The Weeping Ash

When my husband Tomas and I bought the old farmhouse outside of Millbrook, Alabama, we thought we’d found a hidden gem. The realtor had warned us it had been abandoned for decades, but the price was right and we were desperate for a fresh start after the city life drained us. The property was five acres of overgrown pasture, bordered by a sluggish creek that the locals avoided for reasons no one would explain. The house itself was a strange hybrid: the front was a modest Victorian with gingerbread trim, while the back was a squat, windowless addition of rough-hewn logs, clearly cobbled on by someone with no architectural sense. We chalked it up to renovation attempts gone wrong and poured our savings into making it livable.

From the start, something felt off. The first week, we noticed the silence. No birds sang in the morning. No squirrels chattered in the oaks. The only sound was the wind rattling the loose shutters and the occasional groan of the house settling. I tried to ignore it, but the quiet was oppressive, like a held breath. I’d walk down to the creek, hoping to see deer tracks or raccoon prints, but the mud was always smooth, unmarred. Even the insects seemed to avoid the place. The only living things we saw were each other, and even Tomas, the most rational man I’d ever met, admitted it was ‘unnerving’.

The contractor we hired, a burly man named Vance, brought a crew of four. They’d been working on the roof when Vance came to me, his face pale. He said his men felt like they were being watched, and one of them, a kid named Dale, refused to go near the back addition. Vance laughed it off, but I noticed he started parking his truck in the front yard, facing the road, and he always left before sunset. When I asked him about the history of the house, he shrugged. ‘Dunno. Place’s been empty as long as I’ve been alive. Heard some old stories, but most folks just say it’s cursed.’ He laughed, but there was no humor in it.

One afternoon, I was cleaning the kitchen, scrubbing the layers of grime off the windowsills, when I found a child’s drawing tucked behind a loose board. It was a crude picture of a house, similar to ours, with stick figures in the yard, all of them with their mouths open wide, as if screaming. In the corner, in shaky pencil, was a name: ‘Lena’. I showed Tomas, and he just frowned. ‘Probably from the last family. Creepy kid.’ He dismissed it, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the drawing was a warning.

That night, I had a dream. I was standing in the back addition, which was dark and smelled of earth. A little girl was sitting in the corner, her back to me. She was humming a tune I’d never heard. When she turned, her face was blank, smooth, like a doll’s. She pointed to the floor, where a trapdoor I’d never noticed was open. I woke with a start, my heart pounding. I told Tomas, but he just grumbled and rolled over. In the morning, I went to the back addition for the first time since we’d inspected it. It was eerily cold, the air heavy. There, in the corner, was a trapdoor, just like in my dream. It was covered in dust, but the iron ring was polished, as if recently used.

I called Tomas, and together we pried it open. A stone staircase descended into blackness. Though I was terrified, curiosity won. We grabbed flashlights and climbed down. The stairs led to a small cellar, its walls covered in old milk paint, peeling and cracked. In the center was an ancient oak table, and on it, a child’s dress, yellowed and tattered. Next to it was a lock of hair, auburn, like mine. Tomas started shaking his head, backing away. ‘This is sick,’ he said. ‘We need to sell this place.’ But I felt drawn to the dress. I touched it, and the fabric crumbled to dust, releasing a sweet, cloying smell like rotting flowers. The moment I did, I felt a presence behind me. I turned, but there was nothing.

We left the cellar, but that night, I couldn’t sleep. I heard a child’s humming coming from the back of the house, faint, lilting. I woke Tomas, but he heard nothing. The next day, the crew refused to come back. Vance told me over the phone that his men had all developed strange scratches on their arms, and Dale had disappeared for two hours and came back babbling about a girl who asked him to play. Vance said, ‘I’m sorry, ma’am. That house is bad news. I’ve seen things, but nothing like this.’ He wouldn’t elaborate.

Tomas and I waited in the empty house, the silence pressing in like a physical weight. I started to research the property online, but the only records I could find were from the early 1900s, listing a family named Pruitt. They had one daughter, Lena, who died at the age of eight. Cause of death: ‘fever’. But there was a footnote in a local historical society’s archive: ‘Lena Pruitt disappeared from the family farm. The parents were investigated, but no charges were ever filed. The father was rumored to have been part of a religious sect that practiced exorcisms.’

That knowledge sent a chill through me. The back addition, the trapdoor, the dress—it was all starting to make a horrifying sense. We decided to leave that night, to stay at a motel and get the momentum to sell. As we packed our bags, the humming grew louder, coming from the back door. I turned, and there she was: a little girl, her skin gray, her eyes black, her mouth open but silent. She pointed a finger at me, and I felt my throat tighten. Tomas grabbed my arm and yanked me out the front door, but as we ran to the car, the entire house seemed to groan, and every window filled with a pale, luminescent face.

We drove in silence for miles, not daring to look back. It’s been three months now. We’re staying with my sister in Mobile, but we haven’t been able to sell the house. No realtor will take the listing, and every weekend, Tomas and I drive back to Millbrook, not wanting to, but compelled. We sit in the car at the end of the long dirt driveway, staring at the house. There’s a figure in the upstairs window, small, watching. The renters we hired to keep an eye on the place quit after one night, saying they heard a child crying in the walls. We tried to have the place demolished, but the bulldozer broke down before even touching the back addition. So we keep returning, drawn like moths to a flame, and every time we leave, I find a lock of auburn hair in my coat pocket. I know she’s not done with us. She wants us to come back, to play forever in the weeping ash that stands alone in the yard, a tree that never flowers, its branches always bent, as if grieving.