Page 31 of Scary In Love

Many years later

My wife is hiding, and I cannot find her anywhere. Our version of hide and seek started as a sex game, but it’s still our preferred pastime. We’ve chased each other through the hallways and secret passages of the Miller house more times than I can count, but I’m losing my touch.

I stick my head through the back of a bookcase, but there’s no sign of Jenna in the library.

She’s not in the wine cellar, or the kitchen, or her favourite spot on the terrace watching the sun go down. I’ve drifted through countless bedrooms, but eventually I find her, holding court on the front steps.

My Lady Miller is enchanting in her long black gown, and still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.

“I thought we were playing hide and seek, my love?”

“You know I always end up in the laundry closet,” she laughs. “But your great-great-granddaughter is in there with her latest boyfriend.”

I rest my arm around her shoulder. Though I know she can’t feel it, we both see it, and that’s enough.

“Can you blame them? I told you it was a perfect spot for fooling around.”

“And you proved it many, many times. Wait… Was that enough greats?” She counts them off on her fingers. “I lose track.”

With the revolving cast of characters living in the Miller mansion, I myself lost track long ago.

Jenna and I were blessed with three beautiful daughters during our time here, who loved this place as much as we did. As their families grew and blended, the house found a new purpose, and became a commune of sorts.

More families arrived, and we welcomed them all. They decorated and renovated, added more buildings, planted fruit trees and vegetables. They filled the house with laughter and music, and danced barefoot under the moonlight. They raised each other’s children, and the mothers raised each other.

In our twilight years, Jenna and I shared the same fear. We never wanted to say goodbye, not to the house, or to each other. When we died just hours apart, we were surrounded by more love than most people would know in a lifetime.

Who knows which fate or force decided we’d get to remain here in the afterlife.

Never even believed in ghosts until I found myself here, but I’m grateful every day.

Nobody can see us, but they seem to feel our presence when we get close.

The family are all used to it, but Jenna and I never get bored of frightening new visitors.

“What are you doing out here?” I ask.

She raises her arm slowly, one bony finger pointing at the teenagers trying to balance a ladder against one of the trees that line the driveway.

“Making sure they hang the crow decorations properly.”

“You know you can’t tell them if they’re not.”

Happily, my wife can still roll her eyes at me from the beyond. “This is my Christmas, I can’t think about anything else. It makes me happy to see our traditions continue.”

The famous Miller haunt has been through countless iterations over the years. Some bigger, some smaller, and for several decades it took place in a corn maze grown especially for the season. We haven’t hosted one for a while, and I know Jenna has missed the panicked faces and terrified screams.

Most of the members of the Miller clan inherited her love of all things spooky and scary, but young Charley Miller takes after me. He’s often in the library, poring through historical documents, piecing together his own version of our shared history.

When he found tickets and stickers I’d saved from the very first haunt, he pitched a one hundredth anniversary edition, and the whole family said yes. I’ve watched with pride as they’ve pulled it all together, but nobody has been more excited than Jenna.

After the sun goes down, the gates open once more. We take our positions at the top of the grand staircase and prepare to deliver on the Miller promise of an unforgettable night of adventures.

“Happy haunting,” I whisper, even though nobody can hear us.

Jenna gives me a knowing smile, remembering a moment we shared in this exact spot a lifetime ago.

“You’re the best thing that ever happened to me,” she says. Her hand reaches out to rub my cheek, and this time I’m certain I feel her touch. “Happy haunting, my love.”