The Salt on the Windowsill

My introduction to the supernatural came not through a Ouija board or a séance, but through a rental house in the humid outskirts of Tampa, Florida. I was staying with my partner, Marcus, a man who claimed he could feel the dead like static on his skin. He said the house, a peeling two-story colonial with a sagging porch, was a thoroughfare, not a home. I thought it was just old and creaky.

It was late July, and the air was thick enough to drink. We were on the ground floor in the dining room, which Marcus called ‘the intersection.’ He had a superstition about keeping the French doors to the patio ajar, claiming it let the spirits wander out instead of lingering. I thought it was nonsense, but I humored him. We were watching some demonic possession flick on his laptop, the volume low to not disturb the neighbor’s barking dog. I was half-paying attention, more focused on the way the sweat trickled down my neck.

That’s when I noticed a faint shimmer in the corner of my eye, like heat rising off asphalt. I turned, but the room was still. I dismissed it, chalking it up to the humidity. A few minutes later, a sharp tap came from the glass of the French doors. Marcus froze, his hand on my knee. ‘You heard that?’ he whispered. I nodded, my throat dry. The door slid open a few inches with a rasping groan, though there was no breeze. The sheer curtains billowed inward, revealing a patch of darkness beyond the screened porch. Marcus got up, walked over, and slid the door shut with a decisive click. ‘They’re curious,’ he said, returning to his seat. ‘They don’t mean harm.’ I didn’t believe him.

Later, we retreated to the upstairs bedroom, the only room Marcus kept locked off. He said it was ‘clean,’ a term he used for places the dead hadn’t touched. But that night, as I lay in the sweltering heat, the air conditioning struggling, I heard a faint scratching from the closet. I told myself it was a rat, but I couldn’t sleep. I watched the closet door, waiting for it to open. It didn’t.

The next morning, I found a line of salt along the windowsill of the bedroom, a fresh line that hadn’t been there before. Marcus was in the bathroom, and I asked him about it. He looked at me oddly. ‘I didn’t put that there,’ he said. I felt a chill despite the heat. He came over, examined the salt, and went pale. ‘This is a warning,’ he said. ‘They’re not just curious. They’re territorial.’

We decided to leave, to stay at a hotel until we could find a new place. But as we packed, the air in the house grew heavy, and the lights flickered. Marcus grabbed my hand, his grip tight. ‘Whatever you do, don’t look at the windows,’ he said. I couldn’t help it. On the back porch, pressed against the glass, was a silhouette of a woman, her face distorted and screaming. Her fingers splayed against the pane, leaving smudges that looked like cracks.

We made it to the car, and as we drove away, I looked back at the house. In the upstairs window, the same silhouette stood, watching. I didn’t sleep for days. Marcus and I broke up soon after. He said the house had ‘claimed’ me, that I smelled of salt and earth. I still have nightmares, not of the house, but of the salt on the windowsill. And every night, before I close my eyes, I check my own windows, and I see a faint white powder that I didn’t place there. I’ve moved three times, but it always appears. I think they followed me, or perhaps I brought them with me. Last night, I realized I’ve started putting salt on my own windowsills, and I don’t remember doing it. I don’t know if I’m protecting myself or inviting them in. I just know that everywhere I go, the salt finds its way back to my window, and I’m too afraid to wipe it away.