The first knock on the door seemed normal. Just a neighbor, right? But as more people showed up at our housewarming party, something felt… off. Every single guest was wearing the same red gloves. They looked innocent, but something about them gave me chills.
You know that feeling when everything in life seems perfect? That’s how Regina and I felt when we bought our dream home. It was a stunning Victorian villa in a charming neighborhood with tall trees, pretty houses, and friendly neighbors. We thought we’d found our perfect place to start this new chapter. We were wrong.
Our new house looked like it belonged in a fairy tale. We were so excited to host our new neighbors. “Gabby, can you get the cheese platter from the kitchen?” Regina called, already setting up the living room.
“Coming, babe!” I shouted back, grabbing the platter with one hand and balancing a tray of drinks in the other. My heart was racing with excitement. Everything was going smoothly.
“This is going to be perfect,” Regina said, giving me a bright smile and squeezing my arm. “Our own house, in such a great neighborhood!”
The doorbell rang, and we both looked at each other, giddy with excitement. It was our first guest.
At first, the party was great. The house was filled with laughter, chatter, and the clinking of glasses. Everyone seemed to be getting along. Mrs. Harper, the sweet elderly woman from next door, came up to us with a warm smile.
“You’re going to love it here,” she said kindly. “We’re a close-knit community. Just wait and see.”
I smiled back. “We already feel at home,” I said, but then I noticed something weird.
Everyone was wearing red gloves.
I nudged Regina and whispered, “Why is everyone wearing gloves? And why are they all red?”
She frowned and looked around. “Weird. Maybe it’s a local thing?”
“In July?” I pointed out. “It’s the middle of summer.”
As more guests arrived, the feeling of unease grew stronger. Nobody took off their gloves—not to eat, drink, or shake hands. It was unsettling. Finally, curiosity got the best of me, and I decided to ask Mrs. Harper.
“Those are some interesting gloves, Mrs. Harper,” I said, trying to sound casual. “Is there a special reason everyone’s wearing them?”
For a second, she looked uncomfortable. Her smile slipped, but she quickly regained it. “Oh, the gloves? It’s just… a little neighborhood tradition. You’ll get used to it.”
“A tradition?” I asked, pushing a little. “What’s it for?”
She glanced around nervously before answering, “Let’s just say it’s something we all agreed on a long time ago. You’ll understand soon enough.”
“But why red? And why gloves?” I pressed.
Her eyes darted around the room before she replied, “All in good time, Gabriel. Now, why don’t you check on your other guests?”
With that, she hurried off, leaving me more confused than ever.
By the end of the night, Regina and I were both on edge. “Did you notice how no one explained the gloves?” she asked as we cleaned up.
“I did,” I replied. “And they never took them off, not even once.”
The next morning, while cleaning up, Regina found a small note under our door. Her face went pale as she read it aloud.
“Welcome to the neighborhood. Don’t forget your red gloves. You’ll need them soon.”
“What does that mean?” Regina gasped, clutching the note in her hand.
I stared at it, my mind spinning. “I don’t know. But something isn’t right here.”
Over the next few days, our neighbors subtly pressured us to get red gloves. They acted like it was the most normal thing in the world, but the constant suggestions made us uneasy. Then, one morning, Mrs. Harper stopped me as I was getting the mail. Her expression was serious.
“The gloves aren’t just a tradition,” she said quietly. “They protect you from the Hand of the Forgotten—the spirit that haunts this land.”
I blinked, not believing what I was hearing. “A spirit? You’re joking, right?”
Her face was deadly serious. “Ignore it if you want, Gabriel, but don’t wait too long to get your gloves. You’ve been warned.”
She walked away, leaving me standing there in disbelief. That night, I told Regina what Mrs. Harper had said. We both laughed, calling it a silly small-town superstition. But then strange things started happening.
It began with little things—tools in the garden moved around, strange symbols scratched into the dirt outside our house. Then, we heard whispers and footsteps outside our windows at night. It was creepy, but we tried to stay logical, brushing it off.
One morning, Regina called me into the backyard, her voice shaky. “Gabby, look at this.”
In the dirt was a crude drawing of a hand with long, spindly fingers.
“I didn’t do this,” I said, feeling a shiver run down my spine.
“Neither did I,” she replied, her voice trembling. “What if Mrs. Harper was right?”
The final straw came when we found a small, red-gloved voodoo doll on our porch. We stared at it, speechless, a chill running through both of us.
“That’s it,” I said, my voice firm. “We need answers.”
We decided to call a meeting with our neighbors. Our living room filled up with people, and to no surprise, they were all still wearing those red gloves. I took a deep breath and spoke up.
“Okay, what’s going on? Why is everyone wearing these gloves? And what’s with the creepy stuff happening around our house?”
To our shock, the room burst into laughter. Mrs. Harper, laughing the hardest, stepped forward, still grinning.
“Oh, Gabriel, Regina,” she said between chuckles. “It’s time we told you the truth.”
She explained that the gloves, the ghost story, and all the strange things that had happened were part of an elaborate neighborhood prank—a tradition to welcome new residents and test how well they could handle it. “You both passed with flying colors!” she added, still beaming.
Regina and I stood there, stunned. Slowly, as the truth sank in, we started laughing with them.
“So… this was all just a prank?” I asked, shaking my head in disbelief.
“Exactly!” Mr. Richards, another neighbor, chimed in. “It’s a tradition. Every new couple gets the same treatment. And you two handled it like pros.”
A few weeks later, Regina and I decided it was time to get even—in a fun way. We hosted another party, but this time we planted fake bugs around the house. As the night went on, our guests started finding them, jumping and shrieking with laughter.
“You two are something else!” Mrs. Harper said, pulling a plastic spider from her napkin. “I knew you’d fit right in.”
Just like that, we became part of the community. As the last guest left, Mrs. Harper smiled warmly and said, “You’re going to love it here. Welcome to the neighborhood—for real this time.”
As we closed the door, Regina leaned into me and smiled. “I think we’re going to be very happy here,” she said with a contented sigh.
“Me too,” I replied, pulling her close. “But next time, we’ll ask about the neighborhood traditions before we move in!”
