Lady Buys Old House for Suspiciously Low Price, Notices Neighbors Are Afraid of Her — Story of the Day

Keisha’s fresh start in a new town turns into horror when she finds out her home is haunted. The single mother doesn’t believe in ghosts but can’t deny what she sees when night falls.

Keisha still couldn't believe her good luck. She stared up at the gorgeous gingerbread trim decorating her newly-acquired house's wraparound porch and steep gables. It was a bit of a fixer-upper, filled with junk from previous occupants, but it was sound, and it was all hers.

"Wow, Mom, this place is like a fairy tale house," Keisha's daughter, Ava, exclaimed.

"Glad you think so, baby. Why don't you and your brother run ahead to check it out?" Keisha patted the girl's shoulder and sent her off toward the house. Little Carter was quick to follow his big sister.

Keisha smiled as she watched her kids run off. They'd been through a lot the past year, and this new house in a new town would be their fresh start. As Keisha turned back to check on the movers, she noticed her neighbors watching over the low hedge bordering the property.

"Good morning!" Keisha smiled as she waved at the young couple but her plan to befriend the neighbors died quickly as the pair hastily climbed into their car and sped away without glancing back at her.

"Guess the people around here aren't too friendly," Keisha sighed.

Keisha and the kids spent hours unpacking, moving furniture around, and carrying old photos and other junk down to the basement. It was tiring work and they were soon starving. They decided to check out their new town and pick up something to eat.

Keisha parked her car outside an antique shop on the main street. As she walked down the road searching for a place to eat and buy groceries, Carter tugged on her sleeve.

"Momma, why is everyone looking at us strangely?"

Keisha frowned. She was about to tell her son he was imagining things, but then she noticed it too. People that passed them on the sidewalk gave the little family a fearful look before veering wide around them. They whispered behind their hands.

"I don't know, baby," Keisha replied. "Maybe they don't get many new people moving into town."

Carter grimaced then and put a hand to his stomach. A mighty growl emanated from his belly. Keisha glanced around and spotted a cafe nearby. She led her children toward it.

The strange looks and whispering intensified when Keisha and her kids entered the coffee shop. It was starting to make Keisha uneasy. She glanced at the people sitting at the tables, but everyone looked away when she tried to meet their gaze.

Instead, Keisha studied the historical pictures of local landmarks decorating the walls. When she glanced over at the table where Carter and Ava were waiting, they pulled funny faces at her, making her smile.

"Hi there!" The barista greeted Keisha with a warm smile. "You must be the new folks in town. I'm Sam. Nice to meet you."

"So there are some friendly people in this town." Keisha returned the man's smile as she ordered funnel cakes for her and the kids. "I was beginning to think everyone here hated newcomers or something."

"It's not like that at all." Sam's face turned serious, and he glanced around before leaning over the counter. "You live in that old, blue Victorian house on Park, don't you?"

"Yeah," Keisha replied. "What about it?"

"That house is haunted," Sam whispered.

"Haunted?" Keisha clenched her jaw so she wouldn't laugh in the man's face.

Sam nodded solemnly.

"Not just any old haunted either. Old man Jefferson who used to own that place was a psychic medium. He used to hold all these seances and it's said that he opened a spiritual nexus in that house. Nobody has been able to stay in that house since he died."

"Seriously?" Keisha couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"Some even say it's cursed. Jefferson's granddaughter had to sell the place because of debts and everyone who's lived there since has complained of flashing lights, things moving around, and strange voices calling to them. Some people even went mad."

"So what, people think I'm going to go mad next?" Keisha asked. "That's why they're being so rude to me?"

"No." An elderly lady with a jagged scar on her chin slipped out of the kitchen and eyed Keisha over the counter. "We know that you were cursed the moment you stepped into that house. Now get out. Curses are not welcome in our cafe." The woman pointed to the door. "We don't want you bringing evil into our shop."

"Mom, stop it." The barista turned to frown at the woman. "She's a nice lady—"

"Quiet, you!" The woman gave the barista a sharp glance. "Get her order and stop talking to her. You don't know what kind of bad spirits she brought in here with her; best to get her out as quick as possible."

"You've got to be kidding me. This is a joke, right?" Keisha looked from the older lady to the barista, but neither would meet her eye. "You can't deny me service because of some old ghost story."

The older woman made a weird gesture with her fingers, took Keisha's funnel cakes from Sam, and hurriedly set them down on the counter.

"Go!" The lady said. "Get out of my shop and don't come back."

Keisha didn't believe in curses, ghosts, or other supernatural nonsense. She was sure there was a perfectly reasonable explanation when she was woken up at midnight by the sound of heavy footsteps in the hall.

