Short Story: The Decorations that Watched Back

 

The Decorations That Watched Back

Part One

Chapter One: Hallows Eve Morning

Todd Williams stood in the front garden of number forty-seven Maple Leaf Grove, holding a plastic skeleton that was supposed to be climbing out of the flowerbed. His mum, Tessa, was on her knees beside the hedge, arranging battery-operated candles inside hollowed-out pumpkins whilst his two younger brothers argued over which inflatable ghost should go nearest the gate.

“That one’s mine, Toby!” Theo yanked at the ghost’s trailing sheet.

“Mum said I could choose!” Toby’s bottom lip wobbled dangerously.

“Boys, there’s room for both.” Tessa didn’t look up from her pumpkin arrangement, her voice carrying that particular tone that meant the argument was over. “Theo, yours goes by the lamppost. Toby, you can guard the path.”

Todd grinned, wedging the skeleton’s bony fingers into the soil. At twelve years old, he was supposedly too mature to get excited about Halloween, but their family’s annual display was legendary on Maple Leaf Grove. Last year, Mrs Pettigrew from number fifty-one had actually screamed when she’d walked past their motion-activated witch. This year, they’d outdone themselves.

The October morning was crisp and bright, the kind of autumn day that made everything smell of woodsmoke and damp leaves. Their Victorian semi-detached house looked magnificent, Todd thought, with its original bay windows now framed by fake cobwebs and its front door painted glossy black for the occasion. Paper bats dangled from the porch roof, twisting gently in the breeze.

“Right, what’s next?” Tessa stood, brushing soil from her jeans. Her dark hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail, and she had a smudge of dirt on her cheek that made her look younger than usual. “Todd, can you help me with the archway?”

Together, they assembled the inflatable archway that would span their front path, a towering structure of grinning skulls and dangling spiders. Theo and Toby immediately ran through it seventeen times, shrieking with delight.

“Careful!” Tessa called, but she was laughing. “You’ll knock it over before tonight!”

By eleven o’clock, the garden was transformed. Gravestones sprouted from the lawn, their foam surfaces painted to look genuinely ancient. A fog machine crouched behind the hedge, ready to pump atmospheric mist across the path. The pièce de résistance was a seven-foot-tall animatronic reaper that Tessa had found in a closing-down sale, its tattered robes swaying as it turned its hooded head back and forth.

“It’s brilliant, Mum,” Todd said honestly.

Tessa put her arm around his shoulders, pulling him close. “Your dad would have loved this.”

Todd nodded. His father had died three years ago, and Halloween had become their thing, their way of doing something together that felt special and alive. They didn’t talk about it much, but Todd knew his mum poured extra energy into their decorations each year, making them bigger and better, as if she were decorating for four people instead of three.

“Mum, I’m hungry,” Toby announced, appearing at her elbow with leaves stuck in his hair.

“Me too,” Theo added predictably.

“Alright, lunch break. Then we’ll do the inside decorations.”

They trooped into the house, leaving the garden to settle into its spooky splendour. Todd glanced back as he reached the door and could have sworn the reaper’s head had turned further than before, as if watching them leave.

He shook his head. Just the mechanism settling in.

Chapter Two: Afternoon Unease

Lunch was cheese toasties and tomato soup, eaten at the kitchen table whilst Tessa made a list of the remaining tasks. The kitchen was the warmest room in the house, with its cream-coloured Aga and the autumn sunlight streaming through the window above the sink. Todd felt the pleasant tiredness that came from working outside, his fingers still cold from handling the metal decoration stakes.

“After lunch, we’ll do the hallway and the front room,” Tessa said, ticking items off her list. “I want the window displays perfect before it gets dark.”

“Can we do the cellar?” Theo asked, his eyes bright with mischief.

“Absolutely not.” Tessa’s voice was firm. “The cellar stays locked.”

“But it would be so creepy,” Theo persisted.

“No.”

Todd understood his mum’s reluctance. The cellar was accessed through a door in the kitchen, and it was genuinely unpleasant down there, all damp stone walls and shadows that seemed too thick. They used it for storage, nothing more, and even Todd didn’t like going down the narrow stairs.

