The Second Mouth Opens

Journal Entry – November 22, 1871

The cellar breathes louder now.

This morning I heard it through the floor while pouring coffee for the travelers. They didn’t notice—their chatter drowned the sound—but each time a spoon struck porcelain, the vibration answered from below, as if the house itself mimicked us.

By afternoon, the hum spread to the walls. The wallpaper near the stairwell puckered and swelled, as though air pushed from beneath the plaster. When I pressed my hand to it, the bulge pulsed once beneath my palm—warm and damp. I drew back to find my fingers slick with something the color of candle wax.

I went to Adams Hardware for kerosene, needing any excuse to be among the living. Baxter asked if I’d been digging again; there was dirt along my cuffs I hadn’t seen. I told him the cellar leaks when it rains. He nodded, but his eyes lingered too long on my wrist, where the mark now winds past my elbow like ink spilled through veins.

Night fell early. The guests retired. I stayed downstairs, pretending to read. At midnight, the hum turned into a slow, dragging inhale, and the cellar door lifted at the latch. The space beyond it glowed faintly—like the shimmer at the edge of a dying coal.

From the threshold rose a whisper that wasn’t quite a voice:

“Feed the mouth that fed you.”

The air stank of myrrh and damp soil. The light breathed once, then vanished, leaving the door ajar.

When I shut it, the wood sighed, soft and satisfied—like something full.