The Last Light of St. Agatha’s

The old St. Agatha’s stood like a crumbling matriarch at the end of Elmwood Avenue, its red-brick Victorian body sagging with the weight of years. I’d passed it every morning on my way to the bakery, always pausing to trace the faded letters above the entrance, ‘St. Agatha’s Hospital, 1887.’ My grandmother had worked there as a nurse during the flu pandemic, and my mother had taken her first breaths in that very building. But now, the city had slated it for demolition, and a chain-link fence had grown around it like a scab. I felt a strange duty to say goodbye.

On a damp October evening, I slipped through a gap in the fence, telling myself it was for sentiment’s sake. The air inside was cold and still, carrying the scent of rotting wood and old medicine. I walked through the old ward, where iron bed frames stood like skeletons, their mattresses long gone. I found the maternity wing, where my mother had been born, and for a moment, I felt a warm nostalgia. But then I heard something: a faint, rhythmic creaking, like a rocking chair on a wooden floor. I followed the sound to a door at the end of the corridor, a door I hadn’t noticed before, labeled ‘Solarium.’

I pushed it open. The room was bathed in the dim light of a single standing lamp, and in the corner, a woman in a pale blue nurse’s uniform sat in a rocking chair, slowly moving back and forth. She was facing away from me, her head bowed over a bundle in her arms. I cleared my throat, and she stopped rocking. She turned her head, but her face was a smooth, blank mask of skin, no features, just a porcelain void. The bundle in her arms began to cry, a thin, reedy wail. She started to rise, and I stumbled backward, fear gripping my heart.

I ran, but the corridor seemed to stretch, the doors multiplying and repeating. I turned a corner and found myself in a room I knew was the old operating theater, a circular gallery with the table in the center. On the table, a body lay covered with a white sheet. The nurse stood beside it, now holding a surgical saw. She beckoned with her blank head. I backed away, and she took a step forward. ‘I need to finish,’ she said, her voice like dry leaves. ‘They never let me finish.’

I turned to flee, but the exit door was gone, replaced by a wall of mirrors, reflecting my own terrified face. In the reflection, I saw a row of bassinets behind me, each with a small, wizened creature squirming inside. The nurse’s reflection stood behind mine, her hand on my shoulder. ‘They were sick,’ she whispered. ‘I had to ease their suffering. But they never left.’ I felt a cold pressure on my back, and I saw my reflection begin to fade, like it was dissolving into the mirror.

I sprinted, desperate, and burst through a door that led to the old basement. The lights were flickering, and I could hear the cry of babies echoing down the dark corridors. I saw a sign that said ‘Incinerator,’ and an idea sparked. I ran to the room, a massive iron furnace with its door still open. Inside, ashes and a lingering heat. I picked up a sledgehammer lying nearby and smashed the controls, hoping to cause some kind of explosion. But nothing happened. The nurse appeared in the doorway, her blank face tilted. ‘You’re just like them,’ she said, ‘a lost soul.’ She held out her arms, and the crying grew louder, surrounding me.

In desperation, I remembered the tall tales my grandmother told: that St. Agatha’s was named after a saint who was martyred for her faith, and that she still watched over the hospital. I looked up and saw a faded mural on the wall, depicting a woman in a blue veil, holding a palm branch. I cried out, ‘St. Agatha, help me!’ And the building trembled. The nurse shrieked, a sound like tearing metal, and the mural began to glow, the saint’s eyes fixing on the nurse. The nurse dissolved into a cloud of dust, and the crying stopped.

I ran, not looking back, and burst through the main doors into the cool night air. I collapsed on the grass, gasping. The building stood silent, its windows dark. I drove home, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. That night, I lay in my bed, and I heard a faint creaking from the nursery, though my children were grown. When I went to investigate, the room was empty, but on the windowsill, there was a single, withered baby shoe. I picked it up, and it turned to dust in my fingers.

They demolished St. Agatha’s a month later. I watched from my window as the wrecking ball struck the east wing, and for a second, I thought I saw a figure in a nurse’s uniform standing in a third-story window. But when the dust settled, it was gone. I never spoke of what happened, but that night, I found the dust of that shoe had settled in a pattern on my floor, a message in a language I didn’t understand. The last thing I remember before passing out was the sound of a baby’s laugh, clear and close, right in my ear. Now, I always keep a lamp on in the nursery. I’ve heard that the light keeps the dark away. But I’m not so sure anymore.

Now, weeks later, as they clear the rubble, I’ve taken to walking past the empty lot. Sometimes, I see a faint blue glow where the solarium used to be. And I bring a small cloth, and I place it on the ground, a tiny blanket, like the ones they used for the babies. It’s the least I can do, for the ones who never got to leave. Maybe one day, they’ll find the light I left on. I just hope it’s enough.