The Wall in the Yellow Room

I never thought much about the house on Bellhaven Lane. It was just the place where I grew up, with its peeling wallpaper and the smell of old wood. But looking back, the signs were always there. My mother used to tell me, with a nervous laugh, that when I was a baby, barely able to sit up, I would be placed in my playpen in the corner of the living room, and I would stare at the wall and babble, sometimes laughing as if someone were tickling me. She said it was cute at first, but then it started to unnerve her. When my brother, two years my junior, began doing the exact same thing in the same spot, she tried to rationalize it. But rationalizing is hard when the wall is blank.

Years passed. I grew up and moved away, leaving Bellhaven behind for the city, where the walls are thin but silent. But my brother, Daniel, stayed. He was the one who called me on a rainy Tuesday night, his voice tight and shaky. He said, ‘Emma, you need to come back. It’s the corner.’ My heart dropped. I knew exactly what he meant. I took the next train home.

The house was unchanged, worn but familiar. Daniel met me at the door, his eyes hollow. He led me to the living room, where the corner now held a child’s rocking chair, one we had never seen before. He whispered, ‘It started moving on its own last week. And I hear the giggling at night, just like Mom described.’ I felt a cold dread seep into my bones. That night, we sat in the kitchen, avoiding the living room, but we could not avoid the sounds. Soft laughter, like a child’s, trickled through the walls, seeming to come from that exact corner. Then the rocking chair creaked, rhythmically, as if a ghost were gently rocking.

We decided to investigate. I remembered the old photograph albums, hoping for some clue. As we flipped through them, we found a picture of my great-aunt Harriet, my mother’s sister, who had died a few months before I was born. She was standing in the same living room, in that very corner, holding a baby. I asked my mother, ‘Did Aunt Harriet ever have a child?’ My mother frowned, ‘No, she never married, but she was always good with babies. She loved to hold us when we were little.’ The photo was dated 1972, long before I was born, but the baby in her arms was wrapped in a faded yellow blanket.

The giggling grew louder. Daniel and I decided to break open the wall. We took a sledgehammer and, with nerves of ice, we swung. The plaster crumbled, revealing an old, hollow space inside the wall. And there, nestled in the gap, was a child’s shoe—a tiny, scuffed leather boot, yellowed with age. We also found a mildewed baby blanket, the same shade of yellow as in the photograph. I reached in, and my fingers brushed against something cold and hard. A locket. We pried it open, and inside was a lock of fine, auburn hair.

That night, I had a dream. I was a baby again, crawling toward that wall. And in the corner, a woman materialized—not the kind aunt from the photograph, but a gaunt, hollow-eyed specter. She was reaching for me, her fingers like gnarled twigs, and she whispered, ‘I waited for you. Now you’ll keep me company.’ I jolted awake, covered in sweat. The rocking chair was in my bedroom, silently moving on its own. I heard Daniel shout from downstairs. I rushed down to find him standing before the corner, which was now distorted, the wallpaper peeling back to reveal a dark, gaping void. From within, dozens of tiny hands pressed outward, as if begging to be released. And I knew, with terrifying certainty, that the spirit was not Aunt Harriet. It was something older, something that had been trapped in that wall for decades, using our family’s grief to draw us near. It had been waiting for a new child to claim.

We fled the house that instant, but the horror followed us. In my apartment, I hear soft footsteps in the hallway at night. And just last week, my mother called, her voice trembling, to say she saw a small, shadowed figure standing in the corner of her bedroom, staring at her with hollow sockets. I glanced at my own reflection in the window, and for a split second, I saw a child behind me, its face pressed against the glass, smiling. The corner of my new home is beginning to feel cold, and I find myself avoiding that turning in the hallway. But no matter where I go, the wall with the yellow room is always there, waiting. And I fear that soon, I will be the one walled in.