Outside the store, two tiny bent old women sat on a wooden bench. One was shelling sunflower seeds; the other was knitting something woolen. Both stared at Lydia with open curiosity.
The one with the seeds asked if she was the newcomer. Lydia gave her name and said yes, she had bought Mary Peterson’s house. The two women exchanged a look.
The knitter shook her head and said Lydia had made a mistake. Lydia finally lost patience and asked why everyone in town kept saying the same thing. She told them plainly to explain what had happened in her house.
The woman with the seeds leaned in and lowered her voice. She said the former owner had died there alone, and no one found her for a week. Then a neighbor named Nora had gone in through an open door and found her on the kitchen floor.
Lydia grimaced. Yes, that was unpleasant. But people die, she said, and that alone didn’t make a house unlivable. The second woman set down her knitting and said that wasn’t the whole story.
Before she died, Mary had started acting strangely. She told people someone invisible was living in the house with her.
She said she heard footsteps at night and voices calling her name. Folks had chalked it up to age and confusion. But after the funeral, odd things really did begin happening in the house.
The first woman picked up the story. Lights, she said, would appear in the windows at night, even though the electricity had long since been cut off. People heard knocking, creaking, and heavy footsteps inside.
She added that their neighbor, John Simmons, had once tried to go in and check the place. According to him, the front door opened by itself. Then a window that had been shut flew open with a bang right in front of him.
Lydia said flatly that it all sounded like small-town ghost stories. The women only shrugged. The knitter said time would tell who was right.
Not wanting to hear any more, Lydia said goodbye and headed home. Still, a sticky little thread of unease had worked its way into her mind. Too many people were repeating the same story.
Their reactions were just a little too consistent. But there was no turning back. The money was spent, and the sale was legal. She spent the rest of the day working hard.
She cleared weeds from the garden and cut back the overgrowth in the yard. Under the mess she found the outlines of old planting beds that could be used again in spring. Then she took down more of the shed and stacked the boards neatly for firewood.
Before going in, she fixed the gate hinges so it would stop making that awful screech. By evening she was exhausted, but satisfied. The place was slowly beginning to look lived in.
She cooked a simple pot of porridge for supper and ate it with bread and butter. After tea and dishes, she sat at the cleaned table. Taking out a notebook, Lydia began making a list of repairs and supplies.
She needed to plan building materials and decide what had to be done first. Outside, darkness fell quickly, so she lit a candle. She wrote by the weak, wavering light, trying not to think about anything else.
Then the silence broke. A faint sound. Careful. Measured. It was as if someone heavy was walking slowly across the attic overhead.
Lydia froze, pen in hand, and listened. There it was again: footsteps. Slow and deliberate. Whoever—or whatever—it was would walk a little, stop, then continue.
Lydia grabbed her flashlight, rushed into the mudroom, and aimed the beam at the ceiling. There was an attic up there, all right, and the hatch was easy to see.
But there was no ladder in place. No one could have gotten up there that way. Which meant no living person should have been walking around above her.
And yet the footsteps continued. Lydia stood in the dark mudroom, shining the light upward with shaking hands. Her heart hammered against her ribs…
