The Hollow Wall

The house on Maple Street had always felt like it was holding its breath. I hadn’t set foot in it for six years, not since I joined the Navy and escaped the claustrophobic chaos of my childhood. My mother had called, her voice thin and brittle, saying she wanted to see me before I shipped out again. So here I was, standing on the cracked driveway of the house my stepfather had bought in 1993, a beige colonial that sagged in the middle like a tired old man. The paint was peeling, but it was still the same structure that had housed five kids, two adults, and a persistent sense of something wrong.

My name is Cora, and I’ve been a practicing Wiccan for eight years, absorbing bits of Druid lore from my grandmother’s old letters, but I never needed magic to know that this house was not ordinary. The feeling started in my old room, which I now had to share with my two stepsisters’ discarded furniture and boxes of my stepbrothers’ junk. The first night, I slept fitfully, bothered by the way the moonlight painted a rectangular patch on the floor that seemed too perfectly aligned with the wall. I put it down to exhaustion.

The next morning, I decided to open the wall. The house had been built in the sixties, and there was a peculiar indentation in the drywall behind my bed, as if someone had once started to cut a hole and then abandoned it. I pushed a fingernail into the seam and was surprised when a small piece crumbled away. I spent the morning prying at the drywall, my hands raw, until I had a hole big enough to see through. What I saw made me stop. There was no insulation, no studs, just a dark hollow space that seemed to go on forever. And at the bottom, something glinted.

I reached in and pulled out a small tin box, the kind that might hold cookies, but rusted and dented. Inside was a child’s drawing, yellowed and creased, of a stick figure standing beside a house with a big smile. Below it was a note scrawled in a child’s handwriting: ‘Please remember me.’ There were also scraps of paper, each with a single word: ‘Remember,’ ‘Stay,’ ‘Mine.’ I felt a chill run up my spine, and I heard a faint scraping sound, like fingernails on the other side of the wall, but when I put my ear to the hole, there was silence.

That evening, I asked my mother about the house’s previous owners. She said the woman who lived here before, a Margaret Harlow, had died in the hospital after a fall. Her husband had moved out years earlier, and no one knew why. I decided to do a bit of research, calling the county records office from my cell. The owner before my mother was a man named Arthur Kline, who had sold the house abruptly in 1992. There was no record of a wife or children, but the house had been built for a family. I wondered who the drawing belonged to.

The next night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept hearing soft whimpers coming from the wall, like a child crying. I placed my hand on the cool drywall and felt a vibration, as if something was moving behind it. I grabbed a flashlight and peered into the hole. In the darkness, I thought I saw two small, faintly glowing eyes looking back at me. I yanked my hand away, my heart pounding. I whispered a protective charm, but the feeling of being watched didn’t fade.

I decided to open a larger section of the wall, thinking there might be a space behind it. With a hammer and chisel, I broke through the brittle plaster, revealing a narrow passage that ran between the walls. It was barely wide enough for a child, and it was dark. I shone my flashlight down the corridor and saw that it led to the center of the house. Curiosity got the better of me, and I crawled in, my shoulders scraping the sides. The air was musty, and I could taste dust and something metallic.

After what felt like an eternity, the passage opened into a small room, maybe six by six, hidden between the master bedroom and the attic. There were old toys scattered on the floor, a broken rocking horse, a doll with a missing arm, and a child’s bed with stained sheets. On the wall, scratched in desperate letters, was a name: ‘Mandy.’ And below it, the same plea: ‘Remember me.’ I heard a sigh from behind me, and when I turned, I saw the silhouette of a small girl, her face hidden in shadow. She pointed to the bed, then to me, and vanished.

I scrambled out of the passage, covered in grime, and confronted my mother. She looked pale when I asked about Mandy. ‘Arthur’s daughter,’ she said, her voice trembling. ‘She died in this house. The police said it was an accident, a fall down the stairs. Her father was never the same. He sold the house a month later.’ I couldn’t shake the image of the little ghost, and I felt a pull to go back to that room, to find something that would set her free.

I returned with a small candle and a piece of my grandmother’s sage. I sat cross-legged in the hidden room, the flames of the candle casting dancing shadows. I spoke softly, ‘Mandy, I’m here. I remember you.’ The air grew cold, and I saw her again, now more solid, with a tearful face. She mouthed something, and I leaned closer to hear. ‘He locked me away,’ she whispered. ‘My father. He wanted a boy.’ My blood ran cold. The man I’d assumed was her father, Arthur, had been the one who had hidden her away, perhaps in these very walls, until she died.

I felt a rage building, not at the ghost, but at the cruelty of her fate. I swore to find proof of what happened, to bring peace to her restless spirit. I searched the room and found a hidden compartment in the floorboards, where a moldy journal lay. Its pages were filled with Arthur’s handwritten confessions, detailing how he had locked Mandy in the wall space for ‘her own good,’ until she’d gotten sick and died. He had walled up the entrance, but she had found a way to stay.

As I finished reading, I heard a crash from the main house. I ran out to find my mother on the floor, clutching her chest. ‘There’s a girl in the hall,’ she gasped. ‘She said, ‘Tell Cora she’s right.” I helped her up, but I knew Mandy was still here. I gathered the journal and the child’s drawing and placed them in the tin box. I drove to the county courthouse and filed a petition to have Mandy’s case reopened, using the journal as evidence. The official looked skeptical, but I could see the fear in his eyes. He took the journal.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I sat in my old room, waiting. Around midnight, I felt a cold breeze, and I smelled the faint scent of honey, which my grandmother said was a sign of spirit departure. The room seemed lighter. I went to the hole in the wall and saw that the darkness had receded, the space now just a dusty void. I whispered, ‘Rest now, Mandy.’ I heard a soft ‘thank you,’ and then silence.

I left the house a week later, but the memory stayed with me. I now understand that houses can hold more than just memories; they can hold the pain of those who never left. And I carry with me a small tin box, to remind me that some truths are hidden in the hollow spaces, waiting to be remembered.