The Hollow Pattern

I was seven when the pattern on my wallpaper began to move. It wasn’t a trick of the light, though my mother swore it was. We lived in a tidy brick house on the edge of Maple Hollow, a town so quiet that the loudest sound was the hum of the refrigerator at midnight. My father worked nights at the grain silo, and my mother spent her evenings crocheting in the lamplight, her needles clicking like insects. They said my imagination was too big, that I had too much of my uncle’s blood—he who saw angels in the static of the television and heard sermons in the wind. But I knew what I saw.

It began with a single rose in the wallpaper pattern, just above my bed. The pattern was a repeating lattice of vines and flowers, a faded pink that had gone beige with age. One night, as I lay staring at it, the rose seemed to swell, its petals peeling back like a mouth opening. I blinked, and it was still. The next night, it happened again, but this time a second rose joined it. By the end of the first week, an entire row of them had turned inward, facing me, as if they were watching. I tried to tell my mother, but she laughed and said I was ‘working myself up’ again. She had a name for my episodes: ‘Grandpa Ben’s ghost dance.’ She said it with a shake of her head, as if that explained everything.

I started sleeping with my back to the wall, but the pattern followed me in my dreams. I dreamed of a corridor of endless wallpaper, the roses breathing in unison, and a voice that whispered my name from behind the plaster. I woke up convinced there was something inside the walls, something that had been there long before we moved in. That’s when I noticed the plaster was cracked in a thin, jagged line that ran from the ceiling to the floor, like a dried river. I traced it with my finger, and it felt warm, pulsing. I told my father, but he said it was just the house settling. ‘You’re too sensitive, Katy,’ he said, patting my head. ‘You’ve got your grandfather’s radar, but there’s nothing to pick up here.’

But there was. I found the source of the pattern’s life in the hallway, behind a loose panel of wood. It was a small, framed photograph of a woman I’d never seen before. She was young, with dark hair and a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. On the back, in faded ink, was written: ‘The Hollow Pattern, 1952.’ I didn’t know what it meant, but the name sent a chill through me. I showed it to my mother, and her face went pale. ‘That’s my grandmother,’ she whispered. ‘She died in this house. She used to be a seamstress, always talking about the pattern of things.’ I asked what that meant, but she just shook her head and told me to put it back. ‘It’s just a picture, Katy. Don’t let it get to you.’

But the picture wasn’t just a picture. Once I put it back, the pattern in my room grew more desperate. The roses now had faces, small, distorted imitations of the woman in the photo. They would open and close, as if trying to speak. I started to whisper back to them, just to see if they’d respond. And one night, they did. A voice, thin and reedy, came from the wall behind my bed. ‘Katy,’ it breathed. ‘Katy, I’m stuck. Help me.’ I screamed, and my mother rushed in. She found me huddled in the corner, pointing at the wall. She looked at the pattern, at the roses, and for the first time, I saw fear in her eyes. ‘This isn’t happening,’ she said, but she was gripping her crochet hook so hard her knuckles were white.

The next day, I found a loose thread in the wallpaper. It was a bright red, almost like a vein, and it trailed from the crack in the plaster down to the floorboard. I pulled it, and the wall groaned. My mother heard it from the kitchen and came running. What she saw made her drop her coffee. The roses were bleeding. It was just a trickle, a dark ooze from their centers, but it was unmistakably red. My mother grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the room. ‘We’re leaving,’ she said. ‘We’re going to your grandmother’s.’

But the pattern followed us. That night, at my grandmother’s house, I woke up in a strange bed to find the same wallpaper on the walls. It was identical, even the crack in the plaster. I touched it, and it was warm. I heard the voice again, softer now. ‘Don’t leave me,’ it said. ‘You’re the only one who can see me.’ I looked at my hands, and I realized I had a red thread tied around my finger. I didn’t remember putting it there. I pulled it, and the wall split open. Behind it was a room I’d never seen before, a room that shouldn’t have existed in my grandmother’s house. It was the same room, the same wallpaper, but the woman in the photo was sitting in a rocking chair, facing away from me. She was humming a lullaby I didn’t recognize. Slowly, she turned her head. Her face was half-eaten, like moth-eaten cloth, but her eyes were clear. She smiled with a mouth that opened too wide. ‘You came,’ she said. ‘I knew you would. We’re all part of the pattern.’

I tried to step back, but the floor beneath me changed. The carpet was now the same pattern, and it pulled at my feet like roots. The woman rose from the chair and came toward me, her steps silent, her form flickering like a bad signal. ‘Every generation has its pattern,’ she said, reaching for my face. ‘Your grandfather heard it in the static. Your mother crochets it to keep herself sane. But you, my dear, you can see it directly. That’s why you’ll join me here, in the hollow behind the walls, where the pattern is always moving.’ I screamed, and the scream woke me in my own bed, back in the brick house on Maple Hollow. The wallpaper was still, the roses just roses. But when I looked down, there was a red thread tied around my finger. And from the walls, faint but unmistakable, I heard a humming that matched the lullaby. I never told anyone about the thread. I knew they’d say it was just in my head. But every night, I trace the crack in the plaster, and every night, I feel the pattern breathe. It’s waiting for me to make it whole again. And I’m starting to think it will wait forever. Because I can’t leave, and I can’t forget. The pattern is in me now. It’s the only thing that’s real.