The Rasp of the Wicker Gate

In the late summer of my fifteenth year, I woke to the pale grey of dawn filtering through the curtains of the attic bedroom I shared with my older brother, Elias. The house, a sprawling Victorian relic perched on a hill above the coastal town of Portharrow, groaned with the shifting of old bones. My father was already in his study, tapping away at his typewriter, while my mother hummed in the kitchen below. My brother was still asleep, his breathing a slow, steady tide. I slipped out of bed, my feet cold on the worn floorboards, and padded down the narrow hallway to the bathroom.

The bathroom was at the end of a crooked corridor, directly above the main staircase. The mirror was spotted with age, and the pipes clanked when I turned the tap. I squeezed toothpaste onto my brush and began to scrub, the mint sharp in my mouth. Outside, the morning fog clung to the panes, blurring the garden into a smear of green. I heard my mother’s voice faintly, then the clatter of a pan. And then, from somewhere closer—perhaps just beyond the bathroom door—a woman’s voice, distinct and low, as if she were pressing her lips to the wood. She said, ‘Let me in, let me in.’ The words were clear, but the tone was not desperate. It was hollow, like a bell struck under water. My brush stopped mid-motion. I spat out the foam and listened. The house was silent except for the pulse in my ears.

I called out, ‘What? What did you say?’ Maybe it was Elias messing with me, or my mother playing a trick. I waited, but no answer came. I set the brush down, wiped my mouth, and turned the knob. The door swung open into the hallway, and there was no one. The corridor stretched empty, the doors to my parents’ room and the study closed, and at the far end, the top of the stairs gaped like a throat. The floorboards creaked under my bare feet as I stepped out. I checked my brother’s room, but he was still under the covers. My mother was in the kitchen, washing dishes. My father was at his desk. No one had been near the bathroom.

I told myself it was the wind, or a gull crying through a crack. But the words had been too clear, too close. That afternoon, I asked my mother if she had called up to me. She laughed and said no. My father didn’t even look up from his manuscript. For a week, I kept listening, but the voice did not return. Then, on the last day of August, as the light was fading and I was reading in the armchair by the window, I heard it again. This time, it came from the cellar door, which stood ajar at the end of the kitchen. A woman’s voice, the same dead cadence, whispering, ‘Let me in, let me in.’ My mother was at the stove, her back turned. I asked, ‘Did you hear that?’ She didn’t respond. I walked to the cellar door, my heart hammering, and saw that the latch had been undone. I had not touched it all day.

I remember the cellar stairs stretching down into blackness, and the smell of damp earth and old potatoes. I called down, ‘Who’s there?’ The humming of the refrigerator was the only reply. I felt a draft, cold and stale, rising from below. I slammed the door and slid the bolt. That night, I couldn’t sleep. I lay awake, listening to the house settle, the creaks and groans like a body turning over. At 3 a.m., I heard a scraping sound, rhythmic, against the back door. I crept to the window and looked down. The garden was awash in moonshine, but I saw no one. The wicker gate at the far end, which led to the cliff path, was swinging slowly back and forth, though there was no wind.

My father, a rational man, dismissed it as a loose hinge. But I knew better. I began to keep a journal of the sightings. The voice came more often now, always at odd hours, always with that same plea. One evening, as I was brushing my teeth, I saw the bathroom mirror fog with my breath, and in the mist, a handprint appeared on the glass, small, childlike. I wiped it away, but it reappeared. I ran to my parents’ room, but they were already asleep. The next morning, I found the wicker gate wide open, and the path beyond it leading to the cliffs. I decided to follow it.

The path wound through gorse and bracken, and the sea roared below in a frenzy. At the cliff’s edge, there was a tumbledown structure—a stone hut with a rusted iron door, half buried in the earth. It was the old smugglers’ store, long abandoned. The door was ajar. I peered inside, and in the dim light, I saw a figure crouched in the corner, a woman with a pale face and dark eyes, her clothes soaked and clinging. She looked up at me, and her lips moved. I heard the voice, not through my ears but inside my head: ‘Let me in. Let me in.’ I stepped closer, and she reached out a hand, her fingers cold as the sea. I stumbled back, but she did not follow.

Later, I learned from an old fisherman at the dock that a woman had drowned in the cove below, a hundred years ago, and that her body was never found. Some said her spirit still wandered, seeking shelter from the cold. That night, I returned to the hut. I opened the iron door wide, and I said, ‘You can come in now.’ I felt a rush of air pass by me, like a sigh. The door clanged shut behind me, and I was alone. I never heard the voice again. But sometimes, when the house is quiet, I catch a glimpse of a woman in the mirror, standing behind me, her lips moving silently. And I wonder if, in letting her in, I gave her more than shelter. I gave her a place to stay. And she has never left.