The Papered Window

I moved into the Cranfield House in the autumn of 2019, taking the top-floor attic room. The house was a sprawling Queen Anne Victorian, painted a faded mustard yellow, with gingerbread trim that seemed to cling to the eaves like the fingers of a drowning woman. It sat on a quiet, tree-lined street in a small town in upstate New York, and the landlord, a taciturn man named Mr. Herrick, showed me the room with a flashlight because the bulb in the hall was dead. ‘These old houses,’ he said, ‘they settle.’

The attic room was the most peculiar: sloped ceilings, a single dormer window, and wallpaper patterned with faded cabbage roses. The previous tenant, a grad student named Emily, had left in a hurry—her books were still on the shelf, her coat still in the closet. Mr. Herrick said she’d ‘gone back to her family,’ but he wouldn’t meet my eye. I didn’t mind the musty smell or the creaking floorboards. I needed a cheap place, and the rent was unbelievably low.

The trouble started with the window. It faced the backyard, which was overgrown and shaded by a massive oak. Beyond the oak, just visible through the branches, was the back of a neighboring house, its windows dark. But that wasn’t the odd thing. The odd thing was the paper: a single sheet of old, yellowed newspaper taped to the lower corner of the windowpane, from the inside. I tried to peel it off, but the tape was ancient and disintegrated, leaving a brown stain. The newsprint was faded, but I could make out a headline: ‘LOCAL WOMAN VANISHES FROM ATTIC ROOM.’ I laughed, thinking it was a prank, but the date above it read 1923.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. The room felt stuffy, and the window seemed to pull at me. I finally got up and stood by the dormer, looking out. The backyard was lit with a sickly green light, as if the moon had a fever. And there, pressed against the glass from the outside, was a face. It was a woman’s face, pale and indistinct, her mouth open in a silent scream. She stared directly at me, then dissolved into the dark. I flung the window open, but there was nothing there. The air was cold, and the leaves on the oak rustled as if something had passed through them.

I tried to rationalize it: a trick of the light, my mind playing games. But the next morning, I found something on the window sill: a single strand of long, dark hair. I hadn’t cut my hair in years—it was short, brown. This was black, and it felt greasy to the touch. I wrapped it in tissue and threw it in the trash, but by evening, the trash was emptied, and I didn’t think much of it.

As weeks passed, the room began to change. The wallpaper, which I’d initially thought was fading, started to darken in patches, like damp. But when I touched it, my fingers came away dry. The patches formed shapes—faces, I realized, with wide eyes and open mouths. They seemed to press out from the wall, as if the paper itself were breathing. At night, I heard whispers, not words, but a sibilant hiss, like steam escaping. And always, the woman at the window, standing just out of the moonlight, watching me.

I asked Mr. Herrick about the previous tenants. He told me that the attic room had been ‘unlucky’ ever since a young wife, a woman named Agnes, had died there in the 1920s. ‘She fell down the stairs,’ he said, but his voice trembled. ‘Or so they say. But some folks believed she was pushed. By her husband. He was a jealous man.’ He lowered his voice. ‘They say her ghost lingers. She’s looking for him, or for any man who resembles him.’

I should have moved out then, but I didn’t have the money. So I stayed, and I tried to ignore her. I covered the window with a thick curtain, but the outline of a face still showed through, like a shadow puppeteer behind a screen. I slept with the lights on, but the bulbs would flicker and die. I bought a radio, but it would only pick up static, and underneath the static, I could hear the whispers, now clearer: ‘Let me in. Let me in.’

One night, I woke to find the room filled with a cold mist, and the woman was standing at the foot of my bed. She was more solid now, wearing a high-collared dress, her hair in a bun, her face gaunt. Her eyes were black, like holes burned in newspapers. She pointed to the window, then to me, and her lips moved without sound. I felt a sudden pressure in my ears, and then a woman’s voice, clear as a bell, said, ‘He’s gone. You’ll do.’

I screamed and scrambled for the door, but the door was locked. The woman smiled, a gaping maw, and the wallpaper began to peel back in great strips, revealing not plaster, but a void. The void pulled at me, and I clutched the bedpost, but my fingers slipped. Just as I was about to be swallowed, I remembered the papered window. I tore the curtain aside and ripped the old newspaper off the pane. The glass shattered, and the woman screamed—a high, keening wail that shook the house. The void snapped shut, and the room returned to normal, but the window was gone, replaced by a solid wall.

I don’t know how I got out of the house. I ran down the stairs and didn’t stop until I reached the street. I never went back. But sometimes, at night, I see her in my new apartment’s mirrored hallway, standing at the edge of my vision. And I notice that my window has a faint brown stain in the corner, as if something has been taped there. I haven’t peeled it off. I don’t think I will. Some things are better left papered over.