I certainly don’t. Or, at least, I never believed in them before.
My grandmother had a house flipping business; she would buy old houses that were in need of a lot of TLC, and then she’d go all in making the houses completely unrecognisable. It was her thing, and she was pretty damn good at it. My siblings and I worked with her for many years, and learned a lot of secrets in the process.
When nonna died last year, she had three houses that she’d bought for flipping in the few months before she’d died, and as it turns out, she left my siblings and I each one of those three houses. Not wasting any time, my husband and I went to view the house, and at first glance we knew it had great bones. It needed a lot of work, yes, but it was nothing that I couldn’t handle. I’ve learned from the best, after all.
We moved to the house and rented out our own while we worked on fixing this one. Immediately, we could tell that it was more complicated than we’d anticipated. The electricity wasn’t the best, the plumbing was unreliable, and most importantly, all the windows and doors needed urgent repairs as they kept opening and closing on their own accord. That was a major issue because how can we stay in a house where an intruder could get in at any moment through any of the many broken doors and windows?
We asked everyone we know for help and in a matter of two days, everyone had worked together so wonderfully and the new doors and windows were installed without a hitch. Now we could sleep soundly, right?
Right.
At least… that’s what we thought.
At night, just as we’re drifting off to sleep, is when we start to hear it.
It’s not just the sounds of doors opening and closing on their own.. there was this plethora of strange sounds and other oddities around the house. Scratches, creaks, things being misplaced, lights flickering, you name it.
“It’s just an old house. Old houses are weird,” my husband constantly assured me, and I believed him.
We ignored the sounds to the best of our abilities and continued on with the work the house needed. We put our sweat and tears into the house, but nothing made it flourish more than our blood. Each time one of us got hurt and bled, the house absorbed it too fast and magically everything looked brighter inside the house; the dull walls looked shiny, the floors would creak less, and even the house plants that were looking drab were suddenly full of life.
At times I swear I could feel the house itself breathing.
I don’t know how after all this we didn’t notice that something was afoot. I mean, the evidence was right there that something was terribly wrong with this house, but we just kept lying to ourselves.
We did start to notice, though. Too late, but we did.
Yesterday we decided to treat ourselves, so we cuddled on the sofa, getting ready to watch some Netflix, and had all the snacks we needed for a long cosy night.
“Mommy, can you come over, please?” our daughter called out.
“Of course, sweetheart,” I replied automatically, getting up.
My husband placed his hand on mine to stop me, and just as he did, I realised why and sat back down. My eyes were wide and his look mirrored mine.
“Y-you heard that?” I whispered.
He nodded, and that was all I needed to burst into tears.
Later, my husband was asleep while I remained tossing and turning for a while in bed, still on edge from the incident that ruined our evening, when I heard the scratching coming from across the hall.
Now, I’ve never been one to be scared of the dark, but for some reason every time I walk this hall in the dark a sense of dread and foreboding washes over me. I swallowed my nerves and got quietly out of the room, headed down the hall. Some poor animal must’ve snuck in during the day and was now trying to get out.
It was when I got closer to the room at the end of the hall that I heard the whispers. Combined with the scratches, it was enough to set my teeth on edge.
I slowly pushed the door open and burst into tears once more. Our daughter lay in her bed, hooked up to the life support that kept her heart beating.
“Oh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry,” I whimpered, going over to stand next to her.
“Please stay, mommy,” my daughter said from behind me and I whipped around so quickly I almost tripped.
There she was, my darling daughter, wearing the beautiful dress she wore the day of the accident.
The accident that killed her.
I knew what I was seeing was illogical, but I felt myself sink to my knees in front of her and wrap my arms around her.
“That’s not possible,” my husband whispered, standing at the door.
“Daddy!”
Our daughter ran to him and flung her arms around him but he backed away, shaking his head and repeating over and over that it’s not possible.
“Hug me, daddy.”
He shook his head and took a step back.
“I said, HUG ME!” The sound that came out of her was unnatural and so loud it knocked him off his feet.
“This is not our daughter!” he managed to say to me before the door slammed itself in his face.
I heard him as he banged and slammed himself at the door, trying to get back into the room, but the door didn’t budge. Logically, the door shouldn’t close like that, because we have yet to install a latch mechanism. Something was keeping that door shut, something didn’t want to let my husband in.
My daughter turned and looked at me with her sweetest of smiles. “You will hug me, mommy, right?”
“Of course, darling. Of course,” I said as I wrapped her in my arms once more.
It looks like my daughter and it feels like my daughter, how can I not hug her?
It’s morning now and my daughter is nowhere to be seen. My husband is pleading with me to leave the house.. he’s packing all our things to go, but how could I?
I have to stay. My daughter is here, and she’s begging me not to leave her again.
It’s so dark and lonely without me, she says.
I have to stay.
She was holding a knife and asking me to join her, but she disappeared just as the first rays of dawn made their way into the room.
Tonight she’ll come again to ask me to join her.
The more I think about it, the more I think I should.