To most, my Babs was the meanest old Russian lady they’d ever met, but to me, she was the best guardian a kid could’ve asked for. My mom and dad had me long before they were emotionally or financially ready to be parents, and so my babushka stepped up and raised me more or less on her own.
Though Babs had grown up with wealth, her family lost everything in World War II. She, like many European immigrants searching for a better future in the immediate aftermath of the war, came to the United States in the late 1940s. She made the long trek overseas with my mother, who was two years old at the time, and managed to make a life for the two of them despite having few connections, little money, and only a basic understanding of the English language. I wish I knew more about her story, but she was always reluctant to talk about her past. My mother said that Babs never spoke Russian in public and kept all details of her life in the Soviet Union to herself out of fear that the KGB would show up at her doorstep. (Yes, this was an irrational fear, but I think it’s hard to understate the influence of that particular organization on anyone of Soviet descent in the mid 20th century.)
Babs had lots of strange habits, and while I don’t presume to know enough about mental health disorders to diagnose anyone, I do wonder sometimes if she had a trauma-related obsessive-compulsive-disorder. Every night, before she put me to bed, she walked around our small house twice to ensure every door and window was locked. Every tchotchke on the fireplace mantle had to be in its exact place—if I moved one of her matryoshka dolls three millimeters to the side, not only would she notice, but she would be greatly distressed. She also had a habit of knocking on things, a kind of nervous tic that doubled as a self-soothing mechanism. She always knocked thrice, and always with a pause between the second and third knock.
Knock knock … knock.
I asked her once what the pause was for, and she explained that three knocks in quick succession was ungodly—a way of mocking the holy trinity. I thought this was ridiculous, but it was also so on-brand for my superstitious, old-fashioned grandmother that I couldn’t help but think fondly of it. When I was twelve or so, I started knocking back when I heard her do it around the house. In doing so, it transformed from a nervous tic to a kind of call-and-response between us—a secret code that I could share with my favorite person in the world.
Knock knock … knock.
Knock knock … knock!
It was only when I was in my early teenage years that Babs began to teach me about her culture. She taught me basic Russian phrases (although she always complained that my pronunciation was hopeless), she taught me a few Orthodox prayers and traditions, and, my personal favorite, she taught me how to cook some of her favorite dishes. To this day, I make shchi pretty much every other night (much to my fiance’s dismay, since it makes the entire apartment smell like cabbage), but my favorite dish was kulich—a delicious sweet bread that we baked every Easter.
Easter was special for me not only because of the dishes that Babs and I would make together, but also because of a very special … let’s call it, “occurrence” that I was sometimes privy to on the night of Holy Saturday.
On the night before Easter, when I was fourteen years old, Babs invited me to sit at the rickety dining room table with her around midnight and light a few candles. She always seemed to have a bunch of long, thin candles around the house. I’m not where she got them from or if they had any cultural significance, but I remember being enchanted by the intricate engravings in the wax. She lit five that night, and then told me something in a very serious tone:
“You can listen, Kolya, but you cannot answer.”
I didn’t understand what she meant at first, but I nodded anyway, sitting across the table from her in comfortable silence. After a while of sitting and watching the dancing flames, I thought I heard a whisper. I looked up, giving Babs a questioning look, but she just gave me a small smile. When I next heard the whisper, I saw that her mouth hadn’t moved at all.
I know what some of you are going to say: that any form of contact with spirits is dangerous and unholy. I’m not here to convince you of anything, but I can tell you that nothing about that night felt sinful. The energy in that dark little room was pleasant, almost reassuring. The voices were soft and strangely familiar, even though I couldn’t place where I’d heard them before. I counted five in total, two feminine and three masculine, four speaking purely in Russian and one speaking what I thought was French. The flames snuffed themselves out, some after only a few minutes, and some after almost a half an hour. Although the candles were unscented, the room smelt of honey after all of the flames had extinguished themselves.
