The Slatted Door

I never thought I’d be writing this down, but after what happened last week, I have to get it out of my head. My name is Laura, and I live in a small, old apartment above a closed bakery. The building has that musty smell of flour and dust that never really goes away, and the floorboards creak in patterns that don’t match the rhythm of our footsteps. My boyfriend, Mike, and I have been here for three years, and it’s always been a little quirky, but nothing like this.

Our bedroom is at the back, overlooking a narrow alley. The closet is a built-in, with a sliding door made of old-fashioned frosted glass, the kind you can’t see through directly but that lets in a murky, blurred light when the hall lamp is on. The glass has this swirling pattern that makes shapes if you stare too long. I’ve always hated that door, especially at night. When I lie in bed, I can see the faint outline of our clothes hanging behind it, and sometimes I swear I see a darker shape among them, a shape that shouldn’t be there.

A few nights ago, I woke up at 3 AM, frozen. The digital clock blinked red, and the room was dimly lit by the streetlight filtering through the blinds. I turned my head toward the closet, and there was a figure pressed against the glass from the inside. Not a person, but a silhouette, like someone had their face and hands flat against the glass, distorting the features. I could see the vague outline of a head, shoulders, and two spread hands. My heart hammered so hard I could hear it in my ears. I squeezed my eyes shut and counted to ten, telling myself it was just a wrinkle in the clothes, a trick of the light. When I opened my eyes, it was gone.

The next morning, I told Mike, and he laughed, said I was watching too many horror movies. He even walked to the closet and slid the door open, showing the empty shelves and our clothes. But the glass had a smudge on it, like a handprint, right where the figure’s hand would have been. Mike frowned and wiped it with his sleeve, but the smudge returned a few minutes later, as if it were on the inside.

That evening, I decided to investigate. I took a flashlight and looked closely at the glass. There were no marks on the outside, but on the inside, there was a faint residue, like dried sweat. I opened the door and ran my fingers along the inside surface, expecting dust or lint, but I felt a icy cold spot, a patch of glass that was freezing. I pulled my hand back as if burned. Mike came in and saw my face, and for the first time, he looked worried.

That night, we left the closet door open, just a crack, to break the line of sight. But I couldn’t sleep. I lay there, listening to the building’s noises, and then I heard it: a soft whisper, like a breath, coming from the closet. I nudged Mike, but he was dead to the world. I turned on the bedside lamp, and the whisper stopped. I got up, my legs shaking, and walked to the closet. I slid the door open fully. Inside, nothing but our clothes, and a faint smell of stale perfume, not my own.

I started to close the door, but my hand stopped. I felt compelled to look inside, to push the hanging clothes aside. There, against the back wall, was a small, ragged doll, its eyes scratched out. I had never seen it before. I called Mike, and he came, half asleep. He picked up the doll, and we examined it. It was old, with a stitched cloth body and a porcelain head. The face was painted with a faded smile, but the eyes were gouged. Mike shrugged and said maybe it was left by a previous tenant. But I knew it wasn’t. It was a message.

The next afternoon, we went to the apartment manager, a grumpy old man named Mr. Henderson. He told us that the apartment had been built in the 1920s and had been a tailor’s shop. He mentioned that a previous tenant, an elderly woman, had died in the bedroom, of natural causes. When I asked about the doll, he turned pale and said he didn’t know anything about it, but he told us that the woman, Mrs. Kovac, had a son who went missing years ago. The doll was probably his.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I stared at the closet door, which we had closed tightly. Around 2 AM, I heard a scratching sound from inside, like fingernails on glass. I woke Mike, and he heard it too. He grabbed a flashlight, and we approached the closet. The scratching grew louder. Mike yanked the door open, and there, on the inner glass, was a message drawn in a clear, oily substance: “LET ME OUT.” The letters were shaky, like a child’s writing. We both recoiled. Mike slammed the door shut and shoved a chair against it. We didn’t sleep the rest of the night.

The next day, we tried to find more information about the previous tenants. We found old newspaper articles online. Mrs. Kovac had been a recluse, and her son, Timothy, had been reported missing in 1963. He was never found. There was a picture of him holding a doll, the same doll we found. The article mentioned that Timothy had a hearing impairment and used a specific type of hearing aid.

That evening, as we were having dinner, we heard a faint tapping from the closet. Mike went to it and saw a small, gray hearing aid on the floor just inside the closet, as if it had been pushed out. He picked it up. It was old, the kind you don’t see anymore, and it was still warm. We put it on the nightstand, and for a brief moment, I thought I heard a faint, high-pitched sound, like a distant voice calling my name.

We decided to spend the night in the living room, but the closet was in the bedroom, and we had to go in there to get pillows. As we entered, we saw the glass door was fogged up, and there was a child’s handprint on it, clear and small. Mike touched the glass, and it was warm. He drew a question mark on the fog. Immediately, a reply appeared on the other side, in the same fog: “YES.” My blood ran cold. He wrote “WHO?” and the glass fogged more, and the word “TIMOTHY” appeared.

We were terrified, but also, strangely, sad. The presence seemed to be desperate, not malicious. We asked it what it wanted. The fog swirled, and the words appeared: “MOTHER.” We realized it was Timothy’s ghost, trapped in the closet, looking for his mother. But had she died and moved on? Or was she also here? We asked, and the fog cleared, and we saw a shadowy figure of a woman appear in the closet, reaching out, but then it vanished.

We decided to try to communicate more, to help him. We brought a tablet and used a voice-synthesizer app, since he might have been deaf. We asked simple questions, and he would respond by making the glass fog and spelling out words. He told us that his mother had accidentally locked him in the closet, and he had died there, suffocated. His mother, devastated, had hidden the evidence and lived with guilt for years. She had left the doll as a token, but had sealed the closet with the belief that his spirit was trapped.

We felt a deep sadness and a need to free him. We looked up rituals to release spirits, and we found a simple one: to open the doors and invite the spirit to leave, to forgive. We did that that night. We opened the closet doors, and we spoke aloud, saying that we forgave the mother, and that Timothy could go find her. We placed the doll under a small candle we lit. As we spoke, we felt a warm breeze, and the glass fogged one last time: “THANK YOU.” Then the fog lifted, and the room felt lighter.

Since then, the closet has been quiet. The smudges are gone, and the drafty cold spot has vanished. But sometimes, late at night, I still glance at the glass, half-expecting to see a face. And I wonder if we truly freed him, or if we just gave him company. Because the other day, I found a tiny, dusty handprint on the inside of the glass, right at eye level for a child. And I swear, for a moment, I saw a faint smile in the fog that wasn’t my own.

The slats on the door are gone, but the door remains. And I know that this apartment has a secret that will always be with us, waiting.

**The End**