For Sammy’s 13 days of Samhain prompt, this was fun to write!
👻🎃
“Is there anybody there?”
The words echoed through the narrow hallway, swallowed by the damp air of the old house. Claire’s flashlight flickered, a thin beam trembling across peeling wallpaper and a grandfather clock that hadn’t ticked in years.
She didn’t really expect an answer. The listing had said vacant for decades. But the door had been open when she arrived.
She tried again, her voice smaller this time. “Hello?”
Something shifted upstairs—a slow, deliberate creak, like a foot testing a stair.
Her heart stuttered. “Probably the wind,” she muttered, though the air inside was still and stale, untouched by even a breath of breeze.
She should have turned back then. Instead, she climbed. Each step moaned beneath her, a warning in wood and dust. The beam of her flashlight caught a child’s handprint smeared across the wallpaper—small, perfect, and impossibly fresh.
At the top of the stairs, a door stood ajar. A faint light pulsed from within, soft and rhythmic, like the glow of a heartbeat.
“Is there anybody there?” she whispered again, almost a plea.
The door swung open before she could touch it. Inside, the room was empty except for a mirror propped against the far wall. The light came from the mirror itself, shimmering like moonlight on water.
Claire stepped closer. Her reflection didn’t move.
She froze.
The reflection smiled.
It raised its hand in a slow, deliberate wave, even as hers hung rigid by her side. Then it turned—as though looking at something over its shoulder—and beckoned her forward.
The glow brightened until it filled the room. The air turned cold, wet, heavy with the scent of earth. Claire’s breath clouded in front of her.
And then, from somewhere behind her reflection, a voice whispered—soft, right next to her ear—
“You shouldn’t have asked.”
The light went out.
When the realtor came the next morning, the house was quiet again. The flashlight lay at the top of the stairs, still on. The only new thing in the house was a second reflection in the mirror—standing just behind the first.
Both were smiling.
Therapy Bits 
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