Babs stood up and turned the lights on afterwards. She smiled brightly at me, her eyes watery with happy tears.
“Who were they, Babs?” I asked her as we cleaned up.
“Five who I loved who are no longer with us,” she answered. “You did very good job, moy milyy. We can listen, but it is not good for us to speak. Again we will do it next year. I will teach you how, if you like.”
Afterwards, she sent me off to bed. I fell asleep that night with a lightness in my chest and the promise of warm kulich in the morning.
My babushka passed away on January 3rd of this year, and I’ve been a wreck ever since. I’m ashamed of how emotional I’ve been, especially considering that Babs lost her entire family and was still one of the strongest, most stoic people I’ve ever known. I’ve tried to follow her example and remain strong in the face of adversity, but I feel as though I’ve lost both of my parents, and God knows my actual parents have been no help.
Although I’ve lived with my fiance for the past few years, we live in an apartment close to the house I grew up in and still saw Babs often. Unsurprisingly, Babs left the house to me and not my parents. At first, the thought of selling it seemed like an act of betrayal, but it’s too small for my fiance and I, our dogs, and the children we’re hoping to have one day soon. I visit the house every once in a while to sort through her possessions and figure out what kind of repairs it needs, but the place feels so empty without her that I’m never able to stay for long.
A few days ago, I had the idea to spend Holy Saturday in the house. My girlfriend isn’t religious, so she wouldn’t mind being left alone for the night, and I thought that doing so might finally bring me the closure I needed.
Yesterday, I showed up to the house in the early evening. I had one bag with clothes and blankets and another with a few sentimental items. For a few hours, I just walked around the rooms, examining every little crack in the wall and chip in the wooden floors. Even mostly empty, the house still overflowed with memories, and I consumed them desperately, knowing that someday they might be lost to me forever. Every so often, I reached out to rap my knuckles against one of the walls or floors.
Knock knock … knock.
At around midnight, after setting up my sleeping bag in my childhood bedroom, I made my way to the dining room, which was one of the few rooms in the house to still have most of its furniture. I had brought some kulich in my bag, which I snacked on as I set up the old wooden table with the items I’d brought—a nesting doll; a photo of myself, my mom, and Babs; and the handwritten eulogy I’d delivered at my grandmother’s funeral, much of which I had written in Russian. I also placed upon the table a long, thin candle that I’d found while sorting through Babs’ belongings. Then, I lit the candle, took a seat, and listened.
Nothing happened. No whispers, no self-extinguishing of the candle, nothing. An hour passed. I had finished my kulich and the candle had burnt itself down to a nub, but instead of giving up and calling it a night, I snuffed the flame myself and lit another. I didn’t want to let go just yet. Again I waited, straining my ears and silently imploring Babs to speak, but there was only silence. When candle number two had burned itself down to nothing, I extinguished it and procured from my bag the final candle I had brought with me. One last try, I told myself. One last try, and then I’ll go to sleep. I lit the candle, and waited.
Just after 3:30, I realized that I was beginning to nod off. Remembering that I hadn’t plugged my phone into the portable charger I had brought with me, I rose from my chair and took a quick stroll to my old bedroom. I reached into my bag, pulling out the charger.
“Kolya?” Someone called out.
“Yeah?” I called back, and then froze. I had responded without thinking, acting completely on instinct. That had been Babs’ voice—I was certain of it. The sound should have filled me with delight, but instead, something felt wrong. The voice had been too loud, nothing like the soft whispers that I remembered from years past. Along with the strange tone of the voice, there was the fact that I had answered. Though Babs had never told me what would happen if we were to speak back to the voices, I imagined that she wouldn’t have made up a rule for no reason.
