Lumber in the Attic

I thought I would start the new year off with another classic ghost story. Like my post on Bloody Mary, this one’s roots also lie in oral storytelling.

This haunting tale was told to my father when he was a child. He heard it from one of his friends, who heard it from an uncle, who heard it from his sister, who swore she knew the people involved.

(In other words, I present to you, a classic, Canadian east coast story.)

One day a devoted husband came home to his wife . . .

“I’ve got the lumber to fix the house,” he told her. “I’m going to keep it in the attic until I’m ready to use it.”

The wife agreed. After all, it was about time her husband went about making a few repairs.

A week passed. While the husband was driving to work, tragedy struck. A truck with faulty breaks hit his car. Unfortunately, he succombed to his injuries and died shortly after.

Beside herself with grief, the wife managed to bury her husband. She forgot all about the lumber.

Until a few nights later.

As she lay in bed and tried to fall asleep, she heard a terrible commotion in the attic.

Scrapes and thuds. Several loud bangs. A shudder. A moan . . .

Certain someone had broken into her home, the wife ran out of the house, and over to her neighbors. Together, they returned to her home, only to find everything quiet and still.

Feeling incredibly foolish, the wife led the neighbor into the attic.

The wife’s jaw dropped at what she saw. She swore that the lumber had been moved from one side of the attic to the other.

With a few kind words, the neighbor assured the wife that she had nothing to fear. The wife went back to bed and eventually, fell asleep.

The next night, the wife heard the commotion again.

Scrapes and thuds. Several loud bangs. A shudder. A moan . . .

Determined to catch the culprit in the act, this time, the wife ran to the attic. Sure enough, the wood had been moved back to the other side of the room.

Goosebumps exploded across her arms. No one was there. She was completely alone.

The next day, the wife received a visitor. A rather bashful-looking man, who told her that he had heard what had happened to her husband.

She accepted his condolences, but there was more.

The man had come because her husband hadn’t paid him for the lumber. He had promised to make the payment on the very same day he died. The man showed the wife the note her husband had written so she could see for herself that what he said was true.

Wanting to make good on her husband’s promise, the wife paid the man.

The wife never heard so much as a peep from the attic for the rest of her life.

The Haunted Attic

There are two things about this story that piqued my interest.

The first is the inclusion of the attic. Why didn’t the husband put the lumber in a garage or a barn?

I’ve got one theory: everything about attics are creepy as hell.

Attics are home to spiders and other creepy crawlies. It’s where abandoned and unwanted memories go to die, until they’re rediscovered.

Similar to basements, attics can also make for a dark and dangerous space to navigate without a guiding light.

We are all afraid of things like the dark, strange noises, and tight spaces. Therefore, I think it’s no wonder that storytellers like the ones who passed down this little ghost story naturally gravitate toward the attic as the haunted setting.

A Debt Owed

The second thing about this ghost story that caught my attention is the idea that a spirit cannot rest until a debt is repaid.

Many in the paranormal community believe that if a spirit has unfinished business, their presence will remain until their voice is heard.

Others will tell you that this isn’t possible. The noises you hear in the middle of the night aren’t spirits making an attempt to pass along an urgent message. They’re simply the house settling, or the result of an overactive imagination.

Perhaps the sounds the wife in this story heard came from the lumber salesman himself. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time someone’s used a little manipulation or a trick to settle a bill.

Or, maybe, just maybe, the husband’s spirit wanted to settle his debt so that his wife could be left in peace.

Either way, we’ll never know! Unfortunately, I’m unable to find the origins of The Lumber in the Attic. But that, I think, is what makes this story so special.

The (Ghost) Stories We Tell

Listening to my dad tell this ghost story makes me appreciate the art of oral story telling. Knowing that it’s been told for a couple of generations now makes me love it even more.

It doesn’t matter if the details are true. In fact, I’m certain much of the story has changed since it was first told. That’s the beauty of the stories we tell. We never know where they’ll take us in the years to come.

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