The Mystery of the Semi-Detatched by Edith Nesbit

The Mystery of the Semi-Detached by Edith Nesbit
Listen to even more! Sign up for the newsletter for direct access to our full archive, member-only ad-free stories, and literary discussions at https://www.classicghost.com
Or simply buy me a coffee to say ta! https://www.buymeacoffee.com/10MN8Sk

A young man waits in a suburban lane for his sweetheart. She doesn't come. Walking home past her house, he finds the front door standing open, the windows dark. He goes in. He goes upstairs. He strikes a match.

The next morning she is perfectly well, and the room he entered was locked all night, the key in her pocket.

But the almanack on the mantelpiece read the 21st of October. And it was May.

---

*"The Mystery of the Semi-Detached"* was first published in Edith Nesbit's collection *Grim Tales* in 1893.

Edith Nesbit (1858–1924) is best remembered today as the author of *The Railway Children* and *Five Children and It*, but she was also a prolific and accomplished writer of supernatural fiction, whose ghost stories combine suburban ordinariness with genuine dread to unsettling effect.