The Crying Stairwell

My mother, Clara, used to tell me stories about the strange things she encountered in her youth. Most were forgettable, but one always lingered in my mind. It happened when she was twenty-three, living with her older sister, Margaret, in a creaky, drafty Victorian house on the edge of a dying town. Clara had two toddlers then, my brothers, and money was tight, so they shared the attic floor with Margaret’s two girls.

The house was old, with a grand staircase that split into two narrower flights at a landing. The attic rooms were cramped, with slanted ceilings and windows that rattled in the wind. At night, the house groaned and settled, and Clara had grown used to its noises. But one night, something was different.

It was past midnight, and Clara sat at the kitchen table, sipping bitter coffee to stay awake. The house was silent, save for the occasional creak. Then, she heard it: the sound of babies crying. Not her own—they were fast asleep in their cribs—but many babies, all at once, their wails rising and falling in a mournful chorus. The sound seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, but it was most distinct from the direction of the stairwell.

Clara’s heart hammered. She put down her mug and crept up the back stairs, which led to the second-floor landing. The crying grew louder, echoing off the narrow walls. She paused at the landing, peering down the long hallway. The doors to the girls’ room and Margaret’s room were closed. The crying seemed to come from below, from the main foyer. She took a step down, and the sound shifted, as if it were moving just out of sight.

She called out, ‘Margaret?’ No answer. The crying continued, now seeming to come from the staircase itself. Clara felt a cold dread seep into her bones. She knew she should turn back, but curiosity—or some other pull—made her descend. The stairs were carpeted, muffling her footsteps. Halfway down, she noticed the crying was coming from the walls. She placed her hand on the wallpaper, and it felt damp, almost slimy. The wailing grew louder, more desperate, and then stopped abruptly.

Silence. Clara stood frozen, her hand still pressed to the wall. Then, a single, clear cry echoed from the top of the stairs—from the attic. She ran up, her legs weak, and burst into the room where my brothers slept. They were fine, sleeping peacefully, their chests rising and falling. The crying had stopped, but now she heard a faint whispering, like many tiny voices, seeping through the floorboards. She dropped to her knees, pressing her ear to the cold wood.

Beneath the floor, she heard a woman sobbing, and the sound of water trickling. The whispering resolved into words: ‘Help us…’ Clara scrambled to her feet and fled to Margaret’s room, pounding on the door. Margaret woke, groggy, and Clara tried to explain. Margaret just shook her head. ‘You’re tired, Clara. Must’ve been a dream.’ But Clara knew it wasn’t a dream. She moved her bed out of the attic room that night, unable to bear the thought of sleeping above that crying.

The next day, she mentioned it to the old woman who lived next door. The woman’s face went pale, and she told Clara a story: decades ago, a nurse had cared for a ward of orphans in that house. One winter, a fever swept through, and the children died one by one. The nurse, in her grief, drowned herself in the old well in the backyard. Since then, on certain nights, the crying of the lost children could be heard, and the sound of the nurse’s sobs from the basement.

Clara never felt easy in that house again. She moved out a month later, but every now and then, when she hears a baby cry in a supermarket or on the street, she says she still feels the cold of that stairwell on her skin. She told me that the house was torn down years ago, but the crying hasn’t stopped. She can still hear it, sometimes, when the house is quiet, coming from the walls, as if the children are still waiting to be found.

Now, whenever I hear a strange noise at night, I think of my mother’s story. I think of that stairwell, and the crying that never truly faded. And I wonder if some sounds are too real to ever be forgotten.