Tabula Rasa

It was a few weeks after we moved in and I was cleaning the house for the first time since we got rid of the last few boxes. There were footprints in the hall. Muddy footprints of bare feet. I scrubbed them, annoyed that the previous owners had not cleaned properly. I noticed them again a couple of weeks later. Muddy footprints from the backdoor, through the kitchen and into the hallway. Then they stop. You can see that they stood still. Two footprints side by side on the floorboards. Then nothing. We don't have children, and it's winter here so we are definitely not going around barefoot. I wondered if it might be the local kids trying to freak us out - the new city folk moved to the countryside. Coming in with muddy feet and then retracing their steps. I mopped them up and made sure I kept the door locked, an eye out for the neighborhood kids. A few days after that they were back again, but this time they continued to the bottom of the stairs. You agreed to change the locks on the front and back doors, but thought I was being ridiculous. Said they didn't even look like footprints really, it was probably just dirt tracked in by one of us. The day after we changed the locks they were there again, but they looked different. As though whoever left them had been running. They stopped at the top of the stairs. Two feet pointed down the corridor, towards our bedroom door. I stopped sleeping. I lay awake at night, the sound of the wind or a creak sending my body rigid, straining to hear another sound. I feared that if I slept I would wake to find the footsteps closer to my door. I was not sure what I was scared of exactly, it was definitely a local kid trying to spook us. I didn't want to leave the city, but you wanted to escape the hustle and bustle. You said I was making it up, giving us a reason to go back. I should stop making up some spook in the night to give us a reason to give up. There were footsteps outside the bedroom door this morning. I feel sick with dread, with exhaustion. It is 2am. I strain to hear over the sound of your muffled snoring. I strain to hear over the sound of my heartbeat in my ears. You finally stop snoring. I hear a sound. A creak? The blackness of the room presses in on me, no streetlights to illuminate with an orange glow. I shake you, but you do not rouse. You're a heavy sleeper. Your arm out of the duvet, cold in the winter air. I turn on my bedside lamp, ready to apologize for waking you. I see footprints on our floor. They stop at your side of the bed. Your body is cold in the winter air.