“The hallway will be creepy enough,” Tessa promised. “I’ve got those hanging ghosts and the mirror decals.”

That satisfied Theo, who went back to dunking his toastie in his soup with single-minded concentration. Toby had tomato soup all around his mouth, making him look like a tiny, cheerful vampire.

They spent the afternoon transforming the inside of the house. Tessa was particular about the decorations, wanting them to be atmospheric rather than tacky. She draped gauzy fabric from the ceiling in the hallway, creating the impression of walking through cobwebs. Todd helped her apply realistic-looking cracks to the mirror by the front door, whilst the younger boys arranged tea lights on every available surface.

“Remember, we don’t light these until tomorrow,” Tessa warned. “I don’t want the house burning down before Halloween.”

By four o’clock, the light was already fading, the autumn afternoon drawing in early. Todd was in the front room, helping his mum position a projection lamp that would cast moving shadows of bats across the bay window, when he heard Theo shout from the garden.

“Mum! The skeleton’s moved!”

They all rushed outside. The plastic skeleton that Todd had so carefully positioned that morning was now lying flat on the grass, three feet from where he’d planted it.

“The wind must have knocked it over,” Tessa said, but she frowned slightly.

“There hasn’t been any wind,” Todd pointed out. The air was perfectly still, the kind of heavy stillness that made sounds carry strangely.

“Well, something moved it.” Tessa picked up the skeleton, examining its base. “The stake’s not broken. Odd.”

Todd helped her replant it, driving the stake deeper this time. As he worked, he felt an uncomfortable prickling at the back of his neck, as if someone was watching him. He turned quickly, scanning the garden and the windows of the neighbouring houses, but saw nothing unusual.

“There,” Tessa said, satisfied. “That should hold.”

Back inside, Todd couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling. He told himself he was being ridiculous, that he’d been thinking about ghosts and monsters all day, and his imagination was running wild. But when he passed the mirror in the hallway, he paused, staring at his reflection.

The crack decals they’d applied made it look as if the mirror was genuinely damaged, splintering his reflection into fragments. For just a moment, he could have sworn he saw movement in the glass, a shadow that didn’t match anything in the hallway.

He blinked, and it was gone.

“Todd? Can you help me with the window display?” His mum’s voice came from the front room.

“Coming,” he called, shaking off the strange moment.

Chapter Three: Evening Shadows

Dinner was early, fish fingers and chips eaten whilst sitting on the sofa watching a Pixar film, a rare treat that Tessa allowed on special occasions. The house felt cosy and normal, the decorations adding atmosphere rather than genuine fear. Toby fell asleep halfway through the film, his head heavy on Tessa’s lap, and even Theo was yawning by the time the credits rolled.

“Right, bedtime,” Tessa announced. “Big day tomorrow.”

“Can we sleep in our costumes?” Theo asked hopefully.

“Absolutely not. You’ll crease them.”

Todd helped his mum carry Toby upstairs, the six-year-old mumbling sleepily about pumpkins and sweets. Their house had three bedrooms on the first floor, all leading off a narrow landing with sloping ceilings and creaky floorboards. Todd’s room was at the front, overlooking Maple Leaf Grove, whilst his brothers shared the larger back bedroom. Tessa’s room was in the middle, its door always left slightly ajar so she could hear if the boys needed her.

Once Toby was tucked in, still wearing his clothes because he’d fallen asleep so deeply, Tessa herded Theo into his pyjamas and into bed.

“Mum, what if the decorations come alive?” Theo asked, his voice small in the darkness.

“They won’t, sweetheart. They’re just plastic and fabric.”

“But what if they do?”

Tessa sat on the edge of his bed, smoothing his hair back from his forehead. “Then Todd and I will protect you. But they won’t, I promise. It’s all pretend.”

Todd, standing in the doorway, felt a rush of affection for his mum. She was always so calm, so certain, even when Todd knew she must be tired or worried or sad.

“Sleep well,” Tessa said, kissing Theo’s forehead. “Tomorrow’s going to be brilliant.”