Slowly, I made my way back towards the dining room, keeping my ears open for the voice. There was no scent of honey, no lightness in my chest, but there was a kind of thickness in the air. I felt vaguely as though someone were pushing down on my shoulders as I cautiously walked back into the dining room. Although I didn’t hear anything else, after I turned the corner, I couldn’t believe what I saw:
Standing on the other side of the dining room table was my grandmother. The room may have been dark, illuminated only by the single candle on the table, but still I could make out her face as clear as day. She stood perfectly still, her eyes never leaving mine as I stepped into the room. I had only ever heard voices on Holy Saturday—never before had I seen an apparition, and never had I expected to see one so perfectly vivid.
“Moy milyy,” she said to me in greeting. Her voice sounded more “correct” this time, quieter and softer, just like the whispers I’d grown up hearing.
“I can’t believe it,” I said.
“I come back for you,” she whispered. Her face, her rare smile, the small birthmark under her left eye—it was all exactly as I remembered. The familiarity of her visage put some of my disquiet to rest, but still, I felt that something wasn’t quite right. Her stance was odd; she was slightly hunched, and her entire posture seemed tense.
“Come back from where, Babs?”
“From the Kingdom.” She said in her matter-of-fact way. I smiled.
“Is it beautiful?”
She smiled back. “Yes, yes. Of course.”
I looked at the table. The flame of the candle, now burned down to about two inches, was standing perfectly straight. When I looked back up, Babs had moved slightly. She seemed more crouched now, her feet planted firmly on the floor and her arms slightly raised. I was reminded suddenly of the posture a predator assumes before it pounces.
“Babs?” I asked.
She only smiled in response. I reached out to the wooden tabletop.
Knock knock … knock.
She hesitated. For the briefest moment, her smile fell away, and a very different face stared at me from the edge of the candlelight—something sharp, unfamiliar, and angry. She reached out an arm.
Knock knock knock.
I leaned forward and blew out the candle, plunging the room into darkness. I backed away from the table. It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust, but once they did, I could see that there was no one else with me in the dining room. I stood there for a moment, unsure of whether or not the connection had been severed, before the house itself answered. The windows rattled, the floor began to shake, and the house erupted with noise. Furious banging arose from every corner of the house, so loud and widespread it sounded as though there were hundreds of people inside the walls. I ran for the front door, thankful that the house was so small that it only took me a few strides to reach the handle. I threw the door open and raced towards the street, glancing over my shoulder only after I crossed the threshold.
There was a humanoid figure standing in the corridor, so tall that even hunched over at the waist, its upper back and the top of its head were pressed up against the ceiling. It wore a white gown, shaped and styled almost like a wedding dress, yet tattered and full of black stains. Thick white hair poured from its scalp and pooled on the floor next to its filthy, claw-like feet. It had one thin arm braced against the ceiling. The other arm held a thin, circular slab of painted wood over its face, the surface decorated in the style of my grandmother’s matryoshka dolls. The strained expression was nothing like the dolls’, however. Instead, its face bore a look of utter terror, its mouth open in a silent scream, its eyes so wide they were tearing at the corners, sending four trails of blood down its cheeks. I didn’t miss the way that the two streaks of blood along the left side of the face perfectly framed a birthmark under the “doll’s” eye. The creature’s shoulders shook up and down rapidly as though it were laughing at me as I fled.
Once I made it to the empty street, I looked back at the house once more. There was no figure in the hallway this time, and the shaking, which had been so violent I was certain the house was going to collapse, grew fainter and fainter until the house was still once again. The commotion had awoken one of my previous next-door-neighbors, who allowed me to use their phone to call my fiance. Though I have no one to confirm what happened inside of the house, I am somewhat vindicated by the fact that the neighbors felt the tremor as well.
I returned the next day, in the daylight, to retrieve my possessions and the last of Babs’ things. In addition to seeking spiritual guidance, I’ve decided to sell the house. At first, I thought I couldn’t do so in good conscience until I had an exorcist take a look at the house, but the three quick knocks I heard on my headboard last night made me realize that doing so would be pointless.
After all, whatever I saw isn’t after the house.
It’s after me.