Things Left Behind
913 Words
Morning light streamed through the windows like it was trying to cleanse the house of everything it remembered. But Mei Lin knew the truth.
The mansion wasn’t empty.
It was watching.
She hadn’t told Li Wei everything. Not the footprints. Not the veil. Not the ghost. Something inside her was afraid that saying it aloud would make it more real.
Still, she found him early the next day, sitting at the old piano in the sitting room, flipping through a yellowed book.
“You’re awake,” he said without looking up.
“I didn’t sleep,” she replied.
He glanced at her. “You saw her again, didn’t you?”
Mei Lin hesitated. “Just her back. She was humming again.”
Li Wei closed the book.
“She always hums when she’s near. That song—no one knows where it came from. It’s not written down anywhere.”
“Who is she?” Mei Lin asked, almost whispering. “What does she want?”
Li Wei stood, walked over to the fireplace, and pulled out an old scroll tucked behind the mantle.
“She was once known as Lianhua, the daughter of a silk merchant. She fell in love with Cheng Ru, a man from a prestigious family. But on the day of their wedding, he left her. Ran away with someone else.”
Mei Lin swallowed. “So… she took her own life?”
“No one knows for sure. Some say she drowned herself. Some say she waited for him in her wedding dress, day after day, until madness consumed her. Others say her soul never left this house.”
Li Wei opened the scroll. It showed a faded ink painting: a woman in red, standing before a broken mirror, her veil soaked in blood.
“She cursed this place. Anyone who lives here long enough starts… seeing things. Feeling things.”
Mei Lin crossed her arms. “Then why are you here?”
“I need answers, just like you,” he said. “Your grandmother called me weeks before she died. She said the house had awakened. And that it chose you.”
---
Mei Lin’s heart sank. “Chose me for what?”
Li Wei didn’t answer.
Not yet.
---
Later that afternoon, Mei Lin returned to the attic alone.
She wasn’t sure what she was looking for—only that the ghost wasn’t finished with her yet. The air was colder up there now. Dust drifted in slow spirals, and somewhere beneath the floorboards, she thought she heard whispering.
She opened another trunk.
Inside were old letters. Handwritten. Fragile.
She picked one and read:
“Dearest Lianhua,
I write this with a heavy heart. I cannot go through with the marriage. My family has forbidden it, and I cannot choose you over them…”
Mei Lin’s hands trembled. It was signed Cheng Ru.
She opened another.
“You are mine. You promised. You cannot leave me. You cannot—”
The handwriting grew darker, more jagged. The ink was smeared. No signature.
A chill raced down her spine.
---
Suddenly, something clattered behind her.
She turned.
The red shoes she had found yesterday were now standing upright in the middle of the room—though she had left them tucked inside the trunk.
She froze.
Then—soft footsteps.
Not hers.
Coming from the staircase.
She moved quickly, descending from the attic with her pulse racing.
But there was no one there.
The shoes, however, were now at the base of the stairs—following her.
---
That night, the storm came.
Rain lashed the windows, thunder groaned like the mansion itself was waking up in pain.
Mei Lin lit a candle and sat near the guest room. She hadn’t entered since the veil disappeared.
But something told her… tonight, she had to.
She opened the door.
Inside, the room was cold, untouched—but the rose from before now sat on the vanity.
Beside it: the veil.
Back again.
Only now, it was wet.
As if it had just come out of water.
Dripping. Slowly. Onto the floor.
She stepped back—and the door slammed shut behind her.
The candle flickered, then died.
In the pitch black, she heard it again.
Humming.
Right beside her.
---
A cold hand brushed her shoulder.
Mei Lin screamed and stumbled toward the door, pulling it open with trembling fingers and running into the hallway.
Li Wei was there, flashlight in hand. “I heard you—”
“She was in there!” Mei Lin shouted. “She touched me!”
Li Wei grabbed her shoulders. “Breathe. Look at me. Are you hurt?”
She shook her head, tears streaming. “I—I saw her. I felt her. She’s real. She’s not just a memory.”
Li Wei nodded grimly. “I believe you.”
He led her downstairs and made her sit by the fire. For a long time, neither of them spoke.
Finally, he said, “She doesn’t just want revenge. She wants remembrance.”
“Why me?” Mei Lin asked. “Why now?”
Li Wei looked at her with haunted eyes. “Because there’s something you don’t know, Mei Lin. Something your family kept hidden. You’re not just here because of the will. You’re here because you’re connected to her.”
Mei Lin’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?”
“She was your great-great aunt.”
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- Writer
