The house on Halstead Street always unnerved me. Now that I think about it, the word doesn’t do justice. Everyone in town found the house frightening.
There was a good reason, too. I know better than most; I grew up in the house next door.
I first noticed the house next door when I was six. Until then, I hadn’t ever paid attention. When you’re that young, and your parents have a fence built to keep you from seeing it, you tend not to notice. But then, a storm blew the fence down. My parents were still saving to replace it since money was tight, but they were glad everyone was safe.
That day, I knew my parents didn’t want me to go past where the fence used to be. But let’s be honest. Was there any real reason for that? It might have been taller, and taller grass is itchy even through long pants, but what could be in the grass, anyway?
When I stepped into the grass, I saw a red ball and immediately smiled. I thought I had lost it, as Mom and Dad told me. They always said I must have accidentally left it at McDonald’s or Burger King.
That got me thinking. If my parents were lying about that, what else were they lying about? It looked like a glorious spot to play.
I walked through the grass even further. I giggled when I saw a raspberry bush. Who’d have thought that was the case? I wasn’t about to pass up the chance to eat some of my favorite berries. I sat down with my ball and started picking.
Out of nowhere, someone grabbed me.
“Harriet!” my mother shrieked.
Almost reflexively, I screamed.
She lifted me up and didn’t put me down until I faced her. Then she gripped my head and forced me to look at her.
“What do you think you’re doing? Do you know what could have happened?”
I started crying.
“I was only eating raspberries! And look! I found my ball!”
Mom snatched it from me and threw it several yards away. She picked me up and dragged me back home. Once inside, she locked the door and ordered me to my room. I didn’t even get to use the bathroom.
“You will stay in your room until I come to get you. Do you hear me? If I hear your bedroom door squeak before then, you’ll go to bed without dinner, understood?”
I stood there shaking like a leaf and then nodded. Mom slammed the door and ran down the hallway, leaving me to cry on my bed. When I stopped, I got up and looked out my window. I didn’t understand what was happening. All I did was wander onto the property next door.
The movement of a tree branch caught my eye—and it was only then that I realized a building was behind it. When I realized it was there, I stared at it. How had I not noticed it?
I spotted the rusted-over vehicles in the overgrown back lot, the ones that, even at that age, I knew would never drive again. I jumped when a gust of wind whistled loudly through the house across from me. My window was closed, and I could still hear it. I could have sworn I heard my name, too.
Before I knew it, my bedroom door opened. I turned around to find Mom. She wasn’t breathing so heavily anymore, but her eyes still looked tight.
“Come, Harriet. Let’s talk.”
“Mommy, why is that house there?” I asked.
She saw the outline of the building behind the curtain, and when she realized I could see it if I peeked behind it, she went pale. She leaped to her feet and dragged me to my bed.
“You are not to go anywhere near that building, young lady. You hear me?”
“But why not?”
“Do you hear me?”
I agreed because I was not getting any answers. The next day, the fence was back up, and my mother moved my room.
That didn’t keep the tears from stinging my eyes. I might have been a child, but children aren’t stupid. I tried asking Mom about the house in the next few days. But she refused to say anything, even pretending she didn’t hear me. I’d have to wait for Dad to return from his business trip. Dad could give me answers once he got home; he always listened better.
Dad and I sat in the living room while Mom went to the grocery store. I sat there, telling Dad everything about what happened.
“Did you hear any strange noises coming from the house next door?” Dad asked.
“Like what? The wind whistling around in it?”
Dad went pale.
“The wind whistling?”
“Yeah. I was in my room looking at it when the wind picked up. I heard it clear as day, Dad.”
He rushed to his phone and called Mom. Then, he told me something that made no sense. That day, there was no wind. It was almost entirely still.
What did he mean there wasn’t any wind that day? I heard it. But then he showed me the weather reports—and they confirmed there was no wind. As I got to thinking, he was right. I didn’t feel any wind when I was by that raspberry bush.
We jumped when we heard the wind whistling as if through a long-abandoned house. We looked back at the local weather report. There was no wind that day, either.
Two weeks later, I celebrated my seventh birthday. A lovely day that you can expect from a child’s birthday party. My parents even hired a bouncy castle for us kids.
Then, a woman appeared. I was the first to see her walking up the driveway, and I didn’t see a matching car. She reminded me of the financial adviser my parents sometimes visited.
“Mom, who’s that?” I asked.
