The Silence at Grandma's

[00:00:00] Welcome to Scary Story Podcast. The strange figure appears in photographs, specifically around one place. What could it mean? Why is it there? My name is Edwin, and here's a scary story. I know this will start family drama. For a time, my mom spent two years without talking to her own mother,

[00:00:25] something she tried doing to me as an adult, but I didn't allow it. I kept calling her and showing up at her doorstep until she spoke to me. It was all over a misunderstanding at a gathering for Christmas one year. No one spoke badly of her, and yet, I can't blame her for the way she reacted. It's how she learned to do things, to solve or ignore her problems. From what I understand, they both had lots of issues. Both were single mothers, trying to make it work,

[00:00:54] one a little better than the next. I never wanted to get in line for that. It wasn't until a book about immature parents that I started learning about how our parents are still solving their own problems, as they start caring less and less about how they're perceived by others, something that I think increases with age. They begin to act out, sometimes against their own children, and other times against the poor cashier at McDonald's. But it was because of this book that

[00:01:22] I started reading up on everything that's affected by the upbringing of our parents. Habits, mainly. But sometimes there are more serious things, like diseases and traumas, that we never got over. Who knows if it's true, but I know that I've discovered several fears I didn't know I had, about what I will tell you about. I went through many picture albums and questioned aunts and uncles about my grandma. A difficult woman to deal with, from what I know, but I loved her either way.

[00:01:53] She was a member of the church up until she turned 50, and right on that birthday, she made the announcement that she was quitting. Too much drama, she said. Problems that everyone knew she had created herself. Arguments from people from there, especially at the gatherings that they held sometimes. People were questioning the way she started dressing, or things that she would talk about. It was like those people who get lost in political issues and suddenly it's all they talk

[00:02:20] about. Except this was more about, how should I say this? The conspiracies. She called my brother frantically one afternoon, asking how possible it was that someone was hearing their conversation at that very instant, and how she could install an app on her phone that would keep everything private. She had seen an ad for this on Instagram, and was crazy about getting the $40 app. I don't remember what my brother told me he told her, but she was calm enough to let it go.

[00:02:51] We taught her about the scammer phone calls and everything. She was the perfect prey for it, but thankfully she never fell for any. She came close though. Grandma had an enormous house just outside of town. It's what made her relevant. I know it's messed up to say it like this, but it's the truth. A barn and access to a lakeside property that was just beyond a section of forest that the family had for generations. Still, money was tight because nobody wanted to sell anything.

[00:03:21] Not even in lots or to rent out or anything like that. And it proved to be worth it. I guess if everything went down, they had a way at least to escape it and be alright for a bit. But it never came to that. Anyway, this property was large enough to host the entire family and more for Christmas and holidays. Big celebrations and stuff like that. One of my cousins even had her wedding there, but she

[00:03:47] regretted it almost immediately. Everyone warned her about the thing that roamed around the property. But her new husband convinced her that it was all made up and that they weren't going to fall for something like that. But the wedding photos, well, they told a different story. They actually ended up retaking them, but it was only my grandmother and one of my aunts who kept those pictures. The photographer had asked about it before the final delivery.

[00:04:15] There is someone that looks like they don't belong there. He tried to be polite about it. An old dirty jacket hanging down to the ground, rotting teeth and dirty hair. He suggested to my cousin to have him edit it out, but didn't want to be rude just because of this person's appearance. But when my cousin asked to see the pictures, story goes that she screamed and asked to have the photos taken in another place.

[00:04:41] Her husband joked about it for a bit, and I got to see it around that time when grandma demanded to get the photos, the original ones, that it was her house and her rules and all that. The thing showed up in four photos. A group one by the lake, one of a family having dinner, another one of the front doorsteps of the house and the final that appeared to be the one while they were getting everything set up.

[00:05:07] I've seen all of them, and this person, one that nobody had seen before, shows up clear as day. But there was one tiny detail that the photographer left out when he brought it up. That this thing, this person, was no taller than two feet, barely reaching people's hips, or so it looked from the perspective of the photographs.

