The Pale Visitor

My name is Elena, and I’m seventeen. We moved to a small town in upstate New York when I was fifteen, into an old farmhouse that had been on the market for years. It was cheap, and my parents loved the quiet. The house had a musty smell no matter how much we cleaned, and the floorboards creaked in patterns that didn’t follow our footsteps.

The first thing happened in the middle of July, a heat wave that made the nights unbearable. My brother, Charlie, had fallen asleep on the floor of my room, sprawled out on a thin mattress. I couldn’t sleep, so I got up to put him on the bed. As I lifted him, a draft crept down the hallway, and I saw her standing by the bathroom door. She was tall, with skin so pale it seemed to glow faintly in the dark. Her hair was black as oil, hanging straight past her shoulders. She wore a long white gown that dragged on the floor, and her eyes were hollow, fixed on me with an intensity that made my breath catch. I froze, my heart pounding. I forced myself to turn away, and when I looked back, she was gone. I told myself it was a trick of the light, but I didn’t sleep that night.

A month later, my father mentioned that the trash can in the bathroom had slid across the floor on its own. He laughed it off, blaming the uneven tiles. That same afternoon, my aunt came to visit from Oregon. We were having lunch in the kitchen, and I was sitting across from her, my dad beside me. I noticed a plate on the table slide an inch, then stop. I glanced at my dad, and his face had gone white. He had seen it too. My aunt was still talking, unaware. That was the moment I knew we were not alone.

Curiosity got the better of me. I started researching the house’s history. I found old records in the town library: a woman named Margaret had lived here in the 1920s. She was a recluse, rarely seen, but she had died under strange circumstances. The records were vague, but one detail stood out: she was found in the bathroom, her long black hair tangled, her white dress soaked. People whispered that her husband had been abusive, that she had been locked in that bathroom for days before she died. They said her spirit never left.

I began seeing her more often. Sometimes in the hallway at night, sometimes just a flicker at the edge of my vision. She never spoke, but her presence was heavy, like the air before a storm. Once, I woke up to find the bathroom door ajar, and she was standing there, her head tilted as if asking a question I couldn’t answer.

One evening, I was home alone. My parents had taken Charlie to a movie. I was in my room, trying to ignore the cold spot that had formed near the door. I heard the bathroom door creak open. I went to close it, and there she was, closer than ever. Her mouth opened, and a sound came out, not a scream, but a low, guttural whisper that seemed to crawl into my ears: ‘Help me.’

I stumbled backward, and she reached out a pale hand. Her fingers brushed my arm, and I felt a jolt of ice-cold energy. In that instant, I saw flashes of her life: a man yelling, a door slamming, water filling her lungs as she was pushed under. I gasped, and she vanished.

I knew I had to do something. The next day, I brought flowers to her grave at the local cemetery, the only one with no marker. I knelt and spoke softly, ‘I know what happened. I’m sorry.’ I placed my hand on the ground, and for a moment, the air felt lighter.

That night, I didn’t see her. But I felt a gentle warmth instead of the usual cold. I think she finally found peace. Since then, the house has been quiet. The musty smell is gone, and the floorboards no longer creak on their own.

But sometimes, late at night, I catch a glimpse of a white dress at the edge of my vision, and I know she’s still watching over us, not as a threat, but as a guardian. And I’m grateful that I could help her move on, even if she still lingers in the shadows of our home.