Chapter 1 #2
We moved on. The living room had high ceilings, mismatched furniture, and one too many portraits of unsmiling people. Their painted gazes followed me as I walked.
“Several rooms are under renovation,” Mr. West said as we passed a narrow hallway lined with drop cloths. “Please ignore the east wing. Foundation issues.”
“Right, of course,” I said. “Wouldn’t want to fall through the floor and meet Mr. D’Archeval personally.”
He didn’t laugh. I made a mental note: zero sense of humor.
We reached the second floor. The staircase curved in a slow, elegant sweep, and halfway up, the air changed. It was subtle at first—a little cooler, a little quieter. Thinner. The light coming from the tall windows looked… off. Too dim.
I rubbed my arms. “Does the power flicker a lot?”
He looked at me with that too-bright smile. “This house was built in 1714. You’ll find the light behaves differently in such old structures.”
“Sure. That’s totally comforting.”
He chuckled, though none of that mirth entered his eyes. “Ah, you have a sense of humor. That’s good. Not everyone can handle D’Archeval House.”
I wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or a warning.
He stopped at a heavy wooden door with an ornate brass lock. “This is my bedroom. It will remain locked at all times. Please don’t attempt to enter it.”
“Wasn’t planning to,” I said. “I’m more of a boundaries kind of tenant.”
He nodded, satisfied. “Excellent.”
The door gave off major do-not-open-or-die energy. I made a mental note to definitely never open it and to text Lena about it immediately after Mr. West left.
As we looped back toward the stairs, he launched into the house’s backstory, voice steady and practiced. “The house was built by Cassian D’Archeval, a prominent merchant in early Boston. He traded in textiles, spices, and other”—he paused, as if selecting a less alarming word—“colorful dealings.”
“Colorful like smuggling or colorful like murder?” I asked.
His smile didn’t move. “History can be subjective.”
“That’s one way to put it,” I said under my breath.
He led me back toward the front of the house. “The home is a registered historical landmark. That explains the zoning restrictions and some of the occasional power inconsistencies.”
“Right. Ghosts hate consistent voltage,” I said.
Again, nothing.
We stopped in the foyer, and he clasped his hands again, eyes darting toward the windows as if he was in a hurry to leave. “I can’t thank you enough for taking the job, Ms. Yates. The place needs a steady presence to take care of it.”
“Sure thing,” I said. “As long as that presence doesn’t start getting furniture thrown at it by a poltergeist.”
He chuckled politely, but his fingers twitched on the keys.
“I hope you don’t mind if I crochet ghost bunnies and hang them in the living room. It’s sort of my thing,” I said, trying to lighten the mood.
His face didn’t change. Not even a polite smile.
“Big yarn fan?” I tried.
He blinked. “No.”
“Cool. I’ll… keep it subtle.”
He nodded once, too quickly. “You’ll do fine here.” He handed me the keys and stepped back toward the door. “The security system is armed automatically at night. You’ll find the instructions on the kitchen counter. And again—thank you.”
Before I could ask a single question, he slipped outside. I watched through the window as he power-walked down the driveway, not looking back once. The gate groaned open for him, then clanged shut.
“Well,” I said to the empty foyer. “That wasn’t weird at all.”
The silence that followed was too loud. Exhaling, I looked around. My reflection in the dusty mirror over the console table stared back—lemon-print dress, cardigan, too much caffeine, not enough solid life choices.
“Okay,” I told myself. “Just you, the creepy house, and eight weeks of inner peace. What could go wrong?”
Somewhere upstairs, something creaked.
I decided not to investigate.
At least not yet.
Unpacking has always been my love language, mostly because it allowed me to pretend I have my life together.
I dragged my suitcases into the guest room after unloading the groceries and immediately started narrating to no one. “Day one: tenant of Craigslist murder mansion still alive and already decorating. The crowd goes wild.”
The house answered with a long groan somewhere in the walls.
