When Autumn Came

Ghosts that live in the basement are rarely ever frightening.

It’s the ones in the attic that you should really fear.

I’ve known this all my life, as I lived in a home for a year that had a preference towards small crawl spaces hanging just above one’s bed. I woke in the midnight hours many nights as a child, only to see a pair of eyes hanging above me, watching me as I watched them. I would pull the covers up over my head and pray that the skittering noises would eventually stop. They always did.

Living in my aunt’s home had its prices to pay. It was a lovely place, old and creaking, with plenty of rooms for a young girl to explore. My sisters and I would race each other through the old hallways and dare the youngest to stand with her back to the open door of the basement. She never lasted very long, and I can’t say I would, either. We would make funny faces at the portraits of our ancestors on the walls. Our aunt, a prim and pinched little thing, never paid us any attention. For whatever reason she was our only extended family member left, and as such was required to shoulder our burden. She would hire a nanny or two and let them chase us around the house until they gave up and figured we weren’t worth the ample salary.

We lived like orphans, though we weren’t. Not really. Our parents were very much alive, but their jobs took them on vast and fascinating archaeological digs in faraway places. They would come home to spend the summers with us, but other than that it was as if they didn’t exist. They were famous in the historical world, always hired by this university or that, and sent back ample amounts of money to cover our care. I had always guessed that it was the one incentive our aunt had for taking us on that year. She no doubt pocketed most of our funds.

We spent almost the entire year in our aunt’s home cowering together in a bed. Us four sisters had found the enormous Victorian home untrustworthy and frightening, and we had clung to each other if only for the comfort of shared blood. The shadows in the house seemed to move and sway, and the fires all had faces in them. One might have believed that girls under the age of thirteen were prone to fancy and therefore couldn’t be taken seriously, but we had been raised by scholars. We were far too serious for our age and knew that ghosts probably weren’t real. But one really questions her beliefs when she is face to face with an invisible man floating up from the basement and through the hallways.

As the months went on and the ghosts seemed to keep to themselves, we grew bolder. We dared each other to talk to the ghosts, to tempt them with food, to try and touch them. It wasn’t until Macy, the eldest sister, thrust her hand into an invisible woman's side and pulled it out with a resounding squelch, her hand covered in goo, that we stopped doing that. For the most part, the ghosts weren’t all that interested in conversation. Some of them would gaze at us and open their mouths, working their lips as though they had something in there that wanted to come out, but no sound ever escaped. I recall feeling sorry for them. I was something of a chatterbox; I couldn’t imagine the agony of being unable to speak. They also had no use for food, as they were never hungry. No amount of lettuce, braised ham, or fresh strawberries would tempt them.

We did, however, figure out that they adored jewels. Perhaps it was something in the way the jewels sparkled and caught in the sunlight that drew their attention. We never experimented enough to find out. Our aunt griped and grumbled about the maid stealing her jewelry, when really it was the four of us snatching it from her room and adorning ourselves so that the ghosts might follow us through the halls. We would smile and dance for them, making sure the drapes were thrown wide open so the light would catch us in all our splendor. Then, when the sun went down and dusk settled over our world, we would lead them back to the basement door and say goodnight. We didn’t know why they seemed to live down there. It was such a dark and sad little place. But every night, after romping through the house with us, they would retreat back to their cellar and stay there until the sun returned.

We didn’t realize at first that the attic ghosts were not the same as the basement ghosts. The attic ghosts stayed in their ceiling homes all day and only came out at night, when the whole house was asleep. They did not float or dance, but rather creeped and crawled. Their eyes reflected the light of our jewels like an animal’s would. They did not try to speak to us, though they did sometimes emit a moaning sound, or a garble, or something a bit like a whine. I didn’t like the attic ghosts, and I was fairly sure they didn’t like me, either.

The attic ghosts waited to come out until we were brave enough to finally stop sharing a room and went off to find our own, only a few weeks before our parents were scheduled to arrive. Perhaps they were afraid of us, too, and found us intimidating in our small pack. Whatever the reason, it is universally known that being alone in a dark room is already scary enough for a young child. But when that room hosts shuffling, and light, quick footsteps, and hoarse breathing right next to your ear? There’s hardly anything worse. The first night the sounds came into my room like waves. I had chosen the last room on the right in a long hallway, and at first I had thought it was coming from the window that overlooked a grove of trees. Perhaps the scratching was coming from a stray branch tapping at my window. When I turned and realized the sound was coming from the opposite side of the room, a chill flickered its way up my spine.

