When a Haunting Turns Out to Be Loneliness
Not every missing shoe or shifting shadow is the work of spirits. Sometimes the trickster lives closer to home.
Trigger/disclaimer: This post touches on mental-health concerns and loneliness. If this resonates for you, please consider speaking to a medical or mental-health professional.
It is no rare thing for a House Healer to hear whispers of haunting. Many burdens grow lighter when they are given to something unseen, placed outside the circle of one’s own keeping. Yet sometimes, what we name a spirit is not a spirit at all. So let me cloak this tale in Faery dress, and tell it as a story of old.
- Once upon a time there lived an old man named Henry, in a house not as cozy as one might wish. The home stood not in green fields nor by singing streams, but pressed among the other houses of a bustling town. Dark and looming they stood, but Henry didn’t mind. At least he was surrounded by other people, something he needed.
Henry was not without comfort. He owned a wagon and two sturdy horses. He attended the weekly meetings of the council and met his companions at the pub. Henry was no shut in, no sir. And he also was still in contact with his family, unlike many others he knew. His daughter visited him regularly and gave him a lending hand when needed. Outwardly, his life was well enough arranged.
Yet inside him lingered a hollow place. His wife had left him twenty years before, and though time had dulled the wound, it had never truly healed. He told himself life was easier without love, yet at night his heart still reached for what was missing.
One day at the market that took place every Tuesday, Henry bought himself a fine new pair of shoes. They fit as though made for him, and he was pleased to take them home. But not two days later, the shoes vanished. He searched from cellar to attic, anger rising in his chest. Who had entered his home? Who had stolen from him?
And then, come morning, the shoes reappeared in the middle of his sitting room floor. Henry swore he had heard laughter slipping around the corner. It happened not only once, but the following weeks his shoes kept vanishing, and always at a very inconvenient time. And then it stopped. As if someone had listened to his threats.
Yet it seemed he was only quiet from this mischief for a week. From then on, the tricks grew bolder: his glasses, his papers, even his walking stick turned up in places he was sure he hadn’t left them. Henry was certain the new shoes attracted a Brownie, a house faery, to his home and it had taken residence. Perhaps the being was a jealous one, as it kept interfering whenever he wanted to meet up with other people. Was it possible that the Brownie wanted him all for themself?
After weeks of bolder growing shenanigans, Henry called for a Faery Doctor from the next village, who searched the house from hearthstone to roof beam. But no spirit could be found. Henry told himself the Brownie was too cunning, too powerful to be revealed.
As months passed, Henry grew more certain the spirit followed him wherever he went. Each time he stumbled over his words as he spoke to a kind woman, or tripped in the street, he blamed the jealous Brownie who wanted him for itself. Other healers came, another Faery Doctor, and even the witch from the forest’s edge, but none uncovered the invisible culprit.
And so Henry wandered on, convinced that a spirit lingered in his shadow. But the truth was simpler, though no less sad: it was his own aching heart that had set the shoes dancing, his own longing that whispered through the house at night.-
Loneliness can be the tricksiest faery of all. It will move our belongings, steal our words, and weave illusions that feel as real as touch. No spell can banish it, only companionship, care, and kindness.
And so this tale reminds us: when shadows fall across the hearth, we must seek not only the Otherworld, but also each other.
Sometimes, as a House Healer, the most important work is not chasing away ghosts, but listening for the quiet cries of loneliness, grief, or weariness that echo through a home. I walk between folklore and the everyday world, and what I find again and again is this: both need tending.
So if ever your own hearth feels restless, or your steps uncertain, remember that not every shadow belongs to the spirit world. Some belong to our own hearts, asking for care. And that, too, is sacred work
If this story spoke to you, know that my door is always open — whether through my art, my writing, or my healing practice. Each is just another way of weaving connection back into the world.
Brightest Blessings
Blossom
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