The Woman Who Saw What We Couldn’t

Mrs. Sholape lived three houses away from mine, in a narrow yellow bungalow that always seemed darker than the others, even in the afternoon sun. In our neighborhood, people whispered her name the way they spoke about bad dreams quickly, and with a glance over the shoulder. To us children, she was simply “the woman who saw ghosts.”

My mother met her first. One evening, while returning from the market, Mrs. Sholape stopped her by the roadside and began to talk. She spoke calmly, as if discussing the weather, but what she said made my mother uneasy. She claimed she heard footsteps in her house at night, even when she was alone. She said shadows stood by her door, watching her breathe. Sometimes, she woke up to the sound of someone calling her name soft, persistent, and very close.

My mother listened politely and nodded, but when she came home, she laughed it off. “Some people enjoy stories too much,” she said. I agreed with her. In our neighborhood, strange tales were common. Someone was always dreaming of a dead relative or blaming unseen forces for ordinary problems. I did not believe Mrs. Sholape, not even a little.

Still, she fascinated me.

Mrs. Sholape was quiet and withdrawn. She dressed neatly, always in dull colors, and avoided crowds. When people greeted her, she smiled, but her eyes looked far away, as if she was watching something standing just behind you. At night, her house was often dark, except for a single dim bulb in the sitting room that stayed on till morning.

Sometimes, I saw her standing outside late at night, staring down the street. When I asked my mother about it, she said Mrs. Sholape was probably just lonely.

The stories did not stop. One afternoon, she visited my mother again. This time, her voice trembled. She said she had seen a woman in white standing by our well, dripping wet, her feet not touching the ground. Another night, she claimed something sat at the edge of her bed and sighed like an old man tired of living. My mother grew uncomfortable and warned her to stop talking like that in front of me.

I rolled my eyes whenever I heard these stories. Ghosts did not pay rent or fetch water, I thought. If they existed, they would have done something obvious by now.

Then little things started happening.

A neighbor complained that someone knocked on her door at midnight, but when she opened it, nobody was there. Another said she heard her name called from behind, only to turn and find an empty street. Once, I woke up suddenly in the night, certain someone was standing near my window. I told myself it was imagination and went back to sleep.

Mrs. Sholape stopped coming out as often. When she did, she looked thinner, her face pale. She told my mother she could no longer rest because “they” had started following her outside her house. My mother advised prayers and suggested she see a pastor. Mrs. Sholape only nodded, like someone already exhausted by advice.

One morning, we woke up to find her house locked. Her belongings were gone. No goodbye, no explanation. People said she moved away quietly in the night. Others claimed she ran mad. Some said the spirits chased her out.

Life in the neighborhood returned to normal, or so we thought.

Weeks later, as I fetched water near the well one evening, I saw a woman standing there. For a second, my heart stopped. Then she turned, and it was just a neighbor I knew. I laughed nervously at myself.

But sometimes, late at night, when the street is silent and the wind moves strangely, I remember Mrs. Sholape. I remember the certainty in her voice, the fear in her eyes. And I wonder did she imagine everything?

Or did she simply see what the rest of us refused to notice?