The Woman in the Walls

By Brooklyn Ramsay

Benji grew up with someone in the walls of his home. He’d hear voices coming from the drywall and footsteps coming from an attic that had been closed off since his family moved in. He had grown accustomed to it, learning to ignore the whispers in the dead of night and the way the lights would flicker when no one was near the switch. Benji never felt fear when these things happened. Something about them felt innocent, like whoever was there was just trying to say hello.

The person in the walls never harmed Benji, though he knew that they probably could. He’d read enough stories to know that they could make him sick or make his head throb. He knew that the entity was likely just a lingering spirit, and not something more sinister.

Benji’s parents never heard any of it, and they never believed him when he told them about the chill in his room or the handprint on his window. He’d see shadow figures standing in doorways and think that it was one of his parents, but when he called to it, there would be no answer. He tried to tell them about the apparitions and anomalies, but they waved his comments away like they were just fairytales.

“Mom, I swear,” Benji had said once, his heart racing as he stood before his mom, looking up at her with wide eyes. “There’s a handprint!” he pleaded, but his parents didn’t even bother to see if the handprint was really there.

“You’re too imaginative, Benji,” his dad muttered, leaving him standing alone in the hallway.

It was the fact that no one believed him that made Benji doubt himself. He wondered if perhaps he was making this all up. After all, a child’s imagination is far more creative than an adult’s. And aside from the misty shadow figures, he’d never truly seen the person—he’d only heard them. Perhaps he was overthinking it and keeping himself awake at night for no reason at all.

He recalled the night when he awoke to the feeling of a breath on his cheek only to find that no one was standing there, or the morning he was getting ready for school and felt something brush his wrist. Thinking about those times caused goosebumps to rise on his skin and the hair on the back of his neck to stand up. He would give anything to know who was there with him, who was pacing above his room in the darkest hours of the night.

One night, Benji had been up late. The clocks struck three o’clock while he sat alone in his bed, his phone screen the only light. That night, Benji heard more footsteps than usual. They seemed to pace back and forth above him before the sound moved and the person began pacing right outside his bedroom door.

He knew that it wasn’t Mom or Dad, because they had gone to bed hours ago.

Benji furrowed his brow and he looked up from his phone. The footsteps stopped and he heard his door handle rattling, as though someone was trying to open it but wasn’t quite sure how. A chill settled in the room, like a crisp fog blanketing a deserted field. As Benji’s eyes drifted to the bottom of the door, he saw the shadow of two feet standing perfectly still as the door handle shook. He felt his muscles tense, as though he needed to be prepared to get up and sprint at a moment’s notice.

He looked from the door to the foot of his bed, tearing his eyes away from the handle and the shadow.

The room was beyond dark, the moon outside covered by thick clouds. The only light came from the hallway, flooding in through the crack under his door. The room was as cold as an Alaskan winter’s night and Benji imagined his window frosting over and icicles hanging from his ceiling like stalactites.

After a second of allowing his eyes to adjust to the darkness, he saw something there.

It was human height and seemed to be darker than the shadows under his bed. It looked like the person he had seen at the end of the hallway and standing in the doorframe. He cocked his head, squinting to try to see it better. He wasn’t startled by the apparition, he was just curious. This wasn’t a shadow figure like the others. It was soft, translucent, and far more clear than the other ones he had seen. Unlike the shadow people, he could make out certain features. It was a woman, her curves outlined in darkness. Her long skirt billowed in a non-existent wind and the shadow of her hair cascaded over her slender shoulders. She stood there for a few minutes, not moving. The light caught on her skin and added a soft glow to her. Benji stared at the gaps in the figure that appeared to be the woman’s eyes.

“Who are you?” Benji asked quietly, not expecting an answer.

He heard a whisper in his ear but couldn’t make out what she’d said. Maybe she didn’t want to tell him. Maybe she didn’t want to talk. Maybe she just wanted to be seen, to be known. He could understand this. Sometimes Benji felt like no one even saw him. He didn’t necessarily want to talk to people, but he wanted them to know that he was there, to recognize that he existed on the same earth that they did. He was rarely acknowledged by his peers or parents, and maybe that’s how the ghost felt. She was just a spirit waiting for someone who would finally notice her.

He kept his eyes focused on the shadow of the woman. She seemed to slowly fade into the shadows of the room, retreating into the darkness. Once the woman’s figure was gone, he felt the temperature rise again and his muscles relax.

After that night, the noises stopped.

He never heard pacing above him again; he never saw shadows under his door or in the hallway; his window remained clean, no mysterious handprints on the glass. That was the last he ever saw or heard of the woman in the walls, and Benji felt like a piece of him had been torn away. He felt alone without the woman’s presence, like they were good friends who had to say their last goodbye.

He felt like because he finally acknowledged her presence, she got what she needed. She fulfilled whatever unfinished business she had and she was able to cross over. At least, that’s what Benji understood from the television shows that he’d seen and the books that he’d read. Sometimes spirits are trapped, sometimes they’re just visiting, and sometimes they had something to do before they could cross over.

Benji grew up with a woman in the walls of his home, and he hoped to meet her again one day.

Check out Brooklyn on their social media: @brooklynwritess

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