As soon as I pointed her out, Mom went pale.
“Harriet, go inside,” she ordered.
I didn’t know why nobody made the other children go inside, but I didn’t argue. The conversation outside was already getting heated. A few children cried because of how loud it got.
“Let her back outside! You can’t keep her from me!” the woman yelled.
“Get off my property! Now!”
I didn’t catch the end as Dad pulled me from the window, but I remember someone calling the police. By the time the police arrived, however, the woman had vanished.
When people realized she had vanished, people looked around. My best friend’s father had called the police—and he had only called them a few minutes before. She couldn’t have gotten away that quickly with so many witnesses.
Neither of my parents ever figured out how that took place. I’m not sure what first clued them in about her, but it wasn’t the last time I would see her.
The next time I encountered the woman, I was ten years old. By then, I had forgotten about her. This time, she tried getting into my school by claiming she was my aunt. When the principal called me to the office, I looked at my teacher, confused. My aunt lived in Seattle. When I asked why my parents hadn’t told me she was visiting, it made them call my mother. She confirmed my aunt wasn’t in town, prompting school officials to call the police.
I returned to class but not fast enough to see the woman having a tantrum. My mother later said she had disappeared before the police arrived.
I remembered the house on Halstead Street, too. By then, I realized what was happening. At least two children vanished after visiting it. I still remember the one mother sobbing in her husband’s arms as reporters asked her questions. She wasn’t prepared for them to bombard her with so many, and they wouldn’t let up.
My parents didn’t like it when I watched the news with them, but they didn’t stop me. They were never the sort to hide me from what happened in the world—and this was no different. I squirmed when I saw just how many questions all those journalists threw at the surviving parents.
As I watched the news with them, however, I noticed something.
“Mom? Dad? Isn’t that the woman who was at my birthday party?”
I pointed her out, and they gasped.
And the more I passed by that house, the more I felt like it was staring at me with eyes of hunger. That’s how the two front windows looked, the caved-in porch reminding me of a mouth. By then, I understood why Mom told me not to go near the house on Halstead Street.
When I was twelve, the next child to disappear was a three-year-old autistic boy named Nathaniel.
Now that I think about it, it makes sense that he vanished like that. I’m autistic myself, but I’m very much high functioning. People had known me for years and were stunned when I disclosed it.
Nathaniel, however, was severe. He wouldn’t make eye contact, never responded to his name, and got violent when someone told him no. I never thought a three-year-old could make people wonder if his father was beating his mother, but you learn something new every day. I talked to the parents while they were moving in. They knew their previous town’s police well.
In that respect, I couldn’t help but have sympathy. There was a lot Nathaniel put them through. They moved into town because they needed to be closer to his therapists.
My heart sank when I saw Nathaniel see the house on Halstead Street. He didn’t just see it; he was staring at it. Throughout the time his parents were moving them into the house, he didn’t budge. How his parents didn’t notice sooner, I still don’t understand. I think they were just glad he was quiet.
But then, after the movers placed the last of their furniture inside their new house, the boy’s mother came to fetch him. She picked him up.
As soon as she did, the boy shrieked. He screamed so loudly I didn’t know how he didn’t pass out. He cried harder as she dragged him inside the house and closed the door.
As the boy’s ear-piercing screams continued, my parents joined me in watching. At one point, the boy kicked a window.
“What the fuck is going on?”
“Hey! Not in front of our daughter,” Dad scolded.
“My point still stands, honey. It sounds like someone’s beating him.”
Suddenly, police cars arrived. Someone called the police—and they had to force the door open.
When they did, the boy bolted right out the door. Nobody could react before he ran across the street to the abandoned building. A car even had to halt. Within seconds, the boy reached the front yard.
Finally, the police caught up with him and picked him up. All the while, he kept screaming. My parents and I saw his face—he was redder than ketchup.
“I hope those cops do their jobs and warn the parents,” Dad muttered. “There’s no way that’s ending well.”
Eventually, Nathaniel stopped, but that didn’t mean it was over. That was the first time the boy bolted from his parents to the house on Halstead Street.
The boy bolted seven more times after moving in. He didn’t always make it across the street. His parents built the fence around their yard higher, but he got up and over it. Once, he got caught in it and cut himself. Whenever someone grabbed him, he screamed and cried. It surprised me no one called CPS.
