Ghost stories from Massachusetts

The Rusted Buckets

In the autumn of 1997, I returned to the house I had known as a teenager, a weathered farmhouse on the edge of Marlborough, just a stone’s throw from the...

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The Painted Door

The summer I turned twelve, my family moved into a house that smelled of old wood and regret. It was a sprawling Victorian on the edge of a town that...

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The Flicker in the Hall

The morning light struggled through the grimy windows of the old farmhouse, casting long shadows across the kitchen linoleum. I, Mira, shuffled downstairs, my brain still hazy from a restless...

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The Ironclad Tenant

In the fall of 2014, I found a ground-floor apartment in the once-thriving mill district of Meridian Falls, a town that had seen better days. The building was a former...

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The Yellow Envelope

The first time I saw the envelope, it was propped against the base of the hallway mirror, its pale yellow glaring against the faded wallpaper. I knew it wasn’t mine....

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The Brine Line

The summer I turned nine, my parents shipped me off to my aunt and uncle’s farmhouse in the middle of Kansas, a place where the nearest neighbor was a half-hour...

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The Gardener’s Bloom

The humid July air hung heavy over the sprawling estate, thick with the scent of roses and something metallic, like old pennies. Liam, barely eleven, and his two cousins, Maya...

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The Man on the Porch

During a loud family gathering at my grandmother’s place, my two best friends and I decided to walk to my home a few blocks away. As we turned the corner...

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The Last Slice of Pie

When I was eleven, summers at my aunt Mabel’s farm were the highlight of my year. She had two border collies, Rusty and Pip, who were inseparable. They’d chase the...

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The Lantern Keeper’s Bargain

The first time I saw the light, I was nine years old, living in a creaking farmhouse at the edge of a town called Hollowbrook. My family had moved there...

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The Sponged Wall

In the summer of 2005, I lived in the rust-belt town of Millbrook, where the old textile mills had left their mark on every brick and every face. My sister...

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The Last Lap

The Silver Star Speedway had been a fixture in Millbrook since 1948, a sprawling concrete monument to the roar of engines and the smell of burnt rubber. But by night,...

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The Weaver of Threads

I never believed in ghosts until the night I moved my bedroom into the basement. It was a practical decision, really. My brother had gotten married and moved out, leaving...

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The Static Womb

The apartment on Bramble Lane had a peculiar habit of sighing at night. I’d lie in my fold-out cot, listening to the building’s ancient bones creak and settle, and I’d...

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The Static Chorus

Maya had just returned from a late dinner at her sister’s apartment, the city lights of Minneapolis still smearing across her vision as she climbed the three flights of stairs...

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The Cartographer’s Debt

Mara’s grandmother called it the ‘sight,’ but Mara thought of it as a curse—a constant hum beneath the surface of things, a pressure against her skull that told her when...

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The Last Bell at the Harlow Mill

My mother, Ellen, had a knack for knowing things she shouldn’t. It wasn’t just a mother’s intuition; it was a quiet hum in her bones that manifested as flickers in...

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The Plaster Gaze

It was the summer of ’93 when I first noticed the ceiling in my room had a problem. Not a crack or a leak, but a face. It was formed...

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The Rootwork of Pemberton Hollow

I’ve lived in Pemberton Hollow my whole life, a town that seems to exist in the shadow of the Appalachian foothills, a place where the trees lean in as if...

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The Stain That Wouldn’t Dry

I’ve always been drawn to old houses, the way their floorboards creak like tired bones and their wallpaper peels in patterns that look like faces. But there’s one house I’ll...

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The Cedar Frame

My cousin Lena and I were sorting through our grandmother’s attic when she found the photographs. They were tucked inside a brittle leather album, the pages smelling of mothballs and...

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The Bell Jar of St. Agatha

The summer of ’92 was a furnace, and I was trapped in my aunt’s Victorian on the edge of Harlow, a town so dry the church bells sounded like cracked...

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The Unfinished Painting

I have always been able to see things others can’t. As a child, I would tell my mother about the man in the corner who watched her cook, or the...

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The Salt Line

The house on Meridian Lane was a monument to mid-century optimism, all sharp angles and wide windows that let in too much light for a place that felt so heavy....

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