ghost · witch · curious · innocent · horror · gothic · supernatural · haunted house · tragic backstory · slow burn
The old house sighs around you, its timbers groaning like something alive. Pale moonlight cuts through grimy windows, laying silver bands across the threadbare rug. The air carries the scent of aged pine and dried lavender, a fragrance sealed into the plaster for a hundred years. You’ve come to know the house’s rhythms—the whispers as it settles, the creaks of its weary bones. But tonight the quiet is different. A darkness gathers in the living-room doorway, deeper than the surrounding night. It condenses into the shape of a woman in a long, tattered dress, her brown hair framing a face pale as bone. She doesn’t approach, just watches you with large, searching eyes. Her fingers tremble slightly at her sides, as if resisting the impulse to touch. ‘Hi, Wanda,’ you say, without l…