The Papered Window

I’m not asking you to believe me. I’m just telling you what happened. I was twenty, sharing a cramped second-floor flat with my cousin Mira, trying to scrape through university on scholarships and instant noodles. We found a place in the old Meridian Quarter, a building that had once been a boarding house for railway workers, then a flophouse, then a storage for a failed taxidermy business. The rent was laughably low, which should’ve been our first warning. The landlady, a skeletal woman named Mrs. Okafor, showed us the unit with the enthusiasm of a mortician. She pointed out the cracked plaster, the crooked doorframes, and the view of the brick wall from the kitchen window as if they were selling points. ‘No loud parties,’ she rasped, ‘and don’t mind the old gentleman in 2B. He keeps to himself.’ We never saw the old gentleman, but we heard him. His footsteps were slow and heavy, pacing at odd hours. And there was the smell. A sweet, sour odor that clung to the hallway like a wet coat, especially near his door. Mira thought it was garbage. I thought it was something else.

Our flat was a warren of small, dim rooms. The bathroom was a closet with a rusted showerhead, and the bedroom had a single window that faced the wall of the next building, maybe four feet away. On the first night, I couldn’t sleep. The wind rattled the loose pane, and through the gap, I heard a sound—not the wind, but a low, rhythmic hum. It was like someone singing to themselves, but off-key, and the melody was wrong. It would start, stop, then start again. I got up and pressed my ear to the cold glass. The hum seemed to come from the wall itself, from inside the plaster. I told Mira about it in the morning. She laughed, ‘Probably the pipes.’ But I knew pipes don’t sing.

A week passed. The hum became a nightly companion. It never got louder, but it got clearer. I started to make out words, or something like words. They were in a language I didn’t know, but the tone was pleading, desperate. I tried to ignore it. I buried myself in textbooks, but the sound would find its way through the gaps in the window frame. One night, I woke to use the bathroom, and I saw something in the hallway. A thin, dark shape, standing outside our door. It was about five feet tall, with a head too large for its body. It didn’t move, just stood there, swaying slightly. I held my breath. Then it turned—or tilted—and I saw it had no face, just a smooth, pale surface, like a canvas. My heart hammered. I stumbled back to the bedroom, locked the door, and didn’t sleep.

In the morning, I told Mira. She said I was having nightmares from the stress of finals. But then she paused, and her face went pale. ‘You know, the old lady downstairs, Mrs. Okafor, she lives in 2B. The ‘old gentleman’—I think that was her husband. He died in that room. They say he had a condition where his skin turned hard and shiny, like leather. They never moved his body, just sealed the room.’ I felt a chill. ‘Sealed the room?’ I said. ‘Then why do we hear footsteps?’ Mira shrugged, but I could see fear in her eyes.

That night, the humming was louder. It sounded like it was coming from inside our bedroom wall. I put my ear to the wall, and it was like a voice was trapped there, trying to push through. I had an idea. I opened the window, and the hum changed. It seemed to come from the adjacent window across the narrow alley. The window had a papered-over glass, yellowed with age. I’d never noticed it before because it was always dark. But now, under the dim streetlight, I saw a faint glow behind the paper. And the shape of a head, pressed against the paper from the inside. I froze. The head moved, slowly, as if sensing me. The humming stopped. Then a voice, muffled but clear, said, ‘Let me in.’ I slammed the window shut and pulled the curtains, but the voice came through the cracks, ‘I need to finish.’ I ran to the living room, where Mira was watching TV. She saw my face and demanded, ‘What’s wrong?’ I couldn’t speak. I just pointed at the window. She went to look, but the glow was gone. She turned to me, ‘You’re scaring me, Dora.’ I wanted to leave, but it was midnight, and nowhere to go.

The next day, I decided to investigate. I went to the building’s basement, where there were old storage rooms. I found a door with a padlock, but the lock was rusted, and it broke with a kick. Inside, there were dusty boxes of old photographs, letters, and a journal. The journal belonged to a man named Elias, who had lived in our flat in the 1940s. He wrote about his wife, who had died in the apartment below, in 2B. She had been a singer, and she always hummed to herself. After she died, he would hear her humming from the walls. He tried to find her, but she was sealed in the bedroom. He wrote, ‘The door was bricked up. But the hum is still there. She is trying to get to me.’ The last entry was a scrawl: ‘I have to let her out. I have to open the wall.’ I closed the journal, my hands shaking. That was the same wall in our bedroom.

I went back to our flat. I told Mira everything, and this time she believed me, because she had heard the humming too. We decided to open the wall. We had no tools, but Mira used a hammer from the kitchen drawer. We knocked until we found a soft spot. The plaster crumbled easily, revealing a cavity. Behind it, we saw a small, skeletal hand, wrapped in cloth. It wasn’t a sealed room—it was a sealed alcove, with a body inside. The humming rose in volume, becoming a chord. I reached out, and the hand grasped mine. It was cold, and the grip was strong. I pulled, and out came a figure, wrapped in yellowed bandages, like a mummy. But it was small, almost child-sized. It made a sound, a high keening. Then the bandages fell away, and I saw the face—a woman’s face, but her skin was like paper, thin and translucent, stretched over her bones. Her eyes were closed, but her mouth opened, and she sang a single, clear note.

And then the note became a word, a name, ‘Elias.’ But Elias was long dead. The hum that had been haunting us was her calling him. She had been trapped for decades, growing weaker. Now, with her release, she looked at us, and her eyes finally opened. They were like old pennies, dull and flat. She said, ‘Thank you.’ Then she crumbled into dust, leaving only a pile of gray particles and a small locket. I picked it up. Inside was a sepia photograph of a young man and woman. On the back, in pencil, ‘Elias and Maud, 1943.’

Mira and I moved out the next week. But the humming didn’t stop. It followed us. Now, at night, in our new, modern apartment, I hear it faintly from the walls. And sometimes, when I’m alone, the papered window in my mind’s eye—that sealed window—starts to glow. I know she didn’t leave. She just changed addresses. And one day, she’ll finish her song.

I tell you this not for your belief, but for your warning. If you ever hear a hum that seems to come from nowhere, from the walls, from the ceiling, from the floor—leave. Do not try to find the source. Do not open the wall. Because some things, once let out, never go back in. And they always remember who set them free.