A family’s fresh start becomes a descent into supernatural terror

The Mercer family arrived at Wren Hollow just as the sun dipped behind the hills, casting long, amber shadows across the front lawn. The house, a two-story Victorian with ivy-choked walls and sagging shutters, had been on the market for nearly three years. To the Mercers, it was a bargain too good to ignore—plenty of space, a quiet neighborhood, and a chance to start over after a turbulent year in the city.

But from the beginning, the house felt wrong.

Their daughter, Lila, was the first to notice. She complained about the scratching sounds coming from her closet at night and said a woman with a cracked face stood at the foot of her bed whispering things she couldn’t understand. David, her father, dismissed it as nightmares brought on by the move. Sarah, her mother, tried to reassure her, though even she had begun waking up cold, drenched in sweat, with the eerie sense of being watched.

A week after they moved in, the basement door—previously stuck shut—swung open on its own. Lila's toys began appearing in strange places. The family cat refused to enter the parlor, hissing at empty corners. Every mirror in the house developed a film of grime no amount of cleaning could remove, and in their reflections, sometimes, something else appeared—something pale and distant.

One evening, Sarah found an old journal buried in the attic beneath broken floorboards. The leather was brittle, the ink faded, but the entries told a chilling tale. A woman named Eleanor Cartwright had once lived there, a widow accused of witchcraft by the townsfolk after her child died mysteriously in the home. She had been driven from the property and was rumored to have cursed the house before taking her own life in the basement.

That night, Sarah dreamt of a noose swinging from the rafters and awoke with bruises around her neck.

The disturbances escalated. Cabinets slammed shut on their own. Lights flickered with no electrical explanation. Whispers echoed through the vents. On the thirteenth night, David saw her—Eleanor—standing in the hallway, eyes dark and hollow, her mouth forming words he couldn’t hear but felt deeply, like a warning stitched into his bones.

When Lila disappeared from her room one stormy night, the Mercers scoured the house in a panic. They found her in the basement, standing silently beside the old furnace, eyes wide and vacant. She pointed to a patch of earth beneath the floorboards. Digging there, they uncovered a small wooden box. Inside was a lock of hair, a child’s porcelain shoe, and a rusted necklace with Eleanor’s initials etched into the back.

David buried the box in the church cemetery the next day, whispering a prayer he barely remembered from childhood. That night, the house fell silent for the first time.

They stayed only one more week before leaving for good, never speaking of Wren Hollow again.

But some nights, in the quiet hours before dawn, Sarah swears she hears the distant echo of a lullaby, drifting through the trees—soft, cracked, and full of longing.

Thank you for reading. I hope this story gave you just enough chill to keep the lights on a little longer tonight.