The Pallid Light at Breckenridge Hollow

My name is Elara, and I’m eighteen. This past summer, my family moved from a sprawling, sun-bleached ranch in the Texas panhandle to a cramped, two-story house in the historic district of a small New England town called Graybrook. The house was a Victorian relic, all creaking joints and peeling wallpaper, and it sat at the end of a dead-end street, with the Graybrook Funeral Home looming just two doors down. I’m not one for ghost stories, but ever since we unpacked our first box, I’ve felt a presence. Not a malicious one, but a heavy, watchful thing that pressed against my skin like a damp cloth.

Three weeks before we moved, I had a nightmare that bled into reality. I woke up gasping, and I swear something was sitting on my chest, pinning my arms down. It wasn’t human—it was cold and dense, like a slab of stone wrapped in silk. As soon as I cried out, it vanished, leaving only a faint, sickly sweet smell of lilies and formaldehyde. I chalked it up to stress, but the feeling it left behind—a kind of psychic clamminess—has never fully washed off.

The first week in our new home was uneventful. My parents were busy painting and arranging furniture, but I was drawn to the basement. It was a dirt-floored cellar with a coal chute and a workbench. In the far corner, half-hidden behind a rusted oil drum, I found a small, leather-bound journal. Its pages were brittle and yellowed, and the writing was a spidery cursive that my eyes struggled to follow. It belonged to a man named Ezra Whitfield, who had lived here in the early 1900s. He described himself as a ‘mortician’s apprentice’ and spoke of a

‘vague disquiet’ that settled over him whenever he walked past the funeral home at night. He wrote of a ‘lantern that burns with a light that does not flicker’ and a ‘whisper of lilies that clings to the air.’ His final entry, dated March 3, 1911, was just two lines: ‘I have seen the lady in the window. She wants me to join her. I think I shall.’

I showed the journal to my mother, but she waved it off as ‘old-timey nonsense.’ I couldn’t shake it, though. That night, I woke at exactly 3:33 AM. My bedroom window faced the front of the house, and through the sheers, I saw a pale, wavering light coming from the funeral home’s upstairs window. It wasn’t a steady glow; it pulsed and shifted, like a restless flame. And in that light, I saw a figure—a woman in a long white dress, standing so still she could have been a mannequin. She was looking directly at our house.

I pulled the covers over my head, my heart thudding. But the image stayed burned in my mind. The next night, I forced myself to look. The same light, the same figure. She raised her arm slowly, not in a wave, but in a beckoning motion—furling her fingers toward herself. I felt a tug in my chest, a phantom pull that made me want to step out of bed and walk to the window. I resisted, and the feeling faded, but I couldn’t sleep the rest of the night.

The next day, I decided to visit the funeral home under the guise of asking about ‘historical records.’ The director, a gaunt man with a pencil mustache named Mr. Abernathy, was polite but guarded. When I mentioned the house’s previous owner, he hesitated, then said, ‘Ah, yes, old Ezra. He was a strange one. Took his own life, you know, right after the funeral of a young woman. They say she was a bride who died of a broken heart after her fiancé disappeared. Her funeral was held here, in the front chapel.’ I felt a chill: that was the window where I’d seen the lady.

That night, I couldn’t ignore the pull. I dressed in a heavy sweater and slipped out through the back door. The air was cold and damp, and the street was silent. I crept to the funeral home, which was dark except for that same pale light in the upstairs window. The front door was unlocked. Inside, the air was thick with the scent of lilies—so strong it made my nose itch. I climbed the stairs, my footsteps echoing on the worn carpet. The door to the upstairs room was ajar. I pushed it open.

The room was a kind of embalming parlor, with a steel table and glass cabinets filled with tools I didn’t want to identify. But it was the window that drew me. The light was coming from a lantern sitting on the sill—a kerosene lantern with a flame that burned a steady, unnatural white. Outside, the night was black. But as I approached, I saw the reflection in the glass: a young woman in a white dress, standing just behind me. Her face was pale, her eyes dark, and her lips were parted in a silent scream.

I spun around, but the room was empty. The lantern flickered, and the flame dimmed to a sickly blue. Then I heard a faint, sweet voice, like a music box winding down: ‘You see me.’ My blood ran cold. I backed toward the door, but it slammed shut, and the air grew thick and heavy, as if something was pressing in from all sides. I trapped, I thought, and I began to sob.

But then I remembered the journal. Ezra had written: ‘She wants me to join her.’ I realized that if I gave in, I would become another spirit bound to this place. So I fought. I forced myself to move toward the door, to push against the invisible weight. I grabbed the cold brass knob, and with all my strength, I wrenched it open. I stumbled into the hallway, gasping, and the door slammed behind me.

I ran out of the building and back to our house, not stopping until I was in my room, locked the door, and huddled under my blankets. I haven’t been able to sleep since. The next morning, I threw the journal into the trash. But I can’t shake the feeling that the pale light still burns in the upstairs window, and that the lady in white still stands there, waiting. I don’t know if she’s a victim or a predator, but I know one thing: she wants my company. And I’m afraid that the longer I stay, the harder it will be to say no.