Todd retreated to his own room, leaving his door open as he always did. He could hear his mum moving around downstairs, probably checking the decorations one last time, making sure everything was ready for tomorrow’s trick-or-treaters.

He changed into his pyjamas and climbed into bed, picking up the book he was reading, a fantasy novel about dragons and magic. But he couldn’t concentrate on the words. The house felt different tonight, he thought. The usual comfortable creaks and settling sounds seemed louder, more deliberate.

From downstairs came a sudden crash.

Todd was out of bed and on the landing before he’d consciously decided to move. His mum appeared at the bottom of the stairs, her face pale in the dim light from the hallway lamp.

“It’s alright,” she called up, but her voice was tight. “Just one of the decorations falling over.”

“Which one?”

“The reaper. In the front room. I must not have balanced it properly.”

Todd came down the stairs slowly. Through the open door of the front room, he could see the animatronic reaper lying on its side, its hooded head facing the doorway as if it had been watching the hall when it fell.

“Help me lift it,” Tessa said.

Together, they manoeuvred the heavy figure back into position. It was surprisingly solid, Todd thought, its base weighted to prevent exactly this kind of accident.

“There,” Tessa said, but she sounded uncertain. “Maybe the floorboards are more uneven than I thought.”

They stood looking at the reaper for a moment. In the dim light, its hollow hood seemed impossibly dark, as if it contained a depth that shouldn’t exist in a plastic Halloween decoration.

“Bed,” Tessa said firmly. “Both of us.”

Todd climbed the stairs, glancing back once. His mum was still standing in the hallway, staring at the reaper, her arms wrapped around herself as if she was cold.

In his room, Todd lay in bed listening to the house. His mum’s footsteps on the stairs, the click of her bedroom door, the distant hum of the fridge in the kitchen. Normal sounds. Safe sounds.

Then, from downstairs, he heard something else.

Footsteps.

Slow, deliberate footsteps crossing the hallway.

Todd’s heart hammered against his ribs. He wanted to call out to his mum, but his throat had closed up with fear. The footsteps stopped. Then came a new sound, a soft scraping, like something being dragged across the floor.

He forced himself out of bed, his legs shaking. The landing was dark, the small lamp having switched itself off, though Todd couldn’t remember it being on a timer. He could see a thin line of light under his mum’s door, and that gave him courage.

He crept to the top of the stairs and looked down.

The hallway was empty. The reaper stood in the front room exactly where they’d left it. Nothing was out of place.

But Todd could have sworn the mirror, the one with the crack decals, was now completely shattered, real cracks spreading across its surface like a spider’s web.

He blinked, and the mirror was fine, just the fake cracks they’d applied that afternoon.

“Todd?” His mum’s door opened, and she stood there in her dressing gown, her face concerned. “Did you hear something?”

“I thought, footsteps,” he managed.

Tessa came out onto the landing, and together they stood listening. The house was silent now, holding its breath.

“Old houses make strange noises,” Tessa said, but Todd could hear the doubt in her voice. “Especially when the temperature drops at night. The wood expands and contracts.”

“Yeah,” Todd said, wanting to believe her. “Probably.”

“Come on, back to bed. We need our sleep for tomorrow.”

But as Todd climbed back into bed, he heard his mum doing something she’d never done before. She was checking on Theo and Toby, and then he heard her moving furniture in her room, the scrape of something heavy being pushed against her door.

Todd lay in the darkness, staring at his ceiling, and didn’t sleep for a long time.

The Decorations That Watched Back

Part Two

Chapter Four: The Longest Night

Todd must have dozed off eventually because he woke with a start to find his room freezing cold and his breath misting in the air. His bedside clock read 2:47 AM, the numbers glowing an eerie green in the darkness.

Something had woken him, but he couldn’t identify what. He lay very still, listening.

There.

A voice, so faint he almost thought he’d imagined it. Whispering.

It was coming from downstairs.

Todd’s whole body wanted to stay in bed, to pull the covers over his head and pretend he’d heard nothing. But the whispering continued, a susurrus of sound that raised every hair on his arms.

