The Hollow Wall

It was a Tuesday when I first noticed the sound, a soft clicking from the wall behind my headboard. I had just moved into the converted attic of my aunt’s old farmhouse, a space she’d half-heartedly renovated into a bedroom. The room was all sloped ceilings and exposed beams, and the previous tenant, some college kid, had left behind a musty mattress and a stack of crusty paperbacks. I didn’t mind the dust or the smell; it was cheap, and I needed a place after my last breakup. But the wall, I soon learned, wasn’t just a wall. It was a door, one that had been papered over and painted, its brass knob frozen with rust. The other door, a narrow one that led to the actual crawl space, was above my bed, a square of plywood I could only reach if I stood on my tiptoes. That was the one that seemed to have a draft, even on windless nights, and it was from that direction that I felt a cold breath on my neck when I tried to sleep. The noises started slow at first: rodents, I figured, or the house settling. But the clicking was rhythmic, almost like a finger tapping on wood, and it always came from the wall beside my bed. Then the whispers began, not words so much as a wet, sticky sound, like something licking the other side of the plaster. I tried to ignore it, convincing myself it was my imagination, but every night the sound grew closer, more insistent. The air in the room would turn thick and cold, and I’d wake with unexplained bruises on my arms, as if something had been gripping me while I slept.

One night, I was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, when I heard a girl’s laugh. It tumbled out of the crawl space door above me, a high-pitched giggle that sounded like it was having too much fun. I froze. The laugh came again, closer this time, a wet, gurgling sound that leaked through the plywood. Then it stopped. I held my breath, waiting. But the silence was worse. And then the tapping started on the wall beside my bed, three sharp knocks that rattled the picture frames. I screamed, or I tried to, but my voice came out as a strangled whisper. I scrambled for my phone, my hands shaking, and texted my dad: ‘Please come upstairs. I need you.’ He came up, his face blurry with sleep, and I pointed at the crawl space door. He listened, then shook his head. ‘It’s just the house, sweetie. Wind or something.’ But I saw the way he glanced at the door, the hesitation in his step, as he left me alone again.

The next night, I decided I had to know. I wanted to see if there was something behind the door. I got a screwdriver and ran my fingers over the papered wall, looking for seams. It was there, I realized, because I’d remembered the sharp corners of a doorway. I tried to pull the door open, but it was stuck. I felt a gust of cold air, and immediately I felt the presence, a heaviness like someone was standing behind me. I turned, but there was nothing. I felt the irritation, a hot, angry emotion that wasn’t mine, that made me want to smash the wall. And then I heard the girl’s laugh again, this time from right beside my ear. I ran out of the room and didn’t come back until morning.

In the days that followed, I noticed the presence everywhere. I’d be in the shower, and I’d feel like I was being watched, a prickling at the back of my neck that no amount of shampoo could wash away. My skin would crawl, and I’d feel a sudden urge to run. My moods swung wildly; I’d be fine one moment, then furious the next, and I’d snap at friends for no reason. I didn’t feel like myself. I started researching the house’s history. The attic, I learned, had been a servant’s room, and before that, a prison for some insane relative. There were no records of a girl, but the old neighbor I cornered at the mailbox told me a story. ‘A child died in this house,’ she said, her eyes darting. ‘A little girl. Drowned in the pond out back. They never found her body. But they say she’s still up there, looking for her mother.’

I didn’t want to believe it, but that night, I couldn’t sleep. I lay in bed, the pillow over my head, trying to drown out the whispers. And then I heard the clicks, and the taps, and the laugh, all at once, a cacophony of madness. The crawl space door above me creaked open on its own, and I saw a hand, white and bloated, reach down through the darkness. It grabbed my shoulder, and I felt a cold, wet chill seep into my bones. I couldn’t move, couldn’t scream. The hand pulled me, and I felt myself getting lighter, like I was being drained. The last thing I saw was the reflection in my mirror, a pale face with empty eyes, grinning at me from the hole in the ceiling.

I don’t know how I got out. I woke up on the floor, my clothes soaked, a sour smell lingering in the air. The crawl space door was closed, but there was a fresh scratch on my arm, a pattern that looked like fingers. I didn’t go back. I slept in my car that night, and in a motel after that. I told my dad I couldn’t stay, and he didn’t ask why. I left the attic exactly as it was, the door painted over, the knob rusty. But sometimes, when I’m in a new place, I hear the clicking, and I feel the cold. And I know that the girl isn’t trapped behind the wall. She’s not in the attic anymore. She’s in me.