I’ve gotta say, despite all the annoying supernatural shit going down, this is a pretty normal weekend for me. I’m a paranormal investigator, not famous or anything, mostly just known within the community itself. I don’t have a youtube channel or any weird equipment, just a blog where I keep track of weird places and give occasional advice to concerned parties.

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          That’s how I got the tip about this place actually, someone from this tiny town thinks I’m interesting enough to read about, so he emailed me about the local legend. It’s pretty standard stuff, single, dilapidated house on the edge of town, wife went missing and the husband was suspected of killing her. Less standard, would be that the kid said some people thought he ate her which is pretty neat. Gross, but neat. I don’t get a lot of cannibal stories so it’s nice to change it up every once in a while.

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          I wanted to start gathering information sooner rather than later. I headed to the town only a couple days after the kid’s initial email. I even set up an interview with him, and a few other locals to hear the story from a few different angles. The kid’s interview wasn’t super insightful, he basically just went over what he said in the email. He did offer to walk around with me, though, which I declined. If there actually is something in that house I don’t wanna have to worry about him while I’m in there.

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          The other interviews ended up being pretty boring. There’s only so many variations of “husband killed the wife and chopped her up”, you can hear before they start getting repetitive, so I figured I’d just head straight there.

The entire street is abandoned houses, but just looking at it, it’s clear that the townspeople have some sort of reverence for it. Every other house on this street has been vandalized, windows broken out, garbage thrown around, stuff like that. But the house the kid told me about looked completely untouched.

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          Walking up the porch it creaks menacingly beneath my feet, and the condition of the house becomes clearer the closer I get. While avoiding the rough treatment of the locals it certainly hadn’t escaped the passage of time. The windows were intact, but absolutely covered in dust and cobwebs, just about all the wood was discolored, and the handle of the door had rusted so badly that it wouldn’t budge. The kid had mentioned that the easiest way in was the window to the left of the front door, which was the only one without cobwebs, only dust.  

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          Convenient for sure, means I can leave the prybar in the trunk. I open the window and climb through. It’s not as bad on the inside, thankfully. Still dusty as shit, but not terrible, I’ve definitely seen worse. I’m in what used to be a living room, a couple of ratty old couches huddled around a shelf with an old tv on it. I skirt around those and head for the stairs. The kid said that most of the sightings have been upstairs, though there’s sometimes noise from the basement, supposedly some screams, according to the locals.

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          They keep going back and forth over what part’s “more haunted” even though that’s not really how that works. The locals are split pretty evenly on it, some say the attic window is worse, since the wife is seen more often, but the others say it’s the basement, since it’s more disturbing, and that it gives the trespasser a sense of fear and dread. Either way, I’ll have to check out both spots to make sure. Maybe the rest of the house, too.

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          The stairs creak ominously, but not enough that I think they’d give in, so I keep moving. The upstairs is less dusty than the first floor. There are lines of footpaths in the carpet from where people have been walking through for years trying to get to the attic. The trapdoor is already open and unfolded down into the hallway. It had been braced at some point so that it wouldn’t break. Good call on that.

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          I climb the ladder to the attic, more creaking -seriously can I go to one place with quiet stairs, this is getting ridiculous- but I get up there safely. The entire room is lit, since the windows on both ends are wide open, without any curtains. The attic is filled with miscellaneous furniture and objects. Most of the furniture is covered in sheets, and some have been formerly, as previous visitors have clearly moved things around to make a space for people to roll out sleeping bags. The kid had mentioned that before.

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          I look around the room, and, not seeing any ghosts, start poking around. Maybe I’d stumble across something important and make one angry. That’d be a good way to get its attention if I don’t wanna stay here all night. It’d be dumb, but it’d be quick. Bad idea, though. May as well try to get some information about the couple while I wait for something spooky to happen. I end up poking around the attic for an hour or so.

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          Most anything valuable had already been taken by previous guests. The only thing of interest I found was a vanity mirror. The drawers were empty but one looked a bit smaller than it should. A false bottom. I was able to pry it open with a knife and inside I found lots of paper. It was mostly letters, photos and legal documents for Linette Baker, the murdered woman. The photos are of the young woman with her parents, and a few with her husband. One of their wedding. I don’t linger on those, I was more interested in the letters anyway. It seemed like they were never sent, most documenting her life in and before this house. There were drawings, mostly of the view of the street from the window.

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          As I read I can feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Looking up into the vanity’s mirror I can see the outline of a woman standing right behind me. I feel my heartbeat pick up for a moment, but it settles when I realize that she’s not looking at me, but the papers in my hands. I turn my head, and she’s inches from my face. When I do, she finally looks at me. After a moment she seems to register that I’m looking at her, and she moves away, startled.  

“Hi” I start. “My name’s Maya, nice to meet you.” The woman looks absolutely baffled. “You can see me? Standing here right now?” I laugh a bit, but nod. The woman, who I can recognize as the bride in the photos, Linette, looks absolutely thrilled.

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          “I mean you’re not really standing, more like floating, but, yeah I can see you just fine.” She looks forlorn, glancing down at her own feet, hovering a few inches above the attic floor.

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          “Oh” Her voice is small. “Right.” I feel bad suddenly. I’m not the most tactful, but that reminding someone they’re dead is not usually a good conversation starter. “So uh… Is there anything I can do for you?” I ask quickly. “I mean, I am here to help in any way possible, it’s kind of my thing.” I turn in the seat, leaning awkwardly against the edge of the vanity table.