Six weeks later, the inevitable came. The boy’s mother was bathing when he got away from the nanny. They called the police, but it was too late. Nathaniel had run to the house and vanished.
This time, nobody mentioned it. When I asked Nathaniel’s parents about their son, they looked at me like I was crazy. My parents and I couldn’t figure out why. Yet the parents insisted they didn’t know what we were talking about, claiming I was the first autistic person they’d met. It didn’t help that the media never mentioned his disappearance.
Mom and Dad had a few hushed conversations and finally stopped. Mom pulled me aside, her face pale and unblinking. That was all it took to realize she was serious—and I was about to get answers.
“There’s a reason I don’t let you go near that house, Harriet. Now that you’re twelve, I think you’re old enough to know why.”
That was an understatement, but I said nothing. Instead, I just sat there listening.
The abandoned house had always been there, as far as anyone knew. Even Mom did—and she grew up in the same town as me, although not on the same street. It had been abandoned since at least the 1930s, but further back, nobody knew when it was built.
“That explains those old cars,” I muttered.
Mom nodded.
“That didn’t keep people from trying to renovate it. The first attempt at renovation we know about happened in 1946.”
That didn’t end well. Nobody knows what drove them out, as they never revealed what they experienced. All anyone knows is that they skipped town and let the bank repossess it. They didn’t even make it to the three-month anniversary before abandoning it.
The next verified owners came along in 1954. Those owners abandoned it only three weeks later, with the bank repossessing it and selling it three months later, only for the same thing to occur again.
“Did anyone ever tell them there are easier ways to ruin their finances?”
Mom laughed at my halfhearted joke.
“Makes you wonder, right?” Mom acknowledged. “But that proved to be another thing. Many people who tried renovating it died soon after. Their children often had to pay off remaining debts.”
“Did anyone tell what they experienced?”
“Some were happy to do so, but not all of them.”
By then, Mom started squirming. She fidgeted throughout the entire recounting, but I noticed it picking up. I said nothing, though—and kept listening.
The pattern of buying the house only to be driven out a few weeks later for the bank to repossess it continued throughout the years. There was a slowdown in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. All three families in the 1990s to buy it sold their stories so they could recoup some of their losses.
Then came the last family to live there. The history didn’t put them off; that was part of the appeal. If only they knew they’d leave like everyone else.
“They lasted the longest, though. Unlike others, they kept up payments on the house. They couldn’t afford to abandon it.”
“What did they see?”
Mom stiffened, almost not wanting to recall.
“A person appeared in their house. They thought they recognized the person—and after digging, they realized who it was.”
Mom slid me a photograph. It was black-and-white, but I still recognized the person as the woman who showed up at my birthday party that day—and refused to pick up the photo because of that.
“The story doesn’t end there. It was strange because the woman hadn’t aged, and that woman hadn’t been the only one they saw.”
That was only the first person, and the other owners soon followed.
“Soon after that, they fled the house.”
And with that, Mom stopped, giving me a pointed look. When the realization set in, my mouth went dry. She was talking about herself and Dad. They were the last to buy the house on Halstead Street.
I decided against asking anything further. From the look on Mom’s face, she didn’t want to recall what happened there. I felt terrible about pressing her for details when I was younger.
As the years passed, more people disappeared. The media claimed they skipped town. I knew they didn’t—as Mom, a private detective, found their death certificates at some point. It was still bizarre how many people endured so much because of one house.
I saw that woman who first bought the house around town every so often, too. Whenever I saw her, I looked away and went about my business as if I didn’t see her. I didn’t even react when I heard the distant tantrum I no doubt knew she was throwing.
Three years after I completed graduate school, Mom died in a six-car pileup with an oil tanker. Mom died on impact, so at least she didn’t suffer when the tanker exploded.
My husband, Eli, joined Dad and me to sort through everything. Her estate was massive, which Dad and I saw coming. Grandpa was already a widower when I was born, and he left everything he had to Mom, Dad, and my two aunts. When Mom died, she left everything to Dad and me.
The estate still needed to be administered through the probate courts, which would take a while. All we could do was sort through the contents of the house. It was bittersweet—and not just for Dad or me. Eli and my mother liked each other. I still have no clue what he saw in me to make him think I was worth it, but evidently, I had done something right.
Dad, Eli, and I were sorting through some things in the attic one day. Much of it was dusty and reeked of mildew, but most belonged to Mom. The attic needed to be emptied, anyway. We got everything out and dusted off, and after taking a few moments to stop coughing, we started sorting through it.
