The Lodger

Two years ago, my grandmother rented out a room in her apartment. The first and last tenant was a young 22-year-old woman who was studying at university. My grandmother quickly found common ground with the tenant and tried to help her as if she were her own granddaughter. The tenant was very striking in appearance – long black hair, black eyes (as they say, coal-black), black eyebrows and eyelashes. Her face, in contrast, seemed unusually pale.

Their first week passed in friendship and harmony. A week later, one night, my grandmother heard unusual sounds coming from the tenant's room (loud snoring, whistling, smacking sounds) – the kind young girls usually make when sleeping. At first, she thought there was a man in the room besides the girl. She decided to check it out and went to the door, intending to wake the tenant and reprimand her for the presence of strangers in the room. When the grandmother pulled the handle, the door was unlocked, and she peered into the room. An old woman with gray hair and a wrinkled face lay on the bed. The grandmother decided not to wake the elderly woman and closed the door.

In the morning, the grandmother rose very early, as usual. While she was preparing breakfast, the lodger herself came out of the room and wished her good morning. When the grandmother asked why the lodger hadn't warned her that her grandmother was coming, the lodger was surprised and replied that no grandmother had ever come to visit. Then the grandmother told her everything she had seen that night. The lodger only smiled and said that even stranger things could happen in the dark at night. The grandmother was a little shocked by this statement—after all, she had actually seen the old woman! But believing the lodger's words, she said nothing.

When the lodger began living there, they agreed that the grandmother would clean the lodger's room for a fee. A few days later, when the grandmother tried to enter her room, she found the door locked. When the lodger returned home, the grandmother asked why her room was locked, to which the lodger replied that she would clean it herself from now on. This secrecy worried the grandmother. The next night, the lodger left and did not return until dawn. This continued for three nights, then the grandmother resumed her normal routine.

For her grandmother's birthday, a friend gave her a kitten, but as soon as it was brought into the apartment, the animal seemed to go berserk and, breaking free from her arms, ran away. Something mysterious was happening to the lodger herself, too, but the grandmother tried to ignore it. Strange sounds came from the room at night, the lodger became withdrawn and wouldn't let the grandmother into the room even for a minute. Furthermore, the grandmother's strength waned with each passing day.

 Another fact that surprised the grandmother was that the lodger never once entered her room; even when she invited her, she always declined. It was only much later that the grandmother noticed a cross and several icons hanging above the door.

This last incident shocked the grandmother completely. The building where the grandmother lived was old, and the elevator there was also old (with bars and a window). One day, while the grandmother was riding in the elevator, she saw something black flying up between the stairwells with a loud whistle. When she reached the top, the lodger was standing outside the apartment, opening the door with a key. Her hair was disheveled, her clothes were wrinkled. After this, the grandmother decided to throw the lodger out, explaining that she had decided to let a relative of hers, who was visiting from out of town, into the room. The lodger laughed and said she understood everything. After she moved out, my grandmother heard laughter every day in the empty room, and at night, knocking and creaking floorboards could be heard coming from the room. My grandmother invited a priest and blessed the apartment. This had to be done several times before the sounds stopped.

After all the rituals, everything calmed down and never happened again. The priest suggested that there was a witch in the apartment and that my grandmother had done the right thing in throwing her out; otherwise, she might have even died.