“Okay, that’s fair,” I said. “You’re old. I creak too when I get up too fast.”
I dragged a large woven basket toward me and peered inside. It was packed full of my smaller plants, leaves layered and crowded together. All twelve of them. They’d ridden seat-belted in the backseat like little green passengers on the way to summer camp.
“This one’s Steven,” I told the empty room, setting down a spiky succulent. “He’s judgmental.” I placed him near the window, where the light hit just right. “You’ll love it here, Steven. The moody architecture, tragic backstory, and humidity problem. Very you.”
Next came Beatrice the fern, who was thriving despite my neglect, and Harold the pothos, who was not. “Don’t look at me like that,” I said, fluffing his wilted leaves. “We’ve both been through things.”
Once the plants were situated, I unpacked my yarn stash. I gave it an entire shelf in the built-in cabinet. Every skein got its own neat little row by color: citrus brights, stormy blues, comforting neutrals.
“This,” I said proudly, “is the wall of coping mechanisms.”
I snapped a photo for Lena with the caption: If I die here, make sure my plants inherit the yarn.
The room started to feel less ominous once my lemon-print throw pillows were on the bed and my fairy lights framed the door. I dug out my small Bluetooth speaker and queued up a playlist titled Summer Chaos, But Make It Cozy.
By the time I was done, I’d built a tiny craft corner by the window with a beanbag chair, crochet basket, and a mug full of mismatched hooks. The window overlooked the overgrown garden and, beyond that, a dense line of trees enclosing the property, their shadows pooling at the edges of the lawn.
That done, I braved the eerily pristine kitchen for a wineglass and poured myself a generous glass, took a sip, and sighed. “Not bad for a haunted summer gig.”
I still couldn’t believe I’d managed to make this work. My apartment was officially rented out to a retired couple from North Carolina. They’d left me the nicest message on Airbnb: We’re visiting Boston for our grandson’s graduation. We promise to water the philodendron.
I would miss Phil, but he was too large to bring along.
Between their rent payment and Mr. West’s house-sitting rate, I was making enough to pay off a month of debt and still eat something other than microwave pasta.
Back in my room, I lifted my glass toward my plants. “To responsible life choices. May they continue shocking us all.”
Steven the succulent didn’t respond. Typical.
The house creaked again, low and drawn out. It sounded almost… deliberate.
The playlist switched to a cheerful love song, and the absurdity of it made me laugh. “Okay, if a ghost wants to crochet, they’re welcome to join,” I said, setting my wine down. “But they need to bring their own hook. I’m not sharing my ergonomic one.”
The silence that followed was too quiet, like the house was thinking about it.
“That’s what I thought.”
For a moment, I considered being sensible—curling up with a book, maybe starting one of those steamy romcoms where the heroine owns a bakery and never sweats.
Then I thought about the towering shadows, the ancient staircase, the mysterious locked door I wasn’t supposed to open.
The fact that all of it pulled me in instead of scaring me probably said something about my judgment.
I decided not to look too deeply at that.
I could only handle one self-improvement project at a time. Ignorance seemed easier.
“Being sensible is for people with emotional stability.” I grabbed my glass. “Let’s make some bad decisions.”
The stairs creaked under my weight as I started my little midnight tour, each step moaning a complaint over my invasion.
The banister was smooth but cold under my palm, and the air carried that old-house smell—dust, polish, something faintly floral that made me think of forgotten perfume. Or funerals.
Halfway up, the light from the hallway flickered.
“Not today, Satan,” I whispered.
I passed the locked door to Mr. West’s bedroom and gave it a suspicious glance.
I kept going, wine sloshing in the glass, the hem of my dress brushing against my knees.
My reflection followed me in the framed paintings that lined the corridor—women in lace collars, men with stern faces, a child clutching a doll I was sure had been cursed.
“This is fine,” I told myself. “Totally normal vacation behavior. Who needs spa days when you can risk possession?”
A sane person would have turned around.
But I wasn’t that person.