The Maplewood Chair

Last summer, two years after my father left, my mother insisted we take a trip to her sister’s farm in rural Vermont. It was the Fourth of July, and she hoped the change of scenery would lift our spirits. My younger brother, Charlie, was twelve and more interested in his comic books than family history. I was fifteen, and I had been dreading this visit. The farm itself was nothing like the sprawling, ornate mansion I remembered from a childhood visit with my father. That was in California, a place that felt like a movie set. This was a weathered colonial house with peeling white paint, surrounded by fields that seemed to swallow the evening light.

On our second day, my aunt mentioned a local historical society that offered tours of an old, eccentric house, built by a reclusive widow who believed in spiritualism. My mother’s eyes lit up. She wanted to go, just like she had wanted to see that other house years ago, with my father. I couldn’t say no. Charlie came along because there was nothing else to do. The house was called the Beaumont House, named after its builder, a woman who had lost her entire family to a fever and had spent the rest of her life trying to contact them.

We parked in a gravel lot behind a museum. The tour guide, a thin woman with a tight bun, led us through the front door. The moment I stepped inside, a weight pressed down on my shoulders, as if the air itself had thickened. It wasn’t like the whispers I had imagined from horror stories; it was a physical pressure, a suffocating blanket that made every breath a labor. I tried to shake it off, but it clung to me, following my every step.

The house was a maze of oddities. Rooms connected by tiny, crooked staircases, doors that opened into blank walls, and windows that looked into other rooms. The guide called it the ‘Sanctum of Remembrance,’ a room filled with photographs of the dead. I could barely stand. My chest tightened, and a cold sweat broke out on my forehead. I felt a presence, not just one, but many, pressing in on me, whispering a language I couldn’t understand, yet I knew it was a plea. They were trying to pull me down, through the worn floorboards, into a darkness below.

I gasped for air, and my mother must have noticed, but she thought I was just hot. She fanned me with her hand and whispered, ‘Just a little longer, sweetie.’ I wanted to scream, to run, but my legs were heavy, anchored to the floor. Just as I thought I would collapse, we moved into a small, sunlit parlor at the back of the house. The guide said it was where Mrs. Beaumont had her deathbed. The pressure vanished. I took a deep, clean breath for the first time since entering. The air was warm with sunlight, and I felt a strange sense of peace, as if someone were finally letting go.

I looked around the room. It was simple, with a four-poster bed and a worn armchair beside a fireplace. On a small table next to the chair was a wooden rocking chair, small and child-sized, with a carved horse’s head on the back. The guide said it was Mrs. Beaumont’s favorite chair, where she would sit and watch the sunset. I felt drawn to it. I walked over and touched the armrest. A jolt, like static electricity, ran up my fingers. In my mind, I saw a flash: a woman in a long dress, rocking back and forth, tears streaming down her face, and a small boy in a sailor suit laughing in her lap. Then it was gone.

The tour ended, and I was relieved to be outside. But the image of that chair stayed with me. I couldn’t shake the feeling that it wanted me to stay. That night, as I lay in the guest room of my aunt’s farmhouse, I woke to the sound of creaking. It was rhythmic, like rocking. I sat up in bed. The sound was coming from the hallway. I opened the door and looked out. The hallway was dark, but at the end, near the stairs, I saw the silhouette of a small chair rocking back and forth, slowly, patiently. And on it, a faint outline of a child, barely visible, was humming a lullaby.

I slammed the door shut and pressed my back against it. My heart pounded. I told myself it was a dream. But the creaking continued all night, drifting through the walls. The next morning, I told my mother I wanted to go home. She looked at me, surprised, but I think she saw the terror in my eyes. We left early, cutting the trip short. I haven’t been able to sleep without the light on since.

But the worst part is, every night, at the edge of my hearing, I still hear that creaking, and I feel a gentle rocking motion in the floorboards, as if some part of that house followed me home, and it’s waiting for me to come back and sit in that chair, to join the family I never knew.