The Linen Closet

My mother, Diane, has always been a light sleeper, but ever since my baby sister was born, she’s been running on fumes. She stays home with little Emma while I’m at the office, and my brother, Jake, is back from university, but he’s always out working or studying. Dad’s never home before dark. So most days, it’s just Mom and Emma in that big, old house we inherited from our grandmother. It’s a creaky, drafty place with a basement that smells of damp earth and a linen closet at the end of the upstairs hallway that nobody really uses anymore.

One Tuesday, I called her from work, my voice thick with the cold I’d been fighting all week. ‘Mom, I feel awful. Jake’s gonna pick me up from the mall on his way back from his shift.’ She said okay, told me to rest, and hung up. She must have dozed off on the couch with Emma asleep in her arms, because the next thing she knew, the light had shifted to a late afternoon amber, and there was a sound that pulled her from sleep. It was a faint, hiccupping cry, like a woman trying to be quiet but failing. Mom’s first thought was me—that Jake had brought me home and I’d been crying in my room. She called out, ‘Honey? Is that you?’ But the crying continued, a muffled, rhythmic keen.

She gently set Emma in her bassinet and padded down the hall, checking the guest bathroom, then my old bedroom. The sound seemed to be coming from the hallway itself, but the closer she got to the linen closet, the clearer it became. The crying was coming from inside, muffled by the door. She put her ear to the wood, and the crying stopped. A cold dread settled in her stomach. She opened the door, expecting to find something—a raccoon, a broken pipe, anything—but all she saw was shelves stacked with old towels, sheets, and a baby blanket she’d knitted years before. The air inside was oddly cold, and she noticed a faint smell of lavender, which was strange because she kept mothballs in there, not sachets.

She closed the door, thinking she’d just imagined it, but as she turned away, the crying started again, this time clear as day, as if the door wasn’t there. It was coming from the closet, but it sounded like it was right behind her ear. She whirled around, but the door was closed. She opened it again, and the crying ceased. This time, she reached in and pulled everything off the shelves, tossing towels and sheets onto the floor. At the back, against the wall, she found a small, hand-carved wooden box that she’d never seen before. It was dusty and looked ancient, with a faded floral design. She didn’t open it. She just stood there, heart hammering, and the crying turned into a soft, pitiful moan that seemed to come from the box itself.

She slammed the closet door and leaned against it, trembling. Emma started crying from the living room, and Mom rushed to her, her mind racing. She didn’t tell anyone about the incident, not even Dad, because she thought she was just exhausted. But a week later, her aunt, Clara, who lived alone in a tiny apartment across town, called in a panic. She said she’d been sorting through old family photos and had come across a picture of our great-grandmother, who had died before any of us were born. In the photo, she was holding a baby, and in the background, there was the same wooden box we had in our linen closet—or at least, a very similar one. Clara said she’d been hearing a woman crying in her apartment, and it seemed to come from the direction of an old dresser that had belonged to great-grandma.

I didn’t know what to make of it, but I told Jake, and he got this odd look on his face. He said he’d heard the crying too, but it was coming from the basement, and he thought it was just the pipes. He said he’d seen the box down there, on the old workbench, and he’d opened it. Inside were a few strands of hair, a silver locket, and a scrap of paper with a name and a date: ‘Eliza, 1914.’ That was our great-grandmother’s name, and the year she gave birth to a stillborn daughter. She was known to have been deeply depressed afterward.

We decided to get rid of the box. Jake took it to the lake and threw it in as far as he could. That night, the crying stopped completely. But the next day, Aunt Clara called to say she found the same wooden box on her doorstep, dripping with lake water. She said she hadn’t gone outside all day. Now she won’t answer our calls. And this morning, I found the box back in our linen closet, with a fresh coat of lavender scent, and a new name written on the paper inside: ‘Emma.’