Several years ago when I was in school, I met the youngest of four brothers. Let’s call him “Andy”, because I don’t remember his real name (and if I did, I wouldn’t be posting it anyway). They were close in age, and when they started college, instead of renting rooms for four boys for four years, their parents helped them buy a large, old house.  The boys would live in the house, each their turn, while they were in college, and rent out the other rooms to friends to help with payments. Not a bad idea, actually.

The town had been booming in the early 1900s, and the houses from that era reflected that. This one was no exception. It had eight bedrooms, three bathrooms, a huge kitchen, a formal dining room, a room I think once had been a formal sitting room, as well as a complete mother-in-law apartment in the basement. The decorating was beautiful as well. The boys started a club, and that house became the club “house” for members and friends.  I became a member, and went to parties at this house for a few years. I longed to one day rent a room there myself, adding that to the many fond memories I already had of the place. The summer before my last year of college, that opportunity finally arrived.

The youngest boy had graduated, and the house was paid off. Now they wanted to find one person to hold the lease and sublet it to their own friends. I was interested, and I had friends who also loved this big, rambling house.  Andy pulled me aside and asked me if I was afraid of ghosts. 

“Should I be?” I asked.

“You *do* know the house is haunted, right?”

I’d heard the stories – Aaron sick in his room, alone, and the blanket mysteriously pulling itself up around his shoulders, Jean hearing the piano playing by itself in a locked room, others seeing shadows where there shouldn’t be, hearing things that made no sense… but I attributed most of them to either too much booze or too little sleep. Easy to do, for college students.

“Andy, those are just stories…right?”

“We added a clause to the lease, that you can’t exorcise the ghost. She’s nice, harmless…”

I just nodded.

A few nights later, I’d lined up enough friends who were willing to sign on to a “haunted” house, and one of them drove me over to sign the lease.  There was no garage, only a muddy parking space in the back alley. We pulled in, and the headlights illuminated the backyard.  I saw someone standing in the doorway and waved.   “Look, Mark, Ellen is home already.” Ellen was a young blonde woman who lived there.  I got along well with her.

We parked and walked to the door. Ellen wasn’t downstairs. I figured she’d probably gone upstairs to the main living room. We let ourselves in – the backdoor was always open – and went upstairs. We didn’t see Ellen anywhere, but we did find Aaron asleep on the couch. We woke him up and explained we were there to sign the lease. He said Andy wasn’t home – no one had been home except him for hours, and he didn’t expect anyone for a few more.

“But I just saw Ellen downstairs. She must be home.”

“No, she’s in class til 10.”

“I saw *someone* – would an intruder be possible?”

“Maybe you’d better tell me exactly what you saw.”

“I saw someone, about Ellen’s height, standing at the backdoor. She had light hair – short, like Ellen’s, or maybe pulled back. A red top or dress or something…” I trailed off. Aaron had simply pointed at a painting above the fireplace.  I’d noticed it before, but I’d always thought it was the boys’ mother.

“Is that her?” Aaron asked.

“Yeah…….”

“Then don’t worry about it… She’s just the ghost…”  He then rolled over and started snoring.

We left then. I heard the next day that a bunch of cheerleaders had signed the lease with Andy earlier that day.