The moment I moved in I could tell there was something different about the house.
I’d hear doors open or close from the other end of the house when there was only me there, or floorboards would creak in the rooms above. That was particularly unsettling when I was up in the loft.
Water could be heard trickling in a room that had been converted many years earlier into a storeroom, even though all pipes had been removed when the bathroom was moved to the front of the house.
Pictures, paintings and photos would appear in different places – in different rooms – on different walls.
Laughter echoed along the hallway shortly after an eerie hand bell rang by unseen hands, only for both the ringing and the laughter to fade away into the distance.
Figures moved when I glanced them in the corner of my eye – shadows appeared in places completely wrong according to the light – taps would be heard on windows, even on the first and second floors.
A drawer never remained closed. It was always open when I looked at it. I’d close it, look minutes later and it would be open again. Always the same.
The drawer is lined by a copy of an old newspaper, the headline reporting a tale of a local schoolteacher who had fled after visiting this house, and she had never been seen again.
I don’t think she fled.
I think she’s still here, and is out in the gardens somewhere.
I think she’s trapped, and is telling me that she’s here, but just can’t do it strongly enough.
Her face is on the front page of the newspaper.
Her face is the same one that I see in the patterns in tea leaves occasionally, or out in the gardens, in the flowerbeds, between the flowers. And sometimes, when I see my reflection in the mirror. As clear as day my face becomes hers… only, it isn’t hers.
Again, there’s a difference.
Sometimes, she manages to speak. She’ll manage ‘Hel…’ before abruptly ending.
But is she saying Hell, Help or Hello? Knowing that would make all the difference…
Well, I finally managed to get my little ghost story, set in the house on the hill, written. It’s slightly different from my original, which, between you and me, I can’t really remember much about now anyway!
This story is based on some events that I have actually experienced myself, and others are completely made up. As for the teacher whose face appears in the flowerbeds, I have absolutely no idea where that one came from…
The Mansionic Perspective 
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