The Lavender Stall

I was six when my class visited the old mill, a crumbling granite monster that had stood at the edge of our village for over two centuries. They called it the Stitchery, because it once stitched sails for the fishing fleet, but the machines had been silent for decades, and the only stitching left was the ivy that sewed the bricks together. My teacher, Miss Rowan, was a practical woman with a whistle around her neck and no time for nonsense. She told us to stay together, that the mill was ‘historically significant’ and ‘structurally unsound,’ and that anyone who wandered off would be writing a thousand lines about the importance of obedience.

But nature is a tyrant, and by the time we reached the old weaving room, my bladder was a small, demanding drum. I tugged Miss Rowan’s sleeve and whispered my need. She sighed, pointed to a corridor marked with a faded sign that read ‘Lavatories,’ and said, ‘Be quick, Jemima. And don’t touch anything.’ I scurried off, my shoes echoing on the stone floor, leaving the chatter of my classmates behind.

The corridor was darker than I expected, lit by a single, grimy skylight. The sign pointed left, but the wood there had been replaced with a new, varnished panel that read ‘Staff Only.’ To the right, another sign read ‘Visitors,’ with an arrow pointing to a door that was slightly ajar. I pushed it open and found myself in a small anteroom with two doors: one labeled ‘Weavers’ and one labeled ‘Spinners.’ The ‘Spinners’ door had a rusty lock and a sign that said ‘Out of Order,’ so I went into ‘Weavers.’

The room was small, with a high ceiling and a single, thick glass window that let in a sickly green light. There were two stalls, but the first one had a broken door that hung open, and the second had a ‘Repairs in Progress’ sign taped to it. I felt a twinge of panic. I was about to turn back when I noticed a third door, half-hidden behind a frayed tapestry that depicted a woman with a spindle. The door was as black as pitch, with a porcelain handle that felt cold to the touch. I twisted it, and it opened into a tiny cubicle—just a toilet, a pull chain, and a smell of lavender, which was odd for a place so musty.

I closed the door and latched it—a stiff, rusty bolt that must have been ancient. I sighed with relief, but as I turned to face the toilet, I heard something behind me, right on the other side of the door. A giggle, high and thin, like the squeak of a mouse. I froze. The giggle came again, closer, I could have sworn it was inside the cubicle with me. I spun around, but the room was empty, just the porcelain bowl and the dangling chain.

My heart hammered as I stared at the door, waiting for it to creak open. But nothing happened. Then, from the corridor outside, I heard the sound of a toilet flushing—a loud, gurgling rush that seemed to shake the walls. The chain above me rattled, and I braced myself, but the flush was not in my cubicle. It was in the next one, the one marked ‘Repairs.’ But there was no other cubicle. The room was tiny, impossible for another stall.

I unlatched the door and yanked it open, expecting to find some joker from my class. But the space beyond was empty. The ‘Repairs’ sign was still taped to a wooden door that had no handle, just a keyhole. I leaned in, and through the keyhole, I saw darkness, but in that darkness, a tiny flicker of light, like a candle. A voice, childish, whispered, ‘I see you.’

I ran. I didn’t stop until I crashed into Miss Rowan, who was counting heads with a clip chart. My face was white, my breath ragged. I stammered about a laughing ghost and a strange cubicle, but Miss Rowan looked at me with the weary patience of someone who had heard too many imaginative excuses. ‘Jemima,’ she said, ‘there’s no such thing as ghosts. You probably just heard the wind.’ But I knew what I heard.

The rest of the day, I kept my back to the walls, my hand always touching the fabric of my coat, as if to anchor myself. When the tour ended, we filed out past the gift shop, and I saw a postcard rack with faded images of the mill. One postcard showed the ‘Spinners’ room, with a note: ‘The Lavender Stall — where a little girl vanished in 1862, her name lost to time. Visitors report hearing childish laughter and the flush of a toilet that no longer exists.’

I didn’t sleep for a week. And to this day, I can’t walk past a lavender bush without feeling the cold draft of that corridor on my neck, and I still hear that giggle—a sound that has no source, a laugh that comes from the space where something should be but isn’t. Sometimes, when I’m alone in a public restroom, I catch myself staring at the gaps under the stalls, waiting for a pair of tiny, bare feet to appear. They never do. But I know, with a certainty that curdles my blood, that if I ever looked hard enough, I might see a small hand reaching out to pull the chain. And I would flush, and the giggle would come again, and I would know that the mill never let go of her, and that it’s always hungry for company.