The Scent of Jasmine

In the autumn of 2003, my family moved into a sprawling Victorian house on the outskirts of Maple Hollow, Oregon. The place had been vacant for years, but the realtor insisted it was ‘just freshly painted and cleaned.’ The moment we stepped inside, a sweet, cloying scent of jasmine enveloped us, though no flowers were anywhere to be seen. My mother attributed it to some high-end air freshener the owners had left behind, but as the months passed, that fragrance never faded—it ebbed and flowed with the seasons, always present, always persistent.

We were a family of five: my father, Richard; my mother, Elaine; my older brother, Marcus; my younger sister, Lily; and me, fourteen-year-old Dana. The house was enormous, with creaky floorboards and rooms that seemed to rearrange themselves when you weren’t looking. The first night, I lay in bed, listening to the house settle. But it wasn’t settling—it was breathing. I could feel a presence, as if the walls themselves were alive, watching us with unseen eyes. I chalked it up to nerves, but deep down, I knew something was off.

A few weeks after moving in, I began to notice small anomalies. Objects would disappear and reappear in different places—my favorite sweater would turn up in the attic; a photograph of us from years ago would be found face-down on the dining room table. At night, I’d wake to the sound of soft humming, a lullaby I didn’t recognize, coming from the walls. I tried to tell my parents, but they dismissed it as my imagination. Lily, though, was terrified. She’d started sleeping with the lights on, claiming she saw a woman in a white dress standing at the foot of her bed.

One rainy evening in October, Marcus and I were watching TV in the den when we heard it: the unmistakable click-clack of high heels on the hardwood floor above us. We exchanged nervous glances. No one in the house owned heels, and my mother rarely wore anything but slippers. The pacing went on for about five minutes, then stopped. I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was a signal, a warning of something to come.

As Halloween approached, the incidents multiplied. We’d find our bedsheets mysteriously folded into intricate shapes, and the jasmine scent would intensify at odd hours, sometimes so strong it made us cough. My father, a rational man, finally grew uneasy when he found the basement door unlocked, though he’d locked it himself the night before. He spoke to the neighbors, who avoided eye contact and quickly changed the subject. One old woman, Mrs. Albright, finally whispered to him: ‘That house was built on the site of an asylum that burned down in 1920. They never found all the bodies. The ghost of a nurse who died there still walks the halls, searching for the children she couldn’t save.’

We didn’t want to believe it, but the evidence mounted. One night, I woke to find Lily standing beside my bed, staring at the door, her eyes wide. ‘She’s in the hallway,’ she whispered. I demanded she get back into bed, but she insisted. I turned on the lamp, illuminating the hallway, and for a split second, I saw a flicker of white—a dress or a gown—disappear around the corner. I screamed, and my parents came running, but there was nothing.

The final straw came in December. We were decorating the tree when we noticed that all the ornaments we’d placed had been gathered into a perfect circle on the floor. In the center lay a single jasmine flower, fresh as if just picked. That was impossible—jasmine doesn’t bloom in Oregon in December, and we had no such flowers in the house. My mother finally confessed she’d been feeling a cold presence in her bedroom, and that one night she’d felt a hand stroke her cheek, only to find the room empty.

We decided to move out a week later, unable to bear it anymore. But as we packed, the jasmine scent grew overwhelming, almost suffocating. On our last night, I couldn’t sleep. I wandered to the attic, drawn by some unseen force. In the dim light, I spotted an old, tarnished locket on a dusty shelf. I picked it up and opened it. Inside was a faded photograph of a young woman in a nurse’s uniform, her eyes kind but sad. And on the back, written in elegant script, was a name: ‘Beatrice.’

I slipped the locket into my pocket, intending to keep it as a memento, but as we drove away, I felt a sudden pang of loss. In the rearview mirror, I saw a figure standing at the upstairs window—the same woman from the photograph. She raised a hand, as if waving goodbye. And then the house was gone from view, but the jasmine scent lingered in the car for hours.

To this day, I still carry that locket. Sometimes, late at night, I can swear I smell jasmine, and I hear the faint click of heels on my floor. But when I turn around, there’s no one there. I can’t help but wonder if she followed me, or if she’s just waiting for the next family to move in, ready to share her story with them as she shared it with us.