Ghost stories from Nepal

The Bathroom Count

It was the summer of my final year at St. Aldric’s Academy, a rambling Victorian pile of red brick and ivy perched on the edge of the moors. The school...

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The Last Ride on the Ceramic Road

The summer I turned seven, I spent my days at my aunt’s farmhouse in the countryside, where the only sounds were crickets and the distant hum of a tractor. My...

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The Hollow Lullaby of the Thornwood

Our farmhouse sat at the edge of the Thornwood, a sprawling tangle of gnarled oaks and brambles that choked the hillside. Fifty yards from our back door stood the lone...

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The Iron Gate’s Vigil

I’ve always been a collector of eerie tales, but none have clung to my mind like the one my grandmother, whom we call Didi, shared with me. It happened in...

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The Constant State Between

My name is Arjun, and I’m not sure why I’m writing this down. Maybe to convince myself that it really happened, or to warn someone else. It began during my...

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The Moth’s Last Flight

In the late autumn of 1997, the town of Bhaktapur was a pocket of stillness, its narrow lanes winding between brick houses like veins of an old heart. The air...

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The Last Sip of Tea

In the autumn of 2014, our family gathered in the ancestral home of my grandmother’s sister, whom we called Aaji, in the quiet town of Bhaktapur. The house was an...

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The Carousel at Umber Street

The night the power went out, I was in the middle of a dream where I was drowning in honey. My eyes snapped open to the hum of the city...

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The Lantern Keeper’s Debt

The narrow switchback trail coiled down the mountainside like a serpent’s spine, and Elias had the misfortune of climbing it as the sun bled out behind the ridgeline. His village,...

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The Lantern Procession of Bhaktapur

I never believed in the old stories until the night I saw the procession myself. My grandmother used to tell me about them when I was a child, sitting by...

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The Clockwork Chime

I never believed in ghosts, not really. Not until I moved into the old Bellweather Apartments. It was a sprawling, pre-war building with high ceilings and drafty windows, and the...

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The Third Floor Landing

The house on Mulberry Lane was a Victorian relic, all creaking floors and drafty windows, and I’d lived there my whole life. My great-grandfather built it, and it felt like...

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The Last Tenant

The building on Ash Lane had once been a grand hotel, its ornate facade now weathered and streaked with grime. I moved into the top floor with my cousin, Delia,...

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The Latch of Room Six

I had been back in the old country for just under a season, still adjusting to the weight of the monsoon air and the way the hills swallowed the sun...

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The Unseen Guest

The winter of my tenth grade was a season of quiet routines. I was a creature of habit, my life a carefully curated symphony of alarm clocks and study schedules....

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The Blackout of Mirela’s Lane

It was the summer of 2021, and I was sixteen, living in the quiet outskirts of Cluj-Napoca, Romania. My name is Andrei, and I never believed in ghosts. That night,...

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The Slaughterhouse Ledger

I was sixteen, in my final year of high school, when we moved into the old Canton Hotel. It wasn’t a hotel anymore, just a ramshackle building on the outskirts...

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The Melancholy of the Weeping Machine

Three years had slipped by since I’d left the cinnamon-scented streets of Kathmandu for the damp, grey expanse of Berlin. The city had been a cruel mistress, offering a counterfeit...

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The Poltergeist of Peacock Lane

For as long as I can remember, my family lived in a cramped apartment on the third floor of an old, sprawling mansion on Peacock Lane. The house was a...

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