Now

My wife told me about the banging from next door. I told her there could be no banging from next door, because the house is empty—the To Let sign has stood aslant in number 17’s front garden for almost half a year. The shutters are closed. No light ever shines through the transom window above that door.

My wife stays home all day, looking after the baby. She has a lot of time to think, a lot of time to fill. In the void of hours it is not unreasonable to imagine certain things. And I am home late every day; every morning I depart early. I have never heard such banging at night.

Only in the day, my wife told me. There is somebody there.

Impossible, I told her.

Look—one weekend, I showed her: I went outside while she watched from the upstairs bedroom, eleven in the morning one Saturday, to knock on number 17’s front door, rapping three times in quick succession, before pausing to listen for movement inside.

In that pause I looked up to see my wife, holding our baby, staring down at me from our bedroom window. I knocked three more times, louder, in quicker succession, then paused again. Then three more times. Then I crouched down to peer through the letterbox. An empty hallway, the inverted duplicate of our own, returned my gaze. When I looked back up to our window, my wife was gone, the shutter closed.

It is just like that, said my wife from the stairwell. It seemed she did not wish to move from that spot—she hesitated, as if snared in place.

Come down, I said. Come on now.

It’s just like that—three knocks, and then a pause.

You’ve been sleeping badly, that’s all.

No.

You’ve not been sleeping badly?

No, I’ve been sleeping badly, and someone has been knocking on the wall.

Impossible, I said.

*

Things happened. It doesn’t matter how. Sometimes there is no how. I lost my job. My wife left me. It was for the best.

Tell me, I said, before she left me. Is the child mine?

I sleep badly, but rise early every day and dress for work. At seven I leave the house, walk once around the block, then return home. I watch the street from the window. I stand in the stairwell listening to the house and the houses on either side of it.

I have a lot of time to think, a lot of time to fill. In the void of hours it is not unreasonable to imagine certain things.

Yesterday, I heard it: three knocks, from the empty house next door, then a pause. Three knocks and then a pause. Then three more knocks.

*

A pause.

________

Seán Padraic Birnie is a writer and photographer from Brighton, England. His work has appeared in venues such as Best British Short Stories 2022, The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Fictionable, Cōnfingō, The Dark, ergot., and Interzone. In 2021, Undertow Publications published his debut collection of short stories, I WOULD HAUNT YOU IF I COULD. He is on Bluesky & Instagram @seanbirnie. For more information, see seanbirnie.com.