“Whispers in the Wallpaper”

Title: Whispers in the Wallpaper

A story of echoes, secrets, and the haunting language of silence

By [Ali Rehman]

The first time Clara heard the whisper, she thought it was the wind.

It was her third night in the old Ashbourne House — the Victorian manor she had inherited from an aunt she barely remembered. The place had been vacant for decades, wrapped in ivy and rumor. The villagers in the nearby town spoke of its creaking floors, flickering lights, and strange, restless quiet. But Clara, a painter searching for solitude and inspiration, saw it as a chance — a retreat from the noise of city life and a place to rebuild her crumbling self.

The house smelled of dust and time. Its wallpaper, once elegant with floral patterns, had begun to peel like tired skin. Each corridor was lined with it — faded blues, washed-out golds, fragments of other eras clinging stubbornly to the walls. The first night was uneventful, save for the usual groans of an aging home. The second night brought rain, and the rhythmic tapping against the windows lulled her into uneasy dreams.

But on the third night — the whispers began.

It was faint at first. A low, sighing sound, like someone speaking through fabric. Clara paused, brush in hand, standing before the half-painted canvas she’d been working on. The room was still, yet the whisper grew clearer — not quite words, but intentional, as though the house was trying to form a thought.

“Hello?” she called softly, her voice trembling.

Silence. Then, the faintest reply, curling through the air like smoke:

“Listen.”

The word brushed against her ear, though no one was there. Clara froze. Her heart hammered. She told herself it was her imagination, the isolation playing tricks on her. But when she pressed her ear to the wall, the whisper came again — layered, many voices, soft and pleading.

She backed away. “It’s just the wind,” she murmured, though deep inside, she knew the wind didn’t sound like sorrow.

The next morning, sunlight filtered weakly through the lace curtains, and the house looked harmless again — almost beautiful in its age. But Clara couldn’t shake what she’d heard. She decided to explore.

The whispers seemed strongest in the east wing, particularly in a narrow corridor lined with golden wallpaper patterned with roses. She traced her fingers along the wall and noticed something peculiar — small raised bumps beneath the surface, uneven, as if something was trapped underneath. The air felt heavier there.

Later that evening, as shadows stretched across the hall, she returned with a small knife. Her hand trembled as she peeled back a section of wallpaper. Behind it, she found another layer — older, darker, almost black with age. She peeled again, revealing a third layer beneath that one — and then she saw it.

Names.

Hundreds of them. Faded, scratched into the plaster. Some were elegant cursive, others jagged and desperate. Eliza. Thomas. Miriam. Henry. Beneath one name, she saw the faint outline of a child’s handprint, pressed into the wall like a ghostly signature.

The air shifted. A whisper brushed against her neck.

“Thank you.”

Clara stumbled back, her knife clattering to the floor. The walls pulsed — softly, like a heartbeat. The whispers grew louder now, layered voices weaving together in a sad, melodic murmur.

“What do you want from me?” she cried.

“Remember us,” they breathed.

Clara spent the following days in a haze of obsession. She researched Ashbourne House in the town library. The records were sparse — a fire had destroyed most archives — but she found mention of a sanatorium that had once operated there in the late 1800s. A place for the “melancholy and disturbed.”

The patients, she learned, were locked away in hidden rooms within the manor, treated not with care but with confinement. When the sanatorium shut down, those who died within its walls were forgotten — buried without names.

The whispers weren’t ghosts, she realized — they were memories, trapped in the house’s very bones.

That night, she couldn’t sleep. The whispers had grown louder, surrounding her like an invisible storm. She walked the corridors barefoot, candle in hand, her heart pounding in rhythm with their voices.

“Help us,” they whispered. “Free us.”

Clara followed the sound back to the east wing. The wallpaper there rippled slightly, as though breathing. Without hesitation, she tore it down — strip after strip — until the entire wall was bare. Beneath the final layer, she found something she hadn’t expected.

A door.

It was small, hidden perfectly behind the plaster. Rusted, sealed shut. She pried it open with trembling hands, revealing a narrow stairway descending into darkness. The whispers fell silent.

She hesitated at the top step. The air below was cold, heavy with the scent of damp and decay. Her candle flickered violently. But something deeper than fear pulled her forward.

The cellar was vast, lined with old wooden walls, fragments of furniture, and faint chalk drawings. And there, along one wall, were dozens of framed portraits — painted faces of men, women, and children. Their eyes seemed alive, almost aware.

As she stepped closer, she noticed something chilling — the faces were painted in her style.

Each brushstroke, each color choice — hers. But she had never painted them.

The whispers returned, softer now, like a lullaby.

“You remember,” they said. “You painted our pain. Long ago.”

Tears welled in her eyes as realization dawned — this was not her first life in the house. Somehow, she had been here before. Perhaps as a caretaker. Perhaps as one of them. And the house had waited — waited for her to remember, to listen, to release them.

When dawn broke, Ashbourne House stood silent once more.

Clara was gone, but her final painting remained — a mural covering the east wing wall. It depicted the faces from the cellar, peaceful at last, bathed in soft golden light. The wallpaper had been stripped away completely, revealing the raw truth beneath.

And if you listen closely — very closely — the walls no longer whisper.

They sigh, softly, as if finally at rest.