The Soot of the Candle

My name is Nina, and I never believed in the supernatural—not really. I loved the idea of ghosts, the thrill of a good horror story, but I thought it was all just that: stories. That changed when we moved into the old Cottonwood Apartments on the outskirts of Dust Creek, a town so dry and forgotten that even the tumbleweeds had left. The building itself was a relic, a three-story Victorian that had been chopped into dinky units. The landlord, a man with yellowed eyes and a perpetual smell of mothballs, called it ‘quaint.’ I called it a fire hazard.

My fiancé, Theo, and I moved there because it was close to the sawmill where he worked, and because the rent was cheap. The first few weeks were uneventful, save for the occasional flicker of the hall light or the groan of old pipes. I chalked it up to the building’s age. But then, the little things started. The kitchen faucet would turn on by itself, a steady drip that would wake me at 3 AM. Doors would creak open even after I’d latched them. One evening, I found a bar of soap on the bathroom floor, and when I picked it up, it was wet, though no one had showered since morning. Theo dismissed it as my imagination. He said I was stressed from the wedding planning.

Then the candle. We had a small shelf in the living room where I kept a red candle in the shape of a rose, a gift from my mother. It had never been lit. One night, I came home from the night shift at the diner to find a flickering flame dancing on its wick. The smell of melted wax and something else—like burnt hair—filled the room. I blew it out, but the smoke curled upward, forming a faint shape before dissipating. That’s when I felt it: a cold weight against my back, as if someone was breathing down my neck. I turned, and there was nothing, but the air was wrong. It was thick, like soup.

The presence grew stronger, especially in our bedroom. At night, I’d lie awake, feeling a heavy male energy pressing down on me, making it hard to breathe. Theo, who always slept like a log, started waking up with bruises, finger-shaped marks on his arms. He’d shrug them off, saying he must have bumped into the bed frame. But I knew. There was something in that room, something that didn’t want us there. I started sleeping in the living room, but it followed me there too. The walls would hum with a low, mournful tone, and the air would smell of damp earth and old cologne.

One night, I decided to fight back. I’d read about cleansing rituals online, and I gathered sage, salt, and a makeshift cross. I walked through the apartment, chanting a protection invocation I’d copied from a forum. I felt foolish, but also desperate. When I got to the bedroom, the door slammed shut, and the temperature plummeted. The candles I’d lit along the hallway flickered out, except one—the Jesus candle my grandmother had given us. It stood on the dresser, its flame burning steady and tall. In that moment, I saw a shadow shift in the corner of the room, darker than the dark. It moved like smoke, but had the outline of a man. It spoke, not in words, but in a vibration that rattled my teeth.

I ran out of the apartment, leaving Theo behind, and I didn’t stop until I reached the all-night gas station at the edge of town. The cashier, an old woman with a thin braid, looked at me and said, ‘You’ve been in Number 7, haven’t you? I told Hank to seal that room off, but he never listens. There’s something in there, a spirit that was wronged, and it hates the living.’ She handed me a small pouch of what she said was blessed dirt and told me to sprinkle it around the bed. She also told me that the spirit was not malevolent by nature, but it was trapped, and it fed on fear and sleeplessness to keep itself grounded. ‘You have to give it a reason to move on,’ she said. ‘Apologize to it. Tell it you’re sorry for whatever happened here.’

I did what she said. That night, I walked into the bedroom, trembling, and spoke out loud: ‘I don’t know what happened to you, but I’m sorry. I’m sorry you’re stuck here. I’m sorry we invaded your space. Please, we just want to live in peace.’ The air around me seemed to soften, like the pressure had lifted slightly. The candle on the dresser flickered, then extinguished on its own, leaving a thin trail of smoke. I felt a gentle breeze, almost like a sigh, and then the room fell silent. For the first time in weeks, I slept through the night without the weight on my chest.

The next morning, Theo and I sat in the kitchen, drinking coffee. He said he’d seen a man in a suit standing at the foot of the bed, but the man had smiled and faded away. We still live here. Sometimes, in the dead of night, I feel a presence, but it’s no longer threatening. I think he’s just a lonely soul, guarding something old. The smell of burnt hair lingers in the hallway, but I’ve grown used to it. And the Jesus candle? I relight it every Sunday, and I like to think I’m keeping him company.