The Room Behind the Wallpaper

Chapter 1: Loud Sounds

The first strange thing about the house was not the locked door.

It was the sound of someone humming behind it.

The house had been empty for eleven years before I moved in. Everyone in town knew that because the old woman who lived there, Margaret Bell, had spent the last years of her life sitting alone by the front window, watching cars pass and watering the same three plants on her porch every morning.

After she died, the house remained untouched.

People said it was because nobody wanted it.

I thought that was strange. It was a beautiful old house. White wooden walls. A wide front porch. Tall windows that let in golden afternoon light. The kind of place people usually fight over.

But when I signed the papers and received the keys, the real estate agent smiled awkwardly and said something I didn’t understand.

“Just don’t change too much at first.”

I laughed.

“Why?”