The Whisper Beneath the Floorboards

Journal Entry – October 20, 1871

Cherryvale, Kansas

The wind woke me before dawn, a thin, reedy whine slipping through the cracks like a voice searching for shape. The room was still — too still — and for a moment I thought it was only the storm returning. But the sound was coming from beneath the floor.

A whisper. Soft. Threaded with breath.

It rose and fell like someone murmuring through cloth — words just beyond comprehension. I lit the lamp and watched the shadows crawl across the boards, waiting for the sound to fade. It didn’t. The clasp on the table began to hum again, faint but steady, pulsing in rhythm with the mark on my palm. Each throb felt like a heartbeat pressed against the wood between us.

When I pressed my hand flat to the floor, the boards felt warm — almost alive. I whispered back before I could stop myself, a single word that came unbidden from somewhere I no longer claim as mine. The hum deepened, and for a breath I thought I heard a reply. Not in English. Not in any tongue a woman should know.

By daylight, the sound was gone, but the air hasn’t settled. Even the dust seems to tremble. The clasp is different now — the silver dulled, the hinge slightly parted, as if it has been opened by unseen hands. Inside, where the lining should be, I found something pressed flat against the metal: a small tuft of dark hair tied with red thread.

I don’t remember placing it there.

And yet, it smells faintly of my perfume.

— K.