The Hollis House
Entry #2 — Later that morning
I went to the Hollis House because I had no choice.
That is what I told myself, anyway.
The truth is more embarrassing: I went because Plum’s voice had gotten into my head. Call me when you’re ready to stop pretending it’s only a house. I hated that line. I hated that I remembered it. I hated that it made the Hollis estate sound less like a listing and more like a door I had been standing in front of for months without realizing I already had the key.
The house sat at the end of its long drive like a monument to someone else’s ambition. The iron gates were unlocked, as always. The gravel was weedy. The lawn had gone feral in places. A FOR SALE sign leaned near the road, sun-bleached and weary, as if even the sign had begun to lose faith.
I parked and sat in the car for a full minute, reviewing the numbers in my head.
If I sold the Hollis estate at full asking price, my commission would clear the worst of the debt. If I sold it even slightly under asking, I could still breathe. If I sold it fast, I could stop lying to everyone, including myself.
All I had to do was get the house sold.
I told myself the walkthrough was routine.
I had done walkthroughs before. I knew how to move through empty houses: check for leaks, listen for settling, note odors, look for signs of squatting, vandalism, animals. Vacant homes are never truly vacant. They collect things. Trash. Spiders. Echoes. Sometimes people. Sometimes worse.
The front door was locked. I used the lockbox key. The mechanism resisted, then gave with a dry click.
The air inside was stale and cold, though the morning had been warm. It smelled of dust, old plaster, and something faintly sweet underneath, like flowers left too long in a vase.
I stepped inside.
“Hello?” I called.
No answer.
The foyer was grand and ruined. A staircase curved upward into shadow. Wallpaper peeled in long strips. Dust covered every surface except where it didn’t.
That was the first thing that bothered me.
There were footprints.
Not many. Not clear enough to identify. But enough to show that someone had moved through the house recently. Enough to show that the dust had been disturbed in deliberate paths.
I pulled out my phone and turned on the flashlight, though the windows let in weak gray light.
The parlor was empty except for a fireplace and the remains of old wallpaper. On the mantel stood five candles.
I stopped.
They were black, thick, and burned down unevenly. Wax had pooled across the wood in dark rivulets. The wicks were charred. Someone had lit them there, recently enough that the wax still looked soft in places.
I moved closer.
No matches. No lighter. No sign of how they had been lit.
I told myself squatters. Teenagers. Trespassers with too much time and no respect for property. But the candles were arranged too carefully. Symmetrical. Purposeful.
In the dining room, I found dried herbs.
They hung from the chandelier by red thread: bundles of rosemary, something pale and papery, and another plant I didn’t recognize. The leaves were brittle. Some had fallen onto the table below, forming a scattered constellation across the rotted wood.
My stomach tightened.
This was not random vandalism.
I moved down the hall, my heels sounding too loud against the bare floor. The house seemed to listen. Not in a poetic way. In a physical way. As if the walls had gone quiet to hear what I would do next.
The ballroom was at the back of the house.
I stood in the doorway and felt my breath catch. Walking into the ballroom was like stepping into a tomb that hadn’t been sealed properly.
The room was vast, its ceiling high, its parquet floor dulled by age. In the center, someone had laid down a circle of salt.
It was perfect.
Not scattered. Not spilled. Perfect. A clean white ring wide enough for a person to stand inside. The salt had not been disturbed. There were no footprints leading into it. No footprints leading out.
I stepped closer despite myself.
Inside the circle, the floor was bare. No markings. No objects. Just empty wood, darker than the surrounding floor, as if something had once rested there long enough to leave a stain.
A practitioner.
The word came to me suddenly, absurd and precise.
Someone had been using this decaying monument for the dark arts. Or for something like it. Prayer, ritual, bargaining—I did not know what to call it. I only knew the room did not feel abandoned. It felt active.
The house wasn’t just empty.
It was being used.
I pulled out my phone to take a picture, but the screen went black. When I tried to turn it back on, the battery indicator showed zero percent, even though I’d charged it that morning. I shook the phone, pressed the power button again, and nothing happened. I turned slowly, scanning the ballroom. My pulse had begun to beat in my throat. I should leave. I should call the police. I should call the owner’s attorney. I should do anything except stand there, alone, in a house that suddenly felt occupied by more than dust.
And then I felt it.
A gaze.
Heavy. Watchful.
I turned toward the staircase.
The shadows gathered thickly along the upper landing, where the banister had begun to warp and split. For a second, something seemed to shift there. Not a person. Not exactly. A movement in the dark, as if the house had adjusted itself around an unseen weight.
I raised my flashlight.
Nothing.
Only dust and decay.
But the feeling remained.
I was being observed.
“Hello?” I said again.
My voice sounded thin. Embarrassing. Like a child calling into a basement.
The house did not answer.
I backed out of the ballroom. I did not turn my back on the staircase. My hand was shaking so badly I nearly dropped my phone. When I reached the foyer, I fumbled for the door, unlocked it, and stepped out into the morning air so fast I stumbled on the porch step.
The sun was weak, but it was real.
I stood there breathing until my heart slowed.
Then I looked down.
There was salt on the hem of my trousers.
I brushed it off with my fingers, but the grains clung for a second before falling away.
I should have reported the trespass.
I should have recommended changing the locks.
I should have told the seller’s attorney that the property was compromised.
Instead, I sat in my car and opened the listing file.
The Hollis House stared back at me in its glossy photograph, grand and impossible.
I thought about the commission.
I thought about my debts.
I thought about Plum’s voice in the coffee shop: Houses don’t sell because they’re easy. They sell because someone finally wants them badly enough.
I started the engine.
The house was active. That was the phrase that came to me, ridiculous and exact.
And as I drove away, I could not shake the feeling that I had not discovered a trespass at all.
I had interrupted an appointment.
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