[00:05:34] Ever since then, they would meet up at one of my aunt's homes or even some of our family's apartments, squeezing in all of us until it got so hot in there that people would start filtering themselves out. But no matter how close we got to the subject of the photos, even when I tried to talk to my cousin about it, it was dismissed. Something that never happened. Something that was not a big deal. Not important enough. And yet to me, the idea of seeing this thing in the photographs really bothered me.

[00:06:04] There was something about the way it looked at the camera. When you look closer, its eyes seem to follow you. Not human. After that wedding, something shifted in the family. Not in a dramatic, storming out of the room kind of way, but in a slow, quiet unraveling that none of us wanted to admit was happening. The gatherings thinned. The warmth that used to settle over the house during the holidays faded, like the lights that had been

[00:06:34] dimmed slightly without anyone touching the switch. My cousin, the one who had gotten married out there, stopped coming altogether. She never gave a real explanation, just polite deflections and excuses. Busy with work. We're traveling this year. Things are just a little chaotic right now. But we all felt it. Something had spooked her.

[00:06:58] Our husband showed up once, alone. I found him in the kitchen during one of the last gatherings at grandma's, standing by the fridge, not drinking the soda he was holding. Then I asked him how he was doing, but he didn't meet my eyes. She won't look at the lake anymore, he said. Like it was the end of a conversation he'd already had a hundred times in his head. I didn't push it. I didn't have to. The weight of that statement stayed with me.

[00:07:30] A few months later, early in the spring, I decided to go back out there, in the property. I told myself that I was just going to go take some photos, capture the place before it fell too far into disrepair. Grandma had moved into a smaller home in town after she slept on the back porch the winter before. She said the house had gotten too big for her, too empty, too loud at night. No one had lived there since.

[00:07:58] When I pulled up the long gravel driveway, something about the house felt different. Smaller, maybe. Shrunk in on itself. But more than that, it felt like it was dying. Inside, everything was just as it had been. The dusty smell of old wood and perfume hung thick in the air. Furniture covered sheets, boxes stacked along the walls. Family photos tucked carefully into drawers instead of left out in frames.

[00:08:28] I walked through slowly, touching the walls, running my fingers across the old banister that we all used to slide down as kids. Every corner had a memory. Every shadow held something we'd forgotten or chose not to remember. In the back hallway, I passed Grandma's old prayer room. She used to call it her quiet place. Though, toward the end, she spent less time praying and more time writing notes.

[00:08:55] Lists of strange names, hand-drawn maps, snippets of what looked like overheard conversations. It started after she quit the church. She said she was keeping track of things now, though we never asked what that meant. That room still had a smell I couldn't place. Something old. I didn't linger there for long. Eventually, I stepped out the back door and made my way down toward the forest. The trail to the lake was still there.

[00:09:25] The one we had all used for years. Though, nature was starting to reclaim it. The trees had always grown tightly around the path. But now, they felt like they had leaned in more. Like they were listening. And that's when it happened. I was about halfway down the trail when something caught my eye at the base of an old, gnarled tree. Something tucked into the roots like had been placed there. I crouched down and pulled it loose. A piece of fabric.

[00:09:56] Stiff with dirt and age. A jacket sleeve. Small. Maybe child-sized. But when I held it in my hands, I realized it was too small even for a child. It was no bigger than a doll's, but clearly made for a living thing. Stitched by hand with uneven seams. The thread was black and coarse and there was something embedded into the cuff. A tiny, rusted button that looked like it had a symbol carved into it.

[00:10:25] A circle. And inside, a rough triangle with a slit through the center. I stuffed it into my bag before I could think too hard about it. But I suddenly felt exposed. Like I was standing in front of something ancient and patient. I looked around, trying to spot anything unusual. But the forest was still. And then I heard it. A single crack like a branch snapping under weight.

[00:10:55] I turned sharply, scanning the shadows between the trees. And at first, it was nothing. But then I saw it. A shape. Low to the ground, just beyond the bend in the trail. The place where the sun couldn't quite reach. It wasn't moving. I was just watching. I don't remember walking back up to the house. I just remember the way the wind had picked up. And how the branches above me made a sound like whispering.

