The Nineteenth of September

Every nineteenth of September, Samuel wakes right before dawn.

The slight discomfort in his chest wakes him, the kind that makes him shift, toss, and turn in bed, searching for relief. He sometimes wonders, as he stares at the fading moonlight, if it’s because of the extra medicine Aunt May gives him the evening before. It is always bitter, chalky, and hard to swallow, but she says it’s to help him sleep soundly. He never does.

Resting on his bedside table, the bell is always awaiting him. Samuel never remembers placing it there. But it is always there, the silver polished to a shine that glints from the faint moonlight of dying night.

The house is still, breathless, as if the air has been sucked out while he slept. He feels a dreadful cold, no matter how much he wraps himself in the covers. The nineteenth’s chill reaches into his bones. His breathing grows shallow as he wills himself to rise. His body trembles beneath his striped pajamas as he leaves his room.

He knows that they will come. They always do.

The footsteps.

The chase.

The long hallway before him is shrouded in darkness. Every curtain is drawn, every door and window closed, except for his own bedroom, but Samuel doesn’t need any light. He can walk this path with his eyes closed.

His walk takes him past Aunt May’s door. Her door is closest to his, but she hasn’t come out in a long time.

Sometimes, he stops and almost knocks. He wants to ask her about them—why the footsteps follow him, and why it has to be him. She must know, he tells himself. She must hear them, too.

He often wonders if Aunt May might be ill herself, locked away in her own room. He remembers the last time he saw her: the cold, hard stare she gave him after pouring his medicine and watching to make sure he drank all of it. It always tasted horrible, especially the extra dose she gave him on the nights before the nineteenth.

She doesn’t pour out his medicine anymore; it simply appears on his bedside table each morning. The memory of her gaze still sends shivers through him. Samuel shakes his head to dispel the image.

His hand drops to his side, and he rushes away instead, for fear they’ll catch him if he lingers outside her door too long.

They always start in his bedroom. Loud and quick, they give pursuit, pausing briefly in the hall somewhere, but Samuel doesn’t know where; he never looks back at them. Instead, he quickens his pace to get some distance between them.

The attic is always first. He knows the right planks to step on so they don’t creak or groan beneath him. The higher he climbs, the more the darkness presses in, and the faint discomfort that woke him sharpens to a pang that makes him wince. His lungs squeezed as if by two invisible hands. A strange taste creeps into his mouth—bitter, metallic, and warm.

He swallows it down and pushes through the building pain, climbing higher, step after step. Each step is a name or a memory. Ophelia Buchanan. His mother’s voice when she sang him to sleep on his last birthday. The day they let him and Ophelia walk into town alone. Before he got sick, and they all went away.

He reaches the attic door and pauses.

The footsteps are at the base of the stairs, rising quickly.

His feet don’t make a sound as he steps inside the attic. He stands in the center and rings the bell just once. The sound is small and clean, immediately swallowed by the walls.

One ring is enough to keep the footsteps from reaching him, but they don’t disappear completely. He knows that they will return closer. So Samuel must keep moving.

Always one ring. Always moving forward.

Samuel’s hand curls into a fist around the bell. Afraid to drop it in the dark, his small fingers barely close around the cold metal. The house’s silence wraps itself around him, wanting to lull him into a false sense of security. But he knows they are close by, even if he can’t hear them.

He wants someone to walk with him that night, to explain why he was always being chased. He would tell himself that he would ask in the morning, but he never remembered.

His breathing becomes more difficult as he reaches the upper-level rooms. They all lie empty now. His father took a job in the city, and naturally, his mother and sister followed him.

Samuel had to stay; he was too sick to make the trip.

They left the day after his ninth birthday. Said they had to go for his father’s work and to find better doctors. His mother promised they’d be back for his tenth birthday.

In his parents’ room, he can still picture exactly where each piece of furniture stood, where each portrait hung, and how his parents moved about when they were dressing for a party. His heart ached, remembering.

