The Board That Held

The last footprint on Hettie’s porch had sunk into the loose board.

Its heel sat close to the front door. The toe pointed at the narrow black seam where the board had lifted, then caught again. Bram could see the print in the porch dust, deep enough to show the pressed grain beneath it. Hettie stood beside him with one hand on the door handle.

“Can you get it open?” she asked.

Bram crouched and pressed the board with his palm. It flexed a fraction, then stopped against something underneath. He heard a small wooden knock from below.

“Something’s caught under it.”

Hettie’s hand tightened on the handle. “It used to lift.”

“Then it’s shifted.” Bram set his pry bar against the edge. “Keep the door open.”

He had followed her here expecting a loose board and a practical fix. The prints had changed that. Whatever had come from his house had crossed the road without leaving a track on the hard-packed lane. It had found Hettie’s porch, and now it stood in the dust as clearly as any person who’d climbed the steps.

The board gave a faint creak beneath his tool.

Hettie looked down at it. “Bram.”

“I know.” He eased off the pressure. The print remained, its heel pressed into the wood. “I’m not fastening anything.”

He slid the flat end of the bar into the seam. The board was thick old pine, worn smooth at the edges by years of boots. Its nails had been pulled partly free, but one corner sat low. He pushed the bar under that corner and tested it gently. Resistance, then a brittle scrape from beneath.

A bent nail, perhaps. Or a sliver of the joist. He could work around either.

The next print appeared halfway up the porch steps.

Bram saw the dust depress. No shoe, no leg, no shadow crossed the step. The print simply settled there, pointing toward the door. Hettie made a small sound and let go of the handle.

“Inside,” Bram said.

She opened the door wider instead. “I’m staying here.”

He looked at her. She’d gone pale, but she met his eyes without backing away. Then he put both hands on the pry bar and leaned his weight into it.

The board lifted. The bent nail dragged along the joist with a dry, grating squeal. The old wood bowed, and the seam widened from a dark line to a finger’s breadth.

The print on the step deepened.

Bram’s arms tightened. He could feel the pry bar tremble against the joist. Under the porch, something tapped once, directly below the board he was lifting.