The house that remembers-2
🕯️ The House That Remembers+2
By Faraz Parvez
Professor Dr. (Retired) Arshad Afzal
Retired Faculty Member, Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, KSA
(Pseudonym of Professor Dr. Arshad Afzal)
I. The Arrival
Lahore in July was a furnace. The air stood still, thick with dust and humidity, and even the shadows seemed to sweat. Ali stood before the rusting iron gates of the old haveli his late uncle had left him. It loomed like a forgotten monument in the narrow lanes of Androon Lahore, its walls bruised by time, its windows covered in thick lattices that concealed whatever secrets lay within.
Ali was thirty-two, a journalist by profession, cynical by training, and a man of facts. He had returned from Karachi not out of affection for his uncle, whom he barely knew, but because the lawyer’s call had been blunt: “You are the sole heir. The property is yours. Do as you please.”
The property. That word clanged in Ali’s mind. He saw not bricks and mortar but opportunity—maybe he would sell it, maybe turn it into a boutique hotel. But as he pushed open the gate with a groan, the air around him shifted. The silence of the street deepened, as though the haveli itself was holding its breath.
II. The First Night
The inside smelled of damp earth, mildew, and something sharper—like iron, like blood that had dried long ago. The courtyard was littered with fallen leaves though no tree grew within. Doors opened into corridors that wound endlessly, a maze of wood and shadow.
Ali found a kerosene lantern in a drawer and lit it. The flame quivered as though in fear.
At night, stretched on a charpoy in the largest room, Ali listened. The haveli was alive with whispers. The creak of a staircase, the shuffle of feet, the soft sound of someone breathing close—too close. Once, he swore he saw a shadow moving against the wall, but when he held up the lantern, it was only plaster and cracks.
At midnight, he dreamed—except it felt too real. He stood in the courtyard where women in white veils circled silently, their faces blurred. One turned to him, her veil slipping, revealing empty sockets where her eyes should be. Ali woke drenched in sweat, the echo of her whisper still in his ears:
“The house remembers.”
III. The Diaries
On the third day, Ali discovered a locked trunk in the attic. Its brass lock snapped easily under his hammer. Inside lay diaries bound in red leather, each marked with a year in faded Urdu script.
The earliest was dated 1935. The writer was his great-grandfather, Hakim Shafiq, who described the haveli as a place of gatherings, music, and poetry. But as Ali flipped through the years, the tone darkened. Passages mentioned “the whispers in the walls,” “the mirrors that show what is hidden,” and “the room no one must enter.”
One entry from 1952 froze Ali’s blood:
“My daughter Aaliya has been speaking to someone who isn’t there. She says the woman in the mirror tells her secrets about us. She laughs at night when everyone sleeps. I fear the house has taken her.”
Ali shut the diary, his hand trembling. The name—Aaliya. His grandmother.
IV. The Mirror Room
Compelled, Ali searched for the forbidden room. He found it at the end of a corridor behind a heavy door nailed shut. The nails were old, rusted, as though they had been hammered generations ago.
He pried them loose.
The room was windowless, its walls blackened with soot. At its center stood an enormous mirror, taller than a man, framed in carved wood crawling with faded floral patterns. Dust veiled its surface, but when Ali wiped it with his sleeve, his reflection looked… wrong.
His face stared back, but the eyes were darker, sharper, the mouth curled in a knowing smile. When Ali raised his hand, the reflection hesitated—just a flicker, but unmistakable.
He stumbled back, the lantern trembling in his grip. The diary’s words echoed in his mind: “the mirrors that show what is hidden.”
That night, he dreamt again. The veiled women stood before the mirror, pressing their palms against its glass, whispering his name. When he woke, his palms bore faint red marks, as though pressed against something cold and sharp.
V. The Descent
Days bled into nights. Ali stopped leaving the haveli. He was consumed by the diaries, tracing the madness that spread through his family. Aaliya, his grandmother, had been sent away to a mental asylum in 1954. His uncle, who died childless, had lived as a recluse, refusing to marry, whispering to servants that the house was “feeding.”
The more Ali read, the more he felt the house was watching him. Doors opened to corridors that hadn’t been there before. He heard his name called in voices that mimicked his own. He began to speak to the mirror, at first out of defiance, then out of need. The reflection listened, nodded, smiled. It understood him better than he understood himself.
On the seventh night, he found a diary entry written in a hand eerily similar to his own:
“Ali has arrived. At last, the bloodline completes the circle. He belongs to us now.”
The year on the diary was blank.
VI. The Possession
One evening, rain lashed the city, flooding the narrow lanes. Inside the haveli, Ali stood before the mirror. His reflection no longer copied him—it moved independently, smiling wider, eyes burning like coals.
“The house remembers,” it whispered, though Ali had not opened his mouth.
The glass rippled like water. From within, hands reached out—familiar hands, veined and fragile, like his grandmother’s. Another set followed, strong and rough, like his uncle’s. Then more and more, a sea of hands pressing, clawing, pulling.
Ali screamed, but no sound came. His reflection grinned and stepped forward, out of the mirror, while Ali was dragged inside, his body vanishing into the silver surface.
The glass stilled. The reflection—no, the other Ali—adjusted his shirt, picked up the lantern, and walked out of the room.
Behind the glass, the real Ali beat his fists against the surface, screaming silently as the veiled women surrounded him, their eyeless faces pressing closer, whispering in a chorus:
“The house remembers. The house keeps what it is owed.”
VII. The Aftermath
Weeks later, neighbors noticed lights in the haveli again. The new occupant, polite and well-spoken, greeted them warmly, insisting he was restoring the family home.
But those who lingered felt uneasy. His eyes seemed too dark, his smile too sharp. At night, passersby swore they saw veiled women in the courtyard, circling silently under the moonlight.
And if one dared to pause, just long enough, they could hear faint banging from deep within the walls, like fists pounding against glass.
The haveli stood, patient, waiting for its next memory to claim.
✍️ Author’s Note
This story is part of my exploration of psychological horror rooted in Pakistan’s cultural and historical settings. The haveli in Lahore becomes more than bricks and wood—it becomes memory, madness, and inheritance.
If you enjoyed this tale and want more original fiction, poetry, and thought-provoking writing, visit my literature and fiction blog:
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