The next morning the other sisters had reported the same. Rachel, our youngest, became tearful as she reported seeing something watching her from the edge of her fireplace, as though it were hanging from the inside of the chimney. Rose, our second youngest, held Macy’s hand as she talked about the man in the corner of her room, and the way his face changed like it was made out of smoke. Macy had squared her shoulders when we asked about her, but there was fear in her eyes when she said she hadn’t seen anything. I knew she was lying.

Why were the attic ghosts so different than the basement ones? We got the idea to ask the friendly ones if they knew anything of the ghosts in the attic, but they fled in fear when we brought it up. It wasn’t a good sign. Rose even became bold enough to ask our aunt if she knew of the ghosts, but the woman would not hear any of it.

“You girls daydream too much. You’re just like your rascal of a father, always chasing the next fantasy. I told them that young ladies ought to be sent to finishing schools to be trained in proper etiquette and manners.”

She was a lost cause.

One night, I decided to stay awake as long as I could to see if I could speak with an attic ghost. My eyes threatened to close as I sat in my bed, watching the fire die down to flickering coals as the night lived on. It wasn’t until the very last one went out that a noise caught my attention. At first I thought it was a pack of mice running along the ground.

A shadow dropped down from the ceiling, and I knew I was very wrong.

The ghost was a girl, though I could not determine her age. Her white dress shifted with her as she sat back on her haunches and watched me through scraggly blonde hair. It felt as though my heart would burst from my chest as we looked at one another.

I tried to speak, though my voice wouldn’t rise above a whisper. “What’s your name?”

Her lips opened into a cracking smile, though the edges of her mouth stretched too wide on her face for my liking. Her teeth gleamed in the moonlight that fluttered in through the window, and my pulse raced when I realized her teeth were sharp.

She crawled closer, her nails etching into the floorboards, and I knew it was the sound I had been hearing the past few nights. I was frozen to my spot as she moved ever closer. I caught a whiff of a smell emanating off her and gagged; she smelled horrific. She moved to the side of my bed, and as her long, broken fingernails reached over my duvet, I did the only thing I could think of.

I screamed.

A light went on in the hallway, and with a mournful wail, the ghost climbed up the wall and disappeared back past the rafters. My sisters ran into my room, followed closely by my bewildered aunt, and they all panted for breath as they took the scene in. When they found nothing but me, crying softly in bed, my aunt let out an exasperated breath.

“Good heavens, girl, what on earth are you yelling about?”

I knew she wouldn’t believe me about the ghost, though my sisters all had their own haunted looks. I would bet that they had all experienced something awful like I had. “Nothing, it was just a nightmare. I’m sorry to have woken you.”

My aunt grumbled and walked away, though my sisters lingered in the doorway. It was unspoken that none of us wanted to be alone anymore, so they climbed into bed with me. The shadows stayed quiet for the rest of the night.

The morning brought with it the resolve to solve our problem, as we had indeed deemed the attic ghosts a problem. Our aunt was clearly not going to listen to us, and the nannies had all abandoned us as the summer approached, so we were on our own. At noon, when the sun was highest in the sky, we decided to find the attic ourselves.

It wasn’t a difficult search. Macy called for us from the top floor, where she stood under a door in the ceiling with a long chain dangling from the center. We all watched it with cautious eyes, as though an attic ghost might brave the sunlight and come devour us in one bite. Even our basement ghosts lingered just around the corner, their hollow eyes fixated to that door.

We drew the candles out from our pockets and grasped them in our hands like treasure, holding our breath as Macy lit them one by one. It was clear the ghosts were afraid of light in any form, and it was our greatest weapon. The attic door creaked as it was pulled open, the wooden stairs dropping down like pouring water and slamming into the floor with an ominous thump.

One by one we ascended the stairs. In that moment, I could have sworn I finally heard the basement ghosts speak.

Don’t go up there.

The attic was about as we expected it to be. It was cold, and dark, and as damp as a storm in August. It was unfortunately massive, stretching as far as the house was wide, and covered every nook and cranny in dark shadows.

And the shadows all watched us.

As I climbed up onto my knees, coughing in the dust that clouded my face, I tried my best to count them. They hissed and fled from our candlelight, but with nowhere to go they had to endure our gazes. There were five of them, all teeth and fangs and claws, shifting this way and that. Rachel tucked herself tightly behind me as we stared them down.

