The House That Hummed
No one in Marigold Hollow trick-or-treated on Candlewick Lane anymore.
Not since the year the house started humming.
It was a low, steady sound, like the whisper of a cello bow drawn across invisible strings. It began every October 1st at midnight and stopped the moment November arrived. The townsfolk tried everything electricians, priests, even a sound engineer from the university but no one could find the source. The house was empty. Always had been, for as long as anyone could remember.
Still, the hum came back every year, vibrating through the dead leaves and into people’s dreams.
On Halloween night, fourteen-year-old Mira Dawes decided she was done wondering.
She’d watched that crooked house her whole life with its shuttered windows, leaning porch, and iron gate that creaked even when there was no wind. The hum had been louder this year, and when she pressed her ear to the cold metal bars, she could swear it was… calling her name.
Miraaaaa…
Her flashlight flickered. Once. Twice.
Then the gate opened on its own.
Inside, the air tasted like dust and candle wax.
Cobwebs hung like lace curtains from the banister. And all the while, the hum pulsed through the floorboards not mechanical, not human, but alive. It seemed to come from under the house.
Mira found the trapdoor in what used to be the parlor.
A spiral staircase waited below, carved into the earth itself. She descended, each step a heartbeat, the hum swelling until it became a full, trembling song. At the bottom, she found a single candle burning in the center of a dirt room.
Behind it stood a mirror.
Not an ordinary mirror this one reflected movement where there should have been none. Shadows swayed. Faces pressed against the glass from the other side, pale and wide-eyed, mouths forming silent pleas.
Then she saw it: her reflection wasn’t mimicking her anymore.
It lifted a hand when she didn’t. Tilted its head. Smiled.
“You’re early,” it whispered.
“Usually they come after midnight.”
The hum turned into a roar.
Mira tried to step back, but the earth had softened beneath her shoes. Her reflection’s eyes glowed faintly gold the same color as the candle flame, which stretched toward the glass like a reaching arm.
The reflection spoke again, voice trembling with the vibration of a hundred Octobers.
“Someone must stay,” it said. “That’s the rule. One to hum the house alive. One to keep the Hollow fed.”
Mira’s scream was swallowed by the sound and by morning, the hum was gone.
Candlewick Lane is silent again this Halloween.
The house sits still and cold.
But if you walk close enough, if you dare to listen…
you’ll hear a faint, familiar tune drifting from beneath the floorboards —
a girl’s voice humming softly to herself,
waiting for next October.
Stake: Justin1337
