The Porcelain Garden

The first time we noticed the change in the house, it wasn’t a sound but a smell. A wet, earthy scent, like a cellar after a flood, or a bouquet of flowers left too long in damp paper. We’d just finished our second game with the board, feeling smug and brave, having chatted with a ‘Sister Agnes’ who claimed to have died in a fire in the 1920s. We’d asked ridiculous questions, laughed at the candle flickers, and gone to bed with goosebumps that fizzed away by morning.

A week later, the odor clung to the staircase. Then to our hallway. Then, like a creeping fog, it settled into the corners of our shared apartment. We sprayed air fresheners, opened all the windows, and blamed the old pipes. That’s when the footsteps began. At first, they were soft, hesitant, like a cat padding across the landing. But soon they grew heavier, a deliberate pace that started at the far end of the hallway, paused outside each of our doors, and always ended at the bathroom. The door would creak open, a pause, then a soft click as it closed. We’d all wake up, listen, and exchange nervous texts. Our other flatmates, three of them, swore they never left their rooms. They looked at us like we were the crazy ones.

Nights became a game of waiting. We’d lie in the dark, hearts hammering, counting the steps. Sometimes, we’d hear whispers, not intelligible words, but the cadence of a conversation, one voice low and guttural, another high and reedy. The bathroom itself started to change. The mirror would be fogged even when no one had showered, and there were always wet footprints on the tile floor, always pointing inward, never out. The worst, though, was the plants. Our kitchen windowsill held a sad, browning basil plant, and one morning we found it not just dead, but *mildewed*, covered in a thin, gray fur that smelled like the earth after a cat has buried something. We threw it out, but the next morning, a new pot appeared on the sill, filled with black soil and a single, pale green shoot that we had never planted.

On the third Friday since the board, at 5:30 AM, I woke to a hand shaking my shoulder. It was Maya, her face pale in the dim light of my room. ‘Nat,’ she whispered, ‘it’s in the bathroom. And it’s not… it’s not just walking anymore. I heard it talking. To *itself*.’ I followed her into the hallway. The door was shut, but light bled from beneath it. Then, the sound of water running, a soft, gurgling, like a kettle coming to a boil. And underneath that, a voice—not a whisper, but a clear, feminine voice that didn’t sound human, it had too many layers, like a choir singing out of sync. It was saying: ‘The garden must be tended. The roots grow deep. The blossoms must be watered.’

We stood frozen. The bathroom door began to open, slowly, inch by inch. Steam or mist curled out, carrying that humid, floral rot scent. And in the center of the bathroom, where the shower should have been, there was no shower anymore. Instead, the floor had been dug up, revealing dark, crumbly soil. And in that soil, dozen of white, fleshy roots were pushing up through the tiles, reaching toward the ceiling. But it was what sat among the roots that made my blood turn to ice. A face—not a whole body, just a face, porcelain-white and featureless except for a wide, wet mouth that was smiling, a smile that stretched from ear to ear. It opened its mouth, and the voice poured out, now focused directly at us: ‘You opened the door. Now you must stay for tea.’

The room went cold. The roots began to snake across the floor, toward us. I grabbed Maya’s arm and we ran, slamming the door behind us. We pounded on our friends’ doors, screaming. Ricky and Jen emerged, bleary-eyed. We told them what we saw. Jen laughed nervously, but the smile died when she saw the soil creeping out from under the bathroom door.

We barricaded ourselves in the living room, pushing a heavy bookshelf against the door heartbeats later. Then, the real noise began. It started as a rumble, deep beneath the floorboards. Then, a cracking sound. The plants—every plant in the apartment—began to writhe. The pot of that unknown shoot split open, and a tendril of thick, gray root snaked out and across the carpet. Jen screamed when her lucky bamboo pot burst, its roots wriggling like worms.

We were trapped. The lights flickered. The room grew thick with that sweet, nauseating smell. The voices multiplied, whispering all around us: ‘We were so lonely. You gave us company. Now we will never let you go.’ The windows were sealed shut, as if an invisible pressure held them closed.

We lasted for hours, huddled together, watching as the roots tore up the floorboards, revealing more soil, more pale, fleshy forms. Faces began to emerge from the dirt, dozens of them, all grinning, all whispering. Our cell phones had no signal. The landline was dead.

At some point, I must have blacked out. I woke up on the floor, on a mound of soft soil. The apartment was gone. I was in a vast, underground cavern, lit by a phosphorescent glow. All around me were thousands of porcelain faces planted in the earth, their mouths open in silent cries or wide grins. I was lying face-to-face with one of them. It was my own face, but molded out of white clay, eyes empty, smile permanently etched. My friends were nearby, similarly planted, their faces now ceramic, their bodies forming roots that disappeared into the dark.

A voice, but it was my own internal monologue now, not external, spoke in a calm, soothing tone: ‘You’re awake. Good. The garden needs tending. And you’ll stay here, with us, forever. I promise the visitors will enjoy your blossoms.’

I tried to scream, but my mouth wouldn’t move. It was already smiling.