The Cistern Girl

My grandmother used to tell us that the old school in the fens had its own kind of weather—a damp that settled into your bones and never left, no matter how many summers you spent away. But it wasn’t the damp that made me dread returning each autumn; it was the memory of a girl I saw my first year there, a girl who lived in the walls of the east wing.

I was twelve when my parents sent me to Marrowgate Academy, a boarding school for girls that had been carved out of a crumbling manor house in the middle of the Essex marshes. The building was all dark wood and stone, with corridors that twisted like the roots of the ancient oaks outside. The most important rule, drilled into us from the first day, was to always knock before entering any bathroom. There were no locks on the doors, and the prefects were strict about it. We were told it was for privacy, but the older girls whispered a different reason: that someone had drowned in one of the baths years ago, and the door had been locked from the inside. They said her spirit still waited for someone to come in without knocking, so she could claim them in her place.

One evening, after a particularly cold rain had turned the grounds to mud, I decided to take a late bath to warm up. The bathroom at the end of the east wing was the only one with running hot water that still worked, but it was also the one the older girls avoided. They said it was haunted, but I thought they were just trying to scare the new girls. I walked down the dimly lit corridor, my shoes squeaking on the worn linoleum. I reached the door, which was slightly ajar, and rapped my knuckles against the wood. ‘Hello?’ I called. No answer. I pushed the door open.

The room was steamy, and the air smelled of lavender and something else—something metallic, like blood. The light from the single naked bulb cast long shadows. I saw the bathtub at the far end, and inside it, a figure lay perfectly still. A girl, with long black hair that spilled over the edge and pooled on the floor like oil. Her skin was the color of old parchment, almost translucent, and she was facing the wall. I took a step closer, thinking she might be a sick student who had fallen asleep. I said, ‘Excuse me, are you alright?’

She didn’t move. The water in the tub was perfectly still, not even a ripple. It was then I noticed that the water was the color of tea, but there was a faint, dark swirl in the center, as if something had bled into it. I reached out to touch her shoulder, but my hand stopped just before making contact. A cold crept up my arm, and I saw that her hair was not just wet—it was draped over her face, and beneath it, there was a dark hole where her nose and mouth should have been. I stumbled back, but my foot caught on a loose tile, and I fell. As I hit the floor, I heard a sound like a drain being unplugged, and the girl turned her head toward me.

Her eyes were gone, just sunken sockets filled with black water. She smiled—a too-wide smile that split her face in half—and then she opened her mouth, and a cascade of water poured out, along with a small, glass marble that rolled across the floor and stopped at my feet. I screamed, but no sound came out. I scrambled away, but the door had shut behind me. I turned to try the handle, but it was locked. I pounded on the wood, but my fists made no sound, and the girl rose from the tub, her hair hanging in ropes, her body dripping with rust-colored water.

She glided toward me, and as she passed under the light, I saw that her back was split open, and inside her chest, there was a nest of twigs and dried leaves, and a small, beating heart that was not her own. She reached out a hand, and her fingers were long and thin, like spider legs. She touched my forehead, and I felt a cold rush of images: a girl, maybe a hundred years ago, who had been locked in that bathroom as a punishment. She had climbed into the tub, filled it with water, and held her head under until she stopped moving. The school had covered it up, but her ghost had stayed, waiting for someone to knock, to answer, to come in and join her in the lonely dark.

When I came to, I was lying on the tiled floor, and the bathroom was empty. The tub was dry and dusty, and there was no sign of the girl or the marble. But on my forehead, I found a small, blue mark, like a fingerprint. And ever since, I have been able to see things I shouldn’t: shadows that move against the light, whispers in empty rooms. I left Marrowgate at the end of that year, but the mark never faded, and I know that girl is still there, waiting. Sometimes, late at night, I hear a knock on my bedroom door, and when I open it, there is no one there. But I always knock on bathroom doors now, even my own. And I never, ever enter one without saying: ‘I’m coming in.’ Because the cistern girl, she remembers. And she might be looking for a new friend.