"The House with the Golden Light"

"The House with the Golden Light"

By Niamat Ullah

They always said the house at the end of Sycamore Lane was haunted—not by ghosts, but by memories.

I never believed in that kind of talk. I was a logical person, raised in a city where buildings scraped the sky and lights never went out. So when I inherited my grandmother’s old house in that sleepy mountain town, I didn’t expect much beyond creaky floors and maybe a raccoon in the attic.

But on the first night I arrived, something strange happened.

There was a golden light, warm and flickering, like candlelight, glowing from the window of the upstairs room. I didn’t remember leaving a light on, and when I climbed the stairs and opened the door, the room was empty—except for her old writing desk, a rusted key, and a single sheet of paper with my name on it.

"Write it down before it fades," the note read. Nothing more. No signature. Just my name and that strange instruction.

I laughed it off. Maybe my aunt left it as a joke. But something stirred inside me. A feeling I hadn’t known in years—the urgent need to write.

That night, I dreamed of a young woman running through an endless field, clutching a letter to her chest as rain poured down. She was crying, but her face wasn’t afraid—it was determined. I woke up sweating, heart racing.

The next day, I sat at that desk. And I wrote her story.

It came out of me like a waterfall, pouring faster than I could keep up. The words weren’t mine. They were hers. I didn’t know her name, but I could feel everything she felt—her heartbreak, her strength, her silence.

When I finished the last sentence, the golden light appeared again—this time in the hallway mirror. For a split second, I saw her behind me. Smiling. Then she was gone.

I started writing every day after that. Not just fiction—memories. Stories that didn’t feel like mine, but somehow lived in me. Some were joyful. Some painful. One night, I wrote about a little boy hiding in a closet during a thunderstorm, whispering his sister’s name over and over. When I finished, I cried for an hour and didn’t know why.

Neighbors began to stop by. Some curious, some kind. They brought fresh pie, old photos of my grandmother, and stories about the house.

“Your grandmother used to say the house gave her dreams,” one of them said. “She called it a gift. Said it was her job to listen.”

I nodded, though I didn’t understand it completely—until I found the journal.

It was hidden beneath a loose floorboard in the writing room. Inside were dozens of entries—dated, detailed, and all in my grandmother’s handwriting. She spoke of voices, visions, and stories that begged to be told. She wrote of souls that came to visit, not to haunt, but to heal—through her words.

“This house remembers,” she had written. “And if you’re willing to listen, it will share what others have forgotten.”

I stopped denying it then.

Now, I live a quieter life. The world outside buzzes with news and noise, but in here, time slows down. Stories come like waves—some gentle, some furious—but each leaves a mark.

I’ve published five short story collections. None of them fully my own. Readers send letters saying they cried, that they felt seen, that something deep inside them healed.

And every night, without fail, the golden light returns.

They say the house is haunted. Maybe it is.

But not by fear.

By memory.

By love.

By stories desperate not to be lost.

And I’ve made peace with that.

Because I am their voice now.

And I will write them down before they fade.