The Creature Under
the Stairs

The creature under the stairs had lived there for as long as anyone in the Mossop family could remember, which was a long time, as the Mossops were not a family that forgot things easily.

It was not large. It was not small. It was about the size of a very confident badger, though it looked nothing like a badger, and if you had said this to it, it would have slid a note under the cupboard door expressing its views on the comparison, which would not have been flattering to the badger.

Nobody in the family had ever seen it clearly. It kept the light off in the cupboard and the door shut, which it considered basic privacy, and which the Mossops considered reasonable, because they had been brought up to respect boundaries even when those boundaries belonged to something that lived behind the hoover and the box of Christmas decorations they hadn't opened since 2019.

Its name, according to a note it had slipped under the door on the occasion of the family's first Christmas with it, was Winthrop.

The note had also contained three paragraphs of opinions about the choice of tree topper, which it had found derivative. The family had replaced the star with an owl, on reflection, and it had looked considerably better. This was the beginning of a pattern.

Winthrop communicated entirely in notes. The notes were written in a very small, very neat hand on whatever paper was available, which over the years had included the backs of receipts, a library card, the margin of a TV guide, and on one memorable occasion, a crisp packet, which had impressed the children considerably.

The notes were never threatening. They were never rude, exactly. They were simply — opinions. About everything. Delivered with the serenity of a creature that had never once doubted itself.

The family had, in the early days, found this alarming. Mrs. Mossop had called the landlord, who said it wasn't in the lease. Mr. Mossop had stood outside the cupboard door and explained, in a measured voice, that unsolicited advice was unwelcome in this household. A note had appeared under the door within minutes containing the single word: Disagree.

The children — Theo, who was eleven, and Priya, who was eight — had adapted fastest. Children generally do. They had started leaving notes back.

Theo had gotten the lead. He had not done the voice from the cartoon.

After that, the children began consulting Winthrop on everything. Not because they were told to — their parents had, in fact, suggested several times that perhaps one should not take life advice from something that lived behind the hoover — but because Winthrop was, against all reasonable expectation, never wrong.

The only time Winthrop had ever been wrong — or at least, the only time the family had been able to verify it — was on the question of the cat.

A cat had appeared at the back door in November, thin and orange and possessed of an extremely firm opinion about the mat on which it wished to sit. A note from Winthrop had appeared within the hour.

The cat was called Cardamom. It had immediately made itself at home in every room of the house, including, briefly, the cupboard under the stairs, after which Winthrop had slid a note under the door that said only: Absolutely not.

Cardamom had departed. She had not seemed bothered. She had better places to be.

The question of whether Winthrop was happy had occurred to Priya first, because Priya was the kind of person to whom such questions occurred, and had been since she was very small.

She had stood outside the cupboard door one Saturday morning with a piece of paper and a pencil, and she had written: Are you happy in there?

There was a long pause. Longer than usual. The Mossops had learned to read the length of Winthrop's pauses. A short pause meant a short note. A long pause meant several pages. The pause this time was medium-length, which was rarer.

The note, when it came, was four sentences.

Priya told the others. Theo said that was good. Mr. Mossop said he'd look at the hoover. Mrs. Mossop stood in the hallway for a moment looking at the cupboard door, and then she wrote a note of her own, and slid it under.

It said: We wouldn't change very much either.

There was no reply to this. But that evening, when Mrs. Mossop came downstairs for a glass of water at midnight, she saw a sliver of warm light under the cupboard door, and heard, just faintly, what might have been someone moving things around contentedly in the dark.

Or it might have been nothing. Houses make noises.

But she stood there for a moment anyway, in the quiet hallway, with the stairs rising above her and the small warm light below, and she felt, in the way one feels things at midnight in a house where everyone is asleep, that things were in their right places.

In the morning there was a new note by the kettle.

Mr. Mossop ordered a new filter that afternoon.

It arrived on Thursday. He left it outside the cupboard door without a word.

By morning it was gone.