The Pale Visitor

I was twelve, not thirteen, the summer we moved into my grandmother’s old farmhouse in the dusty town of Plevna, Kansas. The house had been in the family for generations, and my mother had inherited it after my grandmother passed. I remember the first time I saw it: a two-story Victorian with peeling white paint and a wrap-around porch that creaked like a ship in a storm. My older brother, Marcus, who was seventeen, said it looked like a haunted house from a movie, and my mother told him to hush. But I had a feeling he was right.

It was a hot August afternoon, about a week after we arrived, when I saw it for the first time. I was coming down the stairs, my bare feet slapping on the worn wooden steps, when I glanced out the window beside the front door. There, crossing the porch, was a figure. It was a small figure, no taller than my waist, moving with a strange, gliding walk. It wore a pale yellow sundress and had hair the color of corn silk, a bright white-blonde. I stopped, my heart doing a quick hop, and watched it move from the left side of the porch toward the right, then it was gone, as if it had stepped through the wall. I ran to the kitchen where Marcus was pouring a glass of lemonade. ‘Did you see someone outside?’ I asked, out of breath. He looked at me, puzzled. ‘Who?’ ‘A little girl,’ I said, ‘in a yellow dress.’ Marcus shook his head. ‘No one’s been here all day. The cousins are still in Wichita.’ I tried to laugh it off, blaming the heat, but the image stayed in my mind.

A few days later, I was lying on the couch in the living room, watching a rerun of some sitcom, when I felt a presence. I turned my head toward the study, a small room off the hallway that we used as a computer room. The door was open, and in the old armchair that faced the doorway, a little girl was sitting. She was about four or five, with the same pale blonde hair, and she wore a white shirt and blue overalls. She was staring at me, her eyes wide and unblinking, and there was no expression on her face. My breath caught in my throat. I blinked, and she was gone. The chair was empty. I sat up, my skin crawling, and I didn’t move from the couch until I heard my mother’s car pull into the drive.

I became obsessed with finding out who she was. I asked everyone in the family if they knew of a little girl who might have lived in the house. My stepfather, who had grown up in Plevna, said that his grandmother had mentioned a family who lived here in the 1930s, and that a young girl had died of scarlet fever. But he said the girl’s name was Mary, and she had dark hair. He also told me that an old man who lived here in the 1960s had been struck by lightning in the yard and killed. But he was a grown man, not a child. I couldn’t find any record of a blonde girl in a yellow sundress ever being connected to the house.

As the weeks passed, I began to see her more often. Sometimes she would be standing in the hallway, other times she would be in the reflection of the kitchen window. She never spoke, and she never moved, just stared at me with those pale eyes. I started to feel a chill whenever she appeared, like a draft from a grave. My brother thought I was imagining things, but my mother noticed I was becoming withdrawn. One night, I woke up to find her standing at the foot of my bed, her head tilted. I screamed, and she vanished, but the image burned into my mind.

I decided to do some research in the town’s historical society, which was housed in an old church. The woman there, Mrs. Hargrove, was elderly and knew everything about Plevna. I asked her about the house, and she said that before my grandmother owned it, it had belonged to a family named Kessler. They had two children, a boy and a girl. The girl, Elsie, was about five, and she had golden curls. One summer, a severe storm hit, and Elsie was playing on the porch. A bolt of lightning struck an old oak tree nearby, and a branch fell, hitting her on the head. She died instantly. Mrs. Hargrove said that some people claimed the house was haunted, but she didn’t believe in such things. I thanked her and left, my mind reeling.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I got up to get a glass of water, and as I passed the study, I saw the chair by the window. The girl was there again, but this time, she was pointing at the floor. I looked down, and there was a small, dusty key. It was brass and looked old. I picked it up, and the girl smiled, then faded. I realized the key must belong to the attic. We had never gone up there. The next day, I unlocked the attic door and climbed the narrow stairs. It was filled with boxes and old furniture, and in the corner, covered by a sheet, was a small trunk. I lifted the sheet, and inside were old toys, a rag doll, a tiny pair of shoes, and a photograph. The photograph was of a family: a man, a woman, and a little girl with golden curls, wearing a yellow dress. On the back was written, ‘Elsie, 1932.’ I felt a shiver run down my spine.

I took the photograph downstairs and showed it to my mother. She was shocked but didn’t know who they were. I decided to bury the key in the backyard, thinking that maybe Elsie wanted it. I dug a small hole near the old oak tree, which was still there, scarred by lightning. As I placed the key in the ground, I felt a warm breeze, and for the first time, I didn’t feel scared. I believed she was just a lonely child, and perhaps she was at peace now.

After I buried the key, I never saw her again. The house felt calm. I often think about her, and sometimes, when the wind blows through the porch, I imagine I see a flicker of movement. But it’s just the wind. And I know, deep down, that she’s gone. But the memory of that silent, staring child will never leave me. And I learned that some stones, once disturbed, can never be un-turned.