The Persimmon Room

When I was twelve, my parents split, and my father moved us into a renovated farmhouse on the edge of a town called Hollow Creek. The house was old, but the real estate agent assured us it was ‘updated’. I chose the largest bedroom, the one with a bay window that overlooked the overgrown orchard. I loved that room, especially the way the late afternoon sun filtered through the dusty glass, casting a honeyed glow on the peeling wallpaper.

Months later, I learned from a neighbor that the house was built on the site of an older structure, one that had burned down in the 1950s. The only thing that survived was the foundation, which our house was built upon. The neighbor lowered her voice when she told me, saying that the fire had been tragic, but she didn’t elaborate. I didn’t press; I was more interested in the orchard, which I’d discovered had a single persimmon tree that still bore fruit.

That’s when the paralysis started. It wasn’t the kind you read about in medical journals—it was a creeping cold that started in my toes and climbed up my spine, freezing me in place just as I was drifting off. I’d lie there, wide awake, unable to move, my eyes fixed on the ceiling. I never heard or saw anything during those episodes; it was just the crushing weight of being trapped in my own body. I told my dad, but he dismissed it as ‘growing pains’ or ‘too much sugar before bed’. I knew it was something else, but I couldn’t articulate it.

The strangest part was that it only happened in that room. At my mom’s apartment across town, I slept like a log. It was as if the room itself was waiting for me, testing me. I started to dread going to bed, but I was too stubborn to move to another room. I told myself it would pass.

And then, one night, I woke with a start. The room was darker than it should have been, the moonlight from the window dimmed as if a cloud had passed over. I tried to move, but I was frozen again. This time, it was different. The cold was not just a sensation; it was a presence. I felt a pressure at the foot of my bed, like someone sitting down. My heart hammered, but I couldn’t even blink.

Slowly, a shape materialized from the darkness—a child, a girl, maybe seven years old. She was wearing a thin cotton nightgown, and her hair was a tangled mess. Her face was pale, almost luminescent, and her eyes were dark, hollow pits. She didn’t look at me; she stared at the wall, mumbling something under her breath. I strained to hear, and I caught the words: ‘green, green, the orchard green, the smoke, the smoke, the fire unseen.’

She kept repeating it like a nursery rhyme. Then, as suddenly as she appeared, she vanished. The room returned to normal, and I could move again, drenched in sweat. I didn’t sleep the rest of the night.

The next day, I went to the orchard. The persimmon tree was at the far end, its branches heavy with fruit. I noticed something at its base—a half-buried, rusted metal box. I dug it out with my hands, my heart pounding. Inside, wrapped in a yellowed cloth, was a small porcelain doll, its face cracked, and a faded photograph of a smiling family in front of a house I didn’t recognize. The girl in the photo looked just like the spectral child.

That night, I left the doll and the photograph on my nightstand. As I lay in bed, the paralysis came again, but this time, I wasn’t afraid. The girl appeared at the window, her form faint, her eyes now filled with tears. She pointed to the orchard, then to the doll, then to the photograph. And then, she was gone.

I never experienced the paralysis again. I put the doll and the photograph in a shoebox and hid it in the back of my closet. But sometimes, late at night, I swear I can hear a child’s voice singing a somber tune, drifting up from the orchard. And I wonder if the fire that claimed that house took more than just wood and stone.

Years later, I returned to the house for my father’s funeral. I was an adult, but I still felt a chill as I stepped into that room. The wallpaper was faded, the window cracked, but the persimmon tree was still there, bare and skeletal against the winter sky. I found the shoebox untouched, and in it, the doll and photo. I turned the photo over and read the inscription: ‘Margaret, age 6, 1951.’

I left the box there, on the nightstand, and closed the door. As I walked away, I could have sworn I heard a child’s giggle from inside the room. But I didn’t look back.