The Stain That Wouldn’t Bleed

Last Friday, during the annual Harvest Festival at the old Grange Hall, my mother, Clara, was volunteering in the prep kitchen. The hall itself was a converted barn from the 1800s, with a long, low-ceilinged side room used for storage and overflow. That room had been painted a cheerful yellow for the children’s activities, but the paint was peeling in places, revealing a darker green underneath. Clara was at the stainless steel sink, scrubbing a batch of silverfish for the fryer, when she noticed a flicker of movement through the small window that looked out onto the side room.

At first, she thought it was one of the children from the afternoon craft session, maybe a girl who had gotten separated from the group. The figure wore a bright sundress, something floral, and had straw-colored hair in two braids. Clara watched her for a moment, expecting her to turn toward the main hall, but the girl simply stood in the middle of the room, facing the far wall. The way she stood was wrong, rigid and tilted, like a mannequin about to topple. Clara called out, but her voice was muffled by the buzz of the fluorescent light and the sizzle of oil. The girl did not respond.

Then, the girl began to move, but not in a natural way. Her body twitched, as if she were a marionette with tangled strings, and she took a few exaggerated, jerky steps toward the wall. She raised one arm and pressed her palm flat against the paint, holding it there. Clara watched, puzzled, as the girl’s hand seemed to smear something dark onto the wall, like wet soot. The girl turned her head slowly, and Clara saw that the face was not a child’s face at all, but a pale, eyeless mask. The mouth opened into a silent O, and from that black hole, a sound like the buzzing of flies filled the kitchen.

Clara dropped the fish, splashing icy water onto her apron. She called for my sister, who was setting up the dessert table in the main hall. My sister, Lyn, came running, and Clara pointed to the window, but by then, the room was empty. Only a dark, hand-shaped stain remained on the yellow wall, as if something had bled into the plaster. The buzzing stopped abruptly, leaving a ringing silence. Clara said she felt a cold draft, and the smell of old blood, like rust and pennies, washed over her.

Later, we spoke to old Mrs. Hendershot, who had lived in the village her whole life. She told us that the Grange Hall had once been a temporary hospital during the flu pandemic of 1918. A young girl, about ten years old, had died in that very room, covered in hemorrhagic spots. They said her blood would not stop seeping through the sheets, and the nurses had to scrub the walls. The paint was put over the stains, but over the years, the old green paint had shown through. Mrs. Hendershot said that on hot, humid days, you could sometimes see a child standing in that room, and if you looked too long, it would turn and look back at you. She refused to say more, but that night, both Clara and Lyn had the same dream: they were standing in that room, and the wall was covered in handprints, and a small voice whispered from the wall, ‘Help me, I’m still bleeding.’

We never found out what happened, but two days later, the Grange Hall was closed for repairs. The contractors found that the entire wall behind the yellow paint was saturated with a dark, reddish-brown substance, old blood, that had kept the wall damp for a century. They had to rip out the plaster down to the studs. In the rubble, they found a child’s hair ribbon, faded and brittle. We kept it in a jar by the front door, and sometimes, when the house is very quiet, you can hear a faint buzzing from the jar, as if a fly is trapped inside. But the jar is sealed. I know, because I check every night.