We found the stairs by accident, behind the refrigerator's hum, where the linoleum peeled like old skin. Upward they spiraled, not wooden but made of folded newspapers, headlines screaming dates from tomorrow: LOCAL MAN EATS OWN SHADOW, SKY REPORTS MISSING BIRDS.

At the top, the attic breathed. Not empty—full of us. Smaller versions, knee-high, dressed in our childhood clothes, but with eyes like boiled eggs, white and veined. They whispered our secrets in reverse: esroh sih—his horse?—no, his horse is, looping back on itself.

One tugged my sleeve, its hand a clutch of keys that jingled without sound. "Stay," it mouthed, lips syncing to a radio static from 1932. Outside, the moon hung sideways, leaking milk that pooled in the street, reflecting faces we swore we'd never met.

We descended laughing, but the newspapers followed, rustling in our pockets. Now, when I cough, the headlines tumble out, wet with tomorrow's rain. And the small ones? They wait in the fridge, behind the milk, eyes peeled for dinner.

In the attic where shadows grew teeth overnight, the clock ticked with the sound of someone else's pulse. Its hands were not hands but elongated nails, curving like question marks that scratched the air. Each second, they dragged across the woodgrain floor, leaving furrows filled with yesterday's regrets—tiny, wriggling things that whispered your childhood phone number backward.

You climbed the stairs once, drawn by the scraping symphony. The clockface was a mirror, but the reflection blinked out of sync: your eyes were where its numbers should be, counting down to a birthday you never had. "Time to peel," it murmured, and its nails pried at your skin, unspooling threads of vein that looped back into its gears.

Downstairs, the family dinner waited, forks tapping like impatient metronomes. But the stairs had multiplied, each step a tongue tasting your soles, and the clock's nails followed, clicking approval. By morning, the attic was empty, save for a single tick echoing from your wristwatch—now fitted with nails that grew longer each glance.

Outside, the sun rose crooked, nails tapping on the windowpane.

In the butter-soft hours after midnight, the grandfather clock grew hungry.
Its pendulum swung like a tongue, lapping at the wallpaper's peeling veins.
We watched from the parlor, our fingers fused to porcelain cups,
tea cooling into mirrors of drowned faces—yours, mine, the milkman's ghost.

It whispered recipes: bone broth from forgotten keys, marrow jam from splintered floorboards.
The hands twisted backward, gnawing through the twelve, spitting out numerals like bloody dice.
Eleven rolled under the settee, where the cat nursed a litter of rubber gloves.

You laughed, but your mouth unfolded into a drawer of silverware, forks clinking like teeth in sleep.
I reached for your hand; it uncoiled into measuring tape, wrapping my wrist in inches of regret.
The clock belched chimes—seven, sour as curdled screams—and the room tilted.

Now we hang from its chains, feathers in our lungs, counting the ticks that birth our shadows.
They scuttle free, wearing our skins like ill-fitting coats, knocking politely at the door.
Open up, they murmur. It's time for breakfast.

In the attic where shadows knit themselves into doilies,
the grandfather clock coughed up a sparrow.
Its feathers were made of yesterday's regrets,
ticking softly against the pendulum's indifferent swing.

Mother's teeth grew roots overnight,
burrowing into the floorboards like hungry question marks.
She whispered recipes for storms,
stirring thunder with a wooden spoon carved from her shadow.

The children played hopscotch on the ceiling,
their laughter dripping like oil from rusted faucets.
One by one, they peeled off their faces,
revealing maps of streets that led only to their own navels.

Outside, the sun blinked Morse code apologies,
while the mailbox devoured letters whole,
spitting out replies in the tongues of drowned clocks.
We listened, mouths agape, as our reflections began to vote.

In the parlor where shadows knit their own socks, the clock grew fingernails. Long, yellowed things that curved like question marks, tapping Morse code against the glass face—tick, scratch, tick, scratch—spelling confessions no one could read.

Father's pipe smoked itself that evening, puffing rings that floated upward and rearranged the ceiling into a map of drowned continents. "The milk is late," Mother murmured, her lips peeling back like onion skins to reveal teeth made of porcelain spoons. She stirred the soup with her elbow, and it bubbled hymns in a language of rust.

Upstairs, the children played tag with the wallpaper. It peeled in pursuit, corners flapping like startled bats, chasing their giggles into the folds of the quilt. One child vanished into a knot in the floorboards, emerging later as a collection of echoes, rattling loose in the banister.

Outside, the moon hung too low, its craters leaking silver tadpoles that wriggled across the lawn, schooling into the shapes of forgotten neighbors. They knocked politely on the window, mouths opening and closing: Let us in. We miss the taste of curtains.

The clock's nails grew longer, piercing the dial at three-fifteen, which bled ink onto the carpet. Father lit his non-smoking pipe anyway, inhaling the map until his lungs unfurled like sails. Mother served the soup—hymns and all—and we drank until our veins hummed the refrain.

By dawn, the wallpaper had won the game. It draped us all in victory folds, and the clock applauded with a thousand tiny scratches, forever three-fifteen in the parlor of half-remembered homes.