Keisha leaped from her bed and grabbed her most important single mother accessory: the baseball bat in her cupboard. The flickering hall light alternately cast weird shadows across the floor and left her in pitch darkness as she tiptoed toward her bedroom door.

Between flashes of darkness, Keisha saw that the hall was empty. She cocked her head and heard something that sent chills down her spine.

"Keisha..."

Keisha raised her baseball bat and spun to face the darkness in her bedroom. It sounded like the voice spoke from right behind her, but nobody was there.

A rustling sound carried up from downstairs, followed by the creak of a floorboard. Keisha's heart was racing now. She hurried across the hallway and slipped into the bedroom her children were temporarily sharing.

"Mom, did you also hear those sounds?" Carter whimpered.

"I told you, Carter, it's just because the house is old, right Mom?" Ava said.

Despite the girl's calm words, Keisha saw the fear in her daughter's eyes. Before she could answer, the bedroom door slammed open. Carter and Ava shrieked. Keisha spun to face whatever intruder had entered her home with her raised bat, but what she saw there was much more frightening than a burglar.

Thick smoke curled along the floor, advancing into the room. It brought with it an icy cold chill. A muted voice carried on the cold air, words in a language Keisha couldn't identify, melding into a chant.

There was a footstep at the end of the hall. The smoke had reached Keisha's feet now and curled around her ankles. Lights flickered across it like lightning dancing through clouds.

"Out!" Keisha spun and gathered her kids into her arms. She herded them out the window and onto the sloping roof covering the porch.

Keisha crouched on the sidewalk with her children in her arms while the police searched her home. She'd done her best to keep a brave face for Ava and Carter, but her heart was still racing, and she felt like she might burst into tears at any minute.

"And you're sure you saw smoke, ma'am?" One of the police officers asked Keisha.

"For the hundredth time, yes. There was thick smoke pouring across the floor."

A second police officer bounded down the steps to Keisha's front door. Keisha rushed to meet him.

"Did you find anyone in my house?"

The officer frowned down at her. "There's nobody in your house, ma'am, no signs of forced entry, and no evidence of any smoke. I'm well aware that this house has a reputation for being haunted, but I want to make it clear to you that the police will not entertain any more false alarm calls to this address."

"False alarm?" Keisha shook her head. "There was a man in my house, officer. I heard him walking around, and I saw the smoke with my own two eyes."

"Ma’am, we checked everything out and didn’t find anything strange so we can’t help you. We can’t arrest ghosts." The officer narrowed his eyes at Keisha. "Next time you call in the police for no reason, we're going to have to fine you."

Keisha stared in disbelief as the police returned to their car and drove away. She'd heard those footsteps and seen the smoke. Those things were as real as her shivering children, who looked up at her fearfully.

"Is it true, Mom, are there ghosts in our house?" Ava asked.

"Are they going to hurt us?" Carter squeezed in closer to Keisha.

"Ghosts aren't real," Keisha replied. But as she looked back at the house, she wondered if more was happening in her home than she had realized.

Ghosts or not, Keisha knew she couldn't stay in that house with her children. A home was meant to feel safe, and she refused to raise her kids in an environment where they were constantly on edge.

They spent the rest of the night in a bed and breakfast near the edge of town. In the morning, Keisha went back alone to pack up everything she and the kids would need for the next few days while she figured out her next move.

Keisha's skin crawled, and the hair at the nape of her neck stood on edge as she tiptoed into the house.

Everything looked so ordinary, but she couldn't escape the feeling of being watched as she moved upstairs. There were no signs of charring, but she was sure she could smell the smoke in the air.

Every small sound set Keisha's heart racing as she stuffed clothes into bags for Carter, Ava, and herself. Her feet pounded on the stairs as she ran to grab the washing from the basement.

She stopped dead when she spotted something black lying near a corner of the room. An odd scent filled her nose as she bent down to examine it, something like cinnamon or clove. It was a glove. Keisha lifted it in shaking hands. The glove was too big for her hands. The police were wrong; somebody was in her house!

Keisha stared into the darkness clinging to the walls of the large, open space. She lifted a flashlight from a nearby shelf and shone the beam into the corner where she found the glove.

There was nothing there. The flashlight beam illuminated bare brick walls and a set of wooden racks covered in spiderwebs. There were no windows or exterior doors, but one of the spiderwebs was blowing in a breeze.

Keisha moved toward the racks. Standing before them, she felt a little gust of air blowing on her face. But that made no sense. Keisha went back upstairs to fetch a duster and cleaned off the rack and the dusty bottles it held. There was no opening behind it, just wooden paneling.

Keisha ran her fingers along the paneling until she found the thin crack where the air blew through. This didn't add up, and only one explanation made sense.

