A Persistent Haunting - Grier Jewell

Penny Bishop knew her home was haunted. It had all the usual signs: creaking footsteps in the night, doors that opened of their own accord, and odd odors coming from the kitchen when no one was cooking.

There were other strange occurrences, too—ones that kept her up at night—such as the shadowy figure holding a cross over her bed and murmuring so loudly it made her scream.

Her parents took it all in stride, however.

“Pay them no mind,” Papa said. “You don’t trouble them and they won’t trouble you.”

But Penny was quite certain that the ghosts haunting her home were already troubled. They were becoming more and more brazen all the time, coming and going at all hours, and never minding to put things back where they belonged.

“They want us out,” she told her parents, showing them the red X on her bedroom door that had appeared out of nowhere. “One of them told me it was time to leave. I heard him with my own ears.”

“Hush now,” Mama said. “Enough with that talk.”

Mama never had liked it when Penny pointed out evidence of the ghosts, especially when the ones they’d gotten used to moved on and new ones showed up, always stranger and bolder than the ones they replaced.

Penny had had enough of the otherworldly intruders, especially when she found one lying in the four-poster bed that Papa made special just for her.

“Nooo!” Penny cried and stomped her foot. She was tired of pretending that the ghosts weren’t trying to take over the house—her house—the only home she’d ever known.

The odd thing was, the ghost in her bed was yelling too. It was yelling something about everyone being right that the Bishop place was haunted.

Penny shook the bedpost and refused to stop until the boy ran screaming into the night. No way was she going to be scared out of her own home.

She’d never leave.

Not even if they pulled that old rope off her neck and buried her all over again.

Story by Grier Jewell | Illustrations by Rebekah Joy Plett