Ghost stories from United States

The Third-Floor Nursery

I had spent thirty-two years in that house on Hemlock Street, and in all that time, I never saw a thing. My grandmother swore the attic breathed, my aunt claimed...

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The Jackal’s Grin

Eight years ago, my mother, my little sister, and I were driving from the dusty outskirts of Tucson to my older brother’s place near Fresno. The desert stretched endlessly around...

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The Glass-Eyed Man

I didn’t think much of it at first. The old farmhouse we rented had a way of playing tricks on your eyes, especially with all those dusty windows and the...

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The Ramp

I landed a job at St. Jude’s Memorial, a sprawling hospital that sat on the edge of the city like a forgotten monolith. My dream job, honestly. I’ve always wanted...

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The Lantern Keeper’s Vigil

The email sat unread in Mara’s inbox for three days, its subject line a simple plea: ‘A Favor for a Friend.’ Mara knew that when Lila asked for help, it...

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The Boiler Room Choir

My name is Elara, and I’m fifteen. I live in a converted schoolhouse on the edge of a town that’s mostly abandoned since the mill shut down. My mom, stepdad,...

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The Coffin in the Basement

Marta had always been the pragmatic one in her family. When she inherited her great-uncle’s decaying farmhouse in the Appalachian foothills, she saw it as a burden, not a blessing....

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The Unraveling of Hattie Blackwood

Hattie Blackwood was six when she first overheard her mother on the phone, her voice thin as a spider’s thread. ‘She talks to the corners, Martha. Not like pretend friends....

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The Clockwork Owl

Last autumn, I traveled with my family to my grandmother’s farmhouse in the Hudson Valley for her annual harvest gathering. I was assigned to sleep in the attic, which my...

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The Yellow Sticker

I never believed in anything I couldn’t see or touch. That’s why, when my cousin Mira and I moved into the old farmhouse on Birch Road, I laughed off the...

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Psychics, Witches, And Ghosts. Oh My!

This was when I was like 7 or 8, it was about 9:30 at night and my mom and I were downstairs watching TV. My mom went to wake my...

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The Ledger of the Last Bet

The Riverbend Social Club had stood on the banks of the Blackwood River for over a century, its red brick facade weathered by floods and time. It was a place...

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The Gown in the Static

In 2011, I took a position at a lakeside resort in the off-season, a sprawling lodge that had seen better decades. I met my future wife, Elara, there; she was...

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The Static in Room 12

I’ve always been attuned to the other side, a sensitivity I never asked for. In my old town of Millbrook, we moved into a Victorian-style house on Birchwood Lane, a...

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The Unpainted Circle

My grandfather built our house in 2015, a modest two-story in the foothills of the Appalachians. The land had been in our family for generations, but the house itself was...

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The Unseen Station

I never believed in the family gift, not really. My grandmother, Elara, had stories about seeing the dead, but she was old and maybe a little senile. My mother, though,...

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The Iron Kettle

In 1983, I was seventeen and helping my aunt run the Iron Kettle, a diner perched on the edge of the Klamath River in Northern California. The town was called...

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The Cornice Watcher

I was born in a house that breathed, or so I believed for the first nine years of my life. My mother said it was just the wind in the...

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The Wall That Breathed

I was housesitting for my aunt while she took her six-year-old, Mia, to visit their grandmother upstate. Her old farmhouse, nestled at the end of a dirt road that seemed...

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The Tarot Reader’s Vengeance

Elara had always been sensitive to the unseen. Growing up in the fog-drenched town of Pemberton, she’d learned to live with the whispers of the dead, the cold spots in...

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