The Thirteenth Chime

I first learned of the old house’s reputation from the string of relatives and hired help who passed through its drafty halls before I took the back bedroom. Each of them, after a single night in that room, would wake with wild eyes and refuse to return, muttering about a woman who stood at the foot of the bed, her mouth a black hole of silence, her hands reaching for their throats. They all described the same crushing weight on their chests, the same taste of rust and cold metal. I dismissed their tales as the fancies of tired minds, for my own first weeks were undisturbed. I slept soundly, lulled by the groan of the old house settling and the distant hum of the highway. The room was simply a room—dusty, with a papered wall that peeled like sunburn, and a single narrow bed that dipped in the middle.

Then came the autumn of 2008. A hired nurse, a stout woman named Marta, had taken the pull-out bed beside mine, a thin mattress on a wooden frame that sat a foot lower than my own. Our cots nearly touched, separated only by a narrow aisle of worn carpet. I remember that night: a chill had crept in through the window cracks, and the moon was obscured by clouds, leaving the room in a murky half-dark. I woke to a sound that was not of this world—a low, guttural moan, rising and falling like a tide of misery. It came from Marta’s side. But the voice was not hers. Marta had a light, singsong voice, full of laughter. This was a profound, ancient ache, a sound that seemed to come from the very walls, from the marrow of the house itself. It was a moan of anger and despair, of something bound and furious.

I lay frozen, my back turned to her, listening. The moan came again, closer, as if she had leaned over me. I called her name, ‘Marta,’ but the moan merely answered, a long, breathy note of sorrow. I called again, and the sound pitched lower, almost a growl. My skin prickled. I forced myself to roll over, to face the edge of my bed. In the dim light, I saw her form on the pull-out, but it was wrong. She was lying on her back, her face turned toward me, but her eyes were open, milky and unseeing. Her mouth was open, too wide, stretched into an impossible oval, and from that pit came the continual, shuddering moan. Her hands were at her throat, claws digging into her own skin, as if trying to tear something away.

I reached out to shake her shoulder, but before I could touch her, the room plunged into an unnatural silence. The moaning cut off. Marta’s body went rigid, and then, slowly, her head tilted toward me, the eyes still vacant, but now I saw something else—a shadow behind them, a deeper blackness. Her lips moved, and a voice that was not hers, not even human, hissed, ‘You are not her chief.’ Then her head snapped back, and the moaning resumed, more frantic, more desperate. I scrambled backward, falling off my bed, my heart hammering. I hit the floor, and as I looked up, I saw that Marta was now sitting upright, her back impossibly straight, her head lolling at an unnatural angle, and she was pointing one twisted finger at the wall above my head. I followed her gaze. On the peeling wallpaper, just above the headboard, I saw something I had never noticed before: a faint, almost invisible inscription, scratched into the plaster, as if by a desperate hand. It read: ‘She counts the chimes. Hide the thirteenth.’

A cold wave washed over me. I knew then that the house had a secret, a history I had never been told. The woman in the nightmares was not a ghost but a prisoner, a presence bound to that room by a ritual, a count of chimes. And my own nights had been comfortable only because I had never been close to the thirteenth chime. But that night, the grandfather clock in the hallway, which I had often heard but never paid attention to, began to strike. One. Two. Three. Each chime was a heavy, bronze note that vibrated through the floor. I lost count, but I knew it was near midnight. The moaning from Marta grew louder, a chorus of agony. I crawled toward the door, but the door was locked from the inside. I turned back. Marta was now on the floor, writhing, her body contorting as if possessed. The clock continued. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. I held my breath, waiting for the thirteenth chime that never came. But then, a new sound: a soft, mocking laughter from the shadow in the corner, a shadow that seemed to twist into the shape of a tall woman, her outline blurred. She stepped forward, and I saw her face—a ghastly composite of all those who had stayed before, their features merged into a mask of agony. She pointed at the inscription, then at me, and mouthed, ‘You will be my thirteenth.’

I screamed, and the clock struck once more—thirteen. The sound was wrong, a dissonant clang that shattered the silence. At that moment, Marta collapsed, and the shadow vanished. The room was still. When I could move, I found Marta unconscious, but alive. She woke the next morning with no memory of the night, but she left the house that very day, refusing to speak. I never stayed in that room again. I moved to the attic, but even there, I could hear, on certain nights, a faint moaning from below, and a clock that struck thirteen. I searched the house, and in the basement, I found an old journal, hidden in a loose brick. It belonged to a woman who had been the mistress of the house in the 1800s. She had been accused of witchcraft, and she wrote of a bargain she made to escape the pyre: she would bind herself to the walls of the house, and every hundred years, she would take a new vessel, a new voice, to cry out her suffering. The thirteenth chime marked the end of the cycle. The journal’s last page was blank, save for a single line: ‘I await the one who will break my chains, but they must know the price.’ I closed the journal and returned it to its hiding place. Now, when the clock strikes thirteen, I do not count. I do not hide. I listen. And sometimes, I almost hear the woman’s voice, not as a moan, but as a whisper, asking me to set her free. But I am not her chief. I am not her priest. I am only a keeper of the house, and the house keeps me, bound to its chimes. The thirteenth chime is my burden now, and I will not let it fall silent—for if it does, she will find a new voice, and the cycle will begin again.