The Unhaunting

by Micaiah Johnson

Genres: General Fiction; Horror; Gothic; Thrillers; Supernatural suspense

Synopsis

Award-winning author Micaiah Johnson invites you to Abernathy House.

"You’ve never seen a haunted house like this one before.” —Kylie Lee Baker, USA Today bestselling author of Japanese Gothic

A house, itself, is nothing. It’s not a shelter until it is sheltering someone. A house is a housefire, waiting for its match. A house is a ghost story, waiting for its death.

At the end of the Civil War, a daughter of the Confederacy made what she thought was an innocent wish: to build a house where nothing bad could happen. But peace came at a price, and one hundred and seventy years later Shantell and her friends are about to discover where all that darkness ended up.

When Shantell’s best friend, Avery, tells her he has inherited a house big enough to make their dreams of a sanctuary come true, she’s too cautious to be optimistic. A lifetime of loss — her father to the Iraq war, her brother to police violence, and her mother to suicide — has taught her cynicism, and even though Avery swears the house has never experienced a tragedy, she goes along expecting everything from black mold to evil spirits.

But not only is the house in better shape than they’d expected, it makes them better too: Shantell’s anxiety stops flaring up; terminally shallow Avery is suddenly capable of deeper emotions; and Tobias, Avery’s older brother and the contractor for the job, even quits chain smoking.

There’s an eeriness to the calm, and it’s almost a relief when they realize they do not walk alone in Abernathy House. If nothing bad has ever happened here, where are all these ghosts coming from? As they dig into the house’s history, Shantell, Avery, and Tobias discover that there’s only one thing worse than a house that’s haunted: a house that desperately wants to be.

Release date: September 29, 2026

Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons

Print pages: 288

Sample

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Chapter One

Shantell was a woman now, most of the time. Sometimes she was a lightning rod, a survivor that both attracted and endured the kind of calamity that could melt sand to glass. She had lived like this, letting everything pass through her without leaving a mark, for over thirty years. In addition to her father being killed abroad, the year before she'd left for college her older brother was killed by police-which was a worst-case scenario she had imagined-and then her mother had committed suicide-which was not. All this sorrow struck down, traveling from her head to her toes and leaving her shaken but standing.

When the knock at the door came, she was staring at her luggage, feeling like she was forgetting something even though she'd packed or sold everything she owned.

Avery came in, looking up and down at her overalls and oversized shirt.

"Well . . . you certainly have clothes to work in."

For all Shantell had lost, she'd managed to keep Avery. He was still hers. He'd remained through high school, through moving away for college, and through the many shatterings that lined her path to adulthood. They knew each other like someone knows their favorite jigsaw puzzle or mended clothes or an old recipe. They knew each other like you can only know something whose individual pieces you've held as you put them back into a whole.

"You better have bought some work clothes, too. I know you didn't own any before, and I'm not doing everything myself."

"Of course, of course."

The Abernathy House was a stroke of luck. She'd always known Avery's family had money, in the distant way she'd always known he was a Libra or that he was anemic. Mostly, he seemed to care more about seeming interesting than rich, running around with starving artists and struggling DJs like nothing separated him from them. Finding out he'd been left an entire house when a relative died was an abrupt reminder. For Shantell, death had meant debt. Her father's death had cost them their house in the city, and her mother's funeral had taken two years to pay off. Imagine getting money when you lost someone. She'd be a millionaire.

"Is Emily there?" she asked.

"She couldn't get away just yet, but she'll meet us in a few weeks."

"Has the contractor started?"

"He got there yesterday for setup, but headed back out. He'll be back at the start of next week, though."

"Thank Christ."

Avery waved away her relief. "I still say we would have been fine with your can-do attitude and my construction experience."

This was a settled disagreement between them, so Shantell did not point out that her "can-do attitude" was a generalized anxiety disorder and Avery's "construction experience" was one year of stagecraft before he got bored of trying to seduce amateur actors, neither of which would be enough to restore a house.

He shrugged and picked up one of her bags to carry downstairs. When he paused at the doorway, she nearly ran into him.

"What?" she asked, turning around to see if he'd seen something she'd missed.

"You're leaving. I thought you might want a second. You know, to say goodbye? Mourn?"

Shantell blinked. When she looked over the space she could almost feel it all welling up inside her: the immensity of leaving, the grief of never again seeing this place that had been with her through so much.

"It's fine. Let's go," she said. "The house is waiting."




It started as a joke, an old hymn line Shantell’s grandmother would sing:

That promised land where all is peace.

