Neighborhood

My girlfriend and I have been living together for three years now. We spent two of those years in our current apartment. During that time, nothing strange or scary happened, but lately, something strange has started happening.

It all started with my cat—her name is Geralt (the thing is, when we got her, we were told she was a male, so without thinking twice, we named her a male name, and when we discovered otherwise, it was too late to change her name). I must say that Geralt is a very restless cat. She's constantly jumping around, climbing on cabinets, chasing shadows. We bought her a couple of toy mice at a local store, and that calmed things down. But then something happened that really scared me. I had the day off that day, and I was alone in the apartment. And suddenly, I noticed that Geralt, out of nowhere, started looking at a completely blank wall in our kitchen, her fur standing on end, as if she'd seen a dog or some other animal there that had frightened her. She suddenly grew twice her size, her tail raised like a pole, and her hair puffed up. The cat kept up a show for about five minutes, after which, with a short meow, she ran off and hid under the bed. Then she didn't come out for a long time.

About a month after this incident, strange things started happening. My girlfriend and I would wake up at the same time—exactly 3:14 a.m.—and couldn't fall back to sleep until 3:30 p.m. We constantly heard rustling sounds and footsteps. Many times, a sound like someone hitting a glass with a fingernail came from the kitchen. The apotheosis of all this was the falling icon of St. Nicholas, painted by my girlfriend's grandfather (he was an icon painter). Incidentally, my grandfather died of a stroke a month later.

 The strangeness continues to this day. Even now, as I'm typing this, I heard the creaking of the kitchen floor and the sound of someone striking a glass (there are no glasses on the table, they've all been cleared away!). Maybe the brownie is playing a prank or something. The cat also reacts to the sounds: he turns his head and runs to look. The apartment has been blessed for a long time, but that doesn't help. No one has been murdered here, and the vengeful spirit isn't trying to ruin our lives. I don't want to move out, and we've gotten used to this neighborhood.