The Wail in the Wall

It was the summer of 1968, and I was nine years old, living with my mom and stepdad in a dusty tract house in Bakersfield. My older sister, Eleanor, had just had her first baby, a boy named Thomas, and she and her husband, Frank, had rented a small two-bedroom bungalow in the outskirts of town, near the old almond orchards. Mom and I drove out one Saturday for a barbecue. The air was thick with heat and the smell of charred meat, and the cicadas were so loud they almost drowned out the radio.

After supper, we all sat in the living room, the windows open to catch any breeze. Thomas was asleep in his crib in the nursery, the door slightly ajar. The conversation drifted to the usual topics—work, the cost of groceries, the new supermarket on Chester Avenue. I was half-listening, playing with a Matchbox car on the worn carpet, when I heard it: a muffled, high-pitched cry, like a baby’s wail, coming from somewhere in the house. It was faint, but unmistakable. I looked up, expecting Eleanor to go to Thomas, but she didn’t. She just kept talking, her voice steady, but her eyes flicked toward the hallway.

Then Thomas started crying for real, a sharp, hungry cry. Mom immediately stood up, saying, ‘I’ll get him.’ But Eleanor held up a hand, her face oddly calm. ‘No, Mom, it’s not him. He does that sometimes.’ Mom froze, her brow furrowed. ‘What do you mean? That’s not Thomas?’ Eleanor shook her head. ‘We hear it often. A baby crying, but it’s not Thomas. It comes from the walls, or from the attic, or from nowhere. It stops when you go to look.’

Mom’s face went pale. She was a practical woman, not given to fancies, but I could see her doubt. She walked slowly down the hallway to the nursery, her footsteps echoing on the linoleum. The crying had stopped, just as Eleanor said. She looked in; Thomas was sleeping peacefully, his tiny chest rising and falling. She came back, her lips pressed into a thin line. ‘It must be a neighbor’s child,’ she said, but her voice lacked conviction. ‘You know how sound carries in these thin-walled houses.’ Eleanor just smiled, a tight, knowing smile. ‘Maybe.’

Later, as the sun set and the sky turned a bruised purple, I wandered into the backyard to escape the tense silence. The yard was dry, bordered by a low fence and a row of sun-scorched oleanders. Behind the fence, the orchard stretched out, the trees gnarled and ancient. I heard it again—the cry, but this time it was closer, a soft, pathetic mewling from beneath the porch. I crouched down, peering into the dark gap under the house. I saw something shift, a paleness like a tiny hand, and then it was gone. I scrambled back, my heart hammering. I didn’t tell anyone.

Night fell, and the adults decided to stay late, playing cards and drinking cold beers. I was told to sleep in the living room on a fold-out couch. The house settled into creaks and moans, the floorboards protesting. I lay awake, listening. At around midnight, I heard the crying again, louder this time, coming from directly beneath me, as if the baby was under the floorboards. I pressed my ear to the rug, and I could swear I heard rhythmic scratching, like tiny nails on wood.

I got up, my feet silent, and crept down the hallway. The nursery door was ajar. I peeked inside. Thomas was awake, his eyes wide, but he wasn’t crying. He was staring at the wall beside his crib, where a faint, almost imperceptible crack ran from the ceiling to the baseboard. A low cooing sound came from the crack, like a mother soothing a child. Thomas’s lips moved, forming a silent word. I couldn’t watch anymore; I ran back to the living room, pulling the blanket over my head.

The next morning, Eleanor and Frank seemed tired, their eyes shadowed. Frank mentioned, offhand, that they often woke up to the sound of crying in the middle of the night, and they’d taken to checking the attic. He’d found a small, child-sized impression in the dust up there, but nothing else. Mom insisted we leave early, and she never spoke of it again.

A year later, Eleanor and Frank moved to a new development, and we lost touch. I never learned what happened, but now, as an adult living alone in a quiet apartment, I sometimes hear a baby crying in the next unit, or through the walls, and I always freeze. I tell myself it’s just the television or a neighbor’s child. But sometimes, late at night, I hear a low, rhythmic scratching from behind the baseboard, and I remember that crack in the wall of that little bungalow, and the way Thomas seemed to be listening to something I couldn’t hear. I never had children of my own. I don’t think I could bear to hear that cry and not know if it was mine.