Click here to go back to the Hub Page

Eleanor tested the bathwater with her wrist and found it slightly cooler than she liked. She pulled the bell beside the bath, and when the maid came, she said, “Bring another can of hot water, please.”

The maid said, “Yes, miss,” and left.

Eleanor turned the key in the lock. She did it from habit, for privacy, and then she undressed behind the screen and stepped into the bath. The water was warm enough once the second can had been poured in. She settled against the back of the tub and opened her book.

For several minutes there was only the sound of water against the porcelain and the rustle of pages. She had been tired all day, a little unwell, and the heat relaxed her shoulders.

“Open the door.”

The voice was clear and close. Eleanor looked toward the door, expecting the maid to be standing in the corridor. “What is it?” she called. No one answered. She waited, one hand holding the book above the water. The corridor stayed quiet.

She returned to her reading, but the sentence no longer held her attention. A few minutes later the voice came again.

“Open the door.”

This time it seemed to come from inside the room, near the dressing screen. Eleanor sat up. Water sloshed against the sides of the bath. “Is someone there?” she said.

No answer. She looked behind the dressing screen. Her robe hung over the top, and the space behind it was empty. She went to the locked door and called into the corridor, “Is anyone out there?”

Nothing.

Annoyed with herself, she got back into the bath. The heat was beginning to feel heavy. She told herself that she had imagined the voice, or that a door elsewhere in the house had caught the sound and thrown it strangely. She picked up the book again, though she only stared at the page.

“Open the door.”

The third time the voice was firmer, and Eleanor felt a sudden lightness in her head. She blamed the heat of the water, or the way she had sat up too quickly. “I am being foolish,” she said quietly. Opening the door would prove no one was outside. She set the book on the stool and began to rise.

“Open the door. Now.”

The fourth voice was not loud, but it was urgent. It did not shout. It gave only the instruction, and something in the plainness of it made her move.

Eleanor stepped out of the bath and wrapped herself in her robe. She did not trouble with the ties. She went to the door, turned the key, and pulled it open.

The corridor was empty. A strip of evening light lay across the floorboards, but there was no figure in it, no shadow at the far end, and no sound of footsteps on the stairs.

She turned back into the room, and the room began to spin. Her vision narrowed at the edges, and the walls seemed farther away. She understood then that she was about to faint. The bell pull hung beside the bath, within reach. She caught it and pulled once, hard, and then her legs folded and she fell beside the bath. Her hip and shoulder struck the floorboards, not the water, but the bath was full and close. If she had been still in it, or if the door had stayed locked, no one would have reached her in time.

Downstairs, the maid heard the bell. She set down the cloth she was holding and ran up the stairs. The bathroom door stood open. She found Eleanor on the floor beside the bath, pale and still, one arm flung toward the bell pull. The maid shouted for help, and the household came running.

They moved Eleanor to her bedroom and sent for the doctor. He said the heat and the faintness might have caused a serious accident if she had been alone in the locked room, but he did not linger over the details. Eleanor recovered slowly, lying in her own bed with the window open a little.

The next morning she asked the maid whether she had come to the bathroom door at any time before the bell rang.

“No, miss,” the maid said. “I was downstairs the whole time. I heard no voice. I heard only the bell.”

No one else in the household admitted to speaking outside the bathroom. No servant had been in the corridor. No window had carried a voice from the street. The maid had been below, and the others had been at their tasks.

Eleanor looked at the bathroom door, which stood open now, the bolt drawn back. If she had ignored the voice and left it bolted, the maid would not have reached her in time. She did not know what had spoken to her. She knew only that she had heard it, and that obeying it had saved her.

She looked once more at the open door, at the withdrawn bolt, and then at the bell cord hanging beside the bath.

This story is based on a true account included in Andrew Lang’s The Book of Dreams and Ghosts. You can read the original account in the free Project Gutenberg edition. And if you are interested in fresh and modern content about dreams that came true, you can find them in my book “Dreams That Wake You Up”, a collection of real dreams and real outcomes, directly from my clients, printed with their consent.

For more articles and stories from us, click here to go back to the Hub Page