"There's a secret passage behind here," Keisha gasped.

Keisha had spent much of her childhood reading detective stories under the covers when she was meant to be sleeping. She thought back to those stories as she tapped on the paneling and prodded at any part of the racks that looked out of place.

As she slid her fingers along a smooth section of decorative wooden scrollwork, it moved. A loud click echoed around her, and a narrow section of the rack swung in toward her.

Keisha pulled on the rack and peeped behind it. Her flashlight lit up a tunnel with brick walls and a dirt floor. She stepped inside and followed it.

After walking for a little while, Keisha reached a set of steps leading up to a cellar door. She pushed against the door and emerged into an overgrown thicket of ivy.

Keisha switched off her flashlight and turned in a circle, taking in the tall trees surrounding her. It felt like she was in the middle of a forest, but she could make out the uppermost gables on her roof if she looked back the way she'd come.

The ivy was so overgrown that Keisha couldn't even see the cellar door once she shut it again. Whoever had used this tunnel to enter her house must have known about it beforehand.

Keisha stared down at the footsteps leading from the cellar door into the woods and frowned.

"I'm going to find you, whoever you are," she said.

Keisha dropped off the kids' clothes and left them to watch a movie while she went to the library. She had a feeling that the key to finding out who'd been in her home lay in the house's history.

She walked straight up to the front desk and asked the librarian for all the information they had on her house. The woman pursed her lips and gave Keisha a vaguely fearful look, but then she led her to a room with a PC and shelves lined with bound newspapers.

"That house was in the Barlow family for generations," the librarian said. "From the time it was built until the day Anna sold it. She died soon afterwards, you know. Some say she was the first victim of the curse."

The librarian set several books filled with newspapers down on the table. "Most of the interesting stuff is in these; old Mr. Barlow's obituary and some stories about him in the paper, wedding announcements, and such."

Keisha sat and started paging through the papers. She flipped through hundreds of stories centered on small-town life until she found something useful.

"Local psychic medium dies in his sleep," Keisha read aloud. "Instead of an inheritance, he left his daughter a riddle leading to a hidden treasure."

The story only got stranger as Keisha read. According to the reporter, Mr. Barlow inherited a vast wealth when his mother died, enabling him to retire early and spend the rest of his life working as a medium.

The reporter speculated that the remainder of this fortune was the treasure Barlow intended his daughter, Anna, to find. Anna had refused to share the riddle with the reporter.

"Guess she never found that treasure," Keisha muttered.

She scanned the rest of the story until a photo caught her attention. In the picture, Mr. Barlow stood in front of the house with two young girls on either side. The caption stated the image was of the Barlow family.

"Two girls in the family, but only one daughter?"

Keisha meshed her fingers together beneath her chin. "Something's not right here."

After several minutes of staring at the photo, Keisha realized she'd seen this image before. She stood and paced the room as her mind ticked through the possibilities. The breath left her body in a loud gasp as the pieces of the mystery clicked into place.

"They're after the treasure!" She removed her phone, took a picture of the newspaper article, and ran from the library.

Keisha returned to the old house and searched it from top to bottom. She thought through everything she knew while she hunted and came up with a plan.

She walked back into the coffee shop she'd previously visited with an exultant grin and ordered the coffee. Sam, the barista, gave her a once over, taking in the dust and dirt marks on her clothes.

"You look like you've had a rough day, but that smile on your face says different," he remarked.

"Oh, I've had a great day!" She leaned across the counter to whisper: "I found a treasure in that old house. It's going to set me up for life!"

"Really?" Sam gaped at her.

Keisha nodded. "I'm going to get rid of that place as soon as possible and move to Miami. I've already called the realtor."

“Wow, congratulations.” Sam grinned. “I’m sorry to see you go when you just moved in, but that’s great news for you. I wish you all the best, Keisha.”

That evening, Keisha sat in the darkness. She couldn't tell whether her eyes were open or closed, it was so dark, and her imagination had long since started playing tricks on her. Every breath she drew sounded like a roar. Every little creak the house made as it settled boomed like a giant's footsteps.

The darkness was cold as a tomb around her. Her leg muscles twitched as she fought the desire to flee, but she couldn't leave yet. Minutes ticked into an eternity of waiting before a gentle thud of boots on dirt echoed in the distance.

Keisha thought she might've imagined it at first, but the footsteps grew louder, closer. Someone was definitely coming down the secret tunnel.

Hinges creaked as the secret door disguised as a wooden rack eased open. A beam of light edged along the wall and floor, creeping toward where Keisha waited. Just as it was about to reveal her, the light went out.

Keisha rose quietly. She and the trespasser were both shrouded in darkness again, but Keisha had the advantage because the trespasser didn't know she was there.

