I should have known something was wrong when Janet handed me the Holloway listing with that look on her face. You know the one — like she was passing off a live grenade wrapped in legal documents.
"Fresh eyes," she said, not meeting mine. "Sometimes that's all a property needs."
The Holloway farmhouse had been on and off the market since 1994. Twenty-nine years of different agencies, different agents, different price drops. The file was thick enough to use as a doorstop, full of expired listings and notes that got progressively more cryptic as you worked backward through time.
Photo: The Holloway farmhouse, via hollowayli.com
Showing cancelled - client concerns about basement access.
Potential buyers left during walkthrough. Did not provide reason.
Agent requests immediate transfer of listing. Personal reasons.
I'd been licensed for exactly three weeks. Janet was my broker, and this was supposed to be my big break — a beautiful colonial on twelve acres, priced to move. The photos showed hardwood floors, original crown molding, and a wraparound porch that belonged in a magazine. On paper, it was perfect.
I should have wondered why perfect was still available.
The drive out to Route 9 took forty minutes through increasingly sparse farmland. The GPS kept trying to recalculate, insisting I'd missed my turn even when I was following the road straight. When I finally found the mailbox — 1247, tilted like a broken neck — I almost drove past it twice.
The house sat back from the road, framed by overgrown maples that hadn't been trimmed in decades. It looked exactly like the photos, which should have been reassuring. Instead, it felt wrong, like seeing a movie set in daylight with all the magic stripped away.
I parked in the gravel driveway and checked my phone. No signal. Not unusual out here, but I made a mental note to mention it to potential buyers. People expect connectivity these days.
The lockbox hung from the front door handle, weathered but functional. The combination worked on the first try — 1994, the year it had first been listed. I pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The smell hit me immediately. Rich, dark earth, like a garden after heavy rain. It should have been musty or stale — the house had been empty for months — but this was different. Fresh. Alive.
The entryway opened into a living room with those gorgeous hardwood floors. Sunlight streamed through clean windows, casting everything in golden warmth. I pulled out my phone to take some updated photos, but the camera wouldn't focus properly. Every shot came out blurred, like the house was moving even when I held perfectly still.
I moved through the rooms methodically, making notes for the listing update. Kitchen: original farmhouse sink, gas range from the seventies but well-maintained. The calendar on the wall showed March 1994, stopped on a Tuesday. Someone had circled the fifteenth in red ink.
Dining room: built-in hutch, chair rail, bay window overlooking the back field. The wallpaper was peeling in one corner, revealing another pattern underneath. And beneath that, another. Like the house had been redecorated over and over, each layer trying to cover something that kept bleeding through.
The smell followed me from room to room. Not getting stronger or weaker, just... present. Like it was part of the air itself.
Upstairs, the bedrooms were standard colonial fare. Master suite with attached bath, two smaller rooms that would work for kids or offices. Everything normal until I reached the end of the hall.
The door was painted white like all the others, but something about it made my skin crawl. Maybe it was the way the light seemed to dim around it, or how the floorboards creaked differently when I approached. I turned the handle and pulled.
Earth. Packed, dark soil from floor to ceiling, like someone had filled the room with dirt and then hung a door in front of it. The smell was overwhelming now, rich and loamy and somehow hungry. I could see roots threading through the soil, pale and searching.
I slammed the door shut and stumbled backward. My hands were shaking as I fumbled for my keys.
That was six months ago. I never listed the house. Never went back. I told Janet I was having second thoughts about real estate, that maybe it wasn't for me after all. She just nodded and didn't ask questions.
I work at a bank now. Safe, predictable, no surprises. But sometimes, late at night, I still smell that earth. Rich and dark and patient.
I looked up the listing yesterday. It's active again, with a new agent from a firm two towns over. Fresh eyes, probably. The photos look exactly the same as they did in 1994.
I wonder if she's been to see the upstairs yet. I wonder if she will.
