The Wallpaper’s Hymn

My inheritance from Grandma Etta wasn’t a locket or a worn-out Bible, but a peculiar sensitivity—a way of seeing the world that had a thin, tearable membrane between the ordinary and the otherwise. The first time the membrane ripped for me, I was twelve, and we were living in a sprawling, decaying Victorian in upstate New York, a place so old it had its own weather. The house, called Thornhaven, was a monument to peeling paint and creaking floorboards, and my mother, a pragmatist to her core, had bought it for a song at a foreclosure auction, ignoring the realtor’s nervous cough and the way the wallpaper seemed to breathe.

My siblings were a noisy brood: the twins, Leo and Liam, had just passed their first birthday, all chubby cheeks and uncoordinated grabs. My older brother, Marcus, was a brooding fourteen-year-old lost in comic books, and my sister, Cora, at nine, was my conspirator in exploring the house’s secret corners. Dad was often away on business trips, leaving Mom to manage the chaos, and on this particular afternoon, she had dashed out to the hardware store for a new fuse, leaving me in charge for what she promised would be ‘just a half hour.’ ‘Keep an eye on the twins, Ruthie,’ she said, her hand already on the doorknob. ‘They’re down for their nap, and I’ll be back before you know it.’

The twins were in a bassinet in the living room, a vast, high-ceilinged space that even in July held a chill, like the house was hoarding its cold from a century of winters. I decided to take Cora up to the attic, a place we’d been forbidden to enter, but the attic door was always ajar, and our curiosity was stronger than any rule. As we tiptoed up the narrow, twisting stairs, the air grew thicker, and I felt the first prickle of goosebumps on my arms, even though the outside temperature was a sweltering ninety-five. ‘Are you cold?’ I asked Cora, and she nodded, her eyes wide. ‘It feels like someone’s watching us,’ she whispered.

We reached the attic, a dusty cathedral of forgotten furniture and trunks. The only light came from a single, cobwebbed window, throwing a pale, milky beam onto an old rocking horse and a stack of leather-bound books. As we stepped inside, the temperature dropped further, and I heard a faint, melodic humming—a woman’s voice, low and lulling, like a lullaby. Cora grabbed my hand. ‘What’s that?’ she asked. I shook my head, but a cold knot tightened in my stomach. The humming seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, filling the attic with a gentle, yet unsettling, music.

I followed the sound to a far corner, where a tall, ornate mirror, its silver backing tarnished and cracked, leaned against the wall. The humming grew louder. My reflection in the mirror seemed off—my hair was a shade darker, my eyes a hint too wide, and behind my reflection, I could see a dim shape, a woman in a long, old-fashioned dress, her back to me, swaying gently as she hummed. I spun around, but the attic was empty. ‘Did you see her?’ I asked Cora, but she was staring, pale, at the mirror. ‘She’s there,’ Cora said, pointing. ‘In the mirror. She’s got a baby.’

I turned back, and the woman was now facing me, holding a swaddled bundle. Her face was featureless—a smooth, blank expanse where her features should have been—but I felt her attention, a piercing gaze from those empty spaces. She lifted the bundle, as if offering it to me, and the humming sharpened into a high, keening note. Then she vanished, and the mirror went dark, its surface suddenly a flat, dead sheet of glass. The attic was silent and stale, the chill dissipating as quickly as it had come. Cora burst into tears, and I pulled her out of the room, slamming the door behind us. My heart hammering, I told myself it was a trick of the light, my imagination, anything but what it was.

As we descended, I heard a cry from the living room—a thin, frightened wail, like a kitten. I ran down, my legs clumsy, and burst into the room. The bassinet was empty. The twins were gone. A spray of cold air hit my face from the open basement door, which I distinctly remembered being closed. ‘Leo! Liam!’ I shouted, and I heard a faint, gurgling sound from below, followed by the same humming, now coming from the dark basement. My mother had warned me never to go down there, said the old furnace was temperamental and the stairs were rotting, but I didn’t think. I sprinted down the steps, the wooden boards groaning under my feet, and into the damp, musty blackness.

