Ghost stories from Wisconsin

The Scent of Rotting Lavender

In the autumn of 2018, I was house-sitting for my aunt’s family in the remote village of Kestrel Hollow, while they vacationed in Greece. The house, a creaking Victorian relic...

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The Cellar of Unfinished Steps

In the autumn of 1983, I was fifteen, living with my aunt Doris and uncle Hal in their sprawling split-level house in rural Minnesota. The house was a maze of...

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The Lingering Stop

Milo had always been a man of signs. When the fortune cookie at the Golden Dragon unfurled its cryptic message — ‘A long road lies ahead, yet you will arrive...

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The Ceramic River

The first time I saw the ceramic river, I was seven, standing at the edge of the playground while the other kids played tag. It wasn’t water that flowed past...

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The Kettle’s Secret

When the Calloway family inherited Great-Aunt Mabel’s farmhouse in the late autumn of 1994, they were eager to escape the city. The house stood on the edge of a vast,...

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The Hat Man of Bramblewood Lane

I’ve always been sensitive to the unseen, a gift or a curse depending on the night. My partner, Daniel, is the opposite: a staunch pragmatist who trusts only what his...

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The Chalky Script

I never believed in the supernatural, not even after a childhood spent in my grandmother’s creaking Victorian, where every floorboard groaned like a tired old man. That house was just...

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The Pale Index

I remember the night the clock struck three and the world tilted sideways. I had been dreaming of a man made of my own discarded thoughts—a figure of regret and...

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The Rag Doll in the Cistern

I never trusted the old farmhouse. From the moment I stepped through its warped front door, a cold dread settled in my chest like a stone. My friend Maya assured...

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The Seventh Stall

I was twenty-four when I inherited the old Thornwood stable from my aunt. The place had been abandoned for decades, and the local realtor gave me a deal that felt...

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The Knocking Code

I’ve known Marnie since I was three, when she first appeared at the foot of my crib, a small girl in a damp, gray dress, her hair a tangle of...

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The Stained Linens of Hollow Creek

My grandfather, Elias, perished from a stroke that left his left side paralyzed and his mind trapped in a failing body. In his final year, he rotated between our home...

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The Grease-Stained Window

The summer had been a long, lazy stretch of sun and cicadas, but the moment school doors slid shut for the year, the town seemed to fold into itself. I...

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In the autumn of 1967, the Hartwell family settled into a sprawling Victorian house in the outskirts of Duluth, Minnesota. The house was a fixer-upper, with peeling wallpaper, creaking floorboards,...

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The Latch

The old farmhouse on Redemption Road had a latch on the inside of my bedroom door that my father had installed after I learned to work the round brass knob....

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The Persistent Glow

My name is Evelyn, and I’ve never told anyone the whole truth about what happened in the summer of 1997. It’s not that I don’t believe in the supernatural; it’s...

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The Chalk Dust in the Air

The autumn I turned thirteen, the world tilted. It started with a scavenger hunt in the city arboretum, a school trip that should have been a lark. I found something...

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The Field at Milepost 14

I was nine when it happened, not ten, but the age doesn’t matter when something like this etches itself into your memory forever. My name is Danny, and I lived...

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The Damp Crease

My name is Elara, and I’ve been living in my partner’s house for six months now—a Victorian relic that creaks and settles like an old sailor. The house has that...

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The Mist That Never Lifted

In the winter of 2019, I was six months pregnant with my first child, a girl we planned to name Mei. My husband, Tom, worked the early shift at the...

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The Empty Quarter

I never put much stock in places being haunted. Land is just land; water is just water. So when my friend Mira’s dad, Professor Ellery, insisted we camp at the...

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The Stone of the Bridge

The old crossing over the Meridian River was called Kessler’s Folly, named after the engineer who swore the double curve would hold. Locals whispered that the stones remembered things better...

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The Static Lover

The winter of 2005 had settled into the small town of Ashford like a bone-deep chill that no heater could thaw. Clara had taken to waking at four in the...

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The Static in the Walls

The house on Bramblewick Lane was never quiet. Not in the way old houses are quiet, with creaks and groans that settle into your bones. It was a different kind...

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