The Gap Under the Shrine

We moved into the old farmhouse in the autumn of my ninth year. It stood at the edge of a dying orchard, its timbers gray with age, and the wind through the bare branches sounded like someone trying to speak. My parents loved the place—the wide porch, the stone fireplace, the land that had once been a dairy farm. But there was a room at the end of the upstairs hall that they called ‘the study,’ though it held only a child’s bed and a dresser. It had a closet with a sliding door that never quite closed, leaving a gap of two feet from the floor. My bed faced that closet.

At first, I thought it was just the house settling. The door would slide open an inch or two during the night, and I’d slide it shut again, but it always crept back. My father said the floor was uneven, and he’d fix it one day. My mother hung a curtain over the opening, but the curtain would drift, even when the windows were closed. I took to sleeping with my back to the closet, but I always turned over in the night, unable to resist the pull to look.

One night, I woke from a dreamless sleep, my heart beating hard for no reason. The room was filled with a pale blue light from the moon. The closet door was open about a foot, and the curtain was pulled aside. Inside, where there should have been boxes and clothes, there was a woman. She was thin, with long gray hair hanging over her face, and she wore a dark dress that seemed to absorb the light. She was completely still, staring at me with eyes so pale they looked white. I tried to scream, but my throat closed. We stared at each other for what felt like an eternity. Then she raised one hand, very slowly, and pressed it against the inside of the glass, as if trying to touch me.

I finally found my voice and shrieked for my parents. They burst in, flicking on the light. The closet door was shut, the curtain hanging limp. My father checked the closet—empty, except for a few moth-eaten coats. He said I’d had a nightmare and told me to go back to sleep. But I couldn’t. I asked him to leave the light on, and he did, but I still felt her presence, just beyond the gap under the door.

The next night, I made my father wedge a chair against the closet door, but the gap remained. I lay awake, watching the darkness beneath the door, and I saw something move—a pale hand, reaching out from under the door, fingers curling as if searching for something. I screamed again, and when my parents came, they found the chair knocked over and the door open a few inches. My father patched the gap with a board, but the next morning, the board was on the floor, splintered.

I refused to sleep in that room, so my mother set up a cot in their bedroom. But I could still feel her. At night, I’d hear a faint rustling from the hallway, and sometimes the doorknob would turn. My father grew angry, saying I was being dramatic, but my mother’s face had gone pale. She said she’d noticed the closet from her sewing room, which shared a wall, and she’d seen the same woman once, but she’d put it down to tired eyes.

One night, I woke on the cot to find my mother missing. I heard her voice, soft and soothing, coming from the study. I crept to the door and saw her sitting on the bed, the closet door wide open, and the woman standing just inside, now closer, almost at the threshold. My mother was speaking to her as if she knew her. The woman turned her head and looked at me. Her mouth moved, but the words were meant for my mother. I ran to my father, screaming, and he came with a flashlight. But when he opened the study door, my mother was sitting on the bed, holding a photo album, and the closet was shut. She said she’d just been reminiscing.

After that, I couldn’t even look at my mother. Her eyes had taken on the same pale cast. At night, she’d walk to the study and stand before the closet, listening. My father tried to sleep in there with her, but he’d wake up shaking, saying he’d seen the woman too. He finally called a priest, who blessed the house, but nothing changed. The woman just became clearer. She’d mouth words I couldn’t hear, and my mother would nod.

The end came on a winter night, the coldest I can remember. I woke to the sound of the closet door sliding open, louder than ever. I went to the study. My mother was kneeling on the floor, and the closet was empty except for a dark shape that seemed to be the woman, now fully materialized, her hands on my mother’s shoulders. My mother turned to me, and her eyes were completely white. She said, ‘She’s been waiting for a door to walk through.’ Then the woman looked at me and smiled, and I felt my body go cold.

My father found me the next morning, shivering in the corner of the study. My mother was gone. The closet door was shut, but the gap under it was wide enough for something to crawl through. We searched the house, the orchard, the barns. Nothing. The police took reports, but there were no leads. They said she might have wandered off and died from exposure. But I knew the truth. She had stepped into the space beyond the gap, and she had taken my mother with her.

We moved away before spring, but I still dream of that closet. In the dream, I’m older, back in that house, and the closet door is open. The woman is there, but she’s not alone. There’s a little girl with her, and the girl has my mother’s face. The woman beckons to me. And I know that one day, I’ll walk through that gap myself, because some doors never really close.