1999: Through the Grates, She Weeps

The apartment always smelled faintly of wet dust and boiled rice. Teódulo had stopped noticing it until the rains came. Now the scent thickened, as if the walls were sweating out everything they'd absorbed since Maristela died.

It was a small place, third floor, corner unit. The windows trembled when the wind pushed off the Medea River, and the heater clicked at irregular hours like someone tapping inside the pipes. The kind of building where the wallpaper peeled not from moisture, but from forgetting to be held up.

Teódulo stood in the kitchen, staring into the sink. The faucet had begun dripping again. No rhythm to it. Just slow, deliberate drops that echoed louder than they should’ve.

Behind him, Itzayana sat at the table, legs dangling. She stirred her cereal without eating it, eyes fixed on the hallway.

“She was crying again last night,” she said.

He rubbed his face with both hands. “You had a bad dream.”

“It wasn’t a dream. She was in the bathroom.”

“¿Quién, mi amor?”

“The lady. The one in the vent.”

Teódulo didn’t answer. He just reached over and gently turned her spoon upright in the bowl.

Across the room, Ulises sat with his drawing pad propped against his knees. He hadn’t spoken since the thunderstorm last week. His pencil moved quietly, dark scribbles becoming a familiar shape. A bathtub. A mirror. A woman made of long black lines and dripping circles where a face should be.

Teódulo looked away before it was finished.

Later, he went to shower. The water never really got hot anymore. He stood under the cold stream with his hands against the tiled wall, eyes shut, jaw clenched. The bathroom vent above him creaked. A droplet struck his shoulder—colder than the rest.

He looked up.

The vent was dripping again. Slow. Not rust. Not mildew. Clear water.

He finished quickly and stepped out. The mirror was fogged, but he didn’t wipe it clean. He avoided looking at it entirely.

That night, he woke up in the hallway. Clothes soaked through. Feet bare. The bathroom door was open.

The tub was empty.

Still, the drain gurgled.

And behind him, from the dark ceiling vent, came a sound like someone trying not to sob.

The crying returned the next night.

It started soft, like wind dragging a wet rag across tile. Teódulo lay awake in bed, holding his breath, pretending not to hear it. He stared at the ceiling, counting the seconds between the sounds. The old fan ticked overhead, off rhythm with the weeping in the pipes.

A floorboard creaked down the hall.

He rose without turning on the light.

In the children's room, Ulises was sitting up, eyes wide open, staring toward the doorway. His blanket was bunched at his feet. His small hands trembled in his lap.

Teódulo stepped inside and whispered, “¿Todo bien?”

Ulises pointed toward the bathroom. His voice was hoarse, dry: “She’s closer tonight.”

Teódulo glanced down the hall. The bathroom door was shut. But thin lines of moisture crept out from beneath it, glistening like snails’ trails.

Itzayana stirred in her sleep and muttered something—“Don’t answer her when she knocks.”

Teódulo sat between them for the rest of the night, cigarette burning low in his fingers, gaze never leaving the dark end of the hall.

The next morning, watermarks bloomed like bruises across the bathroom ceiling. The vent dripped steadily, as if the sky had chosen just that point to bleed. He placed a bowl beneath it.

It filled halfway before breakfast.

Itzayana refused to use the bathroom anymore. She said the crying hurt her ears. She covered her head with her rabbit when it started, humming nonsense songs to drown it out.

Ulises wouldn’t speak. But he kept drawing.

Teódulo tried to throw the sketches away, but they reappeared. Folded neatly under his pillow. Tucked inside his lunchbox. One taped to the bathroom mirror.

The image was always the same:

Their family at the dinner table.

A tall, shapeless woman behind them.

Black tears streaming down from empty eyes.

A single phrase written in a child's block letters:

“SHE WATCHES WHEN YOU LOOK AWAY.”

Watching.

Waiting.

That night, he couldn’t sleep. The apartment was too still, like the air was heavy with held breath. The children had finally quieted, but the bathroom… the bathroom had begun humming.

Low. Wet. Like someone breathing into water.

He cracked the door open.

Steam billowed out—though no water was running. The mirror was fully fogged, except one clear patch, round and clean as a face pressed close. The vent above the shower gurgled and dripped.

And in the tub, beneath the curtain, he saw the impression of two small feet.

His heart seized. He yanked the curtain aside—

Empty.

But the drain bubbled. A long, wet inhale.

He staggered back. The mirror cleared on its own, revealing him—and behind him, over his shoulder, just a fraction of something.

A hand.

Long fingers like bloated river roots, resting gently on his shoulder.

He turned. Nothing there.

The mirror fogged again instantly, like it was breathing.

Later that night, he found Itzayana huddled in the closet, clutching her rabbit with white knuckles. She stared at him with hollow eyes.

“She asked me to come with her,” she whispered.

“Who did?”

“The lady in the vent. She said mamá is cold. She said we can make her warm again.”

Teódulo knelt, trying to still the tremble in his hands. “You listen to me. You never talk to her again. Do you understand? You stay away from the bathroom.”

“She says you promised her,” Itzayana murmured. “Before mamá died.”

Teódulo recoiled. “No. I didn’t—That’s not—”

“She says you’ll remember soon.”

From the hall, the water started running.

The sound of the tub filling. Slowly. Gently.

As though it were drawing a bath for someone coming home.

The crying didn’t stop anymore.

It wasn’t just at night now—it wept through breakfast, sobbed while Teódulo washed dishes, moaned softly while the children played in silence on the living room floor. The entire apartment felt damp. Like the river had seeped into the walls and would never leave.

He stuffed towels into the bathroom vent. They came loose within hours. He unscrewed the mirror. It reappeared the next morning, already mounted. The maintenance man never answered his calls anymore. No one on this floor did.

Ulises stood in front of the tub that evening. Still. Unblinking. The water was running—black and thick as ink—and no one had turned the faucet.

Itzayana stood beside him, humming the lullaby again.

“She’s ready now,” she said. “She says we can all be warm.”

Teódulo grabbed them both, dragged them to the hallway, slammed the bathroom door shut.

He wedged a chair beneath the handle. It groaned against the pressure, as if something on the other side was already pushing.

The lights flickered. Then died.

From the dark: gurgling. Moaning. Soft knocks from inside the walls.

Then—a voice.

“Teó…”

His name, stretched and soaked in grief. Not whispered. Wept.

“Why did you let me go cold?”

The chair flew across the hallway, splintering into the wall. The door creaked open on its own.

The bathroom was full. Floor to ceiling. Flooded.

Yet nothing spilled into the hall.

The water was still. Black. Endless. The vent above the tub had split open, a wet cavity breathing softly.

Something moved beneath the surface.

A hand rose—slow and searching—wet fingers curling over the edge of the tub, then another. The woman began to emerge, head first. Her hair draped across her face like drowning moss. No eyes. No mouth. Just grief shaped into a body.

Teódulo stepped forward.

He whispered, “Leave them. Take me.”

She stopped.

Then she smiled—without a mouth.

And vanished.

The tub emptied instantly. The bathroom dried in seconds. Not even the mirror held condensation.

Behind him, the children slept soundly on the couch. Their clothes were dry.

But that night, when he closed his eyes, he heard her again—closer this time.

Not in the vent.

In the walls behind his bed.

Right behind the plaster.

Waiting.