Ghost stories from Alaska

The Lantern in the Rain

I used to think the old lighthouse was just a landmark, a rusted skeleton on the cliff that tourists photographed and locals ignored. But after the storm season began, I...

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The Ledger of Static

I know no one will believe me, but I have to write this down before it’s too late. My name is Mara, and I live in a crumbling apartment building...

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The Pale Afternoon

I was eleven, the summer before sixth grade, when the heat in our small desert town of Pinnacle Flats turned everything to a shimmering blur. We lived on the edge...

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The Constant Rap

The first time I heard it, I was drowning in the static of a dead channel. The CRT television in my room was a relic, a bulky obsidian block that...

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The Apron Strings

The first week in our new house felt like settling into a frozen ribcage. The duplex in the old mining town of Dominion, Nova Scotia, was a relic of a...

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The Passenger on Route 9

It was a Tuesday night, about ten years ago, when my mother, Alice, my grandmother, Ruth, and I were driving back from a family dinner in the small town of...

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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 Empty Cabinet

My cousin Mara and I were scrubbing the grime from the bathroom tiles at our great-aunt’s house, a sprawling Victorian that had been in the family for decades but had...

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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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The Last Keeper

My friend Elena always had a way with the quiet things. She could walk into a room and feel the residue of joy or sorrow left behind by its previous...

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The Hour of the Long Dark

The first thing I noticed was the way the streetlights seemed to dim as I drove through the outskirts of Fairbanks, as if the town itself was holding its breath....

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The Static Between Us

For years, the recurring hum in my apartment on Beechwood Avenue was my own private madness. I’d lie in bed, listening to that low, electrical thrum that seemed to emanate...

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A New Perspective on Reality

For years, I carried the weight of secrets that no one understood. In the stillness of my room, strange occurrences unfolded, but every attempt to capture them—be it on video...

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The Frost Line Manifest

The drive from Birch Hollow to the coastal city of Marrow’s Point takes anywhere from fifty minutes to two hours, depending on the mood of the Turnpike and the weather....

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The Figures in the Doorway

For weeks, I had been thinking about the silent watchers who stood in my doorway each night. I had decided that tonight, I would face them. I stayed up late,...

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The Stillness of the Empty House

The old farmhouse creaked around Elara like a dying beast. Rain lashed against the windowpanes, each drop a tiny hammer blow against the fragile glass. She’d inherited the place from...

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The Door in the Floor

The house on Mulberry Lane had a personality, and it was not a friendly one. We moved in during a grey November, and the previous tenants, a young couple with...

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The Gallery of Locked Doors

The drive to the old mill was a family tradition of sorts, a way to escape the boredom of our small valley town. My parents had celebrated their twentieth anniversary...

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The Forgotten Trail Adventure

On a quiet summer afternoon, the sun shone brightly over the small town of Willow Creek. A family of four decided to take a break from their routine and explore...

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The Sound in the Old House

My father and I were recalling old times yesterday, and I brought up a strange noise I had been hearing in my apartment. This started a longer conversation about the...

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The Hum of the Wallpaper

The old house creaked around Elias like a dying animal. He’d always found solace in its aged timbers, a comforting symphony of settling wood and wind whistling through eaves. But...

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The Gilded Cage of Sleep

The ornate music box, a childhood heirloom that once chimed with delicate melodies, now sat upon my antique mahogany dresser, its gilded filigree catching the faint moonlight. Every night, without...

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The Figures in the Corner

Many nights have passed since the first time it happened, and now it is a nightly ritual I cannot escape. Each evening, when I enter my room to rest, an...

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The Bloom Beneath the Bellies

The July sun beat down on my shoulders, a false promise of warmth. I’d been staring at the same four walls for three days, my usual companions scattered to distant...

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