[00:11:25] Words I couldn't quite catch. I didn't go inside again. I left. I drove straight to town and didn't stop until I was parked outside my grandmother's new place. She answered the door wearing her robe. Her hair a little wild. Like she had just woken up from a dream she couldn't shake. Before I could say anything, she looked at the bag slung over my shoulder. You went back, didn't you? She said. Her voice. Flat.

[00:11:56] I nodded. I nodded. She sighed and stepped aside and motioned for me to come in. There is something you need to know. Something none of us were supposed to say out loud. And just like that, I understood something I hadn't before. The silence in this family was an avoidance. It was protection.

[00:12:34] Her apartment was too quiet. My grandmother had always filled spaces with noise. Humming gospel tunes under her breath. Banging pots around the kitchen even when she wasn't cooking. Flicking through pages of her Bible with deliberate slowness. But that afternoon, she just sat in her recliner. Her eyes locked onto the TV. The volume barely above a whisper. A news anchor was droning in about something. Gas prices, I think.

[00:13:03] But she wasn't listening. You're not supposed to go back there alone, she said finally. You know that, right? I didn't answer. I just opened my bag and reached in. I pulled out the sleeve. I placed it gently on her coffee table, careful not to disturb whatever does had collected on it. She didn't flinch. Didn't even look surprised. Instead, she nodded once and reached behind the cushion of her chair,

[00:13:33] pulling out a worn, leather-bound notebook. It was cracked along the spine and full of dog-eared pages, some of them stuffed with clippings and handwritten scraps. This, she said, placing it beside the sleeve, was supposed to stay with me until I died. She opened it and flipped to a page that had been folded over several times. There was a sketch on it, rough, drawn in what looked like a pencil and coffee.

[00:14:02] A figure, small, bent. A long coat or robe hung around it like it had grown out of the thing itself. The face was mostly obscured by scribbles, but the eyes? She had drawn the eyes in with such force that the paper was nearly torn through. And below it, one word in large, uneven handwriting. The keeper.

[00:14:33] The keeper. The keeper. The keeper. The keeper.

[00:15:03] It came through blood, she said finally. Through grief. Through the things we didn't bury properly. You think all this land was just given to us? Your great-grandfather made a deal back when his second son died. I tried to remember. There was no second son. She looked at me then, for the first time really, and I saw a flicker of something old in her eyes.

[00:15:31] Not madness, not exactly, but sorrow wrapped in secrets. No, she said. Because the keeper took him. And in exchange, I got the land. I turned my head off to the side. I kind of wanted to laugh, to tell her that this was just another one of her wild stories. Another weird rabbit hole she'd fallen into after quitting the church. But then I remembered the photographs. The figure.

[00:16:01] The jacket. The way it seemed to be there and not there. I remembered the feeling I got in the forest like something was waiting. She turned the page. There were more sketches, more symbols. One of them matched the one on the sleeve's button. It watches over places where pain pulls, she said. It finds families who are good at pretending everything's fine.

[00:16:29] Who keep things in the walls, in the floorboards. Who inherit silence like it's money. I didn't say anything. I didn't have to. Do you remember the arguments we used to have? She asked after a while. You thought I was being dramatic. That I just wanted control. I nodded slowly. I wasn't. I was trying to stop it. You think it's just a story.

[00:16:59] But it feeds off of our forgetting. It feeds off of our refusal to see it. That's why it shows up in photographs. Not because it wants to be known, but because it is known. Deep down in the parts of us we won't talk about. She leaned back. Exhausted. Her hands shook slightly. It used to be enough just to stay off the land. To leave it undisturbed. But the weddings. The parties.

[00:17:29] The fighting. I called it back. And now it's paying attention again. I stared at the little sleeve on the table. The way it was slightly damp. Like it had just been pulled from the earth. I realized I hadn't really looked at the inside yet. So I picked it up again. Turning it over. Gently. And inside. Talking to the lighting. It was something hard.

[00:17:55] I pushed at it with my thumb until it slid into my palm. A tooth. Small. Gray. Human. No bigger than a child's. And suddenly I was cold. Not from the room. But from some memory that had not happened yet. The future nightmare. Curling at the edge of my mind like smoke. I think. My grandmother whispered.

