Ghost stories from Texas

The Saltwater Locket

My grandmother used to tell me about a girl who drowned on a steamship crossing the Atlantic. She said the girl never left our farmhouse, that she lingered in the...

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The Kitchen Sink

At fourteen, I learned to fear the sound of breathing. Not just any breathing, but the wet, rattling inhale-exhale of a man who had smoked for forty years. That was...

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The Stationmaster’s Waltz

The old depot had been boarded up since before I was born, but the summer I turned nine, the town decided to restore it. My father was on the committee,...

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The Cobalt Veil

I never believed in the geometry of dread until the night my daughter’s key turned in the lock at 3:47 AM, and I found Marisol standing in the hallway that...

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The Silver Dress at 3 AM

The first time I saw the woman in the silver dress, I was five, tiny, and burning with fever. It was a humid summer night in our new house on...

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The Brass Frames

In late October, when the Texas heat finally began to break, my daughter Clara was just six weeks old. My husband’s step-grandfather, Old Man Harlow, had passed quietly in his...

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The Girl in the Shadows

From a young age, I sensed her presence. A girl with dark hair and a Encountershievous smile would appear when I least expected it. Some days she played games with...

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The Lullaby of Hollow Creek

My earliest memories are of the man in the rain. Not a real man, but a shadow that dripped with water, standing at the foot of my bed. He would...

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The Room That Breathed

I was fifteen when my family moved to the outskirts of a small town in the Pacific Northwest, into a house that had stood empty for years. The realtor called...

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The Mysterious Figure in Dreams

In a quiet town, a young woman named Sara struggled with her dreams. At only seventeen, she was deeply spiritual, often seeking guidance through prayer. Yet, there was something unsettling...

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The Lime-Eyed Stranger

At seventeen, Mara had grown accustomed to the weight of unseen things. Her family called it imagination; her pastor called it a gift. She called it a nuisance. But when...

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The Price of Stillness

Every day at 3:15, the school bell released a flood of kids, but I always hung back with my friend Marcus. We had a system. My older brother, who was...

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The Glassed-In Porch

Nearly twenty years have passed since my now-ex-husband, our daughter, and I moved into that monstrosity on the outskirts of Marfa, Texas. My then-mother-in-law, a real estate agent with a...

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The Locked Attic Door

I’m Aurora, and I share this account with my older brother, Julian. We’ve had our share of unexplained events, but the one that still gnaws at me happened in the...

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The Green Girl at the Round Table

When I was nine, my best friend Davey’s older brother, Marcus, would watch us when our parents went out on Friday nights. This was back in the late ’80s, when...

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The Salt Wind Feeds

The island of Kestrel’s Reach was a speck of rock and scrub in the North Atlantic, a place where the only constant was the bite of salt wind and the...

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The Silent Ledger

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been drawn to the stories of the departed. As a child, I’d pester my grandmother for tales of restless spirits, always asking,...

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The Amber Room

Five years ago, when I was twelve, I lived in a house that had been converted from a Victorian schoolhouse. My bedroom was in the old cloakroom, with a high...

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The Unhinged Door

The house on Maple Street had a peculiar smell, like old wood and dust, but we were used to those kinds of scents after living with Grandma for two years....

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The Hollow Floor

The house at 14 Barlow Lane sat at the end of a dead-end street, its white paint peeling in strips like dead skin. The Wilson family had moved there because...

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The Mannequin in the Hallway

It was a Tuesday, the kind of grey afternoon that made the whole world feel like a faded photograph. I was on the couch, half-watching a static-filled rerun with my...

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The Lantern Man

The first time I sensed him was in the summer of my ninth year, in the decaying farmhouse my grandmother had inherited from her brother. I’d grown up in the...

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The Gray Itch

Marta had been sleeping twelve hours a day for weeks. Her skin took on a sallow, waxy quality, and she complained of an itch that no cream could soothe. I...

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The Bone-Grid Sessions

For six years, I’d been guiding people through the mechanics of the spirit board—what most call Ouija. I’d learned the hard way, starting at thirteen with a board my grandmother...

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