But as the years passed, she and Avery would talk more frequently about this imagined sanctuary.

Does the promised land have laundry hookups? Because carrying laundry in this wind is going to kill me.

You know what would be a real promised land? A place with no rent.

All would be peace if I could find an apartment that wasn't right next to the loudest train in the city.

They would say it like a joke, the only way you can ever say something you really mean, but slowly it became clear that their many visions of a promised land were congealing into a single image: a house. Some place out of the way, with enough land to grow a little on, but a nearby town they could plug into. A place with extra rooms, where their city-dwelling friends could visit to create and decompress, but only when Avery and Shantell wanted it. Somewhere Shantell could ride out her bouts of anxiety and brushes with agoraphobia, and Avery could fall into his dark depression months without having to perform for either their larger friend group or the hundreds of strangers they'd encounter on the street. Only being seen by someone who already accepted you fully? What could mean "peace" more than that?

Finding out about the inheritance was such good news that it had immediately made Shantell wary. Learning the place hadn't seen repairs in decades, and that it was in the middle of nowhere Mississippi, settled her. If it had been ready-made it would have been too good for her to believe. If she didn't have to sacrifice, work, or pay for it, it would have felt too given for her to accept. But this way-enough difficulty that she could trust it, but enough payout that she would enjoy it-this was the only way it could have been.

"Will your wife want anything to drink?" asked the flight attendant.

She couldn't see Shantell standing behind her, just coming back from the bathroom.

"She'll take an orange juice," Avery said, not correcting the attendant.

He never did. Avery would say it was easier to let the misconception stand than constantly explain their friendship, but Shantell knew the truth: those moments when people thought they were romantically involved were the only times others understood how much they meant to each other. When Emily was around, the problem solved itself. She and Avery looked like a couple, meaning they looked alike in ways that made people want to link them together and guess which shade of blue their children's eyes would be.

Shantell looked down at the champagne glass on his tray table and raised an eyebrow in silent question.

He smiled sideways at her, holding it under her nose. Ginger ale.

"I asked for the glass, said I was feeling festive."

"Are you? Feeling festive?" she asked, reaching for the laptop and headphones she'd tucked into the seat pocket in front of her. She'd downloaded Killer of Sheep for the flight, but she and Avery had been too wrapped up in talking over their plans for the house for her to watch it.

"Of course. It's finally happening," he said. He turned toward her in the seat. "I don't think I've said it yet, but . . . thank you. I know it's a lot for you to consider moving south. Thank you for trusting me to keep you safe."

Avery didn't wait for a response before putting his own headphones on and looking out the window, his fear of heights somehow never bothering him on a plane. He was still smiling as he began to bob his head to the music.

It was a ridiculous thing to say, but Avery was always saying ridiculous things. Of course Shantell didn't trust him to keep her safe. She'd never known safety in the city; she wouldn't know it in the South. This was a story he was telling himself, a story of his own trustworthiness, and of her own ability to hope.

She watched as he began tapping his fingers on his knee rhythmically. She could enjoy him enjoying it, even if she couldn't hear the music. She decided then that she wouldn't correct him.

She went back to watching her movie, where the couple was now dancing to Dinah Washington's "This Bitter Earth." Shantell restarted the scene again and again, trying to understand how something so dark could work as a love song.




The friends had argued about hiring a car every three days for the last month. Shantell said that since there was a car at the house, they should rent a car for a few hours and then drop it back off with one of them following in the house’s car. It would be cheaper than paying for the long drive from the airport to the rural area where the house sat. Avery said the car at the house might be barely running, and there was no rental drop off closer than the airport. It wouldn’t make sense to rent a car, drive it out to the house, just to drive it and the other car back to the rental place and then drive back to the house again to save a few dollars.

Shantell had suggested taking the bus.

Avery had gagged.

So they sat in the back of a black car as they wound into deep Mississippi-Avery staring out the window at the trees, and Shantell imagining a meter racking up an obscene fare.

As the car climbed the short hill of a driveway, the driver let out a low whistle. The house was both bigger than she'd imagined, and exactly what she'd pictured. It was like she'd dreamed it. Three stories of flaking paint, dingy windows, and a wraparound porch whose roof sagged like a soiled mattress. They'd thought they could do this alone? This was the kind of work that required permits, a professional.

"I forgot this house was up here," said the driver as he pulled to a stop.

"Are you from around here?" Avery asked, leaning forward. When the driver nodded, he continued. "I suppose you'd tell me if you'd heard any creepy stories about this place, right? Bloody handprints? Unexplained screams? A history of tragic deaths?"

