Ghost stories from Pets

The Phantom Purr

In the quiet town of Ashwick, my aunt Mildred was known for her two aging cats, Jasper and Mabel. Jasper, a burly ginger tom, had passed away last autumn, and...

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The Pale Passenger of Old Hollow Road

I was eleven the summer we moved to my grandmother’s house in the foothills of the Cascades, a place where the forest pressed close against the roads, and the only...

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The Limping Pattern

My grandmother’s house was a sprawling Victorian with creaking floorboards and a lingering smell of mothballs and rose water. I inherited it after she passed, along with her ancient, arthritic...

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The Hollow Above

The morning of the Feast of Saint Isidore, I found my cat, Marmalade, dead on the gravel drive of our farmhouse, a single crimson thread trailing from her ear. She...

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Ally Wouldn’t Say Good-bye – A Tale Of A Cat Stuck Between Worlds

When I was 10, we had four cats. Now, I won’t go into detail for these cats, but I will tell you the haunting story of one cat that wouldn’t...

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The Marigold Mat

The old farmhouse had settled into its bones by the time we moved in. Dust motes danced in the slanted afternoon light, and the floorboards complained with every step. My...

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Dogs Came Back

My family dogs are miniature short-haired Dachshounds. Their names were Charlie and Cindy, had them since grade 5, when we lived in Toronto. They past away in 1999/2000. Cindy past...

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The Old Oak’s Vigil

Milo had always been a creature of habit, and the old oak tree in our backyard was his favorite spot to lounge. He was a ginger tabby, nearly fourteen, with...

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The Keys of the Far Gate

Sunday, October 12, 2014, began like any other autumn day in the town of Coldbrook, where the leaves had turned brittle and the wind carried a metallic tang from the...

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The Third Shape

We were three months into the lease on the old farmhouse, and the silence had become a fourth roommate. Lena, my wife, said it was the isolation—twenty miles to the...

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The Weight of Old Bones

The wind rattled the window panes of my rented room above the garage, a sound I’d grown used to in the two months since I’d moved to the coastal town...

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The Hollow Broadcast

Evelyn had recently moved into a narrow, pre-war walk-up in the industrial district of a city that never quite slept. The apartment, number 4B, was affordable for a reason: the...

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The Hollow Garden

The morning was a lie. Bright, warm, and deceptively calm, it coaxed me into a sense of safety. Mom was at her hospital shift, Dad was out on his delivery...

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The Hollow Under the Stairs

I never believed in ghosts. Not in the way that made my heart race when I passed a cemetery at night, or when the floorboards groaned in the old farmhouse...

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The Persistent Kettle

Milo left on the tenth of March, a Tuesday, if the calendar on the fridge could be trusted. The vet said it was a swift illness, a quiet failure of...

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The Weaving of Wrath

The farmhouse sat at the edge of a dying town, its tin roof rattling in the wind like a maraca. I moved there with my sister, Lila, and our three...

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The Copper Stairwell

Our townhouse is barely a decade old, nestled in a development that was carved from an old apple orchard. We’re only the second family in it; the previous owners had...

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The Whistle of the Dry Leaves

After Martha passed, the silence in my bungalow was a physical weight. She had been a Border Collie, a stray who’d trotted into my life one rain-slicked evening, her coat...

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The Cyan Feather Oath

The morning I brought Pippin home, the fog was so thick that the pier lights bled into the sky like bruises. I’d driven forty minutes to a damp little shop...

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The Six That Stay

The house on Cedar Lane had always been a haven for strays. My parents, ever soft-hearted, took in any dog that wandered onto the porch, and over the years, the...

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The Clatter of Tiny Hooves

When I was six, I received a dwarf goat named Pepper for my birthday. She was a curious little thing, with a coat of mottled gray and white, and ears...

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The Last Dandelion

Marta never thought of herself as a dreamer. Her nights were usually a blank, seamless slide into morning, a void that left her feeling rested but strangely empty. But every...

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The Return of Mister Nocturne

At nine, I lost my cat, Mister Nocturne, to a wasting sickness that stole his white blood cells after a stray bit him. We buried him under the old oak...

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The Tallow Candle Sonata

It wasn’t Alaska, but a windswept stretch of the Oregon coast where my great-uncle Edwin kept his lighthouse. The fog rolled in like a slow tide, muffling the world in...

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