The footsteps land heavily on the last step of the stairs; the floorboards heave as whoever or whatever they belong to drags itself down the hallway. He rings the bell and they vanish, but not for long.

Samuel lingers in Ophelia’s room, clutching at his chest, thinking about his younger sister’s laugh or the way she begged him to play on the days he wasn’t too sick. A faint smile tugs at his lips, despite the pain.

Crashes and thuds echo from his parents’ room. Samuel doesn’t give himself time to wonder what could be making those noises in an empty room.

He must keep moving.

He rushes to the upper parlor, the furniture there stained, faded, and covered in dust. The servants had forgotten to drape them before they left. Many had gone into the city with his parents because that was where they were needed. The others left on their own, finding other families to work for — families with healthy children and good wages.

A big house with only two occupants, one sick, the other hardly ever seen, didn't have a need for a full staff.

Samuel understood this, and he hated it. He thought that if the servants had stayed, he wouldn’t have to ring the bell every nineteenth of September.

The parlor was in the worst state. Dirt and grime lay thick on everything, the wallpaper peeling in places, and the damp smell of mold seeping through where rain had leaked into the walls.

He had mentioned the state of the house to Aunt May once, when she had first arrived, feeling unusually brave. Her eyes had narrowed; she told him he was a child and should not concern himself with such matters, only with getting better and not being a nuisance. Muttering under her breath but loud enough for him to hear, that once he did, she would be free.

It had been so long now since he had spoken to anyone.

He had rung the bell once, and the upper floors were done. But Samuel knew what was coming. His labored breathing and hammering heart reminded him.

It always got quiet before the worst of it.

He dashes toward the wooden staircase, his small feet padding on the rug, the sound snuffed out almost immediately. Samuel always tries to outrun and beat the footsteps, to ring the bell in the lower rooms before they make it down.

He never manages it.

Something falls and rolls a few steps behind him, rattling the handrail. The sound crawls up his spine like cold fingers. He skips the remaining steps, jumping over them and landing on the ground floor.

Sometimes he lands on his feet; most often, he does not.

He falls hard on his knees and hands, the bell digging into his palm.

They are just three stairs above him.

He rushes into the library and rings the bell, his vision blurring, and his breathing wheezy. Books topple from the shelves as he bolts out.

The dining room is next. The large oak table was gone, taken with his parents, but the large glass cabinets stayed. Inside, he can barely make out the china, chipped and broken. He strikes the bell. They are right behind him; they stagger and bump against the cabinets, and china clinks and shatters.

Why? Samuel thinks. Why is it always here, and why always me?

His stomach churns and burns, bile rising up his constricted chest as he makes it through the kitchen, moving quickly, faster than the steps that follow. He doesn't stop anymore. He rings the bell as he passes through, making it to the living room, where he does the same.

He is almost done. The vestibule is all that remains; then tonight will be over, and the footsteps will vanish for another year.

He struggles with the locks on the great doors. The last lock is still too high for him. But he is running out of time.

The footsteps are coming. Heavier now, slower, but still advancing. They bump into furniture, walk into walls, and trip over rugs as they approach.

Samuel stands on the tips of his toes, stretching toward the last lock, as they enter the living room.

Click. The lock is undone. The bell is rung.

He falls to his knees and strains his ears. The footsteps are gone.

He knows they won’t catch him now because the sun is rising. He can see it through the stained-glass window in the door—fractured, but warm.

The pain that has been building in his stomach is unbearable now, and his legs will not hold him. Hot tears roll down his pale cheeks as he leans against the wall. The cold of the house creeps up his body.

He remembers then: when he first got sick, his parents had given him the small silver bell. They told him to ring it, and they would come—no matter what room they were in, they would hear it, and he would be safe.

Samuel rings it again. Then once more. Each time staring at the door.

His eyelids grow heavy. His breathing grows shallower.

He isn’t afraid of falling asleep there.

Because every morning on the nineteenth of September, he wakes up in his bed and everything is as it usually is—except there is never any breakfast or medicine left out for him on that day.