Silent Night, Small Box

The snowstorm came suddenly that Christmas Eve, blotting out the moon and wrapping the world in a shroud of white. Julia hadn't planned to spend the night in her late grandmother's house. She only intended to pick up the last of the family heirlooms before the new owners moved in after New Year's. But the storm had other plans.

The old Victorian creaked under the weight of the wind and snow. Julia wrapped herself tighter in a quilt she'd found in the upstairs bedroom and stoked the fire in the parlor. Her car was already buried outside, the driveway invisible beneath layers of ice. With no cell service and the storm raging, she resigned herself to a solitary Christmas Eve.

The house had always been peculiar. Julia remembered visiting as a child, the way the stairs groaned like they were sighing under invisible feet, how the shadows seemed to linger longer than they should in the corners. But it had been her grandmother's sanctuary, filled with faded photographs and delicate porcelain figurines.

As she sat by the fire, the old cuckoo clock in the hallway struck midnight, its chime echoing strangely through the empty house. Julia set down her mug of tea and stared into the flames. She wasn't tired, though she wished she were.

That was when she heard it—a soft, rhythmic tapping.

At first, she thought it was a branch knocking against a window. But the sound came from deeper within the house. Tap-tap-tap. Frowning, Julia stood and grabbed the flashlight from the side table.

"Probably just the wind," she muttered, though her voice did little to fill the silence.

The tapping grew louder as she moved through the house. It seemed to come from the dining room, where the antique table and chairs still stood under a dusty chandelier. She swept the beam of the flashlight across the room. Nothing seemed out of place.

Tap-tap-tap.

The sound was sharper now, coming from the far corner of the room. Julia's stomach tightened as she approached. Her flashlight revealed a small wooden door near the baseboard, no taller than her knee. She had never noticed it before, though she'd visited this house countless times as a child.

"Odd," she said, crouching to inspect it.

The door had no handle, just a small keyhole. It looked ancient, the wood warped and splintered with age. The tapping had stopped, replaced by a silence so heavy it felt oppressive. Julia hesitated, her fingers hovering near the edge of the door.

Then, as if in answer to her curiosity, the tapping resumed. But this time, it wasn't behind the door.

It was upstairs.

Her pulse quickened. She straightened, the flashlight shaking slightly in her grip. There was no one else in the house; she was certain of that. Yet the taps continued, steady and deliberate, coming from the second floor.

"Get it together, Julia," she whispered, though her voice betrayed her fear.

She ascended the staircase slowly, each creak of the wood beneath her feet like a gunshot in the stillness. The sound led her to the hallway outside the bedrooms. The tapping was louder now, coming from behind the door to her grandmother's old sewing room.

She hesitated, hand on the doorknob.

"Hello?" she called out. No answer.

Gathering her courage, she turned the knob and pushed the door open.

The room was as she remembered it—cluttered with spools of thread and fabric scraps, the old sewing machine sitting like a sentinel in the corner. But the air was heavy, thick with a strange metallic scent that made her stomach churn.

And then she saw it.

On the floor, near the center of the room, was a small wooden box. It was covered in intricate carvings, the patterns swirling like smoke. The tapping had stopped, but Julia felt an almost magnetic pull toward the box.

Against her better judgment, she knelt and reached for it. The wood was cold to the touch, unnaturally so, as if it had been left outside in the snow. There was no latch, no visible way to open it. Yet as she held it, she felt the faintest vibration, as if something inside was alive.

A whisper broke the silence, so faint she thought she'd imagined it.

"Let me out."

Her breath caught. She dropped the box and stumbled back. The whisper came again, louder this time.

"Let me out, Julia."

Her name. It knew her name.

She scrambled to her feet, her flashlight beam swinging wildly around the room. The shadows seemed to writhe, stretching toward her like fingers.

"Who's there?" she demanded, her voice trembling.

The whisper turned into a growl, low and guttural. The box began to shake, the carvings on its surface glowing faintly. Julia backed toward the door, her heart hammering in her chest.

Before she could reach the hallway, the box split open with a deafening crack. A thick, black mist poured out, swirling and coalescing into a shape that defied logic. It was both formless and solid, shifting between the two like smoke trapped in a jar.

The thing moved toward her, its presence suffocating. Julia tried to scream, but no sound came out.

"You shouldn't have touched it," the thing hissed. Its voice was a cacophony of tones, as if a hundred voices were speaking at once.

She turned and ran, her feet slipping on the wooden floor. The house seemed to twist around her, the walls closing in, the shadows growing deeper. She stumbled down the stairs, nearly falling in her desperation to escape.

When she reached the front door, it wouldn't budge. The lock was frozen, the key nowhere to be found. The thing was behind her, its tendrils of mist reaching for her.

Desperate, Julia turned toward the fireplace. The flames had gone out, but the embers still glowed faintly. She grabbed the iron poker and swung it wildly as the thing advanced.

"Stay away!" she screamed, though she knew it was futile.

The mist enveloped her, cold and suffocating. Julia felt herself being pulled into the darkness, her vision narrowing to a pinprick of light. The last thing she saw was the box, sitting innocently on the floor, its carvings now dull and lifeless.

When the storm cleared the next morning, the house stood silent. The new owners arrived later that week, their excitement palpable as they stepped inside.

They didn't notice the small wooden box sitting on the mantel, nor the faint whispers that began as soon as they closed the door.