At the perimeter of the haunted house the air congeals into its own personal front. If pressed one could not pinpoint the cause; not the dead grass nor the crumbling facade could permeate so heavily in the air on its own property and nowhere else. No, when one steps across the threshold, across the gap in the fence-mouth where the gate has long fallen off to rust in the weeds, nothing comes into view to explain the thin film that passes over one's shoulders, the vaguely musty feeling, the thin film of stuffiness, that remains unmoved by otherwise prevailing winds.

Nearing the door of the haunted house, one can hear clinking as the jar-headed women knock their heads against the walls. Even when the wind howls, and the trees shake their leaves, the sound of the glass always rises just above the noise. It only grows louder by a fraction from the outside when the front door on the left (the right has rusted shut) drawls and hangs open with minimal complaint.

Inside the haunted house the sound of hanging chimes in the eastern wing faintly jangles in the air as the women walk past, forming a chorus with the clink clink they were added to drown out. The flap of heavy curtains at the windows and clunk of shoes down the hallways keep the soundscape from becoming too high or too thin, and distant shhhhk scrapes near the floorboards fill any lulls from deeper inside the house. A more sensitive ear may, if only for a moment and then just barely so, pick up on the steady tide of drawing breath.

The sounds fill in where vision fails. Around the house approaching sunlight becomes watery, even on cloudless days, even in the heady torpor of summer. The sun at its fiercest cannot pierce the windows and doors at full strength; spears of light become feeble dowels poking at the curtains. Warmth simply sloughs off of the house's exterior, and the insides are painted only with a bluish tint of light, when the light manages to slide into the house at all. Inside is a catalog of things only half-seen, only tripped upon, only heard. Shhhk.

When walking through those dusky hallways, hand on the wall as guidance, one's fingers may catch on wallpaper curling outward, brittle and holding the barest hint of stick. The furniture in rooms beyond also hopes to hold onto exploring hands, meeting grooves of skin with wood grain, and latching on with splinters, dust and old varnish. It is their way of grasping at finality, carried away in slivers before the attrition of time painstakingly devours the rest.

The jar-headed women heed no sense of time when they shuffle about in threadbare shoes that slowly wear down the floorboards. They walk in circuits, etching rooms yet unseen by visitors, creating their own record. The web of paths reaches every corner of the house, dulling what remains of the hardwood's foregone shine.

Other living creatures are scant. Even the insects are few and far between, save for a cadre of moths that dutifully works at the upholstery. Their beating wings are scarcely audible above the breathing, unless one witnesses the rare occasion in which a moth finds itself dully beating against the windowpane. 

In the silence it becomes worth wondering why one would come by to the haunted house. No adventurer has ever suffered injury there (save for splinters, and limbs banged up by knocking into furniture). No valuables lay about– the fixtures are all tin and dull iron. The figures react to nothing and to no one.

You may know better than that, considering the most recent visit.

Can you recall it? Do you remember the air in that house? The dust motes fluttered away with every breath you took, and then danced back into your lungs, so eager to cling to the interloper's vitality. You could have sucked the deadness out of the halls like a drink through a straw, if you breathed there long enough.

But you would not have lingered there if not for the boots.  

The sound was irresistible, wasn't it? No one has ever found the owner of the boots– the heaviest pair of shoes wandering the house, distinguished by its deeper timbre. The hallways twist and turn and adventurers become discouraged or simply bored before they ever get close enough to see what they hear. The jar-headed women gather in the thickest crowds there besides, and while some have attempted to nudge them aside, none have ever ventured further.

That is, until you discovered that with the heavy fireplace poker, tucked in the recesses of the parlor couch, you could smash the glass of the jars. 

Then you heard the resulting sound. Then you learned what a jar-headed woman is without the jar. 

You heard the sound of the boots stop for the first time.

Do you regret your choice now? Would you have still pursued the boots if you truly knew their source? Would you have still made your choices if you had known the sound of them approaching with purpose? Those forceful footfalls, nearing you with a–

Thunk. The boots-owner turns the corner and slips through the crowd of jar-headed women like water, toward the scream-roar rising from the woman without a jar, crumpled over the hardwood. 

They fall beside her in a heap of clothing– black, perhaps, if faded with age. With one gloved hand they caress the woman without a jar, stroking tenderly along her jaw. In the other is a pontil rod: a tool of plain iron, distinguished by its glowing tip encased in molten glass, in this instance precariously drooping floorward. Halted in place to match its owner's stare, as they turn to you.

The fireplace poker is your cold reply, lifted slightly, unsteadily. Unwise.

The glassblower slides their hand from the woman's face. Slowly rises to full height. The moment sags.

En garde.

The boots and the pontil matter none, as in the moment that follows the glassblower lunges forward nearly weightlessly, sending the falling dust motes spiraling outward. Taking a step back– to steady yourself? to engage in flight in return?– only softens your blow against the wall. The wallpaper cracks and crumbles dustlike behind your head. 

Weakly lifting the poker only prompts the glassblower to wrench it aside with their pontil, its light etching valleys of shadow across the planes of their face. You raise your hands, half defense, half plea. The glassblower leans in; the heat radiating off their body warps the air between you. 

Beads of glass seep through the leather of their gloves, and weep down their hand onto the rod. You catch a faint flash of gritted teeth. 

Your poker slips between your fingers and clatters onto the floor. 

The glassblower shoves forward and knocks you against the wall by the shoulder, one, two.

The floorboards feebly cradle your slumping body. 

You glimpse little about you– perhaps a result of failing vision, or perhaps exhaustion, or perhaps the dark– except for a faint glow as molten glass winds around the base of the docile woman-without-a-jar's neck. You hear little, except for soft breathing– hers.

The molten glass loses color between your fluttering eyelids. Dust falls. The chimes sound distantly. The jar-headed women shuffle on. 

The boots remain silent as your eyelids strain shut, and the haunted house returns to a hush.