I Think He Knows

A Christmas Short Story

There is someone in the house.

I wake into the dark as into water, held and surrounded. A sound, at first, that refuses to declare itself. Not a crash. Not a voice. Something smaller, chosen. I lie still and find I am counting my breaths as though breath were a thing that might betray me. The house makes its night-noises around me: pipes ticking like cooling metal, timber giving up in tiny increments, the slow complaint of a floorboard downstairs—slow enough that, for a moment, I can pretend it is the house itself, shifting in its sleep.

I don’t reach for my phone. I don’t call out. I don’t turn on the light. I have never been good at summoning witnesses.

Christmas Eve was the only night we were given instructions instead of warnings. A rare administrative mercy. Stay in bed. Don’t come out, even if you think you hear something—especially if you think you hear something. My parents said it smiling, already worn down by the season, already relieved to outsource the night to someone else. He wouldn’t hurt us. He only came if we were good enough. I remember the comfort of it, the clean geometry of cause and effect: behave correctly and the house is visited; behave correctly and nothing bad happens because you have complied.

Lying there, listening to the soft, ordinary sounds of a building doing what buildings do, I felt safe in a way that had nothing to do with locks. I felt chosen.

I felt—absurdly—approved of, like a dog that has not chewed the furniture.

As a child I used to lie very still and feel proud of myself for knowing how not to move. I didn’t call it fear then. I called it proof. Proof that I could be trusted. Proof that I could disappear properly.

Whatever it is downstairs continues. I don’t imagine footsteps, but I don’t imagine nothing, either; the middle space is the one you learn to live in. The rules are very clear about this part. If you do everything right, he comes and goes. He leaves things the way he found them. He does not leave a mess. I keep my eyes closed. I keep my body quiet. I wait, as though waiting were a kind of offering.

Morning comes.

I wake before dawn because the house is too quiet. Not silent—just settled, the way a room is when something has been decided in it. The lights on the tree are still on. I must have forgotten to turn them off. I have the small, private satisfaction of that, the satisfaction of catching myself being reliable. The living room looks the same as it did the night before, at least at first glance: the same deliberate spacing of presents, an exhibit by someone with a fondness for symmetry. I stand there longer than I need to, letting my eyes adjust, giving myself time to recognise things in the correct order.

That is when I see the new one.

It sits close to the trunk, tucked in like an animal sleeping under cover, placed as if it has always been there and I have simply failed to notice. The paper is plain, the colour of unbleached flour. The ribbon is tied neatly, not decorative so much as secure—a knot that expects resistance. I don’t touch it. I tell myself I am only trying to remember whether I put it there myself, as if memory were a ledger and I might balance it with enough concentration.

I crouch and press my hand against the side of it. Not lift—just test. The paper is cool, smoother than I expect, pulled tight over whatever is inside. It doesn’t give the way boxes do. It doesn’t shift. There is weight, yes, but more than that there is shape: something that holds itself. I think, stupidly, of care. Whoever wrapped this took their time, smoothing the paper flat, working their way around corners that aren’t really corners at all. I draw my hand back and flex my fingers, as if they’ve gone numb. The room remains itself. The tree lights blink on and off, a patient little signal. Nothing else acknowledges the alteration.

I try to think of reasons before I let myself think of explanations. A delivery left at the wrong house. A neighbour dropping something off early, meaning to knock later. A prank—though the effort seems out of proportion, which is what makes it feel less like a prank and more like a statement. My ex had a key once. That thought surfaces and passes like a fish-shadow. I tell myself it is probably something I ordered and forgot about, which does not make sense but feels, in the moment, like responsibility. I tell myself that if it were something bad, I would already know. I would feel it in my chest. I would be panicking. Instead I feel alert. Awake. The way you do when you catch something just before it becomes a problem.

I nudge it slightly, closer to the tree lights. Not far. Just enough to see it properly. The paper catches the glow and softens it, makes the surface look almost gentle. The ribbon casts a narrow shadow that moves when the lights blink. I tell myself this is all I am doing—improving visibility. I am not committing to anything. When I straighten, I realise I am still standing there with my hands at my sides, waiting, as though it might speak first. After a moment I sit down on the floor opposite it. The carpet is cold through my jeans. From here, the gift is exactly my height if I were lying down. That feels like a coincidence, and so I let it be one. I don’t examine it too closely. Looking too closely is how you invite things to look back.

I tell myself I will stop if it starts to feel wrong.

I peel at the edge of the paper slowly, careful not to tear more than necessary. The tape lifts cleanly, obedient. Whoever wrapped this knew what they were doing. I fold the paper back instead of ripping it, smoothing it flat beside me as I go, like a person laying out a sheet. The sound is quiet, controlled—a sound that implies there is an audience somewhere and I ought to be polite. Underneath there is another layer, thicker, translucent, the milky skin of packaging. I pause with my hand resting there, feeling the temperature through it. I am suddenly aware of my breathing. It is steady. That seems important. I keep going.

The material crinkles under my fingers, not loudly but with resistance. It isn’t paper. It isn’t fabric. It drags against my skin the way plastic does when it has been pulled too tight, as though it is trying to remain one thing. I tell myself it is protective, that’s all. Something meant to keep whatever is inside intact. When I peel it back it doesn’t fall away; it clings. I have to work it loose inch by inch, my knuckles brushing what’s beneath through the thin barrier. There is give there. Not softness, exactly—density. Shape answering pressure. I stop. My hand stays where it is. I become aware of how careful I am being, as if care were a kind of currency, as if caution might count for something.

I don’t let go.

There’s a smell once the plastic pulls back far enough. Not strong. Not rotten. It takes a second to place because it belongs somewhere else. Soap—something mild and familiar, the kind you buy without thinking about it. Clean sheets. Bathrooms just after someone’s showered. It doesn’t spread so much as wait. Contained. Recent. That is what unsettles me most: the sense of nearness, of the thing having been attended to. I think, briefly, of how long something would have to be here for it to smell different, for time to put its signature on it, and then I force myself to stop thinking about time at all.

I could stop. The thought arrives fully formed, reasonable, waiting for me to act on it. I could stand up. I could leave the room. I could decide that whatever this is, it isn’t mine to finish. Instead, I smooth the torn edge of paper beneath my knee and shift my weight so it doesn’t crease. I tell myself there is a difference between causing harm and allowing it, and that I have always known which side I am on. I tell myself this the way people tell themselves prayers they don’t expect to work.

The last of the wrapping gives way with a soft release, a sound you only hear when you are trying not to make any sound at all. The resistance disappears all at once. I freeze—not because I am afraid of what I see, but because I understand it, and understanding is the thing that makes you complicit. My body reacts before I can arrange my thoughts: my stomach tightens, my mouth fills with saliva, my hands go slack and useless in my lap. For a moment I am acutely aware of the room continuing as it should: the lights blinking, the heater clicking on, the house doing its small mechanical tasks, indifferent as weather. Nothing in it acknowledges what has changed.

I think of the rules we were given. How you were meant to stay still. How you weren’t meant to see him. How, if you did everything right, he would come and go without leaving a mess. I think of how wanting something was never framed as a problem—only wanting it badly enough to behave, badly enough to earn it.

I sit there longer than I should. Long enough that it begins to feel intentional. Long enough that whatever this is, whatever it means, has time to settle into the room as if it has always belonged there, tucked close to the trunk of the tree.

When I finally stand, I am careful not to step on the paper.