The Red Ribbon Game

In the sweltering summer of 2007, my family packed up our small apartment in the city and moved to the quiet countryside of Maple Hollow. My two younger sisters, Clara and Beth, were thrilled about the old Victorian house we’d bought, with its wrap-around porch and overgrown garden. I was less enthusiastic, but as the eldest, I put on a brave face for the sake of my mother, who had inherited the place from a distant aunt.

The house had a peculiar history that we only discovered later: the previous owner, an elderly spinster named Marjorie, had lived alone for decades and had died of a heart attack in the living room. The townsfolk spoke of her in hushed tones, saying she was a bit ‘touched’ and that she’d lost her only son in a tragic accident years ago. But we were city folk, used to skepticism, and we chalked it up to rural superstition.

From the first night, strange things began happening. At first, it was just subtle: the sound of a child’s laughter echoing down the hallway, the patter of small feet on the stairs, the faint smell of lavender in rooms where no flowers were. I dismissed it as the creaking of an old house and the wind through the cracks. But Clara, who was six and imaginative, started waking up screaming, claiming a ‘lady in a red ribbon’ was sitting on her bed, humming a lullaby.

I tried to comfort her, but my own unease grew. One afternoon, I found an old photograph in the attic, tucked inside a cracked leather album. It showed a young boy with a woman, presumably Marjorie, both dressed in turn-of-the-century clothing. In the boy’s hair was a bright red silk ribbon. The photo was dated 1905. The ribbon matched the exact shade Clara described.

Weeks passed, and the occurrences escalated. Objects moved on their own, doors slammed, and a constant, maddening scratching could be heard from inside the walls. My mother, a pragmatic nurse, refused to acknowledge anything supernatural, attributing it to pests and drafts. But I noticed she started sleeping with a cross under her pillow.

One stormy night, I was reading in the study when I heard a soft sobbing from the hallway. I followed the sound to the library, where I saw a flickering figure of a woman standing by the bay window. She wore a white gown, and her long dark hair obscured her face. But I could see a red ribbon tied around her neck, not in her hair. As she turned, I glimpsed her face – it was white as chalk, and her eyes were black voids. She pointed a trembling finger toward a bookshelf, then vanished.

Shaken, I rushed to the bookshelf and found a hidden compartment containing a small journal bound in leather. It belonged to Marjorie. The entries revealed a terrible truth: her son, Arthur, had died in a fire in the very room where Clara slept. But it wasn’t an accident – Marjorie had started the fire to punish him for talking to a ‘ghostly girl’ she believed was a demon. She had been insane with grief, and after his death, she bound his spirit to the house with a ritual, using a red ribbon tied to his grave. She intended to keep him forever.

My blood ran cold. I realized the entity wasn’t Marjorie’s son – it was the ghost of the little girl, the ‘demon’ Marjorie had locked away. And now, she was playing with my sisters, luring them into her web. I tore through the house, searching for a way to break the curse. Beth, who was nine, was more sensitive and had told me she could see a girl in a red dress playing hide-and-seek. I was terrified.

That night, I didn’t sleep. I sat watch by Clara’s bedside, gripping the journal. At midnight, the air grew icy cold, and the room filled with the scent of smoke. The little girl materialized at the foot of the bed, her pale face almost translucent, a red ribbon tied in her hair. She smiled, a chilling grin, and said in a sweet voice, ‘Let’s play a game. If I win, she stays with me forever.’

I knew I had to find her grave, the place where she was tied to this world. I had read in the journal that Marjorie had buried the girl’s bones in the garden, under a gnarled oak tree, and that the ribbon she wore in her hair was the same one used in the binding. I grabbed a shovel and rushed outside, heedless of the rain and the cold.

Under the oak, I dug frantically until my shovel hit a small wooden box. Inside, wrapped in decaying cloth, were the bones of a child, with a brittle red ribbon entwined around the skull. I took the ribbon and, with trembling hands, recited the incantation from the journal that would release her spirit.

As I spoke the final words, a gust of wind swept through the trees, and a piercing scream split the night. Then, silence. The rain stopped, and a profound peace settled over the house. I returned indoors to find Clara sleeping soundly, no longer plagued by nightmares.

The little girl never returned. We sold the house a few years later, and I never spoke of it again. But sometimes, late at night, I still see glimpses of a red ribbon fluttering in the corner of my eye, and I remember the girl who loved games too much to leave us alone.