The Stillness Between Breaths

I’m not one to believe in the supernatural, not until the summer I turned nineteen and moved into the old Carpenter house on the edge of Maplewood. The house had been in my family for generations, but it had stood empty for years, and I was the only one willing to take it on. The town was small, the kind where everyone knows your name, and they all warned me about the house. ‘It has a voice,’ old Mrs. Kline said at the grocery store, her eyes milky with age. ‘It calls to you when you’re alone.’ I laughed it off, but I should have listened.

The first time it happened, I had just fallen asleep in the upstairs bedroom, lying on a cheap mattress on the floor because I hadn’t yet furnished the place. My cousin, Emily, had come to visit for the weekend, and she was snoring away in the creaky old bed. It was a Saturday, around six in the morning, and I woke suddenly with a feeling like I was being watched. I turned over, but Emily was still asleep, her back to me. I closed my eyes, but a minute later, I found myself awake again, my vision blurred as if I were underwater. A shape hovered above me, dark and formless, blocking out the weak morning light from the window. I tried to lift my arm, but it was as if lead weights pinned me down. I couldn’t even turn my head. After what felt like an eternity, the pressure lifted, and the shape vanished. I sat up, gasping, my heart pounding. Emily didn’t stir. I chalked it up to sleep paralysis, but something felt wrong. There was a chill in the room that hadn’t been there before, and the air smelled faintly of dust and decay.

I didn’t think much of it after that. I went back to my usual routine, spending the week unpacking boxes and painting the walls. But two nights later, back in my own bed at the house, I woke at exactly three in the morning. The clock on the nightstand glowed red. I was lying on my side, facing the wall, and I could feel the presence behind me, a cold pressure on the back of my neck. I tried to move, but my limbs were frozen. Then I heard it: a woman’s voice, soft and close to my ear, calling my name. ‘Alex…’ It was not a whisper, but a clear, intimate sound, like someone leaning over me. I wanted to scream, but my throat was closed. The voice called again, ‘Alex…’ and I felt a hand on my shoulder, cold as ice, turning me over. I forced my eyes open, and for a split second, I saw a face, pale and featureless, with two dark pits where eyes should be. Then it was gone, and I could move again.

I didn’t sleep the rest of that night. I turned on every light in the house and sat in the kitchen, holding a kitchen knife. I told myself it was just my imagination, a combination of stress and an old house settling. But the next day, I found something I hadn’t noticed before: a scratch on the bedroom door, deep and recent, as if someone had dragged their nails down the wood. I saw it as I was leaving the room, and it sent a shiver down my spine. I called Emily, but she just laughed and said I was scaring myself with too many horror movies. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the house wasn’t empty. I started sleeping with the lights on, and I made sure to keep my back to the wall at all times.

A week later, I had a friend over, a guy named Marcus who claimed he could ‘sense spirits.’ He walked through the house, his eyes closed, and when he reached the upstairs hallway, he stopped. ‘There’s something here,’ he said, his voice barely a whisper. ‘Something old and patient. It’s not malevolent, but it wants something. It’s been waiting a long time.’ He opened his eyes and looked at me with pity. ‘It’s attached to this house, and it’s attached to you now.’ I didn’t ask what it wanted. I didn’t want to know. Marcus left, and I was alone again.

That night, I was too exhausted to stay awake, so I fell into a deep sleep around midnight. At three, I woke again, but this time I wasn’t alone. I felt a cold draft, and the room was darker than it should have been, even with the moonlight filtering through the blinds. I turned over, and there she was—a woman, or the shape of one, standing at the foot of my bed. She was wearing an old-fashioned white dress, and her hair hung in tangled strands over her face. I couldn’t see her eyes, but I knew she was staring at me. I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came. She raised a hand and pointed at the floor, where a floorboard was slightly raised. Then, in a voice that was both a whisper and a wail, she said, ‘They buried me alive.’

I scrambled out of bed, but when I touched the floorboard, it was cold, and I felt a violent jolt run up my arm. I yanked my hand back. The woman was gone, but I knew what I had to do. The next morning, I called the town records office and asked about the house’s history. An old archivist named Mr. Hargrove told me that in the late 1800s, a young woman named Margaret had lived there with her husband. She had been diagnosed with a mysterious illness that put her in a coma-like state, and her husband, thinking she was dead, had her buried in a family plot behind the house. But she wasn’t dead. When they dug her up, a week later, they found scratch marks inside the coffin. The story goes that her spirit never left, wander the house, searching for the one who wronged her.

I moved out the next day. I couldn’t stay in that house anymore. But even now, weeks later, I still feel that cold hand on my shoulder, and I still hear my name called in the dead of night, always at three in the morning. I don’t know if Margaret is looking for justice or just company, but I know one thing: the house isn’t haunted by a ghost. It’s haunted by a memory—a memory so strong it refuses to die. And I’m the one who woke it up.

I don’t tell people about this. They’d think I was crazy. But sometimes, when I’m alone in my new apartment, I still see her out of the corner of my eye, standing in the hallway, waiting. And I know that one day, she’ll call my name again, and this time, I’ll have to answer.