The Lattice of Hollow Rooms

Ravi had grown up hearing the rumors about the old Chatterjee mansion, a sprawling, derelict structure that hunched at the edge of the village like a sick animal. It was a place where the crows never landed, where the grass grew in sickly yellow patches, and where even the bravest of the village elders would cross the road to avoid passing it. The tales were always vague, whispered in the dark after the lamps were lit: a family that vanished, a servant who went mad, a treasure buried beneath the floorboards, a curse that clung to the walls like mold. Ravi had always dismissed them, until a dare from his friends on a hot, restless evening turned into a plan.

His gang was small: himself, Prakash, a wiry, nervous fellow with a penchant for ghost stories; Anil, a burly, pragmatic farmer’s son who laughed at everything; and Suresh, the quiet one with the watchful eyes. They agreed to go at dusk, when the light would be dying and the shadows would stretch long and dark. They rode on Anil’s battered Enfield, Prakash clinging to the back, and Ravi and Suresh on a scooter that coughed and sputtered. They passed the village’s small graveyard, a patch of tilted headstones and rusting iron fences, and as they did, Prakash crossed himself and muttered a quick prayer. Anil just laughed, the sound swallowed by the growing gloom.

The road narrowed, becoming a dirt track rutted with old tire marks. The trees on either side leaned in, their branches intertwining overhead, blocking out the last of the twilight. The air grew thick, heavy with the smell of damp earth and decaying leaves. Finally, they saw it: a dark mass against the darker sky, a silhouette of broken gables and collapsed verandas. The house was three stories tall, its windows like empty eye sockets, its front porch sagging. A rusted iron gate hung askew on one hinge, creaking in a wind that didn’t seem to reach them.

They parked their bikes just outside the gate, the engines dying with a shudder. The silence that followed was profound, broken only by the distant call of a nightjar. Ravi felt a knot tighten in his stomach, but he forced a grin. ‘Come on, we’re here,’ he said, stepping toward the gate. The others followed, their footsteps crunching on the gravel. As they passed under the gate, the air grew noticeably colder.

The front door was a massive slab of wood, warped and blistered, with a rusted iron knocker shaped like a screaming face. Ravi pushed against it, and it swung inward with a groan that seemed to come from the house itself. They stepped into a cavernous hallway that smelled of rot and old ashes. A grand staircase curved up into darkness on the right, its banisters draped with cobwebs. To the left, a doorway led into what must have been a parlor, its furniture covered in white sheets that looked like ghosts in the dim light that filtered through the grimy windows.

They stood there, hearts pounding, when they heard it: a soft footstep behind them. It was not the crunch of gravel, but a soft, shuffling sound, like bare feet on a dusty floor. They all turned, but the hallway behind them was empty. ‘Must be a rat,’ Anil said, but his voice was shaky. They moved deeper into the house, their flashlights cutting weak arcs through the darkness. The floorboards beneath their feet were uneven, some missing entirely, revealing black voids below.

They entered the parlor, pulling the sheets off the furniture to reveal a moldering sofa and armchairs. Dust motes swirled in the beam of their flashlights. On the mantelpiece, there was a row of framed photographs, their images faded and faces indistinguishable. Ravi picked one up, wiping the dust away. In it, a family stood stiffly in front of the house, their faces pale and expressionless. The father had a high collar and a stern mustache, the mother a dark dress, and two children, a boy and a girl, clutching small dolls. In the background, a figure stood half-hidden behind a curtain, a blurred shape that seemed to watch the camera.

‘Let’s go upstairs,’ Suresh said, and they all turned to look at him. He rarely spoke, and now his voice was a whisper. They agreed, not wanting to appear cowardly, and climbed the creaking staircase. The steps protested under their weight, and on the landing, they found themselves in a long corridor lined with doors, all closed. At the far end, a window let in a sliver of moonlight, illuminating a patch of floor where the dust had been swept away, as if someone had been there recently.