At the bottom, I fumbled for a light switch, but nothing happened. The only illumination came from a dim, greenish glow from the furnace’s pilot light, revealing the twins sitting on the concrete floor, side by side, their faces turned up toward a wall covered in peeling, water-stained floral wallpaper. They were silent, completely absorbed, and they were humming—a perfect, crystalline echo of the tune I’d heard upstairs. I scooped them up, their little bodies cold, and they stopped humming the moment I touched them, blinking as if waking from a dream. I rushed them upstairs, holding them tight, and when my mother returned, I didn’t tell her what happened. I couldn’t. She would think I’d lost my mind.

But the presence didn’t leave. Over the next week, I’d catch glimpses of the woman in the mirror in the hallway, or hear her humming from the attic at night. Marcus complained of cold spots, and Cora refused to sleep alone, saying she could hear someone singing under her bed. I began to research the house’s history. In the local library, I found a faded newspaper clipping from 1921: a fire had killed a woman and her infant daughter in Thornhaven, leaving the husband, a music teacher, to die of grief a few months later. The woman’s name was Evelyn, and she had been known to hum to her baby in a chair by the fire. The clipping showed a picture of the house, and in the window of the living room, there was a ghostly blur, as if someone was standing there, watching.

Terrified, I decided to confront the ghost. I knew from Grandma Etta’s stories that spirits often lingered because of unfinished business, and this one seemed to be searching for something. I waited until the house was quiet, and I crept up to the attic, carrying a candle and the clipping. The mirror was still there, clouded with dust. I wiped it clean, and as I did, the humming began again, soft and sad. In the mirror, Evelyn appeared, more solid this time. Her face was still blank, but I could see the outline of her dress, the way she rocked an invisible child. ‘What do you want?’ I asked, my voice trembling. ‘Why are you here?’

The humming stopped. The mirror’s surface shimmered, and I saw, reflected behind me, not the attic, but a nursery I’d never seen—a brass crib, a rocking chair, and a woman sitting in that chair, holding a baby, her face free of any marks, but contorted in grief. A ghostly figure of a man stood at the window, his back to her. And I saw the woman press a hand to the baby’s mouth, and then the baby went still. The scene faded, and I was back in the attic, the mirror dark. I understood then—Evelyn hadn’t lost her child in the fire; she had smothered her. The fire was an accident, but the guilt and grief had kept her bound to this world, forever reenacting her crime, forever seeking forgiveness or a second chance.

I felt a surge of pity, but also a deeper fear. The ghost wasn’t just a haunt; it was a tragedy frozen in time. I knew from Grandma Etta that to release a spirit, you often had to acknowledge its pain, and say a prayer. So, with shaking hands, I held the clipping and spoke to the empty air. ‘Evelyn, I know what you did. I know you’re sorry. Your baby is at peace. You can let go now.’ The humming resumed, but it changed, becoming a gentle, airy melody, like a mother’s sigh. The mirror flickered, and for a moment, I saw a woman with a kind, sad face, and a baby in her arms, both wrapped in light. Then they were gone, and the mirror cracked from corner to corner, a clean, sharp line, like a frozen tear.

The chill that had clung to Thornhaven lifted that day. The twins started sleeping through the night, and Cora stopped having nightmares. The house felt lighter, bigger, as if a weight had been lifted. But I never forgot the woman in the mirror, or the hymn she had sung to her lost child. And whenever I passed that cracked mirror in the attic, which we boarded up soon after, I’d catch a faint whiff of lilac perfume, and I’d know that Evelyn had finally found her lullaby’s end.

Years later, when I was in my late teens, I learned about Grandma Etta’s own experiences, hers far more harrowing than mine. But that first time, standing in that icy basement, holding my twin brothers who hummed a dead woman’s tune, I understood the legacy I’d been given. It wasn’t a curse; it was a responsibility—to witness the stories that haunt the spaces between, and to help them find their rest. And I’ve been doing it ever since, carrying Grandma Etta’s torch, and the wallpaper’s hymn, in my heart.