Every brick in Old Man Harker’s house was haunted.
Not by ghosts—by memories.
The red clay held whispers of the hands that shaped it: a laborer’s calloused thumbs, a child’s accidental fingerprint, the quick press of a lover’s kiss before the kiln burned it eternal. The townsfolk said if you pressed your ear to the walls, you could hear echoes of every life that had ever touched them.
Lena didn’t believe it until the demolition crew arrived.
Harker’s house stood in the way of the new highway, its stubborn chimney jutting like a middle finger to progress. Lena, the youngest engineer on the team, was sent to survey the structure.
The moment she touched the bricks, the visions came.
A woman singing as she scrubbed soot from the hearth. A boy hiding a silver coin in a mortar crack. A whispered confession between stones, never meant to be heard.
Then—deeper—older.
Hands darker than hers, fingers blistered from sun and toil. A voice humming a tune lost to time. The hot sting of tears as the first brick was laid.
Lena jerked back, her clipboard clattering to the ground.
That night, she returned alone with a crowbar.
By dawn, the crew found her stacking salvaged bricks in her truck, her palms raw. "Change of plans," she said, voice rough. "We’re building the highway around it."
The foreman laughed—until he touched the wall himself.
Now the house stands intact beside the roaring highway, its bricks humming softly to anyone who cares to listen.
And if you press your ear to the foundation at dusk, you might just hear Lena’s own voice added to the chorus.