Ravi pushed open the first door. It was a bedroom, the bed still made, the quilt moth-eaten and sagging. A child’s drawings were pinned to the wall, stick figures in crayon, but the faces were all blacked out, and the figures were all holding hands in a circle. In the corner, a rocking chair swayed gently, as if just pushed. ‘Wind,’ Anil said, but there was no wind in the house.

The next door led to a study. Bookshelves lined the walls, but the books were rotted, their pages fused together. A desk sat by the window, and on it, an open ledger. The ink had turned brown, but the writing was still faintly legible. It listed dates and names, but the last entries were scratched out, replaced by a repeated phrase: ‘They slept in the corners.’ Below that, in a different hand, was a single line: ‘Do not wake them.’

They moved to the third door. It was locked. Anil, frustrated, threw his shoulder against it, and the old wood splintered. The door swung open, and a smell of formaldehyde and copper rushed out. The room was bare except for a large iron tub at its center, filled with a dark, viscous liquid. Beside it, on a table, lay the source of the smell: a heap of small, desiccated bodies, what looked like birds, but with elongated limbs and too many joints. Their heads were turned completely backward.

Suresh gagged and backed out. Prakash was already trembling, his flashlight beam dancing wildly. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he stammered. But Ravi was transfixed. He walked to the tub and looked in. The liquid was black, with a faint shimmer, and at the bottom, he thought he saw something move. A bubble rose to the surface and burst with a wet pop. A sound like a baby’s cry, muffled, came from the direction of the corridor.

They all turned. The corridor was darker than before. The window at the end was no longer visible; instead, there was a solid wall, covered in what looked like a lattice of wooden slats, but the slats were arranged in a crisscross pattern, leaving small diamond-shaped gaps, and through those gaps, they could see a glimpse of the room they had just been in, but reversed, as if viewing it from outside. A figure was standing in that room, a thin, hunched shape, with long arms hanging down. It was not moving, but it was facing them.

A rush of air blew from behind them, and the door to the study slammed shut. The splintered door to the tub room also slammed shut, though it had been broken. They were now in a narrow section of corridor, with the lattice wall ahead and the doors closed behind. The temperature plummeted, and they could see their breath.

From the other side of the lattice, they heard a voice, a soft, sing-songy whisper: ‘You woke them.’ The figure pressed its face against one of the diamond gaps. It was a woman, with long, greasy hair, and a face that was too smooth, lacking any features except for a wide, lipless mouth that opened to speak again. ‘You woke them,’ it repeated, and behind it, they saw other shapes stirring in the shadows, small, doll-like, moving in jerky motions.

The lattice began to creak, as if the wood was swelling. The gaps began to narrow, the slats pressing together. The figure reached its hand through a gap, its fingers long, like needles, and brushed against Prakash’s cheek. He screamed, and they all turned to run back, but the corridor behind them had changed. The doors were gone, replaced by more lattice, and they were now in a cage, the walls slowly closing in.

As the lattice pressed closer, Ravi saw the figures on the other side, the family from the photograph, but their faces were now clearer, and they were all smiling, their eyes black. The children were holding hands with the woman, and they were singing a nursery rhyme that Ravi didn’t recognize, but the tune made his skin crawl. The space between the slats was now too narrow even for their fingers to fit through. They could feel the wood pressing against their bodies, the air growing stale.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the lattice stopped. The singing ceased. There was a sensation of falling, and they were back in the hallway, standing in the dust and the cobwebs. The windows were dark, and the house was silent. They looked at each other, wild-eyed, and without a word, they ran out of the house, stumbling over the threshold, and did not stop until they reached their bikes. They rode back faster than they had ever ridden, leaving the house behind, and behind them, they heard a faint, echoing creak, as if a door was closing.

When they reached the village, they were pale and silent. They never spoke of it again, and soon after, the four of them went their separate ways. But occasionally, at night, Ravi would wake in a sweat, seeing the lattice walls, and the featureless woman, and he would swear he could still hear that children’s rhyme, humming in the darkness. And sometimes, when he looked in the mirror, he thought he saw a shadow in the corner of his eye, a thin figure with long arms, standing just behind him, waiting for him to wake them again.