He got up, moving as quietly as he could, and opened his door.

The landing was dark, but not empty.

Theo stood at the top of the stairs, his small figure rigid with fear, staring down into the hallway.

“Theo,” Todd whispered urgently. “What are you doing?”

His brother didn’t turn around. “Can you hear them?” he whispered back. “They’re talking.”

Todd moved to stand beside Theo, and his blood turned to ice.

The hallway below was full of shadows, but they weren’t behaving like shadows should. They moved independently, sliding across the walls, pooling in corners, reaching up towards the stairs like grasping hands.

And they were whispering.

Todd couldn’t make out words, but the sound was unmistakably voices, dozens of them, overlapping and urgent.

“Mum,” Todd said, his voice cracking. “We need Mum.”

But before he could move, Tessa’s door flew open and she rushed out, her face white with terror.

“Get away from the stairs,” she said, her voice shaking. “Both of you, now.”

She grabbed both boys and pulled them back, just as one of the shadows surged up the staircase, spreading across the steps like spilt ink.

“Into my room,” Tessa ordered. “Now.”

They scrambled into her bedroom, and Tessa slammed the door behind them. Todd could see she’d pushed her chest of drawers against it earlier, and now she shoved it back into place with strength born of fear.

“What’s happening?” Theo’s voice was high and thin with panic.

“I don’t know,” Tessa admitted, and Todd had never heard his mum sound so frightened. “But we’re staying together.”

“Should we call someone?” Todd asked. “The police?”

“And tell them what? That our Halloween decorations haunted?” But Tessa pulled out her mobile phone anyway, her hands shaking as she tried to unlock it.

The screen flickered and died.

“No signal,” she whispered. “It was fully charged.”

A crash came from downstairs, then another, the sound of their carefully arranged decorations being thrown about. Toby woke up, his wail of fear cutting through the chaos.

“It’s alright, baby,” Tessa scooped him up from the bed where he’d been sleeping. “We’re all here.”

But it wasn’t alright. Through the door, they could hear footsteps on the stairs now, heavy and deliberate, accompanied by a dragging sound that made Todd think of the reaper’s trailing robes.

The footsteps stopped outside Tessa’s door.

They all held their breath, pressed together in the middle of the room. Tessa had her arms around all three boys, holding them so tightly it almost hurt.

The door handle turned slowly.

“You’re not welcome here,” Tessa said, her voice stronger now, fierce with protective fury. “This is our home. You’re not welcome.”

The door handle stopped turning.

For a long moment, nothing happened. Then the whispering started again, but this time Todd could make out words.

“Help us. Please. Help us.”

“They’re asking for help,” Theo whispered, his fear mixing with confusion.

Tessa’s grip loosened slightly. “What?”

“Help us. Trapped. So long. Help us.”

Todd felt his mum’s body shift, her fear transforming into something else. He knew that look, had seen it before when she was trying to solve a problem, when she refused to give up.

“Who are you?” Tessa called through the door. “What do you want?”

The whispering grew louder, more urgent, but still impossible to fully understand. Todd caught fragments: “Forgotten. Buried. Need to be seen. Need to be remembered.”

“Mum, what does that mean?” Todd asked.

Tessa was quiet for a moment, thinking. Then she said, “The cellar. I think they’re coming from the cellar.”

“But why now?” Todd asked. “We’ve lived here for years.”

“Halloween,” Tessa said slowly. “The veil between worlds is thinnest. And we’ve filled the house with death imagery, with decorations of ghosts and graves. Maybe we opened a door without meaning to.”

“So what do we do?” Theo asked, still pressed against his mum’s side.

Tessa took a deep breath. “We help them. If they need to be remembered, we remember them.”

“Are you mad?” Todd couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Mum, there are ghosts in our house!”

“Spirits,” Tessa corrected gently. “And they’re frightened too, I think. They’ve been trying to get our attention all day. The skeleton moving, the reaper falling, the sounds. They’re not trying to hurt us, they’re trying to be seen.”

She set Toby down gently and moved to the door, her hand on the chest of drawers.

