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“A Haunted House” opens as an unnamed narrator of unspecified gender describes the sounds of a ghostly couple moving room by room through a house, opening and shutting doors. At all times, day or night, the ghosts search for an unnamed “it,” here, there, upstairs, and in the garden. As the ghosts search, they whisper to each other, reminding each other to search quietly, so as not to awaken the couple now living in the house.
The narrator, already awake, has been reading and listening to the sounds of the ghostly search, noting when and where the ghosts seem to have located what they’re searching for. Finally, the narrator rises and enters the house to see the ghosts but cannot find them. Instead, the house is empty and quiet. Then, the narrator has trouble remembering why they entered the house in the first place and what they are now trying to find. Returning to the garden, the narrator discovers that nothing has changed, except that the book they had been reading has fallen to the ground.
The living couple never sees the ghostly couple that inhabits the house with them. They see reflections and shadows in the house, but not the spirits or what they seek. In the silence, the couple can hear sounds from outside—the birds and farm machinery. The living couple imagines hearing the heartbeat of the house, telling them that they are safe. At moments, the ghostly couple pauses, seeming to find their treasure, but then a skipped heartbeat later, the two resume their search. The ghosts, the narrator reveals, lived in the house centuries earlier. The woman died first, leaving the man bereft. He closed up the house and traveled widely before returning to the house’s protection, including its offer of the “treasure.”
At night, the winds blow outside, and the moon and candles illuminate the house. The ghostly couple continues to wander and open windows looking for their lost treasure, whispering as they try not to disturb the living couple. The ghosts recall their past lives, where they slept and kissed, morning and night, summer and winter. Together, the two ghosts pause in the bedroom doorway, and then draw close to the bedside of the living couple, who sleep peacefully. The couple does not see or hear the ghosts as they inspect them.
The ghosts look long and deep at the sleeping couple as if the sleepers hold their missing treasure. The house again beats its protective sounds with pride. The male ghost comments on the long years of love the two had shared. The pair talk about how, despite their separation, they found each other again. They see themselves and the joy they had in life in the living couple’s love. As the ghostly couple leans close to the living pair, the light of their spectral lantern wakes the narrator, and the house’s heart beats wildly. The narrator realizes what the ghosts have been looking for—the treasure of love that they felt while alive, a love now in the hearts of the living couple. The narrator cries, “Oh, is this your buried treasure? The light in the heart.”
