The steam in the bathroom was thick, a warm cocoon that shielded Elena from the quiet of the empty house. Her husband was at the office, and their four-year-old son, Leo, was safely tucked away in his preschool classroom. For a few moments, the world was just the sound of water hitting tile.
Then, the call bell rang.
It was sharp and insistent. Elena jumped, her heart hammering against her ribs. She hurriedly shut off the water, grabbed her thick white bathing gown, and threw it on over her damp skin. Wiping the fog from her eyes, she rushed toward the door, but her foot caught on the slick porcelain of the floor.
She slipped.
It was a strange, elongated sensation. Instead of the sharp jolt of a fall, she felt as if she were sliding through the air, the length of the bathroom stretching out like a hallway of shadows. When she finally regained her footing, breathless and shaking, the silence of the house was gone.
Beyond the bathroom door, she heard the tinkling of ice in glasses, the low thrum of sophisticated jazz, and the overlapping melody of laughter and conversation.
Panic flared in her chest. Who is in my house?
She crept to the bedroom door and eased it open just a crack. Her bedroom was the same, yet fundamentally different. The air smelled of expensive cologne and hors d’oeuvres. In her living room, a party was in full swing. Four men in sharp, modern suits and three young women in sleek corporate attire were gathered in small groups, chatting comfortably.
Elena’s head swirled. She gripped the doorframe, her knuckles white. She didn’t recognize them—not the women with their confident, professional air, nor three of the men. But then, her eyes landed on a young man standing by the window. He wore a crisp blue suit with a white shirt, no tie. He was laughing at something a woman in a charcoal blazer was saying.
His smile was so familiar it ached, a haunting dejà vu that pulled at a string in the back of her mind. Where had she seen him? In a dream? A past life?
“What are you doing in my house?” she cried out, her voice cracking.
No one turned. No one blinked. She stepped into the room, waving her arms, her white gown trailing behind her like a ghost’s shroud. “Who are you people? How did you get in here?”
The man in the blue suit walked right toward her—and then right past her, reaching for a drink on a side table. It was as if she were made of glass.
Terrified and feeling her sanity slipping, Elena retreated into her bedroom. She looked at her bed, intending to collapse onto it, but stopped short. The light grey, minimalist bedsheet she had smoothed down that very morning was gone. In its place was a vibrant blue floral print—a pattern she had never owned, a style she had never liked.
She ducked back into the washroom and stared into the mirror. Her reflection stared back, wet-haired and wide-eyed. She pinched her arm hard.
“Ouch.”
It wasn’t a dream.
Confused and overwhelmed, she did the only thing she could think to do: she stepped back under the shower. She let the cool water pour over her head, trying to wash away the heat of her confusion. She stayed there for what felt like hours, suspended in a waking trance, until a sudden thought pierced through the fog: Leo.
It was time to pick up her son from the bus stop.
She dried herself with trembling hands, dressed in her usual clothes, and steeled herself to face the intruders. She threw open the bedroom door, ready to demand they leave or call the police.
The house was silent. The music was gone. The smell of perfume and gin had vanished. She ran to her bed. The blue floral sheet was gone; her plain grey one was pulled taut across the mattress.
She stood in the center of the room, the silence deafening. Had she suffered a stroke? A hallucination? There was no time to ponder. She ran out the door to meet the bus, the image of the man in the blue suit burned into her retina.
Twenty years passed. The memory of that day became a secret treasure, a strange stone she turned over in her mind but never showed to anyone. Her husband had passed away five years prior, and Elena now lived in their quiet farmhouse on the outskirts of town.
Her son, Leo, was a man now. He had inherited his father’s drive and Elena’s eyes. He had recently married Riya, a brilliant young woman who was his partner in life and in their burgeoning tech startup.
One Friday morning, Elena felt a strange restlessness. Leo and Riya were supposed to come to the farmhouse for the weekend, and she found herself checking the clock every ten minutes. Suddenly, her phone buzzed with a video call.
“Hello, Mom! How are you?” Leo’s face filled the screen. He looked slightly tired but exhilarated.
“I’m wonderful, Leo. I’m just waiting for you two. Are you on your way?”
“Yeah, we’ll be there for dinner, but we’re going to be a little late,” Leo said, stepping back from the camera. “We’re having a small celebration at the town house first—the project just got greenlit. Some of the team is here.”
As he moved, Elena saw the background. Her breath hitched.
She heard the soft jazz. She heard the clinking of glasses. Behind Leo, people in suits were roaming the living room of their old town house—the house she had given to him years ago.
“Where is Riya?” Elena whispered, her heart starting to gallop.
“She’s in the bedroom, taking a quick call,” Leo said. He walked toward the bedroom door. “Mom’s on the line, Riya!”
He turned the camera. Riya was standing there in a sharp charcoal blazer, looking every bit the corporate leader. She beamed at the camera. “Hi, Mom! He’s been missing you all morning. We’ll be there by dinner time, I promise!”
Elena didn’t hear her. Her eyes were locked on the furniture behind Riya.
There, draped over the mattress of the bed where Elena used to sleep, was a bright, blue floral bedsheet.
Elena looked at her son. He was wearing a crisp blue suit with a white shirt, no tie. He tilted his head, giving her that same familiar smile—the one she had seen twenty years ago, through a crack in a door, while standing in a wet bathing gown.
She realized then that she hadn’t been haunted by ghosts. She had simply been invited to the party a little too early.
