Welcome back to Scare Me! a weekly horror newsletter. Today, I’m reminiscing about an experience I still can’t explain.

When I lived on the East Coast, I never experienced anything paranormal.

Not while roaming the campus of my historic Virginia university. Not on the Civil War battlefields buried beneath parking lots and strip malls. Not sober or stoned, asleep or awake, at midnight or noon.

Not ever.

I live on the West Coast now, and things have changed.

I’ve had a total of three paranormal experiences in my life—or at least, experiences I really can’t explain. Each has embodied a different sense. The first time I told a ghost story in this newsletter, I told you about an inexplicable sound I heard while on a reporting trip in the Arizona desert.

Today, I want to share a story about the time something reached out and touched me.

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In August 2022, Jack and I packed up the Prius, lured Kira Cat into a spacious dog crate, and left Virginia for good. We merged onto the highway and drove through Pennsylvania’s gloomy, rain-dampened hills, Indiana’s lush green fields, and Wisconsin’s cranberry bogs and human-sized cheese statues. Our destination was a small apartment we’d rented in Bremerton, Washington—sight unseen.

Four days later, we pulled into a quiet parking lot where shadows shifted in the bright summer sun. Sure, there were hypodermic needles in dry grass and a looming, empty building near the dumpster. But the rent was cheaper than Virginia, even for a two-bedroom. We’d spent the entire pandemic quarantining in a tiny space. The empty apartment felt like freedom.

Nothing felt strange at first. But as the days grew darker and shorter, I began to catch an occasional flicker in the corner of my eye. The front door opened into a living room and a small dining area, with a hallway leading back to the bathroom and two bedrooms. The kitchen was in the middle of the apartment, along the right side.

When I rummaged in the refrigerator while cooking dinner, I could have sworn someone stood in that darkened hallway, observing me.

It was always empty by the time I looked up.

We’d never had a second bedroom before, and the novelty honestly still hasn’t worn off. The spare room quickly took on multiple functions. Two wire shelves held boxes we left sealed and packed, ready for our next move when the lease was up. Jack’s desk was pushed up against the window, next to a treadmill that was tucked out of sight during video calls. Once we closed on our current house, we added a bench for lifting weights. It was crowded, but it wouldn’t be long before we’d have space for it.

That winter, I fell into the deepest, darkest depression of my life. I felt like a bear in hibernation, sluggish and unused to the Pacific Northwest’s short daylight hours. As the summer sun finally returned to burn away my mental cobwebs, I started to fall back into an exercise routine. That’s how I ended up on the weight bench on the afternoon it happened.

But first, I need to tell you one more thing: We adopted a second cat while we were in Bremerton. Kira’s new friend was a funny black kitten we bussed up from Houston. We named him Mads.

I was taking a break between sets when I felt one of the cats brush up against my leg. If you have cats, you know exactly what this feels like: a head bump that transfers their scent to your skin, the gentle press of a soft, furry body. I absent-mindedly dropped my hand down to offer a skritch.

My fingers closed on nothing.

I put my phone down, confused, and looked around. I didn’t usually leave the door open while working out, but I was wrapping up. The room was empty. Maybe the cat had just left?

I yanked my headphones out and drifted down the hallway to where Jack was relaxing in the living room. “Hey,” I said. “Was one of the cats just in the spare bedroom?”

Jack shook his head. “They’ve been here with me. Why?”

I looked at Kira and Mads, confused. They were both sleeping—had obviously been sleeping. They didn’t even stir when I entered the room.

What the hell brushed up against me?

I’ve thought of a few possible explanations, in all the years since. I’m not sure if I’ve admitted this before, but I’m enamored with the idea that we live in a stack of realities, all pressed up against each other, so thin that they share the same space. Maybe every once in a while, a cat can slip through, weaving in and out at its leisure. If any animal could do that, it’d be a cat. Right?

And maybe in that other reality, there’s a person wondering how a cat can disappear in a two-bedroom apartment. And then the cat is back so fast that, actually, it must have been in a closet or under the bed or on top of the refrigerator all along.

That’s the explanation I like best.

But I’ve had other thoughts, too. Maybe the apartment was older than it looked. The fresh paint and wood-looking vinyl flooring might have hidden a few decades of history. Other tenants. Other cats.

For all its flaws—the leaky windows, the noisy convenience store next door, the occasional violence that brought cop cars screaming down the road—I can understand being attached to that apartment. Because it also had late summer afternoons when the air was bright and clear, the swaying shadows of leaves, and fat squirrels who peered curiously through our windows.

I can understand how it’d be hard to leave that behind, even if you’re gone.

There’s only one explanation that I really, really hope isn’t true: that the person I sensed in the corner of my vision and the cat I felt brush up against me were stuck in that apartment because they were looking for each other. And they stayed because the cosmic slippage put them on different planes, never quite able to connect.

If that was the case, I hope they eventually found a way back together. If it was me, I’d stick around as long as it took, until I found my cats again.

Next week, we’re finally back in Interview Land! We’ll be speaking with Molly Hottle, a self-described stitch bitch who runs Seattle Chainstitch Massacre. From embroidering aliens to queering vintage FBI merch, Molly is determined to keep the craft of chainstitch alive. We talked about her own horror history, our shared love of X Files, and more.

After that, my friend and perfume correspondent Sophie Desmond will be back with a dispatch from Widow’s Bay!

Scare Me! is a free weekly horror newsletter published every Thursday morning. It’s written by Michelle Delgado, featuring original illustrations by Sam Pugh. You can find the archive of past issues here. If you were sent this by a friend, subscribe to receive more spooky interviews, essays—and maybe even a ghost story or two.