The Paper Lanterns of Blackwater Falls

My family’s new house sat at the edge of Blackwater Falls, a town that had once thrived on the copper mines that now gaped like empty eye sockets in the hills. The house itself was a two-story Victorian with a wraparound porch, and the previous owners had left behind a peculiar feature: dozens of paper lanterns, their red paint faded to a sickly orange, strung from the rafters of the porch and the eaves. They clinked softly in the wind, a sound that my mother said was ‘charming’ and that I, at five years old, found deeply unsettling.

We had come from the city, and my parents were thrilled about the Victorian’s high ceilings, the stained glass windows, and the overgrown garden that, my father claimed, could be ‘brought back to life.’ My brother, barely a toddler, seemed oblivious to the house’s mood, but I felt a constant pressure in the air, as if the house were holding its breath. Our first week, my parents began renovations—stripping the wallpaper, sanding the floors, and gutting the old kitchen. The house filled with dust and the smell of varnish, and the lanterns outside clinked louder, as if in protest.

My bedroom was at the top of the stairs, a room with a slanted ceiling and a single narrow window that looked out onto the backyard and the dense woods beyond. On the first night, I kept the light on, but the bulb flickered, sending shadows dancing across the walls. I eventually fell asleep, and sometime in the dead of night, I was jolted awake by a crash from the corner of my room. I snapped on the lamp to find a wooden chair, which had been against the wall, now lying on its side on the floor, its legs pointing at me accusingly. The window was shut tight, the room still. I called for my mother, my voice cracking, but she only came upstairs to soothe me, saying it was probably just settling. She turned off the light on her way out, but I kept the lamp on all night.

The incidents multiplied. One evening, my father was working in the basement, which he had converted into a workshop. From above, I heard him shout, and then the sound of tools clattering. When I rushed down, he was pale, staring at a circular saw that was spinning on its own, even though the power was off. ‘It just started up,’ he said, his voice shaky. He unplugged it, but the blade continued to whir for another minute before sputtering to a halt. My father tried to laugh it off, but he was quiet for the rest of the night, and he refused to go back to the basement for a week.

My brother, who was just learning to walk, began to have night terrors. He would wake up screaming, pointing at the corner of his nursery, his tiny fingers trembling. My parents took him to a pediatrician, who said it was just a phase, but I knew better: there was something in that room. Once, I crept in to check on him, and I saw the mobile above his crib swinging back and forth, even though the ceiling fan was off and no draft could reach it. The little wooden animals seemed to be dancing to some unheard rhythm, and as I watched, they all stopped simultaneously, as if aware of my gaze.

The renovations continued, and the house grew colder, regardless of the thermostat. Our breath fogged in the hallways, and the lanterns outside, which we had tried to remove, kept reappearing. My father spent hours on the porch, trying to untangle them, but the next morning, they’d be back, slightly different positions, their paper now stained with dark, wet blotches that smelled like copper. My mother, who had always been the practical one, began to lose her smile. She took to burning sage in every room, but the smoke would curl away from the doorways, as if repelled.

The climax came on the night of the first snowfall. My father had finally finished the kitchen, and we sat down to dinner. The house was silent, save for the wind outside. Then, a sound began: a low, rhythmic thumping from above, as if something were pacing across the attic floor. My father, his jaw clenching, went up to investigate. He was gone for a long time. When he returned, his face was ashen, and he was holding a small, tarnished locket he had found in the attic. Inside was a faded photograph of a woman with deep-set eyes and a golden locket around her neck. He said the attic was empty, but the floorboards up there were heavy with dust, and there were no footprints but his. He refused to talk about it further, but I noticed he had nailed the attic door shut.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I heard a faint whispering, like the rustle of dry leaves, coming from the hallway. I got up and peeked out. At the end of the hall, near my brother’s room, stood a woman in a long, dark dress, her hair covering her face. Even in the dim light, I could see she wore a golden locket at her throat—just like the one my father had found. I wanted to scream, but no sound came out. The woman turned her head, and beneath the hair, I saw an empty, black void where her eyes should have been. She took a step toward me, and the floorboards creaked, but she made no noise. I stumbled backward into my room and slammed the door. I pressed my body against it, sobbing, and I didn’t dare move until dawn.

The next morning, my parents tried to act normal, but I could see the fear in their eyes. My brother was listless, staring at his own reflection in a spoon. My father called the town’s number for a priest, but the line crackled and went dead. The lanterns outside clattered violently in a gust of wind, and as I looked out the window, I saw that every single one had turned black, as if burnt from within. And on the porch, in the layer of fresh snow, there were footprints leading to the front door—small, barefoot footprints that walked in the shape of a woman, turning back and forth. They ended at the threshold, and no tracks led away.

We moved out that spring. We left behind the house, the lanterns, and the memory of the woman in the hall. But sometimes, I still hear the clinking of paper lanterns in the wind, and I see her locket glinting in the dark. And I know that some houses are not just houses—they are the skin of a story, with bones and blood and a hunger that never sleeps. Our story ended there, but hers had just begun.