The Weeping Cistern

In the dusty attic of the old Brinewell County Home, now a museum of faded photographs and rusted tools, I found the recording equipment. I was cataloging the artifacts for the annual heritage exhibit, a volunteer gig I took to escape the monotony of my data-entry job. The attic was stifling, thick with the smell of mothballs and decaying wood. That’s where the old reel-to-reel sat, tucked behind a broken spinning wheel, its metal casing scarred with a single word scratched into the surface: ‘Listen.’

I set it up in a corner, away from the main displays, and began recording ambient sounds for a local history podcast. I had no expectations, just the hum of fluorescent lights and the occasional creak of the building. But when I played back the first take, I heard it – a low, guttural weeping, like a woman sobbing into a stone well. The sound was faint but unmistakable, layered beneath the mechanical hiss. I checked the equipment, but everything was clean. My own voice was the only thing I’d spoken, and I’d been alone.

Determined to debunk it, I returned the next day with a better microphone and a digital recorder. I placed the device in the same spot and pressed record. For an hour, nothing. I was about to give up when the caretaker, an old man named Elias, shuffled in. He saw me and froze. His face, already weathered, grew pale. ‘You’re not recording in the attic, are you?’ he asked, his voice trembling. I nodded, and he grabbed my arm with surprising strength. ‘Turn it off. Now.’ I did, but not before I noticed his eyes darting to a water stain on the ceiling shaped like a rough circle. He muttered, ‘She’s still down there.’ Before I could ask what he meant, he left, muttering about the cistern under the old ‘Lunatic House.’

Curiosity gnawed at me, so I dug into the museum’s archives. I found a ledger from 1873, its pages brittle. An entry read: ‘Eliza Thorne, admitted to Lunatic House, diagnosis: melancholia. Alleged to have drowned her infant in the cistern. She claims the child was taken by ‘the voice from the water.” I continued reading. Eliza was found dead in her cell a month later, her throat torn open by her own fingernails. The staff recorded she ‘expired of a fit of madness.’ The cistern was sealed shortly after, and the building was abandoned.

Chills ran down my spine, but I convinced myself it was a tragic story, nothing more. Still, I couldn’t shake the urge to record again. That night, I returned to the museum after hours, letting myself in with the spare key I’d borrowed ‘for archival work.’ In the attic, the shadows seemed deeper, the air colder. I set up the recorder and, on a whim, whispered, ‘Eliza? Are you here?’

As I played back the tape, the weeping started, clearer now. But then it stopped, replaced by a wet, sticky sound, like fingers dragging through mud. And then a voice, hoarse and desperate, whispered: ‘You shouldn’t have come. She hears you.’ I yanked the headphones off, but the sound continued, not from the headphones but from the room itself. The water stain on the ceiling was spreading, growing darker, and I saw something move within it – a shape, pressing against the plaster from above.

I stumbled backward, but my foot caught on a loose floorboard. As I fell, I saw a trapdoor I’d never noticed, half-rotted and covered in dust. It was nailed shut, but the nails were rusted, and one had popped loose. A foul, sweet stench seeped through the cracks, like stagnant water mixed with decay. The weeping became louder, echoing up from the depths, and I knew, with a certainty that turned my blood to ice, that the cistern was not beneath the Lunatic House – it was here, under this attic, and something had clawed its way up over a century.

I scrambled to my feet, grabbed the recorder, and fled, not stopping until I was in my car. I drove home, but the recording equipment stayed on the passenger seat, and I could hear the weeping even with the engine running. In my apartment, I sat in the dark, afraid to play it again, but the sound followed me, a persistent, low moan from the speaker. When I finally worked up the courage, I fast-forwarded to the end of the tape. There was a long silence, then a creak, and then a voice that was not Eliza’s – it was mine, but twisted, a whisper that said: ‘Now I know your name. And I know where you sleep.’

I haven’t slept since, and the recording never stops. Even now, as I write this, I can hear the weeping from the other room, growing closer. The water stain on my ceiling is spreading. I think I need to go back and open that trapdoor. I think that’s what she wants.