The Horizontal Drape

In the autumn of 1987, my aunt, Mabel, was a nineteen-year-old art student living in my grandparents’ old farmhouse on the edge of the Blackwood Forest. The house, a rambling Victorian with creaking floorboards, had always felt watchful, but that night it was more than just a feeling.

Mabel had taken to sleeping in the spare room, a narrow chamber at the end of the hall. The window, tall and arched, faced the forest, and the heavy velvet curtains were her only shield against the darkness outside. She lay in bed, the thick quilt pulled to her chin, drifting in that uneasy half-sleep where every sound is amplified.

At 2:33 AM, according to the luminous clock on the nightstand, Mabel woke with a jolt. Her body was frozen stiff, a weight pressing her into the mattress. She could move her eyes, and that was all. Above her, the curtains were no longer hanging. They were stiff as boards, jutting out horizontally, parallel to the ceiling, as if suspended by invisible wires. The moonlight caught their deep red folds, casting strange shadows on the walls.

Heart pounding, Mabel slid her gaze toward the door, which stood ajar, about four meters ahead. There, silhouetted against the dim hallway light, stood a woman. She was tall, wore a long dark dress that seemed to soak up the light, and had hair that fell in strands over her face, obscuring her features. She didn’t move, just stood there, watching.

Mabel tried to scream, but her throat was locked. The woman took a step forward, and the floorboards didn’t creak. Another step, and the air grew cold, frost forming on the windowpane. Mabel’s breath puffed out in white clouds, but she felt an icy hand on her ankle, under the covers. The woman’s fingers were long and cold, tracing a path up her leg.

In desperation, Mabel forced a whisper, ‘In the name of God, leave this house.’ The woman stopped, tilted her head, and with a sound like dry leaves, she dissolved, leaving only the smell of mothballs and old earth. The curtains fell limp, and Mabel could move again.

She never spoke of it, not even to my mother. But years later, when I was sixteen, I stayed in that room. I saw the same woman, but this time she spoke. She said, ‘Your aunt saw me, but you will understand.’ She pointed to the window, and through the glass I saw a figure digging in the forest, a child’s toy in hand. When I looked back, she was gone, but the curtains were stiff, horizontal, pointing like fingers at the ceiling.

We never learned who she was, but every autumn, when the leaves fall, the curtains in that room move on their own, and the woman stands at the door, waiting for the next sensitive soul to wake in the dead of night.