[00:18:25] Her voice thin. That it's looking for someone new. I didn't go home after I left my grandmother's. I drove back to the house. It didn't feel like a choice. I was just behind the wheel. My hands steady. But my heart folding in on itself. The sleeve. The notebook. The tooth. They were in my bag on the passenger seat. Almost humming. Like static before a storm.

[00:18:56] Dusk was swallowing the trees by the time I pulled up into the driveway again. The windows of the house looked empty. Like hollowed out eyes. And still. I got out of the car. And still. I opened the door. It was like stepping into a memory that had rotted at the edges. The air was warmer than it should have been. The way closets smell when you left the light on for too long.

[00:19:22] I walked room to room with the kind of slowness you use in a dream. Not fully sure you want to know what's waiting around the next corner. Everything was just as I had left it until I got to the prayer room. The door was open now. I hadn't opened it before. It creaked as I stepped in. It looked different. The rug was pulled up at one corner.

[00:19:50] The wood underneath was discolored. The floorboards looked newer than the rest of the room. Cut cleaner and slightly raised. I knelt down and touched them. The edge shifted under my fingers. Loose. There was something under the floor. It took everything I had not to run right then. But I pried it open. And beneath the boards was a shallow compartment.

[00:20:19] Maybe two feet deep. Dirt and stone lying at the bottom. And resting there. Carefully arranged. Were small items. Dozens of them. Buttons. Teeth. Bits of cloth. Bone. Things that looked like they belonged to animals. And things that didn't. At the very center was a photograph. Faded and warped from moisture. I reached for it.

[00:20:49] Holding it up to the light. It was a picture of my mother. Maybe ten years old. Standing by the edge of the lake. Smiling. Alone. Alone. Alone. Except she wasn't. The figure was there. Standing just behind her. Partially hidden in the reeds. Same coat. Same height. Same unnatural stillness. And in that moment.

[00:21:18] Something in me cracked. Not fear. Not yet. But a terrible kind of understanding. This thing hadn't just returned. It had never left. I stumbled back. My heart punching through my ribs. And knocked over a box in the corner of the room. Paper scattered and something clattered to the floor. A tape recorder. Old. Dusty. And heavy.

[00:21:47] Automatically I pressed play. It was static. And then... If you're listening to this, I didn't tell you soon enough. I thought I could protect you by keeping you away. But that's not how it works. It watches the ones who pretend. Who hold it all in. Who try to fix what they didn't break. It doesn't want blood. Not really. It wants your secrets. Your shame. The things you inherit and carry anyway.

[00:22:16] The only thing that keeps it sleeping is truth. But we don't do truth in this family. We do silence. The tape clicked off. And then I heard footsteps. Not upstairs. Not outside. Below. A slow shuffle. Skin against dirt. Like something waking up. Something stretching. I dropped the tape recorder. My hands were shaking now.

[00:22:44] But I forced the floorboard shut and backed out of the room. I slammed the door and didn't look behind me. I got into the car and drove until the sky turned black. The house. It was nothing but a thought I didn't want to have. My grandmother died two weeks later. No warning. Just gone. Peaceful. They said. She left me the house. No one said. No one said anything about it at the funeral. Not the land. Not the history.

[00:23:13] Not the thing in the pictures. We gathered in the church hall like we always did and talked about how stubborn she was. How loud. How complicated. Nobody asked me why I kept glancing at the corners of the room. I haven't gone back to the house. But sometimes. When I close my eyes. I see it. That thing. Watching from the tree line. Waiting at the lake.

[00:23:41] Standing behind people who think they're alone. And I think about how the silence in my family isn't just a habit. It's tradition. It's survival. But I wonder. If I say something now. Write it down. Share it. Does that keep it asleep? What's going to happen to me now that I've told you about it?

[00:24:16] Scary Story Podcast is written and produced by me. Edwin Coarrubias. Thank you all for your ideas. You can find me on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok as Edwin Cov. That's E-D-W-I-N-C-O-V. Links to join our growing community for Scary Story Podcasts are also in the link in the description of this episode. If you're subscribed, I will tell you another story next week. Thank you very much for listening. Keep it scary, everyone. See you soon.