The Painted Lady of Blackwood

My family moved to the town of Blackwood when I was eight, a place where the trees grew so thick they seemed to swallow the sky, and the only sign of life was the coal-dusted road that cut through the forest. The town itself was a smattering of houses around a single bar and a church with a crooked steeple, but the house we bought sat at the edge of the woods, a two-story thing with peeling white paint and a screened porch that sagged like a tired old man. My parents were charmed by the low price and the big kitchen, but I felt a cold knot in my stomach the moment I stepped through the front door.

My room was on the second floor, at the end of a long hallway, and across from it was the door I learned to hate. It was always slightly ajar, no matter how many times I closed it, and the wood seemed darker than the rest of the house, as if stained by something other than age. That room became my younger sister Maya’s. She was five, with pigtails and a gap-toothed smile, but she never played in her room if she could help it. She would sit on the floor of the living room, surrounded by her dolls, but her eyes would dart toward the hallway, and sometimes she’d just stare at the ceiling.

I didn’t understand the feeling that washed over me when I had to pass that room. It was like stepping into a sudden cold draft, but it came from inside my chest. My heart would beat faster, my hands would clench into fists, and a wave of anger so hot it made my eyes water would surge through me before collapsing into a slump of sadness. I’d find myself crying without meaning to, tears streaming down my face as I hurried past, my mouth tasting like copper. I never told my parents. I didn’t have the words.

Then, one night, Maya came padding into my room, her face pale and her eyes wide. She was clutching her stuffed rabbit, its ear nearly torn off. ‘The lady,’ she whispered, her voice trembling. ‘The lady is standing next to my bed. She’s wearing a blue dress, and she’s crying.’ My blood turned to ice. I pulled back my covers and patted the mattress. ‘Sleep here,’ I said, my voice steadier than I felt. She crawled in beside me, and I held her until she fell asleep, but I did not sleep. I listened to the house groan and settle, and I thought I heard a soft sobbing from behind the wall.

The next day, I was older, bolder, or just desperate. I decided to confront the room. I told myself it was just a room, just an old house, just my imagination. I pushed the door open, and the hinges screamed. The room was empty save for a bed, a dresser, and a window that overlooked the backyard and the pond beyond. The pond was murky and dark, the water thick with algae like green scum. I stood in the center of the room, and the feeling washed over me again, but this time I fought it. I looked around, searching for anything that could explain the dread. Then I saw it: on the wall above the bed, there was a faint discoloration, a patch of paint that was a shade darker than the rest, like a stain that had soaked in over years.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about the stain and the woman. I got up and tiptoed to Maya’s room—my old room? No, Maya had moved back to her own room because she said the lady was nicer now. But I didn’t trust it. I opened her door slowly. The moonlight filtered through the curtains, and I saw Maya sitting up in bed, staring at the corner of the room. I followed her gaze, and there she was. A woman in a blue dress, translucent, her long black hair covering her face. She was sobbing, a sound like wind through a cracked window. She reached out a hand toward Maya, and I screamed. I grabbed Maya and ran, dragging her into my room and locking the door.

My parents came running, but I couldn’t explain. They thought it was a nightmare. The next morning, they decided to repaint the entire house, starting with that room, hoping to ‘brighten things up.’ I watched as the painter scraped at the wall above the bed. Under the peeling layers, the wood was black, as if burned. Then the painter stepped back, his face white. ‘There’s something here,’ he said. He handed my father a small, rusted tin. Inside was a tarnished locket, and when my father opened it, there was a tiny photograph of a woman with a baby, the same shape as the stain. The locket’s back was engraved with a name: ‘Eliza.’

The painter told my father that the house was built on the site of an old cabin, where a woman named Eliza had lived with her child. They said she went mad after her daughter drowned in the pond, and she hung herself in that room. They never found the body. My father paled and threw the locket into the pond, hoping to ‘lay her to rest.’ But the sobbing continued every night, now coming from beneath the floorboards, from the walls, from the pond itself. And one night, I saw her standing at the edge of the pond, holding a small hand, her hollow face turned toward our house. She was waiting.

We moved out a week later, but I never escaped. I still feel the cold draft in my chest when I pass a room with a stain on the wall. And sometimes, when it’s quiet, I hear a child crying and a woman sobbing, and I know that Blackwood is still there, and Eliza is still waiting, her locket heavy in the mud.