The Face in the Paper

I was nine when we moved into the old farmhouse on Cedar Hollow Road. The place had stood empty for nearly a decade, its white paint peeling like sunburnt skin, the porch sagging under the weight of neglect. My parents saw potential; I saw shadows that moved when they shouldn’t. But I was a kid, and kids adapt. I claimed the smallest bedroom at the end of the hall, the one with the slanted ceiling and a window that looked out onto the vast, overgrown field. The walls were covered in a faded, floral wallpaper, peeling at the corners, and I remember tracing the patterns with my fingers before falling asleep.

One night, about three weeks in, I woke with a start. The room was bathed in the cold blue of moonlight, and the air felt thick, heavy, as if something had pressed a hand over my mouth. I lay still, my heart hammering, listening. Nothing. Then I turned my head toward the wall beside my bed, and there it was. A face. Not like a drawing or a shadow, but a face as clear as if someone had pressed their face against the other side of the wallpaper. It was gaunt, with hollow cheeks and eyes that were dark pits, and its mouth was a thin, lipless line. It didn’t move, didn’t blink, just stared at me with an intensity that made my blood turn to ice.

I stared back, frozen, for what felt like an eternity but was probably only twenty seconds. My breath had stopped, and a primal part of my brain screamed at me to run, but my body wouldn’t obey. Finally, the spell broke, and I bolted out of bed, stumbling over my own feet, and ran down the hall to my parents’ room. I burst in, panting, and my mother sat up, alarmed. ‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘Can I sleep in here tonight?’ I whispered, not wanting to say more. They let me crawl into their bed, and I lay there, trembling, staring at the door, expecting the face to appear there too. But it didn’t.

The next morning, I didn’t tell them. I didn’t think they would believe me. My parents were practical people, though they’d had their own odd experiences in old houses, but I felt that if I spoke it into existence, it would become real. Instead, I studied the wall in daylight. It was just wallpaper, the pattern of faded roses and ivy. But I found a small tear near the corner, and when I peeled it back, I saw that the underlying plaster was stained, a dark, irregular blotch that resembled a face. I quickly pressed the paper back, a chill running down my spine.

A week later, it happened again. This time, I didn’t run. I lay in bed, watching it, and the face seemed to be watching me back, but there was something different. Its mouth was open, slightly, as if it were trying to speak. I couldn’t hear anything, but a cold dread washed over me, and I felt a pulling sensation, as if the face were trying to draw me closer. I squeezed my eyes shut, and when I opened them, it was gone. But just for a moment, I swear I saw a ripple in the wallpaper, as if something had moved beneath it.

I started sleeping with my lamp on, but that only made things worse. The light cast new shadows, and the pattern of the wallpaper seemed to writhe. I spent every night with my back to the wall, watching the door, but I felt its gaze on the back of my neck. I tried to talk to my parents, but the words wouldn’t come. Instead, I became obsessed with the wallpaper, with the house. I researched the house’s history at the library, pulling old records, and I found that, decades ago, a man had lived there alone, a recluse who was found dead in that very room after a heart attack. He had no family, and his body wasn’t discovered for days. The house had been sold off cheap, and over the years, many families had moved in and out quickly, usually leaving in the middle of the night. I pieced together that the wallpaper was original to the house, and that the room had been his bedroom.

One night, I decided to face it. I lay in bed, staring at the wall, waiting. The face appeared, as if on cue, but this time, I stared back. I whispered, ‘What do you want?’ The face’s mouth moved, and I heard a faint, dry sound, like leaves scraping against glass. It was trying to say something, but the words were lost. And then, slowly, the face began to change. The gaunt features began to melt, the eyes sinking deeper, and the lips curling into a smile that was too wide, too dead. I screamed, and my father burst in. He saw me, pale and shaking, pointing at the wall. He looked, but saw nothing. ‘It’s just shadows,’ he said, but even he seemed uncertain. He tore the wallpaper off that night, exposing the bare plaster beneath. There was a dark stain, roughly the size of a man’s face, and it seemed to have seeped into the plaster itself. He painted over it with thick primer, and the next day, he told me he’d had the whole room re-plastered.

But even with a fresh coat of paint, I still felt a presence. And every night, before I fell asleep, I would stare at that wall, waiting, and I would see the faint outline of a face, just barely visible beneath the paint. I still live in that house, for my parents left long ago, and I never dared to sell it. I often find myself staring at walls, any wall, checking every few minutes, even now, thirty years later. The face has never appeared again, but I know it’s there, waiting, maybe for me to forget, or maybe for me to finally understand what it was trying to say. I still don’t know, and I’m not sure I ever want to know.