The driver laughed the way you laugh when someone makes you feel special. Avery was good at making people feel special. It was a warm glow, Avery's attention, but so was a bug zapper.

"No, nothing like that, Mr. Abernathy," the driver said.

"Avery, please," he said, handing over a cash tip. The way he grazed the other man's hand was just long enough to be noticed, but too short to be criticized. The man would remember the moment, would call himself paranoid, but would never forget Avery. No one ever did.

As they exited the car, Avery turned to Shantell.

"See? Perfectly tame," he said, meaning the house. Not himself.

As they lugged their belongings up the porch stairs, Shantell saw it wasn't too bad. The windows were dirty, but not broken. The paint was flaking, but the structure looked intact. What worried her were the moths. Their wings were so thick and gray they almost looked furry, and there were easily two dozen swarming the porch even though the sun was only half-set. Did that mean something was rotting? Do moths eat houses?

"Huh," Avery said.

"What?"

"I just . . . I was sure this place didn't have a porch."

"Is that a problem? Did we factor that into our repair budget?"

"The estimates came from someone who was here, remember? This is a good thing. Don't you like porches?"

"I do," she said.

She couldn't remember telling him that, but like all decades-long friendships, theirs had a mountain of inconsequential conversations about everything from their worst fears to their preferred brand of hot sauce, so it must have come up at some point.

Avery unlocked the door and, finally, they took their first step inside. They noticed, but did not comment on, the soft rush of air that passed them when they did so. Neither remarked on how it sounded like a happy and satisfied sigh.

"Cousin Colton was a big fan of red carpet, huh?"

Every inch of floor was covered in wine-colored carpet, and every inch of wall was covered in duck-hunting wallpaper. Shantell stared at the walls, where ducks of all kinds were illustrated, their names written neatly beneath them, their poses so rigid it was impossible to tell if the creatures were meant to be depicted alive or dead. She supposed it didn't matter, since it was hunter's wallpaper after all. Eventual death would be the goal.

"I don't think he ever set foot in this place after he inherited it. His grandparents outlived his parents, so when they died it passed directly to him, but he had other houses," Avery said, which explained why Colton had left a whole house to a not-very-close cousin, something that had always baffled Shantell. "No, these floors are the octogenarian delights of my great-aunt Sarah. The wallpaper is all Great-Uncle Avery though."

Shantell froze. It all came back: the shed, the ghost, the broken hockey stick tracing letters in the dust. My uncle Avery's not dead.

But Great-Uncle Avery was dead now. And she was in his house.

If I'd had a mouth, I would have smiled.

Hello, Shantell, I would have said. So lovely to finally meet you.




Everyone comes to a house dreaming of what they want to make it. No one ever thinks about what the house already is. No one ever cares what the house already wants.

A century and a half ago, someone else came to this same land in search of their dream. The idea of home ownership being core to the American Dream as displayed on television, in novels, and in postwar propaganda had not yet been born-the television hadn't been invented, the novel was young and sentimental, and this postwar was called postbellum-but it was a dream and she was American.

That last part is important, because it meant that she had lost a war. So she came, desperate, scared, and American-meaning defeated-to build a home.

I have heard stories from the West, of a woman so scared of the ghosts her father had made that she built a house that was labyrinth, but I didn't know that woman and I don't know those ghosts, so I can't say if those stories are true. But I knew Adelicia-Adele-and that wasn't her. She wasn't afraid of ghosts or plagued by guilt. Adele didn't build to make amends. She built because she was a good person who deserved a safe house.

This is what she'd tried to explain to those who'd chased her off her husband's property. Yes, there would be documents saying she owned people, but that had been her father's doing to ensure she would be an attractive marriage candidate to the right kind of man. Her husband had been enthusiastic in his position as slave owner, but behind his back she'd read Child's "The Quadroons" and had even once had dinner with Harriet Beecher Stowe.

The most important thing, the thing that drove her to this land but the thing no one seemed to understand, was that she had suffered, too. Hadn't her father shown just as little love for his disappointing female heir as he had the people he branded for insubordination? Hadn't her husband beat her nearly as often as he had those in the field? Hadn't her husband practically done to her what he'd done to those girls in sheds and, as he grew bolder, in her own pantry? And while she'd never intervened on their behalf, she hadn't ordered it, hadn't jealously picked girls too beautiful to live undestroyed and delivered them to him, as some of her friends had.