The Cobalt Room

When I first laid eyes on the house, it was like meeting a wounded animal. The porch sagged, the windows were fogged with grime, and the siding had peeled away in patches, revealing dark wood underneath. But I saw potential. My boyfriend, Dale, wasn’t so sure, but I convinced him we could make it our own. We signed the lease and started renovating.

The first week was chaos—paint cans, ladders, and dust everywhere. But it was on the third night that we noticed something odd. We were eating takeout in the kitchen when we heard footsteps upstairs, slow and deliberate, crossing the floor above us. Dale put down his fork. ‘Did you hear that?’ he whispered. I nodded, my heart beginning to race. We crept up the stairs, but the hallway was empty, the spare bedroom door closed. We opened it, but nothing was there. We chalked it up to old house settling. But it happened again the next night, and the next. Doors slammed in the dead of night, waking us from sleep. Dale would shake me, his eyes wide, asking, ‘Do you hear that? Someone’s in the house.’ I’d listen, and sure enough, there would be a soft thud or the creak of a floorboard. We never investigated after the first time. We just lay there, holding each other, until the sounds faded. After a few weeks, we got used to it. We stopped talking about it, as if ignoring it would make it go away.

One Saturday, we decided to escape for the day. We packed a picnic and drove to the coast, leaving the house locked up tight. We spent a lovely day by the sea, and I almost forgot about the quirks of our home. But when we returned, the front door was wide open. My stomach dropped. Dale pulled out his phone, ready to call the police, but we checked every room, every closet, every corner. Nothing was missing. Nothing had been disturbed. The door just hung open, as if someone had walked out and left it that way. We locked it and sat in the living room, unsettled. ‘Maybe we forgot to lock it?’ Dale suggested, but I shook my head. We’d both checked. It was locked.

The next week, my coworker Laura came over to help me with some interior design ideas. She was the only one from the office who’d shown any interest in our project. She walked through the house, complimenting my color choices, but when we reached the spare bedroom, she stopped. The room was painted a deep, dark blue—a color I’d chosen because it reminded me of the ocean at midnight. ‘This room feels heavy,’ she said, shivering. ‘Like someone is watching.’ I laughed, told her it was just the paint. But as we left, I glanced back and saw the door slowly closing by itself. Laura didn’t notice. I didn’t say anything.

The next day, I came home from work to find the spare bedroom door open. It was never open. We kept it closed, because the paint smell was still strong. I went to close it, but as I reached for the handle, I heard a voice—a soft, whispering woman’s voice—from inside. ‘Don’t close me in.’ I froze. The room was empty. My heart pounded. I slammed the door and ran downstairs. I called Dale, but he thought I was joking. He said, ‘It’s just the house settling.’ But I knew what I heard.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. Dale was snoring beside me, but I lay awake, listening. Around 2 AM, I heard footsteps in the hallway, coming toward our room. The door creaked open. A figure stood in the doorway—a woman in a flowing white dress, her hair black and wet, clinging to her face. She had no eyes, just dark hollows. She raised a hand, and I saw her fingers were elongated, too thin. She pointed at me, and her mouth opened, but no sound came out. I squeezed my eyes shut, praying it was a dream. When I opened them, she was gone. I didn’t sleep the rest of the night.

The next morning, I told Dale everything. He paled. ‘I’ve seen her too,’ he admitted. ‘For weeks. She stands at the foot of the bed when you’re asleep. I thought I was losing my mind.’ We decided to research the house’s history. That’s when we found it: thirty years ago, a woman named Margaret lived here with her husband. He was abusive, and one night, she locked herself in the spare bedroom. He broke the door down and attacked her in a fit of rage. She died in that room. He buried her in the backyard, but they never found her body. They convicted him, but she was never at peace.

We knew we had to leave. We packed what we could and stayed with a friend. But as we drove away, I looked back at the house. In the upstairs window, I saw her face—pale, watching us. And I heard a faint whisper, carried on the wind: ‘You’ll be back.’ That was six months ago. We never went back, but I still feel her eyes on me when I close mine. And sometimes, in the dead of night, I hear the spare bedroom door creak open in our new apartment. But when I turn on the light, it’s closed—just the way we left it.