The House That Remembers

When Lena’s grandmother died, she inherited the old house tucked deep inside Elmridge Hollow — a place where the trees grew too close together, and shadows lingered longer than they should. The villagers warned her. Quietly. Uneasily. Some refused to even say the house’s name.

“It remembers,” one old man had muttered at the gas station, without meeting her eyes. “And it doesn’t forgive.”

But Lena didn’t believe in that kind of thing. Ghost stories were for people who didn’t understand the world. She was a woman of logic and screens, not creaks and whispers.

The house stood like a corpse dressed for a funeral — tall, cold, and waiting. The paint had long since peeled from its bones, and ivy clung to the siding like veins. As Lena stepped onto the porch, the air grew colder, heavier, like it had teeth.

The key turned easily. Too easily.

Inside, the air was stale with the scent of rotting wood and something else — faintly sweet, like old blood. Dust hung like fog. The house didn’t feel abandoned. It felt paused, as if time had stopped mid-breath and waited for someone to exhale.

That night, the floorboards moaned under her steps even when she wasn’t walking. The ticking of a grandfather clock echoed from the parlor—she never wound it. The mirrors — huge, cracked relics — lined almost every wall, and they reflected things just a little off. She moved. Her reflection lagged behind. And sometimes, it didn't move at all.

At 2:13 AM, she woke to scratching inside the walls. Not mice. No. This was slower. Like fingernails dragging across wood.

Then came the whispers.

“She’s back…”

Lena froze. The voice was not from inside the house. It was inside the room. Close. Intimate. Breathing.

She turned on every light she could find. Her flashlight flickered. Her phone refused to connect. She couldn’t even get a single bar. The mirrors began to hum — faintly, like something behind the glass was purring.

The second night, the air turned wet, heavy with unseen moisture. Her breath fogged, even though it wasn’t cold. When she passed the mirror in the upstairs hall, she saw her reflection — still. Motionless. Watching.

It smiled.

Lena hadn’t.

She threw a sheet over it.

Then over the next. And the next. But by morning, all the sheets had been removed, neatly folded at the base of each mirror.

That evening, in the attic, she found her grandmother’s journals. The pages trembled in her hands. They were filled with ramblings — madness, maybe. Or warnings.

“The mirrors don’t reflect — they record.”

“He said he’d never leave. Now he’s in them.”

“They’re hungry. They feed on faces.”

“It wants someone young again.”

The final entry made Lena’s blood turn cold.

“It doesn’t like being alone. Someone must stay.”

That night, Lena did not sleep. She nailed the attic door shut. She unplugged every lamp. She turned all the mirrors around. But at exactly 3:03 AM, they turned back.

She heard the glass shift.

Her reflection stepped out of sync, tilting its head as she screamed — but no sound came. Her reflection opened its mouth.

And Lena’s voice came out.

“You had your turn. Mine now.”

She tried to run. But the halls twisted. Doors led to the same room. The front door opened into the basement. Time unraveled. The clocks ticked backward. And in the mirrors, her reflection walked freely, smiling wider, growing more alive.

She was fading.

And no one would ever know.

Years later, a real estate agent listed the house again. The ad read:

“Elegant Victorian. Recently vacated. Rich with history. Original mirrors throughout.”

Only one photo remained online — a shot of the dusty parlor. But if you zoom in close, you can see a pale figure trapped in the far corner of the mirror.

Mouth open. Eyes wide.

Still screaming.