The Marble Corridor

In the autumn of my ninth year, our school underwent a renovation that none of us understood. They repainted the hallways a sickly green, replaced the worn linoleum with gleaming marble that echoed with every step, and installed new fixtures in the bathrooms. But there was one sink—the second from the left—that always ran cold, no matter how long you let the tap run. And the last stall, the one with the broken latch, was always locked, even when the janitor swore he’d opened it that morning.

My friend Lila was the first to mention it. She claimed that on the first day of school, she’d seen a girl in a white dress standing by that sink, but when she blinked, the girl was gone. We laughed, of course. It was just her imagination, or a trick of the light on the marble. But then the rumors started. Not the silly ones about Bloody Mary, but something darker, more specific. They said that if you went into the girls’ bathroom on the third floor and used the last stall, flushed three times, and then washed your hands at the second sink, you’d see a reflection of someone behind you, and after that, you’d hear a child humming a lullaby in the walls. Every night, someone would report hearing it echo down the hallway, even when the school was empty.

I didn’t believe it, not really. But I was curious. And Lila, being the daredevil she was, challenged me to do it after school one Friday, when the janitor had already gone home. We snuck into the building through a side door that was always left unlocked, and made our way up to the third floor. The halls were darker than ever, the new marble seeming to absorb the light, and our footsteps sounded like gunshots in the silence. When we reached the bathroom, the door was ajar, and I could swear I heard a faint humming coming from inside.

We stood in the doorway, my heart pounding. Lila whispered, ‘You go first.’ I shook my head. ‘No, you go.’ We argued in hushed tones, too scared to raise our voices. Finally, we decided to go together. We walked to the last stall, which, to our surprise, was unlocked. The seat was cold and wet, as if someone had just used it. I did the flushing, three times, each flush louder than the last, the water swirling in a way that seemed unnatural. Then we moved to the second sink. Lila turned on the tap, and ice-cold water spurted out. We looked into the mirror.

At first, we saw only ourselves. But then, the reflection seemed to waver, and a third figure appeared between us. A girl, no older than we were, with long black hair and pale skin, her eyes wide and empty. She wore a white dress, stained with something dark at the hem. ‘Bloody Mary,’ I whispered, but the figure shook her head.

‘My name is Cordelia,’ she said, her voice soft like a whisper, but we heard it clearly. ‘I’ve been waiting for someone to say it.’ I tried to pull away, but my feet were rooted to the floor. Lila grabbed my arm, but she was trembling.

‘What do you want?’ I managed to say.

Cordelia smiled, a slow, terrible smile. ‘I want to show you what happens when you don’t listen.’ She raised her hand, and the mirror began to crack, not from the center, but from the edges, spiraling inward. The cracks spread onto the walls, and the floor beneath us split open, revealing a darkness that seemed to breathe. I felt a sudden cold, like being submerged in ice water, and then everything went black.

When I woke up, I was lying on the bathroom floor, the lights flickering. Lila was beside me, unconscious. The mirror was intact, the floor solid. But the humming was still there, coming from the last stall. I scrambled to my feet, shaking Lila until she came to. We ran out of there without looking back, but as we reached the end of the hall, I glanced over my shoulder. The bathroom door was open, and standing in the doorway was Cordelia, her eyes black, her mouth open in a silent scream. And then she vanished.

We never spoke of it again. But from that day on, the school felt different. The marble floors were colder, the hallways longer. And whenever I walked past the girls’ bathroom on the third floor, I would hear that humming—a lullaby in a minor key, a song for a child who never got to leave. Sometimes, I see a flicker of white in the corner of my eye, always at the edge of my vision, always gone when I look directly. The rumor was true, but not about Bloody Mary. It was about Cordelia, a girl who had died in that bathroom many years ago, and whose spirit remains, trapped in the marble, waiting for someone to speak her name.

Now, every time I flush a toilet in any bathroom, I pause, half-expecting to see her face in the mirror. And I know, someday, she’ll find someone new to show what she saw. I just hope it’s not me.