The Spindle of the Guest Room

My earliest ghost encounter happened when I was six, during a week-long stay at my aunt’s friend’s farmhouse in the misty hills of Vermont. The house was a sprawling Victorian that had been in her family for generations, its rooms crammed with antique furniture and the smell of old wood and mothballs. I was enchanted by the spiral staircase that wound up to the second floor, its banister worn smooth by a century of hands. At night, the only light in the living room came from the television, and the bulbs above the dining table cast a sickly amber glow. The rest of the house was swallowed by darkness.

I loved to play on the stairs, sitting on the third step from the top, where the bannister curved just so, pretending I was on a ship. One evening, while my mom and her friend were in the kitchen, I heard a soft humming from the upstairs hallway. It was a woman’s voice, low and melodic, coming from the guest room at the end of the hall. I crept up the steps, my heart thumping, and peered through the half-open door.

The room was lit by a single candle on a nightstand, and in the corner, an antique spinning wheel stood silent. A woman in a long, gray dress sat on the bed, her back to me, her hands moving as if she were spinning thread, though the wheel wasn’t turning. She hummed a tune I didn’t recognize, and I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the Vermont autumn. I backed away slowly, but she paused mid-hum and turned her head just enough to show a pale profile. Her eyes were dark, dark pits. I ran downstairs and hid behind my mom, but I couldn’t tell her what I saw for fear she’d think I was lying.

The next morning, I told my aunt’s friend about the woman. She looked at me with a strange expression. ‘That’s just Martha,’ she said. ‘She’s been here since the house was built. She was a seamstress, and she died in that room.’ She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. ‘She only hums when she’s happy. She liked you.’ I didn’t feel happy. That night, I heard the spinning wheel creak, and I knew it was moving.

The following day, I found a small spool of thread on the floor by the guest room door. It was green, like the dress she had worn. I picked it up, and the thread felt cold, almost slimy. I shoved it in my pocket, and as soon as I did, I heard her humming again, but this time it was louder, and it seemed to come from all around me. I ran to my mom, and I couldn’t stop trembling.

My mom’s friend took me aside and told me, ‘You need to put the spool back. Martha hates it when people take her thread.’ I didn’t want to, but I did. I placed it on the threshold of the guest room, and the humming stopped. For the rest of the stay, I never went near the stairs, and I never heard her again. But sometimes, at night, I wake up and I hear that humming, and I know it’s Martha, waiting for someone else to take her thread.