The Woman Who Walked Past My Door at the Savoy, Mussoorie

I had heard the stories before I booked the room.

That is probably the first thing I should admit.

The Savoy in Mussoorie is old enough to have collected more than a century's worth of stories, and somewhere among them is the tale of a woman who died there under mysterious circumstances. People say she still walks through parts of the hotel.

I never believed that.

I chose the Savoy because I wanted two quiet days in Mussoorie during the rains. It was late August, tourists were fewer, and by the time I reached the hotel that evening, mist had swallowed almost everything beyond the gate.

The building looked beautiful in it.

That should have made it welcoming.

Instead, from the moment I entered, I had the strange feeling that the hotel was much larger inside than it appeared from outside.

My room was at the far end of a long corridor on the first floor. Wooden flooring, yellow lamps, framed photographs on the walls. Nothing frightening. Just old.

The receptionist had given me one of those electronic key cards, which somehow looked completely wrong in a place like that.

At around eleven, I had dinner, returned to my room and spent an hour reading.

Rain tapped continuously against the windows.

Sometime after midnight, I fell asleep.

I woke to footsteps.

Not loud footsteps.

The slow, deliberate sound of someone walking on wooden flooring.

Tap.

Pause.

Tap.

Pause.

I checked my phone.

2:17 a.m.

The footsteps were coming from the corridor.

At first I thought another guest had returned late. Then I noticed something odd.

They would reach my door...

...and stop.

After perhaps ten seconds, they would begin again farther down the corridor.

There was never the sound of anyone actually passing my room.

I sat up.

The next time the footsteps approached, I went to the door and looked through the peephole.

Empty corridor.

The lamps were still on.

Nothing moved.

I waited.

Then someone knocked.

Three soft knocks.

Not on my door.

On the door directly opposite mine.

I remember feeling relieved because suddenly there was an explanation. Somebody had simply gone to the wrong room.

I opened my door.

The corridor was empty.

But the door opposite mine was slightly open.

I was certain it had been closed earlier.

I stood there for several seconds, staring at the narrow black gap between the door and its frame.

Then a woman's voice came from inside.

"Excuse me."

It was quiet but perfectly clear.

I should have returned to my room.

Instead, I walked across the corridor and pushed the door a little further.

Darkness.

"Hello?"

No answer.

There was enough light from the corridor to see that the room was empty.

Not empty as in nobody was staying there.

Empty.

No bed. No chairs. No curtains. Nothing except bare flooring and a covered piece of furniture against the wall.

That was when I heard footsteps behind me.

I turned.

A woman was walking away down the corridor.

She was perhaps twenty metres away, wearing a long pale dress. I could only see her from behind. Her hair was pinned up, and she walked strangely slowly, as though she was in no hurry to reach anywhere.

"Ma'am?"

She stopped.

I wish she hadn't.

Because when she turned, she didn't turn completely.

Her shoulders remained facing away from me.

Only her head moved.

Not all the way around like something from a horror film. Nothing that dramatic.

Just slightly farther than it should have.

Far enough for me to see the side of her face.

And far enough to realize she had been crying.

There were two dark streaks running from her eyes down towards her jaw.

Then the corridor lights went out.

I ran.

I don't remember closing my door. I remember locking it. Then checking the lock twice.

For the next few minutes, nothing happened.

I told myself I had been half asleep.

Old building. Bad lighting. Imagination.

Then the telephone beside my bed rang.

The sound nearly made me drop my phone.

I stared at it through two complete rings before answering.

"Hello?"

Static.

Then breathing.

A woman's breathing.

Slow.

Weak.

I hung up and called reception from my mobile.

A man answered.

I asked whether somebody had just called my room.

There was a pause.

"No, sir."

I told him about the woman in the corridor.

Another pause.

This one was longer.

Then he asked me something I still think about.

"Sir, did you open the room opposite yours?"

I said yes.

His voice changed immediately.

"Please stay inside your room. Someone is coming."

Two staff members arrived a few minutes later.

When I opened the door, the room opposite mine was closed.

I pointed towards it.

One of them looked at the other.

Then he walked across the corridor and tried the handle.

Locked.

He told me the room wasn't being used.

I asked him why it was empty.

He avoided the question.

I slept with every light on.

The next morning, the mist had cleared and sunlight was coming through the windows. The corridor looked completely ordinary again.

Before checking out, I walked to the opposite door.

There was something on the floor outside it.

A small brass key.

Not an electronic card.

An actual old-fashioned hotel key, dark with age, attached to an oval metal tag.

There was a number engraved on it.

I picked it up and took it downstairs.

The receptionist looked at the key for several seconds.

Then he asked where I had found it.

When I told him, he didn't smile.

He took the key from my hand, placed it under the desk and simply said:

"Sir, these aren't used anymore."

I asked how old it was.

He looked towards the staircase behind me.

Then back at me.

"Very old."

I left Mussoorie that afternoon.

For months afterward, I told myself there had been an explanation.

An employee. Another guest. A dream. An old key dropped accidentally.

Anything reasonable.

But there is one detail I have never managed to explain.

Before leaving the hotel, I took one final photograph of the corridor.

I didn't look at it until I reached Delhi.

At the far end, almost hidden by the sunlight coming through a window, a woman was standing with her back towards the camera.

And even in the photograph...

her head was turned towards me.