She smiled to herself. It was time to catch the 'ghost' who'd terrified her and her kids.

The secret door shut with a solid click and Keisha made her move.

"Now," Keisha cried.

Bright flashlights lit up the basement from all corners as the police officers responded to Keisha's yell. The trespasser yelped in surprise and raised their arms to shield their eyes from the light.

"Don't move!" One of the police officers rushed forward. He pulled the person's arms down and secured them with handcuffs. "You're under arrest for breaking and entering."

"I knew it!" Keisha pointed at the trespasser as she walked up to stand in front of him. "With all the times you must've been through this house searching for treasure, it's amazing that you never removed the old photos and documents. Did they give your mother bad memories, Sam?"

Sam glared at her. "You think you're so smart, but you know nothing!"

"Really?" Keisha removed a folded sheaf of papers and a photograph from her jacket pocket. "I think I know just about everything actually."

Sam frowned, his gaze fixed on Keisha's hand. "What's that?"

"Letters, official documents...all the evidence these fine officers need to put you behind bars for a long time." Keisha smiled. She turned the photograph so he could see the picture of two young women standing together, one of whom had a jagged scar on her chin. "Your mom was a beautiful young lady."

Sam shook his head.

"I've done nothing wrong. My family has as much right to this house and the treasure as Aunt Anna did, and my spoiled cousin, Julia had no right to sell it! Those people lived an easy life on Grandpa Johnson's coattails, while my mom had to work hard for everything she got in life."

Keisha flapped the folded papers against her open palm. "I'm afraid these documents suggest a different story, Sam. These letters say your mother was jealous of her stepsister."

Sam laughed bitterly. "Whatever you've got there is biased. Johnson always favored his own daughter over Mom, his stepdaughter. And Anna always thought she was better than Mom because of it. Johnson never even gave Mom a chance to figure out the clue and find the treasure." He sneered at Keisha. "Anna and Julia got exactly what they deserved."

"I think that's all we need, ma'am." The police officer nodded at her. "Your trick worked, and now I want you to show me the special effects you mentioned."

"Trick?" Sam fought against the officer restraining him.

Keisha unfolded the pages in her hand. "These are blank, but I needed you to think I found something so I could get you to come here and talk. Now, it's time to reveal the truth about your grandfather's psychic abilities."

Keisha crossed to the circuit board and flipped it open. She then reached inside and lifted a thin panel inset across the bottom of the board. A series of switches appeared, and a long pipe with a funnel-like connection rolled free.

"I'm pretty sure this isn't up to code," Keisha remarked as she flipped several of the switches. The light in the kitchen immediately started flickering, and the sound of a door banging shut echoed through the house.

"This seems to use the air vents to carry sound through the house." Keisha lifted the pipe and said her name into the funnel. The word whispered down from the upper level. "But this is the main attraction."

Keisha flipped several switches positioned in a row on one side of the panel. "I wasn't able to pinpoint exactly where the fog machine is or how it's accessed, but if one of you officers goes upstairs, you'll see the same smoke I saw on my first night here."

"So much for the famous medium's mystical powers," the police officer scoffed. He steered Sam toward the stairs. "Now we just need to pick up your mother."

"Wait!" Sam dug his heels in and glared at Keisha. "How did you know it was me?"

Keisha removed her phone and showed Sam the picture she'd taken of the photo she found in the library.

"The same photo is hanging in your coffee shop; I noticed it when I was first in there. Your mother may not have that scar in this picture, but she still looks the same."

"Once I recognized her, everything else fell into place," Keisha continued. "It was obvious you and your mom were after the treasure, and you filled in all the blanks after I showed you those papers."

Sam cursed and swore at Keisha as the police led him away, but she just smiled to herself. She closed the panel on the circuit board and glanced across at the entrance to the secret passage.

"This place is going to be awesome for hosting Halloween parties," she said.

What can we learn from this story?

• The truth will always come out. No matter how well it's hidden, or how many lies are told to cover it up, the truth can never stay hidden forever because there will always be somebody willing to scratch beneath the surface and uncover the facts.
• Bad deeds are driven by bad experiences. Sam's choice to terrorize Keisha stemmed from his and his mother's feelings of being wronged and robbed of their inheritance.

Share this story with your friends. It might brighten their day and inspire them.

If you enjoyed this story, you might like this one about a young boy who discovers coordinates when he tidies up his grandfather's grave.

This piece is inspired by stories from the everyday lives of our readers and written by a professional writer. Any resemblance to actual names or locations is purely coincidental. All images are for illustration purposes only. Share your story with us; maybe it will change someone’s life. If you would like to share your story, please send it to info@amomama.com