Ghost stories from Family

The Locked Door

It was the summer of 2004, and my family and I were visiting my grandparents in a remote village. The trip was always long: two train changes, a seventy-kilometer bus...

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The Hat in the Cedar Chest

I’m Maya, and I’ve always felt a strange absence in my life. My father, a man I never knew, died when I was just a baby. He was swimming in...

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The Unfinished Garden

After the surgery, the pain was a constant hum, a low thrum that vibrated through my bones. The doctors said the procedure was a success, but my body didn’t seem...

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The Last Train to Morrow

I never believed in ghosts. My name is Alex, and I’m a rational man. I’ve always thought that every mystery has a logical explanation, until that summer night in the...

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The Static Between Floorboards

I had not thought about the gift in years, not since the medications and the therapy and the strict routine of my nine-to-five life had smoothed the edges off my...

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The Clockwork Discipline

The old house in Mysore had a rhythm of its own, a slow, dusty heartbeat that matched the mourning of our family. My husband, Arjun, had inherited it from his...

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Porcelain Nursery

In October of 2018, the old Victorian on Birchwood Lane finally sold, ending a year of quiet decay. My uncle, Bernard, had lived there alone after Aunt Margaret passed in...

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The Indentation on the Faded Quilt

Several months ago, on a damp October evening, I found myself alone in my grandmother’s old farmhouse, tasked with sorting through her belongings before the estate sale. The house smelled...

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The Unclosed Lantern

This was when my family still lived in a small town in the highlands of northern Vietnam. I was about five years old. My older brother, who was eight, had...

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The Kerosene Moon

In the sleepy village of Malgudi Kere, nestled between the Western Ghats and a sprawling paddy field, I grew up shuttling between my mother’s house and my aunt’s. Aunt Shanta...

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The Smell of Rain and Cigars

I never thought I’d be writing this, but I don’t know where else to turn. My name is Sam, and I’m a groundskeeper at a small cemetery north of the...

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The Falling Planter

In the autumn of 2012, my uncle Isaac passed away after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. He had been staying in our spare room, which we converted into a...

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The Lace-Covered Door

In the autumn of 2011, my family moved into the front half of a sprawling Victorian house in the outskirts of a sleepy New England town, just a short walk...

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The Ledger of Unfinished Accounts

My father, Elias, was a man of ledgers and columns, a senior auditor whose life was a scrupulous balancing of debits and credits. He believed that every number had its...

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The Hollow in the Hill

It wasn’t that long ago that if you’d said the word ‘haunted’ to me, I’d have laughed and called you a fool. I grew up in a world of hard...

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The Persistent Crack of the Broken Chandelier

I started sleeping in my parents’ room after the break-in. Not that the police found anything, but the feeling of being watched wouldn’t leave me. I’d lie in my own...

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The Basement of Hollow Creek Mall

Four years ago, I was a junior apprentice at the Hollow Creek Mall’s community theater, a sprawling concrete complex on the outskirts of a town that had seen better days....

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The Last Lantern in Garth

My mother used to tell me about the winter I was born, when the rain never seemed to stop and the sun was a rumor we half-remembered. She called it...

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The Child in the Garden

My mother, Eleanor, was a practical woman until the autumn of 1982. That was the year we lived in a cramped duplex on Maple Street, in a town where the...

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The Ember in the Vase

My Uncle Terry wasn’t really my uncle. He was my mom’s longtime partner, Dave’s, father. I called him Uncle Terry because he was the only uncle figure I ever had,...

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The White Trousers

It was a sweltering summer evening when my family and I returned from the funeral of my uncle Ezra, who had passed away in a car accident. The old cemetery...

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The Clockwork Hum of the Kitchen

The day my father’s ashes arrived in a cardboard box, I was twenty-nine and had just moved into a tiny apartment above a bakery in a town called Grayhaven. The...

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