The Last Inventory

The shop was called ‘Ember & Wick,’ a narrow slot of a store wedged between a shuttered barbershop and a Mexican bakery on Alder Street. It sold hand-dipped candles, essential oils, and bundles of dried sage that smelled of dust and old churches. The owner, Marta, was closing up when we arrived—a woman with iron-gray hair and a habit of touching the wooden counter as if grounding herself. She nodded to our guide, a stout man named Edwin, who had led us on the night’s ghost walk, and then she slipped out through the back, leaving us alone with the smell of melted wax and the hum of a flickering fluorescent light.

There were three of us participants besides Edwin. I was there under protest, a chronic skeptic like my mother had been, but my fiancé, who could feel presences like others feel rain on skin, had refused to come. He said the shop had a ‘weight’ to it. The other two were a woman named Priya, a nurse with a tired smile, and a young man named Tom, a student who had brought a digital recorder and a pair of EMF readers that blinked green in the dim light. We settled into the worn chairs near the back, a mismatched collection of velvet and cracked leather. Edwin placed a small candle on the low table between us, lit it, and said, ‘She appears when the inventory is counted.’ He didn’t elaborate.

Priya spoke first. She said her children had seen a woman in their hallway, a pale figure who counted objects—buttons, pencils, books—on a small table she dragged from room to room. The children called her ‘The Counter.’ Tom admitted he had felt a cold spot in his bedroom, but never saw anything. I stayed silent, noting the way the candle’s flame flickered as if someone had walked past it, though no one moved.

Edwin explained that the entity was once a shopkeeper’s wife here, in the late 1800s. Her husband had died suddenly, leaving her with a store full of goods but no money. She would spend nights meticulously counting every item in the shop, hoping to find a hidden treasure, a secret ledger, anything to save her. She never did. She died of a broken heart, they say, and now she returns to count, forever, desperate to finish an inventory that never ends.

The air grew colder as he spoke. The candle flame shrank to a blue bead, then went out. Tom’s EMF readers spiked to their maximum and then died. In the silence that followed, I heard it—a soft click, like a wooden bead being placed on a wooden surface. Then another. And another. The sound came from a shelf behind us, a row of glass jars filled with dried petals and seeds. But the sound wasn’t from the jars. It was deeper, like counting thumbtacks on a coffin lid.

‘She’s counting us,’ Priya whispered, her eyes wide. ‘She counts the living as inventory.’

I forced a laugh. ‘There’s no such thing as—’ But I stopped. On the table, where the candle had been, there was now a small stack of items: a yellowed business card, a thimble with rust, a single key. None of us had placed them there. Edwin paled. ‘She’s taken stock of us. She’s added us to her list.’

The clicking grew faster, a frantic rattling. And then I saw her—a flicker at the edge of my vision, a woman in a high-collared dress, her hands moving as if sorting invisible objects. She had no face, just a smooth oval of skin. But she was counting, her fingers twitching, her head tilted as if listening to numbers only she could hear. Tom tried to leave, but the door to the back, which had been open, was now closed and locked. The front door was also sealed, its lock rusted over as if it hadn’t been used in a century.

‘She wants us to take part,’ Edwin said, his voice shaking. ‘She needs to finish the count. If we don’t help her, she’ll kill us.’

‘I’m not helping a ghost,’ I said, but even as I spoke, my hand moved on its own, reaching toward a stack of books on a nearby shelf. I pulled one out—a ledger, leather bound, with blank pages. The woman’s attention turned to me, her faceless head tilting. I opened the ledger, and my hand began to write, the pen scratching across the page without my control. I wrote names: Priya, Tom, Edwin, and then my own. And then, as if guided, I wrote a date: August 17, 2011. The day we were there.

When I finished, the clicking stopped. The woman faded, but not before I saw her lift a single finger, as if counting one last item. The candle flame reignited, and the door to the back swung open. We fled without a word, leaving the ledger behind.

Later, we learned that the shop had burned down that night, after we left. The fire department found a charred book at the center of the ruins, open to a page with only our four names. No one else was inside. The investigators ruled it an electrical fire. But sometimes, late at night, I still hear that clicking sound. And I know that somewhere, in a place without time, a faceless woman is counting. She hasn’t finished. She’s waiting for me to add more names.

I haven’t told my fiancé. He might feel it too—the weight of an unseen ledger pressing on my chest whenever I close my eyes. But I can’t bring myself to count the days. I’m afraid of what I might add.