My name is Michelle Miller. To this day, after all these years, the memory of what happened makes my skin crawl, the kind of crawl that gets under your skin and never quite leaves. I was twenty-one years old, then. Just out of the security of home and family, looking to make a life for myself. I had found a job at Tom’s Grocery Store and a small apartment in Portland, Michigan. Independence was sweet. It was like all the pieces were coming together at last.
The first four months were fine and easy. I worked, paid bills and called my mom every Sunday. It was a one bedroom, squeaky floors, old radiators, nothing fancy, but it was mine. I decorated it with thrift store finds, faded posters, made it safe, made it homey.
That came to an end one night in October.
I woke up, and I was shaking. My skin is all goosebumpy. My legs were swaddled in blankets. At first I thought the furnace had gone out, but as I lay there I knew it wasn't just the cold that had woken me. There was a sound. Weak, fast, unnatural. It was like teeth chattering, y'know, like when you're cold, that sound, but sharper, faster, reverberating on the walls.
The noise was in the bathroom.
I sat up, groggy. I rubbed my arms, annoyed. The chatter grew louder as I approached the door to the bathroom. A weird rhythm, like morse code. The door swung open, and an icy draft blew in, biting my skin. I reached for the light, but the light of the bulb was blue and brittle.
And then I saw them. Little hand prints on the bathroom mirror, each one fogged with condensation. As if a little girl had been pressing her palms there moments ago. My heart was beating in my chest. I wiped the mirror clean. The prints didn’t go away. I left the bathroom light on all night, hoping it would keep the cold away and whatever made those prints.
The next night the chattering was there again. I tried to shut it out, burrowing under the covers and telling myself it was the pipes, or the neighbors. But the noise wasn't going to let me sleep. It circled the apartment, circled my bed, always back to the bathroom. Sometimes I thought I could hear a whisper in the din, a small voice lost beneath the constant click of teeth.
On the third night I was a bit on edge, from being tired and scared. I fell asleep, but was suddenly woken by the unmistakable feeling of breath on my ear, cold and damp and heavy with sorrow. And the chattering was right beside me, almost inside my skull now, someone inches away, teeth chattering uncontrollably.
I shouted, then sat upright. The noise hushed. The room was empty, but the cold was present, like an open grave spreading from the bathroom. My heart was pounding, mind racing, and I slept with the lights on.
The next morning, bleary-eyed and desperate for answers, I started digging into the history of the apartment. It didn't take long at all to find the story, a tragedy smeared across the old news sites. A woman lost her mind two years before I moved in and drowned her 5 year old daughter in the bathtub. The mother was found rocking back and forth saying "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. The little girl's body was still in the water.
Her lips were blue, her fingers pale and pruned, the police report stated. I couldn't keep reading. I closed my laptop and cried. I was swamped with a sorrow that was not mine.
One week later. I did my best to shake it off, but I could never feel safe in that apartment again. The corners were shadowed. No matter how high the heat was turned, the bathroom was always colder than the rest of the unit.
Then one night I saw her.
I just got done brushing my teeth, trying to block out the cold, the dread pooling in my stomach. Then I saw something in the mirror, a flicker of movement at the corner of my eye. I turned and there she was, a little girl, no more than five, standing barefoot beside the tub. Her skin was a mottled blue, her lips were trembling, and she stared past me with wide, glassy eyes. Her little fists clenched and unclenched at her sides, her teeth chattered so fast it sounded like bones rattling in a box.
“It’s so cold. Her voice was thin and distant, as if it rose from the bottom of a well. "I'm cold.
I staggered backwards, almost tripping over the bath mat. My eyes stung with tears. The little girl didn’t move, just stood there, teeth chattering, eyes begging me for something I couldn't give her.
I ran. I had no time to pack. I grabbed my phone and keys and ran down the stairs calling mom. I could hardly speak, my words cold and knotted with sobs. Came and got me that night Wrapped me in blankets And listened while I tried to explain.
I got my things back the next day, but I never spent another night there. Broke my lease, lost my deposit and moved to the other side of town, into a shoebox studio over a loud bar. That place is tough to beat.
And sometimes, in the dead of night, when the wind rattles the windows in a particular way, I hear a faint chattering and wonder if she ever found peace. I hope wherever she is, she's warm.
But I will never forget those little handprints, or the voice that whispered "I'm so cold" from the shadows of my bathroom.