The Patchwork House

My flight landed in Sacramento at dusk, and the dry heat of Arizona gave way to a damp chill that clung to my skin. Mom and my younger sister, Lily, were waiting at the gate, and before I even got my bag, Mom said, ‘The house is haunted.’ I laughed, but Lily, who had always been more sensitive to such things, shook her head. ‘It’s not a feeling, Abbie. It’s a boy, about the same age as our Tommy.’ Tommy was our little brother, eight years old, and he was already climbing over the baggage carousel, oblivious.

Dad had moved us here for a new job, and they’d rented a temporary place while our permanent house was being built. It was a Spanish-style bungalow, stucco walls painted a faded peach, with a red tile roof and a cracked concrete path leading to a heavy oak door. Inside, the house was mostly empty, furnished with uncomfortable, mismatched rental pieces that smelled of bleach and old dust. A curved staircase dominated the foyer, its banister worn smooth, and a long hallway stretched to the left, leading to a bathroom and three bedrooms. The walls were pockmarked with patches, some small, some large, like someone had taken a hammer to them or fired bullets into the plaster. In the fading light, the patches looked like pale, diseased scars.

My bedroom was at the end of the hall, painted a dingy yellow. The window looked out onto a weed-choked backyard with a dying lemon tree. That first night, I couldn’t sleep. The house was too quiet, except for the occasional groan of the pipes and the hum of the refrigerator downstairs. Around two in the morning, I heard a sound from the bathroom down the hall, a soft, rhythmic hitting against the wall. I got up, thinking it was the water heater, and walked to the bathroom. The door was ajar, and the shower curtain, a cheap plastic white thing with mildew at the bottom, was swaying slightly as if someone had just brushed past it. I pulled it back, but the tub was empty. As I turned to leave, I caught a glimpse of a small, shadowy figure at the end of the hall, watching me. It was the size of a child, but the face was blurred, indistinct. I blinked, and it was gone.

The next morning, around the breakfast table, I asked about the patches in the walls. Dad shrugged, said something about the previous owners being ‘rough.’ But Mom was quiet, and Lily pushed her scrambled eggs around her plate. ‘The boy,’ Lily said, ‘He’s in the walls.’ I laughed it off, but a cold dread settled in the pit of my stomach.

Over the next few weeks, the house seemed to grow more restless. Tommy, normally a boisterous kid, started whispering to himself in his room. One day, I found him sitting in the corner of his closet, talking to a spot on the wall. ‘Who are you talking to?’ I asked. He looked at me, his eyes old, and said, ‘His name is Mateo. He likes to knock.’ That’s when I noticed a dent in the closet wall, shaped like a small fist.

Then, the knocking began. It would start at night, a series of raps on the walls, moving from room to room, as if something were walking the perimeter. Sometimes it would pause outside my door, and I’d hold my breath, waiting. Then, without warning, the knocking would start inside the walls, directly behind my head, so loud and violent that I’d jump out of bed, certain someone was pounding to get in.

I started patching the walls myself, hoping to seal whatever was inside. But no matter how much spackle I used, new fist-sized dents would appear overnight, as if something were pushing from the other side, trying to break out. The patches grew, overlapping like a crude mosaic, and I began to see faces in the plaster, my own face, twisted in fear.

One evening, I had had enough. I took a mallet and a chisel and started tearing into the wall in the hallway, right where the knocking was loudest. The plaster was thick, and it crumbled like stale bread. I broke through to the other side, into a narrow cavity, and in the dust and debris, I found a small, discolored toy soldier, a child’s shoe, and a rotted string of rosary beads. And in the back, scratched into the wooden stud, were the words, ‘Let me out.’

The house went silent then, as if it were holding its breath. I stumbled back, dropping the mallet, and retreated to my room. That night, I didn’t sleep. I sat on my bed, staring at the door, listening to the silence. And then, just before dawn, I heard a sound from the bathroom, a faint, pathetic scratching. I crept down the hall, my heart pounding, and pushed the door open. The shower curtain was closed. I stood there, afraid to touch it. But then, the curtain began to move, slowly, as if someone were behind it, trying to get my attention.

I reached out, my fingers brushing the cheap plastic, and pulled it back. The tub was empty, but on the porcelain floor, written in what looked like soap, was a message: ‘HELP ME.’ My blood ran cold. I looked up, and the mirror above the sink was fogged, except for a small, clear circle, as if a face had been pressed against it. In that circle, I saw a boy, not of this world, his eyes hollow, his mouth open in a silent plea. He was trying to speak, but no sound came.

And then, from everywhere, came the knocking, a frantic, desperate pounding, as if the very walls were about to burst. I screamed, and the lights went out. When the power came back, the message in the tub was gone, but the walls were covered in tiny, scratchy marks, as if the boy had carved his story into the plaster. I thought of my father’s words, of the ‘rough’ previous owners, and I realized the truth: the boy hadn’t been punched into these walls. He’d been sealed in by them.

The house was never quiet after that. We moved out two months early, but I still hear the knocking, soft and rhythmic, in my dreams. And sometimes, when I look in the mirror, I see a small, pale face behind my shoulder, watching, waiting for me to let him out. But I know if I do, he might not be alone.