The Parcel in the Parlor

In 2006, I took a lease on a ground-floor studio in the Branwell Estate, a sprawling Victorian relic tucked into the hills of upstate New York. The property had been a private manor for the Branwell family, then a tuberculosis sanatorium in the 1920s, and finally an abandoned shell slated for demolition before a preservation trust turned it into an artists’ colony. The building was a labyrinth of peeling wallpaper and creaking floorboards, but the light in the old conservatory was gold, and the rent was cheap. I painted there, surrounded by the ghosts of sick patients and the grandeur of a bygone era.

My studio was in the west wing, which had been added in the sanatorium years. It was a long, drafty corridor of small rooms, each with a tall window and a rusted radiator. The locals spoke of the ‘Nurse in Gray’ who wandered the halls at night, checking on patients who were no longer there. I dismissed it as folklore, until one evening, when I stayed late to finish a canvas. Dusk bled through the windows, and I heard a soft tapping on the wall behind me. I turned, but saw nothing. The tapping came again, rhythmic, like a fingernail on glass. I knelt and pressed my ear to the wall. From within, a muffled voice, thin and ancient, said, ‘He’s still in the parlor.’ I didn’t sleep that night.

The next morning, I asked the caretaker, a grizzled man named Silas, about the parlor. He went pale and muttered, ‘That room’s been closed since the sanatorium days. They bricked it up after the fire.’ He showed me a faded blueprint from the 1920s. The parlor had been a common room for patients, but after a blaze that killed three, it was walled off to contain the damage. The blueprint indicated its location: right beside my studio. I measured the walls. The parlor should have been there, but my studio’s wall was solid, no door, no seam. Yet the wall felt warm to the touch, even in the cold October air.

That night, I brought a flashlight and a chisel. I worked the plaster loose, careful not to damage the lath. Behind the plaster, I found not studs, but a thick slab of blackened oak, charred and blistered. The wood was hot, as if smoldering from within. I pried a board free and peered into darkness. A smell of smoke and old perfume wafted out. I squeezed through the gap and found myself in a room frozen in time: tattered armchairs, a grand piano with a collapsed key, and a soot-stained fireplace. On the mantel sat a small, wrapped parcel, tied with a faded ribbon. My name was written on it in elegant script.

I should have left it. But my curiosity burned hotter than the guilt. I unwrapped the parcel. Inside was a diary, bound in cracked leather, dated 1923. The first entry read: ‘The Nurse in Gray has been taking patients to the basement. I saw her through the keyhole. I’ve told Dr. Hale, but he says I’m feverish. I’m not. I’m hiding this where she can’t find it.’ The last entry, dated three days before the fire, read: ‘She’s come for me tonight. I’ve climbed into the chimney. If you find this, know that the fire is her, and she’ll come for you too, if you read these words.’ I closed the diary, my hands trembling. A cold draft swept through the room, and the temperature plummeted.

I turned to leave, but the opening I’d made was gone. The wall was seamless again, the plaster unbroken. Panic clawed at me. I ran my hands over the surface, find no crack, no door. Behind me, I heard a rustling, soft as a nurse’s skirt. I spun. The parlor was empty, but the parcel was gone, and in its place on the mantel sat a new note: ‘You read it. Now you must stay.’ The fireplace burst into phantom flame, blue and silent, and the floor beneath me began to tremble. From the chimney above, I heard a child’s sob, then the nurse’s voice, cooing, ‘There, there. We’ll get you to the basement.’

I dashed to the window, but it was bricked over. I screamed for help, but the sound bounced back, muffled, as if the room were padded. I slumped to the floor, the diary still clutched to my chest. The flame grew, and the walls began to sweat black tar. I knew then that the fire had never killed the three patients. It had been the nurse, and she was still collecting. And now, she had me.

The next morning, Silas found my studio empty, my brushes dried, my canvases blank. He noticed a new crack in the wall, just wide enough to slip a hand through. He peered inside and saw, in the darkness, a glint of a locket I always wore. The wall sealed itself with a soft sigh. I am still in the parlor, writing this in the diary that never runs out of pages, while the Nurse in Gray checks on me each night, humming a lullaby, and whispering that my room is ready.