A Secret Diary Found in an Abandoned House

 

The House on Harrow’s End

The house stood at the far edge of the village, beyond the neglected fields where weeds grew taller than children. Nobody claimed it. Its roof sagged in the middle, the windows were starved for glass, and the front door hung askew on a single hinge.

To most people, it was an eyesore. To Kara Delaney, it was a puzzle.

She was never the type to believe in ghosts, but she had always believed in stories — especially those that left questions unanswered. When her mother’s childhood friend whispered, “That house eats secrets,” Kara’s interest rooted deep.

It was curiosity, yes, but also something more personal. Two months ago, Kara’s sister vanished. No note, no sign, just gone. Like a whisper lost to the wind. And somehow, Kara felt her sister’s absence was tangled with the story of Harrow’s End.

On a grey October afternoon, Kara crossed the field alone, stood before the rotting house, and stepped inside.

What the House Remembered

The interior was worse than she expected. The floorboards sagged, damp with neglect. A half-collapsed staircase loomed ahead, and a faint smell of mold and something...earthy, like overturned soil, lingered in the air.

Kara’s flashlight skimmed the walls, revealing scrawled words in faded chalk:
REMEMBER ME.

She passed a toppled bookshelf, the remains of old newspapers from decades past scattered across the floor. At the back of the house, in what might have once been a study, she found a small writing desk.

A diary lay on top. Its cover was cracked leather, the spine held together with what looked like dried twine. The edges were smudged with dirt — or was it something darker?

Kara picked it up. The first page was blank, but the second bore a date:

March 3, 1965.

The Diary’s Voice

March 3, 1965
I found the trapdoor today. Mother said never to go into the cellar, but the whispers were too loud. They told me they were cold, so I opened it. I only meant to peek.

March 5, 1965
The house doesn’t sleep. When I dream, the floor moves under my bed. When I wake up, dirt is under my nails. I don’t know what I did last night, but my nightgown is torn, and my hands are sore.

March 8, 1965
The girl came again. I saw her standing in the corner, where the wallpaper peeled. Her dress is the color of dusk, and her mouth never moves. But I hear her. She says, "Find me."

Kara turned the pages, her pulse quickening. The entries skipped weeks, sometimes months, each one darker than the last.

April 20, 1965
The cellar door was open again when I woke up. I don’t remember going down there, but my feet were muddy. There are bones in the dirt. Some of them still move.

The Missing Names

Kara recognized one of the names scrawled at the bottom of a page. Lillian Harrow.

She’d seen it before — in an article about three girls who went missing in 1965. They were never found, though neighbors swore they saw lights in the house at night, and once, a child’s face peeking from the upstairs window.

The house was searched. The cellar was empty. No bodies. No answers.

But here was the diary — written in a child’s hand — describing bones in the dirt.

Kara's fingers tightened on the fragile book.

The Cellar

The diary’s final entry read:

November 11, 1965
I can’t keep her quiet anymore. She wants out. She says it’s my turn to stay. If you find this, please don’t let her out. Please.

Please.

The word was written over and over again until the ink bled through the page.

Kara’s flashlight flickered. From somewhere beneath her feet, a soft scraping sound rose.

Her hands trembled as she flipped the desk aside. Beneath it, half-hidden under a mildewed rug, was a square wooden hatch. The trapdoor.

It was bolted shut — but the bolts were rusted, barely clinging to the rotted wood. With her pocket knife, Kara pried them free.

The cellar yawned open, exhaling a breath of cold, wet earth.

A Place Without Time

The ladder descended into blackness. The flashlight beam cut through damp air, illuminating a narrow earthen corridor. The walls were packed dirt, scratched with long-forgotten fingernails.

Every few feet, there was something embedded in the walls. Buttons. Cloth. Hair. Teeth.

Kara gagged, covering her mouth with her sleeve.

The corridor led into a larger space — a cavernous room where the earth seemed alive, pulsing faintly, as though the house itself had a heartbeat.

In the center lay a small, sunken pit. A doll rested at the bottom, its porcelain face cracked, one eye missing, its hands outstretched like a beggar’s.

Beside it, half-buried, was another diary.

Echoes in Ink

This second diary was smaller, its pages riddled with holes from damp and insects. But the handwriting was unmistakable.

It was her sister’s.

June 10, 2023
I followed the whispers. They said they knew where the missing ones went. I thought I’d find answers. Instead, I found her. She’s older now, but her dress is still the color of dusk.

She doesn’t speak with words. Her mouth is sewn shut.

June 11, 2023
The house doesn’t want to let me go. The earth pulls at my feet when I sleep. I think I dug something up. Or maybe it dug me up.

The entries were fragmented, the ink blurred by moisture and time.

June 15, 2023
She wants to trade. One must stay. One can leave. That’s the rule. That’s how the house stays fed.

If I disappear, don’t come looking for me. Don’t open the door.

But Kara had.

The Girl in the Dirt

Behind her, the earth shifted. A hand — small, pale, dirt-streaked — pushed through the soil, followed by an arm, then a face.

The girl’s mouth was sewn shut with wire. Her eyes were too wide, her hands too thin. She reached for Kara, fingers curling, pulling herself free of the dirt.

Kara stumbled back, but the girl only stood there, head tilted. The wire at her mouth trembled.

She raised her hand. Pointed.

At Kara.

Then, slowly, the girl lifted her other hand — and pointed toward the trapdoor.

A choice.

 One Must Stay

Kara understood, in the way only sisters do. The house needed one of them. Her sister had traded time, held back the girl in the dusk dress, but the bargain couldn’t hold forever.

Either Kara stayed — or her sister would rot here forever.

The girl stepped aside. The ladder was still there.

Kara stood at the threshold, diary clutched in her shaking hands, her sister’s words burning in her mind.

One must stay. One can leave.

She could escape. Let the house keep her sister. Or trade her life for her sister’s freedom.

The Final Entry

Kara sat at the old desk upstairs, hands trembling, and wrote the last entry in the diary.

October 31, 2023
The house is hungry. I made my choice. If you find this, leave. Lock the door. Forget this place. Let the earth take me.

But if it’s my sister reading this —
I love you.

The ink smeared as her tears fell. She placed the diary back on the desk, where someone else would find it.

She turned toward the trapdoor. The earth waited.

And the house, at last, exhaled in relief.