Much of it was interesting—Dad was too eager to tell us the stories. He told us about when he and Mom almost slammed into a moose on their honeymoon in Newfoundland many times, but we didn’t care. We didn’t even care when he told us again about going on vacation, a bridezilla, and her wedding almost setting the hotel on fire. Stories like that are for a lifetime.
But then we got to a box labeled Old House. I opened it up, and I immediately coughed. I didn’t expect so much dust, and that’s saying something, given everything we already sorted through. Dad and Eli did so, too. And after a few moments, we finally got past it and looked through the contents.
As soon as I saw the first photo, I paused. That was Mom, for sure—and Dad next to her. They looked a lot younger, but then I saw the background.
They were standing in front of the house on Halstead Street. The conversation that day between Mom and me flooded back.
Dad took the photo from me. I jumped, not realizing he noticed me staring at the picture.
“She never wanted to tell you about that. She didn’t want to tell you we still own it.”
Eli and I stared at him for a moment.
“Why not? Harriet already told me about the property’s history.”
“The trauma of the experience frightened her too badly. It took everything she had to tell her we once lived there.”
Eli and I stared at him, hoping he’d tell us what they had experienced. But he said nothing.
“Read some of the diary entries in that box. That will give you an idea.”
“Will they also tell us why you and Mom never gave it up?”
Dad nodded, and then he walked out of the dining room. Eli and I looked at each other and sat down. We took everything out of the box and spotted the journals. We opened up the oldest and read.
The first entries were what we were expecting. Eli himself made a living flipping houses. It was a good living even whenever we thought about the 2007-2008 housing crisis.
“I still remember how well the first house sold after the Great Recession,” Eli muttered. “I know all too well the emotions running through their minds.”
“They probably had more hopes, too. From the looks of it, this was before then.”
Eli chuckled, and we kept reading.
Things changed when the entries reached June.
“What the fuck?” Eli muttered. “Face in the mirror?”
We glanced at each other.
“And not just any face,” I noted as I sorted through Mom’s old research papers. “That sounds like someone who once owned it in the past.”
It turned out I was right. Mom’s research proved it. But what we saw in the journal made little sense. The man Mom saw in that mirror was alive at the time. We started to form a timeline in our heads. The man she talked to had given her his business card. It was right there in the box with his face on it.
As the entries in the first journal went on, events in the house became more and more disturbing—from random fires and moving objects to sudden psychic powers and voices coming from the walls. The walls told them things, even telling them when they would get pregnant.
“I don’t think my parents wanted anyone else to endure what they did.”
“I don’t think that’s such a good thing for them,” Eli replied. “Look at this.”
I recognized the photo right away. It was a photo of me on my seventh birthday. It was right before that woman showed up—and she appeared in it. Even from a distance, the skull face was apparent. As the realization set in, my skin tingled. What did she intend with me that day at my birthday party?
A loud bang made us jump.
“Get out!” Dad roared.
“Honey,” a woman’s voice implored. Stomach acid lurched into my mouth—and it looked like the same happened to Eli.
That was Mom’s voice.
Three more gunshots went off, causing me and Eli to rush into the foyer. Mom was lying on the floor, blood pooling underneath her. Dad stood at the other end. We all stared at the body, the hall so silent I could have heard a pin drop. All the while, the skin seemed to get thinner and thinner. We saw the bones, even parts of the skull.
Then, the body and the blood vanished. With that, the foyer returned to normal. The only signs that anything had happened were the bullet holes in the door frame.
I looked at Dad.
“What just happened?” I demanded.
He gulped for some air before speaking.
“How far did you get in the journals?”
“Just finished the first one,” Eli replied.
Dad took a breath and sighed.
“Maybe I should tell you what happened next. It’s better coming from me, anyway.”
Dad motioned for Eli and me to follow him—and we all sat at the dining room table. The contents of that box were still on the other end, and Dad grabbed the two remaining journals before sitting down. All the while, he was arching his neck, sweat oozing down his forehead. It was like he recalled something he wasn’t keen on remembering.
Eli and I watched as Dad flipped through the two small notebooks, and it took a while for anyone to say anything.
“How were you able to see the faces, Dad? I already checked Mom’s research. I’m pretty sure that was someone who once owned that house.”
“That’s the same conclusion I came to.”
He sighed, put the two journals down, and then looked at us.
