The Tiled Chorus

The dormitory at St. Agatha’s Teachers’ College had been a convent before it became a residence hall, and the sisters who once walked its corridors left behind more than just their prayers. My room was on the third floor, at the end of a hall that terminated in an old bathhouse, a relic from the building’s ecclesiastical days. It was a cavernous room with a vaulted ceiling, its walls lined with chipped ceramic tiles in a faded mint green, and a long row of porcelain sinks beneath a cracked mirror that ran the length of the room. The shower stalls were individual cubicles with wooden doors that had warped and split, revealing dark interiors where moss grew in the grout. The university had built a modern bathroom on the ground floor years ago, so this old one was used only by the desperate or the forgetful, and the cleaning staff avoided it like a plague. I had been there for three weeks, long enough to grow accustomed to the constant rumble of traffic from the highway that bordered the campus, and the way the old pipes groaned at night. But one evening, as I returned from a late study session, I noticed the light in the bathhouse was on. That was odd, since the bulb had been dead for weeks. I peered in, and the long mirror reflected a row of empty sinks, each with a dripping faucet. I shrugged it off and went to my room, but as I lay in bed, I heard a sound that made my blood cold: the sound of many water taps being turned on at once, and the hiss of water hitting porcelain. I got up and crept back to the bathhouse, and through the gap in the door, I saw that all the faucets were now gushing, the water splashing over the stained basins and onto the floor. No one was there. I pushed the door open, and the moment I stepped inside, the water stopped, leaving only a wet, echoing silence. I looked at the mirror, and my reflection seemed to lag behind my movements, as if it were reluctant to follow. I left, but that night, I dreamt of the mirror, and in the dream, my reflection smiled at me.

A week later, I was brushing my teeth in that mirror, trying to ignore the cracked glass and the dark spots on the tiles, when I noticed a faint writing on the glass, just at the edge of my vision. I turned to look directly, and there it was: a single word, scrawled in a finger-traced pattern of moisture, ‘MOTHER.’ I touched the glass, and the word vanished, but I could have sworn I saw a face behind mine, indistinct and pale. I backed away, and as I did, the door to one of the shower stalls creaked open. I called out, ‘Is anyone there?’ No answer. I approached the stall and peeked inside. The floor was wet, and a puddle of water in the shape of a bare foot was slowly evaporating. I told my roommate, Maria, about it, and she laughed, saying I was stressed from exams. But she admitted that the old bathhouse had a reputation. When she was a freshman, a girl had locked herself in one of the stalls, and when they found her, she was sitting under the cold shower, fully clothed, muttering, ‘They don’t want sisters here.’ They sent her to the infirmary, and she transferred the next semester. No one knew who ‘they’ were.

The incidents escalated. One night, I was studying in my room, and I heard a choir of watery voices, like the sound of a hundred throats gargling, coming from the bathhouse. The sound grew louder, until it was a cacophony of wet, strangled words, and then a single, clear whisper from just behind me: ‘Do you want to see?’ I spun around, but the room was empty. When I turned back to my desk, my notebook was drenched in water, the ink smeared into unintelligible shapes. I ran to the bathhouse, and the door was ajar. Inside, every faucet was running at full blast, and the floor was flooded ankle-deep. The mirror was fogged, and in the condensation, hundreds of handprints pressed against the glass, as if a crowd was trying to push through. I felt a cold draft, and the door slammed shut behind me. I was trapped in the flooded room. The handprints began to slide down the mirror, leaving streaks, and I saw my own reflection, but it was not wearing my clothes. It wore a grey habit, a nun’s habit, and its face was hollow-eyed and gaunt. It mouthed words I could not hear, and I realized I was looking at the remnants of a lost soul.

I pounded on the door, screaming, but the water muffled my cries. The lights flickered, and the handprints multiplied, covering the entire mirror, and I felt pressure on my shoulders, as if many hands were pushing me down. I fell to my knees in the cold water, and I was surrounded by the echoes of sobbing and praying. Then, as suddenly as it began, the water stopped. The door swung open. The mirror was clean, and the floor was dry. I staggered out, soaked to the bone, and I knew I could not stay there. I went to the dormitory supervisor, a stern woman named Sister Agnes, and told her everything. She was silent for a long moment, then she said, ‘You are not the first to see what you have seen. The bathhouse was once a chapel, and in the 1960s, a group of novices drowned themselves in the holy water font. They said they were preserving their purity. Every generation, one girl sees them. Do not go back there. We will have it renovated.’

But renovation could not stop what was already waiting. On my last night, I heard the water again, but this time, it was melodic, a hymn. I walked to the bathhouse, and the door was open. The lights were on, and the mirror reflected not my room, but a view of the old chapel, with pews of drowned novices, their mouths open in silent song, and in the center, a figure in white gesturing for me to join. I stepped closer, and my foot touched the threshold, and the entire room shuddered. The reflection flickered, and the figure turned to face me, and it was my own face, but older, with dead eyes. I whispered, ‘No,’ and I ran.

I never returned to St. Agatha’s. I transferred to a public university the next semester. But every so often, when I am near water, I hear the echo of that hymn, and I see the tiles of that bathhouse, and the handprints on the mirror. I know they are still waiting for another girl, another soul who sees what should not be seen. And I am always afraid that when I look into a still pool of water, I will see that older version of myself staring back, mouthing the words I do not want to understand.