Only Macy found her voice. “Who are you?”

They did not respond.

“What are your names?”

Rose whimpered as they smiled in our direction. I felt my anger rising as my sister shook behind me, and I stepped forward, whipping my candle in their direction. “I bet you can talk. Answer us!”

I locked eyes with the blonde woman who had crawled into my room. Her lips formed that wide smile that had frightened me so, but this time, she spoke. Her rancid breath filled the air as she croaked out a sentence. “Do you not recognize us?”

I shivered at the dying, breathless sound of her voice as I tried to process what she had said. “Are we supposed to?”

They ghosts laughed, a horrific sound. We focused in on each one individually, trying to think of why we might recognize them. My sisters made confused sounds behind me.

“Wait,” I said, the gears finally turning in my head. I looked at the ghost’s nose, gracefully arched, and looked back to find the same nose on Macy’s face. Rose’s blonde hair, in the exact same shade of the ghost, was tied back with a ribbon. Rachel’s brown eyes were the same as the ghost that leaned against the wall. “You’re… you’re our family.” I knew instantly why I recognized them: we had passed their faces every day, painted in large portraits and framed for all to see.

They chittered in excitement. “So smart. Just like your father.”

“If you’re our family, why do you want to hurt us?”

The ghost cocked her head. “We do not wish to hurt you. We were merely curious about you.”

The male ghost behind her spoke up. “We stay here because of your aunt.”

“Our aunt? Why?” Rose asked, finally finding her voice.

“Because she was the one who killed us.”

The air in the room became stagnant, as if all of the oxygen had exited in a rush of heat. I pictured my Aunt in my mind. She was so prim and proper it was hard to imagine her killing anyone. Giving them a stern lecture, absolutely, but not murder. “That can’t be right.”

The ghost, who I momentarily recognized as Laura, the woman who would have been my other aunt had she not died before I was born, let out a blood-curdling laugh. “You don’t know her like I did, girl. She pretends to be proper, hiding in her corsets and skirts and pearls. There is evil behind her eyes.”

Macy’s brows knit together. “How did she do it?”

The ghost behind Laura let out a garbled groan, as though he were trying to answer. Laura translated. “Our grandfather died, and with his death came a vast fortune. The night we all gathered here to read his will, your aunt slipped something into our tea to make us fall asleep. She butchered us in our beds and stashed us up here in the attic so she could keep the money all to herself. Why do you think she lines these hallways with potpourri and flowers?” Laura smiled, her sharp teeth flashing. “It’s so visitors don’t smell the death that’s leaking out of these walls.”

I shivered, stepping closer to my sisters. I didn’t want to believe it. It took one glance to know that Macy didn’t want to, either. Macy’s wide eyes glanced over Laura. “Why do you stay with her?”

“We cannot pass on until she does. Those who are murdered are linked to their killer until they, too, leave this earth. Luckily, we can torment her in this house until she does,” Laura answered, flashing a savage smile, echoed by our family around her.

Footsteps sounded on the floor beneath us as voices echoed in the house somewhere. Laura gave us a meaningful look. “That will be your parents, here to pick you up for the summer. Ensure that they don’t bring you back again.”

The voices grew louder. “Who opened the attic?”

I recognized it as my father. Joy leapt in my heart, and I could already hear Rachel scampering back down the stairs and jumping into his arms. Rose was soon to follow. I herded Macy down before me, and took one last look at my long lost family before I closed the door above my head. The last thing I saw was my aunt Laura, holding a grotesque finger over her smiling, too-wide mouth in a silencing gesture.

My parents and our aunt greeted us in the hallway. I couldn’t stop the tears that escaped my eyes as the emotion washed over me. My sweet mother bent down and wrapped me in her arms, her hair smelling of rosemary and desert sage. I watched my aunt from just over her shoulder. She watched me back with her unsmiling blue eyes.

“What were you girls doing in the attic?” My aunt asked, glaring down at the four of us.

I exchanged a look with Macy before she answered. “We were playing hide and seek, and I thought the attic would be a good spot. I got stuck up there and the others had to help me down.”

Our aunt harrumphed and muttered something about children. She wandered off, and we listened to her snap at a stray maid about packing our things as quickly as possible. We followed them through the house, and this time, it felt like the portraits on the walls were watching us. They probably were.

We took our new aunt’s advice and didn’t come back when autumn came.