“We had been in that house next door for six months when we found out your mother was pregnant with you. That’s obvious from the journal you just read.”
“What happened after that?” Eli asked.
“We stayed in that house for three more months after that—and the events of that time take up the rest of those notebooks. That was when the walls started talking to us.”
Eli and I stared at him, not even knowing what to say. He kept talking.
“We didn’t realize it was the walls talking at first. By then, we were badly sleep-deprived and falling asleep at weird times. We thought we were hallucinating.”
“Hallucinations?” I muttered. “Like what? The walls talking?”
“That was just one example. We dismissed it, of course. Everyone knows walls can’t talk. By then, the renovation cost was taking its toll on both of us.”
But they weren’t. Mom’s father stopped by one day. Mom, Dad, and Grandpa all knew my parents were struggling. But when he ran from the house on Halstead Street after hearing an announcement that his wife would die in two days, nobody could deny what was happening.
“Sure enough, your grandmother died two days later from a heart attack.”
The will gave Mom and Dad enough time to pay off their debts and move into the house next door, where I grew up. They refused to sell it, but whatever was in that house wasn’t happy. That was the first time they heard the whistling around the house next door. They could have sworn they heard a woman and child wailing when they first heard it.
“When the wind picked up, we checked the weather reports. There was no wind that day.”
As soon as he said that, my mouth went dry. It was just like when I heard it whistling around that day when I was six.
“Your mother set foot back onto that property of her own accord only once after that,” Dad said. “And it was just before you were born.”
She ran out of the building when she heard the voice of a young boy.
“You are mine!”
She stopped dead in her tracks as she ran out of the house. She saw the same woman that arrived to see me that day—the woman confirmed to be the first to buy it. The autistic boy who vanished was next to the woman. They stood there, their eyes boring into her.
Mom bolted. She didn’t stop until she returned home, then slammed the door behind her and locked it. She couldn’t stand up for a while, not wanting to face what she had seen.
But then a pounding on the door made it shake, making Mom jump.
“Give her to us!” a pair of voices boomed. It seemed to have come from all sides and was loud enough to make her ears ring.
For a moment, she didn’t move, but then it happened again.
“Give her to us!”
The door rattled as they chanted. Mom glanced at the table drawer in the front hall where she and Dad kept a pistol. She grabbed the gun—and, after making sure it was loaded, she yanked the door open.
As expected, the woman and the child stood there, their eyes glowing metallic black. The sound of their demands pulsed through Mom’s skull so severely she thought it would explode. She already felt nausea, and starbursts were going off.
She raised the gun and pulled the trigger.
As soon as the bullets went through their bodies, the changing stopped. The bodies collapsed, their skulls cracking from the impact on the porch.
“After that, she called me and told me what happened. After you were born, she swore you would never enter that house yourself.”
I nodded grimly, remembering the day she grabbed me off the lawn.
We all jumped when we heard the sudden sound of the wind whistling.
“Give her to us!”
It picked up for a moment, and then it finally died down. We glanced at each other, and none of us needed to say a word to realize what needed to happen.
The next day, we called the local town hall asking how to declare the house on Halstead Street an attractive nuisance. It took a few hoops, but we got it done.
Throughout the process, town administrators were smiling.
“It’s about time,” one of them said. “I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner.”
Well, that was the understatement of the century. When we got approval from the town board, Dad, Eli, and I cracked open a bottle of champagne. We even drank cocktails while watching the building torn down.
We talked to the people hired to tear it down afterward, and they told us they could have sworn they heard children screaming and wailing. They pressed on, thinking it was their imagination.
Dad sold the land it once stood on to the town. Then, he sold my childhood home, and we moved to another part of the state.
Eli and I have three children now. Eli still flips houses but has also become a real estate agent. He sold several luxury homes, which was a relief because it meant a solid income. I’m a financial advisor. I still don’t know how we got this lucky with how the economy is. Sometimes, I wonder if something happened long ago to make this all the case.
My gut tells me this will happen again, though. Eli came home recently, his face pale.
As soon as I saw him, I stood up and made eye contact. I didn’t even need to ask.
“What just happened?” he muttered as he collapsed in the chair beside me.
I stared at him, and then he looked at me.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with the house I just sold. There’s no history anyone could find. I could have sworn I heard the wind whistling around in it—and there weren’t any children, but I could have sworn I heard a child giggling in the house.”