now, close enough that he could see the pale sharpness of her face beneath the brim of her hat. She extended her gloved hand.

“Give it back.”

George opened his mouth, but no words came. The key rose from the rug as if lifted by invisible fingers. It hovered between them, ribbon swaying once, and then dropped into her palm. She closed her fist around it. The lamps flared once more. When George blinked, the woman was gone.

Only the faint smell of damp earth remained, and the echo of her footsteps retreating through the halls.

The house was silent again. But George knew it would never feel empty.