“Mum, no,” Todd pleaded.

But Tessa was already pushing the furniture aside. “Stay behind me,” she said firmly.

She opened the door.

The landing was full of shadows, but they’d stopped moving aggressively. They hovered, waiting, and Todd realised his mum was right. They weren’t attacking. They were desperate.

“Show us,” Tessa said to the shadows. “Show us what you need.”

The shadows flowed down the stairs, and Tessa followed, the boys close behind her. Todd kept one hand on Theo’s shoulder and the other holding Toby’s hand, his heart still racing but his terror now mixed with something else, a strange sort of awe.

The shadows led them to the kitchen, to the cellar door.

“I knew it,” Tessa murmured.

She unlocked the door, something she’d been so adamant about not doing earlier, and the shadows poured down the narrow stairs into the darkness below.

“Wait here,” Tessa said, but Todd shook his head.

“We’re coming with you.”

Tessa looked at her three sons, saw the determination in Todd’s face, the curiosity in Theo’s, even the brave set of Toby’s small jaw, and nodded.

“Together then.”

They descended into the cellar, Tessa using her phone’s torch even though the battery was supposedly dead. It flickered to life, casting a weak beam into the darkness.

The cellar was as unpleasant as Todd remembered, all damp stone and cobwebs, boxes of old belongings stacked against the walls. But the shadows were gathered in the far corner, swirling around something.

Tessa moved closer, and Todd saw what they’d found.

A small wooden box, tucked behind a stack of paint cans, covered in decades of dust and grime.

“What is it?” Theo whispered.

Tessa picked up the box carefully, brushing away the dirt. It was old, very old, with a simple clasp that opened easily under her fingers.

Inside were photographs, dozens of them, and letters tied with faded ribbon.

“A family,” Tessa said softly, holding up one of the photographs to the light. It showed a Victorian family, a mother and father with three children, standing in front of a house that Todd recognised immediately.

“That’s our house,” he breathed.

“They lived here,” Tessa said, looking through more photographs. “Over a hundred years ago, I’d guess. And someone hid these away, forgot about them.”

The shadows had stopped moving. They hung in the air, waiting.

“You wanted to be remembered,” Tessa said to them. “You didn’t want to be forgotten, hidden away in the dark.”

The whispering came again, but softer now, almost grateful.

“We’ll remember you,” Tessa promised. “We’ll find out who you were, we’ll tell your story. You won’t be forgotten anymore.”

The temperature in the cellar began to rise, the oppressive cold lifting. The shadows grew lighter, less dense, and Todd could see they were changing, becoming less frightening and more like ordinary darkness.

“Thank you,” came a whisper, clear as a bell. A woman’s voice, warm and kind. “Bless you.”

Then the shadows were gone, and they were standing in an ordinary cellar, dusty and damp but no longer terrifying.

Chapter Five: Halloween Morning

They climbed back upstairs in silence, Tessa clutching the box of photographs. The house felt different now, Todd thought. Lighter. The decorations were scattered across the hallway, knocked over in the night’s chaos, but they looked harmless now, just plastic and fabric.

“What time is it?” Theo asked.

Todd checked the clock in the kitchen. “Five thirty.”

“Too early to be awake,” Tessa said, but she was smiling slightly. “But I don’t think any of us will sleep now.”

They made hot chocolate, all four of them, and sat around the kitchen table whilst Tessa carefully looked through the photographs and letters.

“The Thornton family,” she read from one of the letters. “Margaret and William Thornton, and their children, Elizabeth, James, and little Thomas. They lived here from 1887 to 1901.”

“What happened to them?” Todd asked.

“I don’t know,” Tessa admitted. “But we can find out. The local history society will have records. We’ll make sure their story is told.”

As dawn broke, grey and stormy, they heard the wind begin to pick up outside. By seven o’clock, it was howling around the house, and rain was lashing against the windows.

“The decorations,” Tessa said, jumping up.

They all rushed outside into the wild weather, struggling against the wind to secure the inflatables and check the stakes holding the gravestones. The garden was a battlefield, Todd thought, fighting to tie down the archway whilst his mum wrestled with the reaper.

