The Weeping Wallpaper

When I was twelve, my father was stationed overseas, and my mother decided we would stay with her mother in the old farmhouse outside of Ashford. The house had been in our family for generations, and its high ceilings and winding hallways were a wonder to me, but some corners held a quiet dread that I couldn’t shake. The worst was the small, windowless room at the end of the upstairs hall, which we used for storage. Its walls were covered in a faded, peeling wallpaper with a pattern of wilted roses, and the air always felt cold and thick, as if the room itself was holding its breath. I avoided it whenever possible, but the door was always slightly ajar, as if inviting me to look inside.

The staircase was another trial. The wooden steps creaked in strange places, and no matter how carefully I descended, I always felt a presence behind me, just out of sight. The feeling would lift only when I reached the bottom, but every time I turned to look up, there was nothing but the empty banister and the dust motes floating in the light from the landing window. I never mentioned it to anyone, because I didn’t want to seem childish, and my older brother, Leo, would have laughed at me.

The room that made me most uneasy was my grandmother’s. It was cluttered with antique furniture, stacks of old books, and porcelain figurines that seemed to watch me from their shelves. The heavy curtains kept the room in perpetual twilight, and the air smelled of lavender and something else, something like decay. I would often find my grandmother sitting in her rocking chair, staring at the wall, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that she was waiting for something.

One afternoon, while searching for a box of Christmas decorations, I found myself in the storage room. The door swung open wider than I had left it, and I stepped inside, my heart pounding. The walls seemed to pulse with a faint heartbeat, and the wallpaper, which I had always thought was merely faded, now appeared to be wet, as if it had just been painted. I touched it, and my fingers came away damp and red. I stumbled back, and that’s when I noticed the writing on the wall, hidden among the roses. It was a single name, repeated over and over: ‘Eleanor.’ I didn’t know an Eleanor, but the name made my blood run cold.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I lay in my bed, listening to the house settle, and I heard a faint sobbing coming from the wall. It was a woman’s voice, muffled and desperate, and it seemed to be coming from inside the storage room. I crept out of bed and made my way down the hall. The door was now fully open, and the wallpaper was covered in dark, wet patches that looked like eyes. The crying grew louder, and I saw a shape emerge from the paper—a woman in a white dress, her face obscured by long black hair. She reached out to me, and I saw that her hands were covered in the same red liquid.

I ran. I flew down the stairs, the hair on my neck standing on end, and I didn’t stop until I reached the kitchen, where my mother was making tea. She looked at me with concern, but when I tried to tell her what I had seen, she just smiled and said, ‘It’s just the old house, dear. The wind plays tricks.’ But I knew it wasn’t the wind. I could still hear the crying, now fainter, coming from upstairs.

Days passed, and the presence in the storage room grew stronger. I began to see the woman in my dreams, her face always turned away, but I knew she wanted something from me. One night, I gathered my courage and entered the room again, this time with a flashlight. The wallpaper was now completely soaked, and the roses had turned to blood-red blooms. I pressed my ear to the wall, and through the paper, I heard a voice, as clear as day: ‘Help me.’ It was then that I noticed a loose corner of wallpaper, and I peeled it away. Underneath was a message, written in what looked like dried blood: ‘She is still here.’

I ran to my grandmother’s room, bursting in without knocking. She was in her rocking chair, as usual, but this time she looked at me with a knowing sadness. ‘So you’ve met Eleanor,’ she said, her voice trembling. ‘She was my sister. She died in this house, a long time ago. We had a fight, and I locked her in that room. I never told anyone. I’m sorry.’ Tears streamed down her face, and I realized that the horror I had been feeling was nothing compared to the guilt she had carried all these years. But as I looked into her eyes, I saw something else—a flicker of something dark, and I knew that Eleanor was not the only one still trapped in the walls.

That night, the house fell silent. The crying stopped, and the wallpaper dried, its roses turning a dull brown. But I knew that peace was just a lie. The wallpaper would weep again, and the staircase would watch, and my grandmother’s room would hold its secret, waiting for the next child to believe that old houses are just old. And now, years later, when I visit that house, the walls are still, but I never go near the storage room. And sometimes, when I’m alone, I swear I can still hear the faint sound of a woman sobbing, behind the peeling paper.