The Scent of Burnt Jasmine

I was nineteen when my family sold our house in Oregon and moved to the province of Batangas, Philippines. My parents had retired, and I was enrolled in a university in Manila, but I would come home to our new house every weekend. The house was a sprawling, old Spanish-style compound that my mother had fallen in love with. It had thick walls, dark wood floors, and a courtyard with a crumbling fountain. The previous owner, an elderly widow, had passed away in the master bedroom, but that didn’t bother my mother. She said the house had ‘good bones’.

My first night there, I woke to the smell of burnt jasmine. It was overpowering, thick, as if someone had lit a jasmine-scented candle and then extinguished it right under my nose. I sat up in bed, my heart pounding, but the room was empty. The smell lingered for a few seconds, then faded. I chalked it up to the neighbor’s incense, but I knew in my gut it was something else.

The next morning, I noticed a dent on the wall beside my bed. I hadn’t put it there. It was small, circular, about the size of a coin. When I ran my fingers over it, the surface was cold, colder than the surrounding plaster. I didn’t mention it to my parents, thinking they would laugh at me.

A week later, I was in the courtyard reading a book when I felt a presence behind me. I turned, but there was no one. The air grew heavy, and I smelled the jasmine again, stronger this time. A child’s laughter echoed from the garden, high and tinkling, but the garden was empty. I dropped my book and went inside, my skin crawling.

My cousin, Elena, who lived nearby, was over for lunch. She was older, in her thirties, and she had a serious, knowing look. She asked me if I had noticed anything odd about the house. I hesitated, then told her about the smell and the laughter. She nodded grimly. ‘That’s Lola Ising,’ she said. ‘She was the previous owner. She put a curse on this house before she died.’

Elena told me the story. Lola Ising had been a wealthy woman, but her only son had squandered her money on gambling. When she died, she left the house to no one, and her son tried to claim it, but the inheritance was tangled in a lawsuit. Elena said that Lola Ising’s spirit remained, guarding her home, and that she would drive out anyone who tried to live there. ‘She doesn’t like new people,’ Elena said. ‘She especially doesn’t like young women.’

I laughed nervously, but Elena’s words stuck with me. That night, I woke up again to the smell of jasmine, and this time I saw a figure at the foot of my bed. It was a small, withered woman in a black dress, her face hidden under a straw hat. She was holding a candle whose wick was smoking, and the smoke curled toward me, smelling of burnt flowers. I wanted to scream, but my throat was frozen. She stood there for what felt like forever, then she turned and walked through the wall.

The next day, I found a black hair on my pillow. It wasn’t mine. I have dark hair, but this was coarser, and it seemed to shimmer. I kept it, wrapped in a tissue, but I knew it was evidence of something I couldn’t explain.

Over the following weeks, the occurrences intensified. Doors would slam shut by themselves. My clothes would be rearranged in my closet. I would hear sobbing from the master bedroom, but when I rushed in, the room was still. The jasmine smell became a daily occurrence, always in the morning, always as I woke. I couldn’t tell my parents because they thought I was being paranoid. My mom said, ‘It’s just the old house settling.’ But I knew better.

One evening, I was alone in the living room when the lights flickered. I looked up and saw Lola Ising standing in the doorway, this time with her face visible. Her eyes were sunken, her skin clung to her bones, and her smile was a slit full of teeth. She raised a finger to her lips, as if to shush me, and then she pointed to the ceiling. I followed her gaze and saw a dark stain spreading across the white paint, but as I watched, it formed the shape of a face. It was a child’s face, crying. The jasmine smell was so strong I choked, and I ran out of the house until my lungs burned.

I called Elena, sobbing into the phone. She came over and performed a ritual. She burned some herbs and chanted, but even as she did, the air grew colder. She told me, ‘She wants you to leave. She says you’re not welcome. If you stay, something terrible will happen.’ I asked her how I could appease the spirit. Elena shook her head. ‘She doesn’t want anything. She wants this house to be empty for her son. Even though he’s dead now too.’

I couldn’t sleep that night. I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, when I heard the sound of a child crying coming from my closet. I got up, my legs shaking, and opened the door. There, in the corner, sat a small boy, no older than five. He was wearing an old-fashioned suit and had a mournful face. He looked up at me and said, ‘She’s coming.’ I slammed the closet door shut and ran to my parents’ room, but when I got there, the door was locked. I banged on it, but there was no response.

I turned around and saw Lola Ising standing at the end of the hallway. She was carrying a bouquet of jasmine flowers, but the petals were blackened and withered. She walked toward me, and as she approached, the hallway distorted and twisted. The walls closed in, the floor opened up, and I felt myself falling into darkness.

I woke up outside, face down in the garden, the morning sun on my back. The jasmine smell was gone. I looked up at the house, and for a moment, I saw Lola Ising standing on the balcony, watching me. Then she vanished.

I have not set foot in that house since. My parents eventually sold it at a loss, unable to explain why I refused to live there. But even now, back in my dorm in Manila, I sometimes catch the faint scent of burnt jasmine, and I know that she hasn’t let go of me just yet. She’s waiting, watching, and one day, she’ll want me to return.