1914

The stairs creaked beneath my feet.

I stopped moving, hoped that Mamma didn’t hear me.

There were voices coming from the living room. Mamma’s friend - I couldn’t remember her name - she was here.

I continued down the stairs towards the kitchen, and, most importantly, the biscuit tin.

As I passed the living room, I heard Mamma speak. Her voice was shaky. ‘He’s not been the same. I get nothing from him. He barely says a word, never so much as cracks a smile. He just seems… angry.’

‘My Peter has been the same,’ Mamma’s friend said. I still couldn’t remember her name; just that her husband worked with Pappa. ‘Only for a few days. What’s happening, Sofia? What are we going to do?’

A scream erupted outside.

Mother and her friend rushed to the door, opened it, and stared outside. I watched from my position on the stairs, taking care not to move or risk alerting Mamma to my presence.

Outside, in the road, a woman clutched at a man’s body. He laid still, motionless. His limbs flopped to one side as the wailing woman held him tight.

‘My God…,’ Mamma murmured. ‘Samuel…’

‘What is happening, Mamma?’ I asked, and the two women jumped with flight.

‘Thomas, dear,’ she replied, ‘Go upstairs. Do you hear me?’

The wails continued.

‘But Mamma... what’s happened to that man?’ I asked.

‘Go upstairs!’ Mamma repeated, raising her voice. I would have thought her angry, were it not for the tears in her eyes.

I went upstairs, but instead of returning to bed, I went into Mother and Father’s room. The bed was empty; father was still not home.

Peering out of the bedroom window, I watched as townsfolk rushed to aid the screaming woman. Around the man’s body, the ground grew red.

‘They killed him!’ she screamed. ‘They killed him! They killed him!’

* * *

2018

My cousins went quiet after I told them what I’d heard, and with the conversation now dead, we soon retired from the bar. We trudged slowly back up the hill to their home in silence, the ground wobbling slightly in front of me as the many beers affected my ability to traverse such a terrain.

We opened the front door to find that Aunt Mia was home, sipping at a glass of wine in front of the television.

‘Oh, hey, Mrs M!’ I slurred. ‘How was the Great Gatsby?’

Mia’s eyes lit up. ‘It’s great! Thanks for asking! He is just such a beautiful, complex character. I do hope that everything works out for him.’

The four of us sat and talked for a while, El uncharacteristically quiet, and Hans very much characteristically so. When the hour grew late, and the yawns grew frequent, we dispersed for bed.

I tucked myself in, got comfortable, and began to mull over what El and Hans had said. They’d definitely had an interest in this voice I’d heard - but why?

Was it as innocent as eavesdropping on the lives and drama of a neighbour? Just the voice of someone nearby, El and Hans having so little to do that they have to spy on their neighbour?

Or was it something worse; perhaps a sign of mental instability that might run in the family? A voice that wasn’t really there at all?

Defeated by the physical exertions of the day behind me, I soon found my eyelids closing, and sleep begin to tease its way into my body.

But then I heard voices again. It was little more than whispers this time, the words impossible to make out. I focussed, tried to listen more closely. Perhaps it was two voices, I decided, not just the one. I sat up, leaned towards the noise, and suddenly-

It stopped.

There were a few moments of silence, and then the floorboards began to creak.

Closer and closer the sounds came, until they were just outside my door.

‘Daniel,’ El whispered. ‘It’s me.’

Then, a muffle noise.

‘...And Hans,’ she continued. ‘Can we come in?’

I pulled a t-shirt on and invited them to do so. They entered, closed the door quietly behind them, and perched themselves on the end of my bed.

‘What is it?’ I asked. ‘Or are you just here to freak me out?’

‘We were discussing…,’ El started. ‘Discussing whether to loop you in or not.’

‘...On what?’

Hans raised an eyebrow.

‘What do you think?’ El replied. ‘What we were discussing at the bar.’

‘What, the voice I heard?’ I responded, acting as though I hadn’t been obsessively thinking about it.

‘Well, yeah. Not just the voice you heard, though.’

‘You heard it too?’

El nodded. ‘I heard it for years. Always saying the same things... come closer, come and find me,-’

‘...Come and see,’ I added.

‘Yeah.’

‘And you, too, Hans?’ I asked, turning to the as-yet silent cousin.

‘No,’ he replied - curt and direct in tone.

‘Just me,’ El reiterated. ‘But I heard it for years. And when I was young, maybe six or seven, I found myself going looking for it. In the night. Alone.’

She paused for effect before continuing.

‘Mum blew a fuse, as you can imagine, and asked me what the hell I was doing.’

‘...So she told her,’ Hans added.

‘Yeah,’ El continued, ‘I told her. About the voice. Big mistake. The next few weeks became all about doctors, specialists. Most of whom told me that I had something wrong with me, and the rest of them Mum chose to ignore. Turned out it runs in the family. Grandad-’

‘Our Grandad,’ Hans added, nodding at me.

‘Grandad had the same problem. Or has. I dunno, I haven’t asked. Not the sort of thing you ask your grandfather, is it? But, anyway, they put me on pills.’

‘And they helped?’ I asked, wondering about my own state of mind.

Hans looked down. El shook her head. ‘If Mum asks: yes, yes they did. But I only said that to get her off my case. Truth is; nothing changed.’

‘What do you think it is? The voice? A neighbour, or…?’

Hans scoffed, shook his head.

‘No, Daniel.’

‘Then what is it?’

‘We don’t know.’

‘But… I don’t understand, don’t you go looking for it?’ I asked.

El sighed. ‘I try my best not to. It’s hard, though. A big part of me wants to find it, so I find I just have to fill that desire with other things.’

‘So if I’m hearing it…,’ I started, then trailed off, hoping that El or Hans could finish my sentence for me.

‘Don’t go looking for it,’ El replied.

* * *

Sleep didn’t approach me again that night. With every breeze, with every swaying tree, I heard whispers. Or, at least, I thought I did.

But there was nothing coherent until the dead of night.

‘Come and see,’ it said, again. I could barely hear it, but I knew in my heart it was there.

‘Come and find me,’ it reiterated.

I remained still, but already I felt the pull to follow this instruction.

‘You must see,’ it whispered. ‘You must.’

For hours, I fought the urge to find the source of the voice, but soon was overcome.

As quietly as I could, I dressed myself, making noise only when I accidentally knocked my boot against the wall. I paused, listening for signs that others had woken up - but heard none.

I crept slowly down the hallway and on to the stairs, when a door creaked. I stood still. In the darkness of the house, I could have sworn that something was looking at me.

Once a few minutes had passed, I continued, and successfully made it out the front door without feeling as though I had woken anyone else up.

I listened for the voice, and it wasn’t long until the voice presented itself once again.

‘Come and see,’ it repeated, in that same harsh whisper.

It came from behind the house, up the hill and out of town - and so that way I trudged.

The steep hill slowed me down, and I had to pause for breath often as I moved, but still the voice called me on, growing louder with every step.

Behind me, to the east, the sky began to glow with the faintest warning of dawn.

Eventually, I came to the boundary of a great pine forest, and from amongst the darkness, the voice called me in.