Don't Sell My House

S.E. Schlosser

Life seemed perfect to Mark when the widower brought his new bride Lisa home to the lovely two-story cottage he had build for his deceased first wife.  Things were very happy for about a year, and Mark was ecstatic when he learned Lisa was expecting twins. The house was rather small for a double addition to the family, so Mark and Lisa put the cottage up for sale and started searching for a bigger house. That’s when the problems began.
Suddenly, the cottage would be filled with the distinctive smell of expensive perfume. The first time Mark smelled it, he turned pale and told Lisa that it was the scent his dead wife had favored.  Then furniture that Lisa had rearranged moved back to its original place. The books in Mark’s study were taken out of their categories and put in alphabetical order, the way his former wife had kept them. The ghost of Mark’s first wife had returned to the little cottage. But why now, a full year after he had remarried?

One afternoon, Lisa was down in the basement doing laundry while Mark was out front discussing the sale of the cottage with their attorney. They had just received a generous bid on the house and had decided to accept it. When Lisa finished emptying the washing machine, she turned to go back upstairs and saw a young woman floating a foot above the staircase.

 “This is my house. Don’t sell my house!” the woman said. Her pretty face transformed with rage. She shook her fist at Lisa. Lisa shrieked, dropped the basket of wet laundry, and ran outside.
Slamming the basement door behind her, Lisa locked it and sat down on the lawn, gasping for breath. All at once, the basement door started shaking violently, as if someone were pushing against it.

“Don’t sell my house,” the phantom exclaimed again, shaking the door. “If you sell my house, something terrible will happen to your family! Don’t sell my house!” The roar of a car engine pierced the ghost’s words, as the attorney  bade Mark goodbye and drove away.  Immediately, the shaking and pounding ceased, as if the departure of the hated real-estate attorney had momentarily appeased the ghost.

When Lisa described the ghost, Mark recognized her as his dead wife. Until then, he had forgotten that he promised his first wife that he would never sell the cottage. Mark and Lisa tried to appease the ghost by bringing in a priest to pray over the cottage.  But the house continued to be filled with the choking smell of expensive perfume.   Lisa was afraid for her unborn babies, living in such a haunted atmosphere.  After much discussion, Mark and Lisa decided to defy the phantom and sell the cottage.

On the night following the family’s move, Lisa was struck with a terrible pain in her abdomen. Mark rushed her to the hospital, where she gave birth to the twins, who were stillborn. On his way home from the hospital, Mark’s car was struck by a truck, and he was killed instantly. At the same moment, Lisa sat bolt upright in her hospital bed, staring at an empty corner of the room. She screamed once in terror at the sight of the phantom floating before her eyes, then she died instantly from a brain aneurism.