Arrival
I inherited the house on a Tuesday. No ceremony. Just a call from a lawyer with a voice like crushed paper and the legal equivalent of a shrug. My mother, Elaine Palmer, had died alone in her home — a sprawling Victorian ruin that leaned toward the sea like it was trying to remember something.
The house had been in our family for generations, a place everyone avoided except her. My mother was… eccentric. Not in the harmless, cat-collecting way. She believed in presences. Talked to the walls. Slept during the day and roamed the halls at night. I hadn’t visited in years.
Still, I drove up from Boston with the key in my pocket and a box of grief I hadn’t opened yet in the back of the car.
The house sat at the edge of a cliff near Winthrop, Maine — shingles curled like burnt paper, windows black and hollow. The nameplate beside the front door still read Mother’s Rest in flaked brass letters. My mother always said she didn’t name it. “It came that way.”
Inside, it smelled like lavender and mold. Dust covered everything except the furniture in the parlor, which was immaculate — as though someone had just left for tea. Her slippers were still by the fire.
I set down my bags, heard the wind creak through the eaves, and muttered aloud to myself.
“I’ll sell it. Soon.”
The floorboards groaned in reply.
Whispers in the Wallpaper
I planned to stay no more than a week. Sort her papers, call a realtor, move on.
By the second day, I realized she had lived here like a caretaker more than a resident. There were notes taped to doors:
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“Shut this tight after 9 PM.”
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“Do not sweep the attic.”
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“They don’t like the stove running late.”
At first, I assumed senility. But the handwriting was crisp. Precise.
In the upstairs study, I found a stack of journals. Dozens of them, neatly labeled: Housekeeping — 1986, Dream Logs, Communications.
The entries were methodical:
Nov. 12 – He was pacing again above my bed. I left him the old gloves, and the noise stopped at once. They prefer soft cloth, I think.
Jan. 3 – The girl in the pantry cried most of the night. I hummed for her, and she settled.
Mar. 30 – Whispering in the walls again. Nothing angry. Just… lonely.
It felt like reading someone else’s mind unraveling thread by thread.
Then I noticed: the margins weren’t empty. They were covered in tiny symbols. Circles, spirals, hourglass shapes. Over and over again.
I stopped sleeping well that night. The house groaned like it had lungs. And once — just once — I heard humming coming from the pantry.
My mother’s tune.
Things That Weren’t There
The sounds started subtle.
Footsteps in the attic. Always at 3:17 a.m.
A chair sliding across the floor when I wasn’t in the room.
The feeling of cold, stale breath on my neck while brushing my teeth.
I chalked it up to my writer’s brain — the part that still drafted horror novels no one read. Stress and grief and this damn house bleeding into my head.
But I started noticing things moving. The porcelain rabbit on the hearth switched directions. A spoon ended up on the basement steps. A framed photo of my mother and me — taken the summer before my father died — cracked right down the middle of her face.
There were smells, too. Salt. Lavender. Charcoal. Always strongest around the narrow hall upstairs with the peeling wallpaper.
One night I put my ear to it, half-joking.
And I heard whispering.
Not words exactly — but meaning. Sadness. Curiosity. Hunger.
I didn’t sleep that night.
Housekeeping
I began to mirror her rituals.
Not on purpose. Not at first.
But I started shutting the parlor door at night. Leaving a pair of socks folded neatly on the attic stairs. Lighting a candle and letting it burn all the way down on the window sill.
Each time I did, the house seemed… quieter.
Not empty. Just less agitated.
Her journals filled in the gaps. She hadn’t gone mad. Or maybe she had, but she’d found structure in it.
“Spirits are like guests,” she wrote. “They need comfort. They need consistency. You must tend to them, or they forget they were ever human. Then they get loud.”
I wondered how long she’d lived like this. Making tea for the dead. Leaving gloves for ghosts. I wondered if she’d ever been alone in this house — or if the house made sure she never was.
The day I found her old locket on the nightstand, it was warm to the touch. I could’ve sworn I smelled her perfume.
That night, I heard someone say my name.
She Never Left
The mirror in her bedroom was covered in a black veil.
I took it down.
For a moment, I swear I saw her. Just behind my reflection. Watching. Smiling.
The glass cracked across the center.
I ran.
I drove to a motel twenty miles out and slept for twelve hours straight. All the time, telling myself I was going home, calling a contractor, burning the journals. But when I woke up, my car keys were missing.
They were waiting on the hall table when I returned the next afternoon.
The house was warmer. The fire had been lit. My mother’s slippers were turned inward, as if she’d just stepped out of them.
And on the dining room table was a cup of tea.
Still steaming.
The mug was mine.
Mother’s Voice
I stopped fighting it.
The house had rhythms. It wanted things. It missed her.
And — I’ll admit it — I missed her too.
When she spoke, it was barely a whisper. But it was her voice. Not just a sound, but the feel of it.
You’re doing well.
They’re quiet now.
You understand.
I asked her what they were. Who they were.
She never answered directly. Just that some came here to rest. Others came to stay. And a few — the ones in the attic — never left the place they died.
Some were born here, she said.
Some were made here.
I asked her if she had died in this house.
She laughed, soft and distant.
Not exactly.
The Fire and the Photograph
I tried to end it.
There’s a point where even horror becomes ordinary, and in that familiarity, you get reckless.
I took all her journals, all the notes, and threw them into the fireplace.
The flames roared high and angry. The walls shook. The windows wept condensation like the house itself was sobbing.
The next morning, her photograph was back on the mantel. Whole. Smiling.
My hand was burned — a blistering, ugly welt that hadn’t been there the night before.
I went to the attic.
The door was open.
Inside, the walls were covered in chalk markings. Symbols. Words. Names — mine included.
And on the rocking chair was a needlepoint pillow that read:
“You’re Home Now.”
Rest
They say grief has stages. Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance.
But they never talk about the stage after that — the one where you sink so deep you start to feel rooted.
I stayed.
I don’t know how long it’s been.
The pantry girl doesn’t cry anymore. The attic is quiet most nights. I leave slippers out now, just like she did.
The house remembers.
And so do I.
They don’t want much — just presence. Ritual. Respect.
There are worse things than sharing space with the dead.
Worse things than being a caretaker.
Sometimes, I still hear her.
My mother.
She tells me I’m doing a good job.
She says she’s proud.
And sometimes, when I’m drifting off to sleep, I feel her hand on my hair.
Still warm.