“Mrs. Mitchell, Toby says the man in the basement told him not to show you this,” his teacher, Mrs. Gable, said as she slid a piece of cheap blue construction paper across the desk.

I sat in one of those tiny plastic classroom chairs, the kind that makes your knees feel like they are up to your chest.

The room smelled like floor wax, old apple juice, and that powdered hand soap they use in elementary schools.

I looked down at the drawing. It was a yellow house. Toby had used the bright yellow crayon, the one with the broken tip, to color the walls. There was a stick figure of me with long brown hair, and a smaller stick figure labeled “me” standing in the yard.

But it was the bottom of the paper that made my stomach drop.

Beneath the grass line, Toby had drawn a heavy black box with thick, aggressive crayon strokes. Inside the box was another stick figure, much taller, drawn entirely in black. Beside it, in shaky, irregular print, he had written: “the man in the basement.”

“We don’t have a basement, Mrs. Gable,” I said. My voice sounded thin, even to me. I cleared my throat, trying to sound like a normal, reasonable mother. “We bought the house on Oak Street 5 years ago. It is a split-level ranch on a concrete slab. No basement. No cellar. Just dirt and pipes beneath the floorboards.”

Mrs. Gable did not look convinced. She was a woman in her late 50s, the kind of teacher who had seen everything, and she looked at me with a heavy, quiet concern that made my chest tighten.

“I know that, Ellen,” she said softly. “But Toby was very insistent. He told me the man lives in the dark place under his bed and talks to him through the metal grate in the floor. He said the man told him it was their little secret.”

My hands started to cold-sweat. I thanked her, folded the blue paper, and put it into my purse.

I need to explain something about our house.

We bought it for $310,000 after saving every single penny we had for 8 years. I worked as a receptionist at a busy dental office, filing paper charts and arguing with insurance companies that didn’t want to pay for root canals. My husband, Greg, worked in logistics for a shipping company. We clipped coupons, drove an old Chevy Impala with rust eating the bottom of the doors, and rarely went out to eat.

This house was our dream. It had a big backyard, mature maple trees, and a quiet neighborhood where Toby could ride his bicycle without me worrying.