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          “There’s nothing you can do for me” She says finally. “You can’t bring me back from the dead. You can’t give me my life back. I can’t leave this place.” Her voice rises. “I’m just as trapped here in death as I was in life. There’s nothing you can do to help me.” I sit for a moment, listening to her speak.

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          “Well, that’s not quite true.” I shift against the vanity. “I could always help you move on, if that’s what you want.” She looks confused. “Move on?” She echoes, floating a bit closer. I nod. “Like help you get peace. Usually, the reason souls stick around is unfinished business, or an unjust death. You seem to be the unjust death type, so unfortunately your situation is a bit more complicated.” I explain. “Unfinished business is usually easier. I just gotta reunite them with a lost possession or relative or something, maybe help with a little vengeance, easy stuff. But I don’t think that’ll be much help for you, since, uh, the guy that killed you kind of took revenge off the table himself.”

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          She looks crestfallen and moves to sit. Which looks interesting because she’s still floating, but that’s besides the point. She speaks again after a few moments of silence. “I don’t think I have any unfinished business. I never really had any to begin with, I suppose.” I shift again, leaning forward, elbows on my knees. “That’s fine. It just means that you’re probably here because of how your death was. Big, violent events like that kind of leave imprints on places, keeps things around for a long time. But we can still work with that.” I offer. She perks up again.

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          “Work with that?” She echoes. “What do you mean?” She floats a bit closer, clearly intrigued. “I mean we can still get you moved on. We just have to do it a little different is all. I’d start by walking you through the day you died, any everything leading up to it. You tell me about what it was like, what you regret, what you’d have done if you survived. And that might be enough to get you ready on your own.” I pause. “If not, we can always go the exorcism route.”

Her face changes and she floats further away. I wave my hands quickly, trying to assuage her fear. “It’s not as bad as it sounds I promise!” I continue trying to explain. “It just removes the tethers keeping you here, that’s all. It won’t send you to hell or anything like that I swear. There’s natural path for souls to take after death, and right now, being tied to this house is keeping you from taking that path. All I would be doing is cutting those ties, all right?”

 

          She floats for a few minutes, eyeing me cautiously. After a while she settles into a position a few feet away. “What if I don’t want to move on? What then?” She asks, her face looks set, determined. I blink, a bit surprised. “Well, uh. That’s an option, too. Usually that would just mean I leave you here. There’s not a whole lot else I can do. It’s kind of a one or the other type deal.” I explain. Her face crumples. “I see.” Her form flickers a bit, growing less distinct, the edges blurring slightly. “There’s no way for me to experience the world? No way for me to live, even in death?” She pleads quietly.

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          “I mean, you could always try and haunt something if you want?” I offer. “It’s not the best thing you could do, but I doubt it’d be worse than what you’ve got going on now.” I gesture around the dusty attic. “Haunt something? Aren’t I already doing that now?” She asks, confused. “Sort of, yeah. See, you’re haunting a building right now, but you could try haunting an object instead. Something small that people could move around, take with them.” I explain. “You’d still have to be tied to something, to make sure you don’t move on, but at least you wouldn’t be stuck in this attic forever.”

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          “How do I do that?” She asks, floating closer. Her form is gaining more definition, more clarity, I can see more realistic features again, the curve of her mouth, the lines between her brows. “Uh. I, um.” I regain composure. “I can walk you through the process. It’s not too difficult, thankfully, but it’ll take a lot of energy, from both of us.” I offer.

“When can we start?” She asks, looking desperate. “I’d like to leave as soon as possible, please.” I nod, getting up from the seat, dusting myself off. “Pretty soon. I just need to grab some stuff from my car, I don’t have it on me right now cause I don’t do tethering rituals all that often.” I begin collecting all the documents from the false drawer. “Is there anything you have in mind for an item? I mean, something sentimental. It’s easiest when it’s something you care about, but if you don’t have anything in mind, I can figure somethin’ out.”

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          She thinks for a moment, looking at the papers in my hand, lingering on the photos in my hand. I offer them in her direction, but when she reaches out to take them her hands go through the image. I shiver. Ghosts have real cold hands. She pulls back, discouraged. “Did you think of something?” I ask. She looks at me for a moment. “My necklace.”

 

          She points to the photo of her and her parents. There’s a chain around her neck with a small pendant. “I’d had it since the day I was born. I don’t know where it is… I can’t… I can’t remember….” She trails off, looking distant, her hands reaching towards her neck. Her form begins to fade.

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          “Linette. I can find it okay?” I offer. “It might take a while to track it down, but chances are it either buried with you, with the cops as evidence, or still somewhere in the house. Even if its not, someone has to know where it went.” I explain. “It’s going to take a while to find, is that okay with you? Do you want to wait that long to get it back?” As I speak her form becomes clearer, until I can see her face again. She nods, determined.

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          “I want it back. It’s the only thing I want from this house.”  She reaches a hand towards me, but falters. I move mine to meet hers. They don’t touch, exactly, but I didn’t expect them to. They sink together slightly, and I feel my hand go numb. If tv static was a feeling, this was it. She looks at our joined hands, bewildered.

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           “You feel warm.” She says, voice quiet. “I can’t remember the last time my hands felt warm.” I smile and offer my other hand. She takes it, basking in the warmth. We stand there for a long time, sharing the warmth of my hands. Tomorrow I’ll start my search for the necklace, and I’d be able to get her out of this house, and out into the world she was deprived from for so long. For now, though, I just linger, letting her sit, content with someone who sees her.