Haunted Heart
By Khushi Bhalani
November 4, 2026
Graphic by Porter Callender
It starts with small things. Voices through the walls. Fingerprints that aren’t hers on the glasses. A vase moved two inches to the right from where she remembers leaving it.
At first, she tries to prove the presence of the paranormal. She stays awake all night, sitting in the dark like a ghost hunter, waiting for something. Pressing an ear to the walls. Eyes lingering on the doorways but never seeing anything. She begins setting traps, trying to catch whatever is leaving traces of itself behind. A piece of tape across the doorway. Coins left along the windowsill. A half-empty cup by the sink. Every morning, nothing has moved.
She can never catch whatever is haunting the house in action, only find evidence it was there after it’s long gone. Eventually, she stops trying to catch it. She doesn’t know if she’s ready to see it. For it to see her.
She begins to wonder if this is what having someone feels like.
She chases and chases until her life becomes centered around these imprints. The laughter sounds like a shared joke. A face glimpsed in the mirror is enough to make her turn around, heart pounding, only to find nothing but empty air.
She begins cradling the glasses against her heart, just to feel the echo of holding a warm hand. Her fingers press carefully over the prints where another hand must have been, trying not to smudge them and erase their presence. She pretends not to notice that the glass has long gone cold.
She leaves notes on the refrigerator. Little drawings. Questions.
Are you there?
Do you love me?
There is never a response. Still, she keeps writing as if there will be one.
The questions get more specific.
Do you like the blue mug?
Do you remember that I like orange juice?
Do you know I hate the snow?
She never gets an answer.
Eventually, she begins leaving things out, to help. A pillow strategically tossed on the floor. A jacket draped over the back of a chair. A book facedown on the table. She tells herself she’s making it easier. That anyone coming won’t have to search for things to touch.
It’s easier that way.
She learns where to leave things.
The blue mug is moved more than the rest. So she always leaves it out on the counter, facing outwards. The book on the kitchen table is always kept closed. So she stops opening it. Her socks disappear from beside the radiator and turn up folded by her bed. Exactly the way she likes them. Soon, they are waiting there every night.
Some mornings she wakes up convinced she is loved.
Her favorite orange juice has been pushed closer to the front of the fridge. Her socks are left at the exact warmth she likes them. Once, her water is boiling before she turns on the stove. The small, thoughtful gestures of someone who knows her.
When the house goes silent, it makes her wonder if she imagined the whole thing.
Eventually, she needs someone else to know.
She finds a grief counseling group that meets Tuesdays at 7:00. She has not lost anyone. That seems like a problem at first. It’s not. She’s been living with loss her whole life.
They ask her who she's grieving. “A family member? A spouse? An ex?”
She responds, “Someone I was close to.”
The next week she starts telling them details. She thinks about the house. “They were very thoughtful.”
Someone asks her how long they were together. She thinks about how long she’s lived there. “Ten years.”
Someone asks what they looked like. She thinks of the shadows in the hallway. Her mouth moves on its own. “Dark hair.”
Someone asks why they broke up. “They’re difficult sometimes, absent and distant.”
Someone asks what it was like when they were happy. She thinks about the orange juice, the socks, the blue mug. “They knew me.”
They tell her that that isn’t healthy. “It’s toxic,” someone says. “It’s intermittent reinforcement,” another agrees. It stays with her the entire ride home.
She begins documenting their actions. Not for her. For the group. The things they do. The things they don’t. What makes them come back or go away. She writes them down to remember.
She starts looking for patterns.
The next time there’s a silence, she doesn’t leave a note.
The fourth morning, the orange juice is sitting by her bed. She forgives them immediately, writing down, When I stopped asking, they came back.
After that, she starts wondering what else might bring it back, what might break the silence. Belting out every melody in her kitchen at the top of her lungs.
Nothing.
Whispering to the shadows at the edges of the room while laying wrapped up in the blankets on the bed. Nothing. Her sobs turn from quiet hidden things to screeching wails. A floorboard creaks. She stops crying. Silence. She starts again. Another creak. She laughs through her tears.
She starts testing it. Laughing. Screaming. Crying. Begging.
She tells it, “Please come back.”
Nothing.
“I miss you.”
Nothing.
“I know you’re there.”
A floorboard creaks.
She says it again.
Another creak.
She smiles.
Then she tries something else.
“You know me.”
The lights flicker.
“You love me.”
Nothing.
“I’m alone.”
The fuses blow out.
She starts telling the house things she’s never told anyone before. Things she’s barely come to terms with herself. Her favorite songs. The foods she cannot stand. What her family was like growing up. The first time she felt truly and completely alone.
She tells it what she wants. What she fears. What she remembers. Who she is. It listens.
The next morning, the blue mug is sitting by her bed. “You remembered,” she laughs.
After a while, she knows what will happen before it does. Which floorboard will creak. When the lights will flicker. Where the shadows will move. What objects will shift. She knows what will make the house answer. She thinks she may know it better than she knows herself.
Someone asks her what her favorite mug is. “The blue one.” She has to think about if that was always true.
Sometimes she says things just to hear its response. Sometimes she doesn’t say anything at all. She moves the orange juice herself. It’s always where she left it. She smiles anyway.
The house likes the blue mug best. Or perhaps she does. Perhaps it knows she does. She can’t tell anymore.
She has dreams of someone holding her, arms lazily wrapped around her ribs. When she wakes up, the side next to her is warm. She presses her hand against the sheets there. The house creaks. Her hand moves away. ■
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