The Copper Token

At thirteen, summer hung thick and green around the old Sharpe House, which my mother insisted on calling the ‘Heritage Hollow Bed and Breakfast,’ though no one had slept there in decades. We were there for her photography project—she wanted to capture ‘spiritual residue’ on film, as she put it. I thought it was nonsense, but I also couldn’t shake the unease that prickled my skin as we crunched up the gravel drive.

The house was a three-story Victorian, its white paint peeling like sunburned skin, wrapped in a shroud of overgrown rhododendrons. The windows were dark, but one on the second floor seemed to reflect a deeper blackness, as if the glass was just a thin membrane over something vast. I hugged my arms as a chill slipped through my thin t-shirt, even though the July air was heavy and damp.

My mother was already unpacking her camera, her face lit with excitement. I, on the other hand, felt compelled to speak, a sudden urge to apologize for our intrusion. ‘If there’s anyone here,’ I said, my voice a rasp, ‘we mean no harm. We’re just taking pictures.’

A sound answered me: a faint, metallic tinkling, like tiny bells or scattered change. The air around me dropped by ten degrees, and a shiver ran up my spine. I looked down, and there, at my feet on the cracked concrete, lay a small pile of copper coins—old pennies, their faces worn smooth, except one that gleamed as if freshly minted. I knelt, my fingers trembling as I scooped them up. They were cold, almost painfully so, and they weighed heavier than they should.

A movement caught my eye, and I looked up at the house’s front window. A young woman stood there, her face as pale as the peeling paint, her dark hair loose around her shoulders. She smiled at me—not a friendly smile, but a knowing one, her lips curving just a little too wide. I felt a pull, an odd curiosity, and my legs moved as if of their own accord, crossing the porch to the heavy oak door.

The door swung inward without a sound. Inside, the light was murky, filtered through grimy windows. Dust motes danced in the air. The floorboards creaked under my feet, and I smelled something old and smoky, like a fireplace that hadn’t been cleaned in years. I followed my instinct to the parlor, where a massive stone fireplace dominated the wall. Its hearth was blackened, not with soot, but with something darker, something that had seeped into the very stone. My heart began to pound.

I remembered then the old tales about the previous owner, a man named Silas Sharpe, who had been accused of terrible things—travelers who had checked in and never checked out. The fireplace. The stories said he had burned them there. I stared at the grate, and the image of a hand reaching out from the flames, fingers curling, flashed in my mind. I stumbled back, a cold sweat breaking out on my forehead.

I turned and saw the woman again, but now she stood in the doorway, and she was no longer smiling. Her face was twisted in a sorrow so deep it seemed to bend the light around her. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out, only a faint wail that I felt more than heard.

‘I’m sorry,’ I choked out, my voice breaking. ‘I’m so sorry!’ I shoved past her, the coins in my fist growing icy, and burst out into the humid air, gasping. My mother was still taking pictures, oblivious. I didn’t tell her what I’d seen. I just climbed into the car and clutched the coins until my knuckles went white.

That night, I placed the coins in a small wooden box on my dresser, thinking that would be the end of it. I was wrong.

A week later, I saw the first cat. It was sitting in the hallway, a scrawny, black thing with piercing green eyes. It blinked at me slowly, then vanished around a corner. I followed, but it was gone. Then I saw a white cat with mismatched eyes in my bedroom, sitting on the windowsill, its gaze fixed on me as if it knew something. They began to appear with increasing frequency—always in pairs, always watching, never making a sound. They would leave tiny, wet footprints on the floor, as if they had walked through something sticky, and they always fled when I tried to approach.

I started to feel eyes on me even when they weren’t there. The air in my room grew cold at night, and I could hear the faint jingling of coins, as if they were being shaken somewhere in the dark.

One evening, I opened the box to look at the pennies. They were no longer copper. They were coated in a dark, rust-like substance, and they smelled faintly of smoke. In the center of the pile, the new-looking coin had changed: it was now stamped with a date—the year the Sharpe House had been built—and a single word: ‘VICTIM’.

A sound behind me made me whirl around. The two cats sat side by side in the doorway, their eyes glowing. Then, in unison, they blinked, and for a moment, I saw the room as it must have been a century ago: the furniture draped in white sheets, the fireplace burning with a sickly orange light, and the woman standing beside it, her hands outstretched, her mouth open in a silent scream.

I slammed the box shut and shoved it under my bed. But I know it’s still there. And I know the cats aren’t cats. They’re waiting for me to finish what I started. They’re waiting for me to take the coins back.