The Second Visit

We left that little riverside town where the motel clerk had given me the creeps with her knowing smile, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that something had followed us out of the cemetery. My wife, Ellen, kept glancing in the rearview mirror, but I figured it was just the stress of the road. We were heading to New Orleans, like we’d planned, to lose ourselves in the jazz and the beignets. But as we crossed the state line into Louisiana, the sky turned a strange shade of green, and the radio started playing static through my favorite oldies station.

We passed a sign for a town called Versant, and I felt a chill run down my spine. Something about that name felt familiar, like a half-remembered dream. I almost drove past, but Ellen said, ‘Let’s take a detour, stretch our legs.’ I think she wanted to get away from the oppressive silence that had settled in the car. So I turned off the highway, and we wound through a forest of gnarled oaks draped in Spanish moss. The road narrowed, and the trees seemed to lean in, as if they were watching us.

We came to a grand old manor, half-swallowed by vines and kudzu. A rusted sign read ‘The Hollow House.’ Ellen laughed nervously. ‘Looks like a haunted mansion from a bad movie.’ But something about it made my skin crawl. I knew I had to see it. We parked the car, and as we approached the front porch, I noticed the steps were worn smooth, as if trodden by countless feet, yet the place felt abandoned. A woman appeared at the door, dressed in old-fashioned mourning clothes, her face pale and her eyes too bright. She introduced herself as Miss Abigail and offered to give us a tour.

We stepped inside, and the air was thick with dust and the smell of decay. The floorboards creaked under our feet, and our footsteps echoed down the long hallway. Miss Abigail led us through rooms filled with antique furniture draped in white sheets, like ghosts of a forgotten century. She spoke of the house’s history, of a family who died in a fire a hundred years ago, their bodies never found. As she talked, I noticed a portrait at the end of the hall, of a woman who looked exactly like the woman I’d seen in that cemetery back home. The same auburn hair, the same knowing gaze. I froze.

Ellen squeezed my hand. ‘You okay?’ I nodded, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being drawn deeper into the house. Miss Abigail led us to the second floor, to a room with a nursery. In the corner, an old rocking horse gently swayed on its own. Ellen gasped. Miss Abigail smiled, a cold, thin smile, and said, ‘The children still play here sometimes.’ Then she whispered, ‘And the lady in the portrait? She often walks these halls at night.’

The tour ended, and Miss Abigail escorted us out. As we stepped onto the porch, I glanced back and saw the curtain twitch in the upstairs window. I knew then that the woman from the cemetery had not stayed behind. She had followed us, or perhaps she had been here all along, waiting for us to arrive. We got in the car, and I didn’t say a word until we were back on the highway.

That night, we stopped at a motel just outside of Baton Rouge. I barely slept, haunted by dreams of a fire and a woman’s laughter. The next morning, as we packed the car, I found a photograph tucked under the windshield wiper. It was of a house, just like the one we’d seen, but in the foreground stood the woman from the cemetery, and next to her, a man who looked exactly like me. The photo was dated 1934. I didn’t show Ellen. I burned it in the motel ashtray, but I could feel its heat long after it turned to ash.

We continued our journey, but the memory of that house, and the woman, stayed with me. I knew we hadn’t seen the last of her. She was not just a ghost; she was a memory, a curse, woven into the fabric of that place. And I had a feeling that, someday soon, I would be making a return visit, whether I wanted to or not.