Harold and the House by Jan Darrow

Harold had inherited the old house. He inherited the storm clouds and the overgrown hedge. He inherited the dry dust in the rooms, and… he inherited the ghosts. 

Family ghosts. 

Sometimes the ghosts were ordinary. Like, sometimes they sat next to his bed and watched him sleep. Or sometimes they flew around the open rooms. Sometimes they turned off the lights only to turn them right back on again. But sometimes…they whispered things into his ear, like stories he had forgotten. 

Family stories.

As time went on Harold didn’t always want to remember the stories they told, he cleaned and polished the old house instead. He let the ghosts go about their business and they let him go about his. And when he was finished, he put the hedge into well-kept order and cleared away the storm clouds. 

But he had forgotten about the attic. 

The attic was a miserable mess. Harold found boxes and trunks full of miserable things. Things that could be forgotten…. things that should be forgotten. One box after another. More ghosts seeping into the floors and stairwells and halls… until he heard voices rising. Ghostly voices mixing. Hurricanes of screaming, faces blending. Strange items falling from mid-air. 

Wind like tornados spun through the house. Snarling teeth gnashed. Glasses smashed. 

Harold somehow made it down to his bedroom. He closed his eyes and felt his body sink deep into the bed. If there was a hell, this was surely it. Stories poured from his ears. Arguments distorted and muffled became clear. His bed began to spin faster and faster until… he must have fainted. 

Or died.

But the next day he awoke and found that he was still on the bed. The house was silent. He got up and looked in the usual places but couldn’t find a ghost anywhere. 

Outside, sunlight sparkled in the trees.

And there in the living room on the couch sat an angel.

A puppy angel.

When the angel saw Harold, she jumped down from the couch and squeaked as she ran toward him. Harold bent down to pick her up, but not before she peed on the hardwood floor.

Jan Darrow lives in Michigan with her husband and daughter where she connected with the natural world at an early age.  She was recently published by " The Purpled Nail" and has two collections of poetry and a collection of flash fiction available on Amazon.  You can find her at https://www.jandarrow.blogspot.com.