The Blue Hostel

My family moved every few years, but the house in Bramblewood was the first one that felt like a mistake. I was twelve, and my father, a contractor, had fallen for a Victorian-era boarding house at the edge of town, just past the old railway. The town was called Meridian, and it was the kind of place where everyone knew your name by the end of the week, but no one talked about the hostel on Birch Street.

The hostel had been converted into a single-family home, but it still smelled of old liniment and boiled vegetables. The floorboards creaked in patterns that almost spelled words. My room was at the end of the second-floor hallway, a small, narrow space with a single window that looked out onto the overgrown garden. The previous owner had left a brass bed with a mattress that sagged in the middle, and the wallpaper was a faded pattern of blue roses that peeled in strips, revealing the plaster beneath.

The first night, I woke to the sound of footsteps in the hallway. They were slow, heavy, like someone dragging their feet. I thought it was my father, but when I opened my door, the hallway was empty. The air was cold, and the wallpaper along the wall seemed to ripple, as if something were moving behind it. I went back to bed and pulled the covers over my head, rationalizing it as an old house settling.

The next day, I found a small ledger in the basement, hidden behind a loose brick in the foundation. It was dated 1898, and it recorded the daily operations of the boarding house. The handwriting was spidery, and the ink had faded to a rusty brown. Each page listed guests, their arrival and departure dates, and a column for ‘remarks.’ One page caught my eye: ‘Guest: Miss E. Wrye, room 3. Remarks: Left in the night. No sign of her. Paid through the week.’ I was in room 3.

That evening, I got a splinter from the floorboard while walking barefoot. I pulled it out and noticed a small, iron key imbedded in the wood, almost like it had been hammered in. I pried it out. The key was cold, and the bow was shaped like an eye. I decided to test it on the locked door at the end of the hallway, the one with the painted-over knob. It turned with a click, and the door swung open to reveal a narrow staircase going down, not up. The stairs were stone, spiraling into darkness.

I didn’t go down that night, but the next day, after school, I gathered a flashlight and a rope. I told my parents I was going to explore the attic, but instead I crept down those stone steps. The air grew thicker, and the walls began to sweat with moisture. At the bottom, there was a heavy oak door with a peephole. I pushed it open.

Inside was a room that defied the house’s footprint—it was vast, with high ceilings and rows of iron bedsteads, each with a thin mattress stained with something dark. On the far wall, there was a large painting, covered in dust. I wiped it clean. It was a portrait of a woman in a high-collared dress, her face half in shadow. Her eyes were the color of the blue roses on my wallpaper. Below the painting was a small brass plaque that read ‘M. Wrye, Proprietor.’

As I stared, the painting’s eyes seemed to move, focusing on me. I heard a low hum, like a tuning fork, and the room grew colder. I turned to leave, but the door had swung shut. The handle was a simple latch, but it wouldn’t budge. I pushed, I pulled, I beat on it with my fists. The wood was solid, and my calls echoed but were swallowed by the vastness. I was trapped.

Hours passed, or maybe minutes. The hum grew louder, and the bedsteads began to vibrate, and from each one, a figure began to take shape—translucent, gray, like heat haze. They were the guests, the ones who never left. They shuffled toward me, their mouths open but silent, pointing at the painting. The woman in the painting was now clearer, and her lips parted, and I heard a single word, not spoken aloud but felt in my bones: ‘Stay.’

I closed my eyes, and when I opened them, I was back in my room, lying on my bed, the iron key in my hand. The blue roses on my wallpaper seemed darker, more pronounced. I never told my parents, but I started sleeping with the light on. I also noticed that the keyhole in my door was the same shape as the eye-bow key. One night, I got up to use the bathroom, and as I passed my door, I saw a thin sliver of light from the hallway, but there was no one there. And from the floor, I heard a faint shuffle, as if the house itself was shifting to accommodate a new resident.

We moved out three months later, after my father found the foundation was crumbling. But on the last night, I saw her—the woman from the painting—standing at the end of the hallway, her hand on the doorknob of room 3. She turned to me, and her mouth formed that single word: ‘Stay.’ I didn’t say anything, but as we drove away the next morning, I looked back at the house and saw the blue roses in the window, and I knew that somewhere beneath the floorboards, the ledger was waiting for a new name. And I knew that name would be mine, because I had taken the key, and the key had taken a piece of me.

Years later, I still have the key. It sits in a drawer in my apartment, but sometimes, when I pull it out, I see my reflection in the bow, and behind my reflection, there is a hallway, and a woman in a high-collared dress, smiling. She hasn’t let go yet.