But despite the chaos, despite being soaked through and buffeted by the wind, Todd found himself laughing. They all were, even Toby, who shrieked with delight every time the wind tried to steal his ghost.

“This is brilliant!” Theo yelled over the storm. “It’s like a real haunted house now!”

By the time they’d secured everything, they were drenched and exhausted but exhilarated. The garden looked magnificent, Todd thought, the storm adding atmosphere that no amount of fog machines could match.

Inside, they changed into dry clothes and had a proper breakfast, bacon and eggs and toast, the kitchen warm and steamy and safe.

“Mum,” Todd said, as they were clearing up. “Last night, were we really in danger?”

Tessa considered the question carefully. “I think,” she said slowly, “that we were in the presence of something desperate and frightened, which made it dangerous. But once we understood what they needed, once we listened, the danger passed. Sometimes the scariest things are just sad things that have been ignored for too long.”

“Will they come back?” Toby asked, his eyes wide.

“No, sweetheart. They’re at peace now. We heard them, we saw them, we promised to remember them. That’s all they wanted.”

Chapter Six: Halloween Night

By four o’clock, the storm had settled into a steady, atmospheric rain, and the early darkness made their decorations look spectacular. The fog machine pumped mist across the garden, the projection lamps cast moving shadows, and the animatronic reaper turned its head back and forth, just a clever mechanism now, nothing more.

Tessa had printed out the best of the Victorian photographs and framed them, hanging them in the hallway alongside their Halloween decorations. The Thornton family gazed out from their frame, no longer forgotten, their story about to be told to everyone who came to their door.

The first trick-or-treaters arrived at half past four, a group of tiny witches and superheroes who gasped with delight at the garden display.

“This is amazing!” one of the mothers said, taking photographs. “You’ve outdone yourselves this year, Tessa!”

“We had some help,” Tessa said, smiling mysteriously.

Todd, dressed as a vampire, handed out sweets whilst Theo and Toby, both dressed as zombies, lurked in the garden making spooky noises. The evening was perfect, Todd thought, watching the stream of trick-or-treaters brave their haunted garden. The storm had passed, leaving behind a clear, cold night with a full moon rising over Maple Leaf Grove.

Mrs Pettigrew from number fifty-one stopped to admire the display, and Tessa showed her the photographs.

“The Thornton family,” Mrs Pettigrew said, peering at the image. “Oh, I remember my grandmother mentioning them! They were very involved in the community, I believe. There might be records at the church.”

“I’m going to research them properly,” Tessa said. “Make sure their story is preserved.”

As the evening wore on and the trick-or-treaters dwindled to a trickle, the Williams family stood together in their garden, looking at their creation.

“Best Halloween ever,” Theo declared.

“Even with the ghosts?” Tessa asked, amused.

“Especially with the ghosts,” Theo said firmly.

Todd had to agree. They’d been terrified, genuinely frightened in a way that plastic decorations could never achieve. But they’d also been brave, they’d listened, and they’d helped spirits find peace. That was better than any amount of fake blood and rubber masks.

“Come on,” Tessa said, putting her arms around her sons. “Let’s go inside. I think we’ve earned some Halloween chocolate.”

They trooped into the house, leaving the decorations to guard the garden. As Todd closed the door, he glanced back at the hallway mirror, the one with the crack decals.

For just a moment, he thought he saw a reflection that wasn’t there, a woman in Victorian dress with three children beside her, all of them smiling.

Then it was gone, and there was only his own reflection, a twelve-year-old boy in vampire makeup, grinning despite himself.

“Thank you,” he whispered to the empty hallway.

From somewhere in the house, so faint it might have been imagination, came a whisper in reply.

“Thank you.”

Todd smiled and went to join his family in the kitchen, where his mum was making more hot chocolate and his brothers were already arguing over who got the biggest chocolate bar.

Outside, the moon shone down on Maple Leaf Grove, on the decorated gardens and the happy families, on a house that had once held forgotten sorrows but now held only love and light and the memory of those who came before.

Halloween night in Chipping Norton, and all was well.