My grandmother kept a notebook by her bed for sixty-one years. We found it when she passed — a plain school notebook, refilled and recopied over the decades, the handwriting aging with her. At the top of the first page, in the careful cursive of a young woman: THINGS IN THE HOUSE AT NIGHT.
It was an inventory. Dated entries, one line each.
'June 4, 1964 — the tall one in the hall closet. Left the door open for it. It prefers that.' 'August 19, 1964 — the crouched one is back under the stairs. Third summer. It counts to itself.' 'February 2, 1971 — something new in the nursery corner. Small. It watches the baby breathe. It seems... invested.'
The baby in that entry was my mother.
Sixty-one years of entries. Never fear, exactly — bookkeeping. She recorded them the way you'd record weather: the tall one's preferences, the counting one's summers, seasonal arrivals and departures. Around 1988 the entries develop a warmth that is worse, somehow, than terror would have been. 'The crouched one waited by the door all night when Frank was in the hospital. I believe it was keeping the others out.'
The last entry is dated four days before she died. The handwriting is shaky but the line is composed:
'They have all come to the bedroom now, which is how I know. The tall one, the counting one, the small one from the nursery who got so big. Sixty-one years of houseguests. The crouched one is holding my hand. I always wondered if it was cold. It is not.'
We sold the house in the spring. I helped my mother pack, and on the last night, alone in the empty upstairs, I heard it — soft, patient, from somewhere under the stairs. Counting.
I've started a notebook. It seems only polite. They came with the family, you see. Not the house.
June 30, 2026 — the crouched one is under my stairs now. It seems pleased someone is keeping the records again.