“The house on raven hill: a true story that still haunts me”

They say every town has its haunted house — the kind neighbors speak about in hushed tones, kids dare each other to enter, and realtors try not to mention. In my town, that house sat like a forgotten relic on the edge of Raven Hill, cloaked in ivy and silence. It looked like it belonged in a different century, and maybe it did.

I never planned to go inside. But curiosity, as they say, is stronger than fear — at least, it was for me. What happened inside that house still makes my skin crawl, and I’m not entirely sure I’ll ever understand what I saw. Or who… I met.

It started in the fall of 2017. I was a journalism student who was always looking for answers to real-life mysteries. When I heard about the abandoned mansion up on Raven Hill, I thought it would make a great article. The story went that an old woman named Margaret Wilkes had lived there her whole life, right up until she died alone in 1989. For days, no one claimed her body. Some said she was a witch. Others claimed they still saw lights flickering in the windows long after she was gone.

It was just folklore — or so I thought.

I went up to the house on a gray October afternoon. The front door was locked, but one of the side windows had long since lost its glass. With a little effort, I hoisted myself inside.

The air was stale, thick with dust and the smell of mold. But it was the silence that struck me first — complete, unnatural, like the house was holding its breath. The furniture was still there, covered in sheets. Time had frozen in that house. Picture frames with blurred faces sat on the mantle; a teacup still rested on the table like someone had set it down minutes ago. I wandered from room to room, taking photos and scribbling notes. Everything felt… wrong. The shadows were too deep. The floors creaked even when I wasn’t moving. And in the upstairs hallway, I found something that truly unsettled me: a room filled entirely with dolls. Old porcelain dolls lined the shelves and covered the bed. All of them had their eyes open. They were all facing the door. And one of them, I swear to this day, blinked.

I froze. I was sure someone or something could hear my heart thudding so loudly. I backed away from the doorway, ready to leave, when I heard a soft creaking behind me. I turned around expecting to see a raccoon or maybe a gust of wind moving a door. But what I saw was a figure standing at the end of the hall — a woman, thin and pale, wearing a nightgown. Her eyes appeared to be black pits, her mouth was slightly open, and her face was blank. She didn’t speak. She didn’t move. But in my mind, I heard a whisper: “Why did you come?”

I don’t remember running. I don’t remember climbing out the window. I just remember hitting the ground and not stopping until I reached the bottom of the hill. My lungs burned, my hands were scraped, and my camera was gone. Somehow, it had been left behind.

I went back the next day with a friend. This time, the window was boarded up. The door was locked with a heavy chain, and the air around the house was bitter cold. chilly for October. My friend laughed it off, said I was sleep-deprived and probably imagined it all.

But I know what I saw.

I never published that story — not officially. I told a few classmates, and they laughed. Someone even dared to go up there themselves, but said they found nothing. No dolls. No furniture. Nothing but a shell of a house, completely empty.

It doesn’t make sense. It never has.

However, there are times when I dream back of that hallway at night. I see the dolls. The whisper comes to me. And when I wake up, I swear I can smell her perfume — lavender and rot.

So if you ever find yourself near Raven Hill and see that house in the distance, keep walking. Don’t go up there. Don’t climb in through the window. because Raven Hill's house is not just haunted. It’s hungry.