We Used to Live Here

We Used to Live Here (published in novel form in 2024) is a psychological thriller/horror novel written by Marcus Kliewer. His debut work, the novel began as a short story posted in installments on Reddit, where it was celebrated and received the Scariest Story of 2021 award on the Reddit forum. The novel follows protagonist Eve as she confronts the challenges of staying authentic despite the unreliability of memories and perception.

This guide refers to the 2024 Emily Bestler Books hardcover edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide contain graphic depictions of violence and present mental health conditions through a stereotyped and exaggerated lens. In addition, the source text uses outdated and offensive terms for mental health conditions, replicated in this guide only in direct quotes.

Plot Summary

Eve and her girlfriend, Charlie, have moved into a house in a Pacific Northwest forest with their dog, Shylo. Eve experiences paranoia, which she names Mo after her childhood chimp-with-cymbals toy. One night while Charlie is out, a family arrives at the door. The father, Thomas Faust, says he grew up in the house, and Eve invites him, his wife (Paige), and their three children (Kai, Newton, and Jenny) inside. Thomas shows the family around, clearly having been there before. Eve follows, noting the circle with intersecting lines that Thomas’s “sister” Alison drew on the wall as a child. Jenny uses the dumbwaiter to sneak down to the basement and hide, and Paige insists that Thomas look for her. Eve finds him in a basement corridor, standing with his flashlight down, not moving and unresponsive. Eventually regaining consciousness, he finds Jenny in a nook, but she refuses to come out, and he suggests that they wait upstairs. When Charlie returns, she’s surprised to see the family but invites them to stay for dinner. Dinner is awkward. Jenny finally reappears, and the family prepares to leave after dinner. However, a weather alert notes that the only bridge out of the area is closed. Eve and Charlie must let them stay overnight, and they send them upstairs so that they can talk privately.

Eve notices that Charlie is wearing a new locket. Charlie opens it to reveal Eve’s photo. Shylo starts growling at the door, and Eve and Charlie see that it’s open and Thomas is standing outside in the cold, holding himself and crying. Charlie assumes he was sleepwalking and doesn’t think much of it. Thomas tells them that his parents attributed his nightmares and sleepwalking to demons and that Alison started to think that everything in the house—and eventually her entire reality—was shifting to another timeline. That night, Eve has a nightmare warning that the family won’t ever leave. Awaking irritated, she thinks she hears Jenny in the basement. Downstairs, she finds a ghost-like figure that grows to six feet before her eyes. She wakes Charlie, but she doesn’t think Eve saw anything.

The next morning, Charlie is gone when Eve wakes. She goes downstairs and asks why the family is still there and Charlie isn’t, and when she looks for her phone, it’s missing. She finds Charlie’s locket hanging over the fireplace and decides she must use a neighbor’s phone. As she walks with Shylo to the nearest house, she senses that something is horribly wrong. She’s far from help, and the neighbor’s address is different than what she remembers. Eve rings the bell. Nobody answers, but a woman named Heather appears behind her. She seems friendly and lets Eve inside to use the phone, insisting that she stay for tea. Eve calls Charlie, but she sounds muffled and unintelligible.

Eve asks Heather about Thomas and the house, and Heather reveals that she used to babysit him, that the house is ancient, and that all the records for it were stolen several years ago. Heather explains that Alison wandered in from the woods, and no one knew where she came from; she lived with the Faust family for a few years before violently stabbing Thomas one night. She was then sent to a psychiatric hospital. Eve notices a toy that looks almost like her chimp, Mo, and takes it as a sign that she should leave. Near her house, she sees that the family’s moving truck is still there and has footprints around it. Certain she sees a person running into the woods, she follows but reaches the end of the tracks and sees no one. Shylo finds an old cabin and runs inside, and Eve follows. Inside are documents and blueprints, likely the ones Heather mentioned. An elderly man appears, urging her to get the family out of her house, and Eve leaves, terrified.

When Eve gets home, the door is locked, and she doesn’t have her key. Thomas lets her in, apologizing, and Eve bursts inside, insisting that he and his family leave immediately. She goes to the attic to find tire chains so that he has no excuse to stay and also finds an old box of Charlie’s photos and a camera. However, the box is labeled “Charlotte,” implying that it isn’t the same Charlie that Eve knows. Looking outside, she sees Thomas hitting himself and apparently in pain. A message on the windowsill warns her about being in Old House. Again, the tall, ghostly figure confronts her, and this time it appears to be a girl who is dead but still somehow alive. It starts approaching Eve, and she screams when she realizes that the attic door is shut. Someone opens it, and she goes crashing down, hitting her head. She wakes with a headache, and Paige says she passed out. Eve insists that she saw an intruder in the attic, possibly Alison, but Thomas finds nothing. Eve feels like Thomas is lying and then hears her phone ringing upstairs. Going after it, she finds it in Kai’s hand. When she tries to take it, he resists, and a tussle ensues. Shylo defends her by biting Kai’s leg, and Eve grabs the phone. When Paige and Thomas come in, they’re horrified to see Eve with Kai’s phone in her hand, but Eve was certain it was hers. The family leaves, but Eve no longer feels safe in the house and knows she must leave.

Eve walks down the road and sees Charlie talking to Thomas. After Thomas finally drives away, Eve runs up to the truck and tells Charlie they need to leave the house immediately. Charlie, whom she suspects Thomas lied to, doubts Eve’s claims but takes her to a motel nearby. At the motel, Eve feels like Charlie isn’t the person she knew, and a voice tells her that she’s an imposter. In the middle of the night, Charlie’s phone rings, and when Eve answers, it sounds like Charlie on the other end, telling her that the one in the motel room isn’t real. Panicking, she takes the keys and leaves in the truck, determined to save Charlie. When she stops at a gas station, a police officer notices her disheveled appearance. He questions her about drugs and whether she has slept, but Eve convinces him she’s okay. Against her intuition, she returns to Old House to find Charlie.

The power is out, and she hears a voice that sounds like Charlie’s. In Alison’s old bedroom, she sees Alison’s ghost holding a hammer. The doors and windows won’t open, so Eve runs to the basement, following a narrow corridor to a room filled with paintings and photos. In the photos of Alison with her family, none contain Thomas. Eve sees hundreds of ants going toward a hospital entrance; inside, they swarm, consuming a version of Charlie. Turning to run, Eve sees Alison and hides in a wardrobe, where she sees mental images of Alison’s life, showing that Thomas replaced her and she was taken to a hospital. Thomas appears but finds nothing and leaves. Picking up the hammer, Eve slowly walks upstairs. The living room looks different. Thomas calls Eve “Emma” and tells her she’s his sister and struggles with her mental health. He insists that she have dinner with the family, and she plays along, hoping to escape. Thomas says “Emma” is no longer welcome to live with the family, but Eve pays little attention, focused on Charlie’s locket, which Paige is wearing. Holding a corkscrew to Paige’s neck, Eve demands to know what’s going on. They stab each other, and Paige dies. Eve runs to Alison’s bedroom, but Thomas follows, and they brutally attack one another. Two police officers arrive, arresting Eve. During her interrogation, Eve insists that she’s living some other life and that her name isn’t Emma. The officer tells her that no record exists of the life or people she describes, and Eve realizes that she’s stuck in a different timeline.

Eve writes from a psychiatric hospital about her life. She uses her 10 minutes of internet time each day to research strange phenomena that might explain her experiences. She puts all her efforts into healing and trying to find a way to be released, and she has nearly given up hope of finding the real Charlie or her old life. When Thomas visits one day, he returns Charlie’s locket to her, complete with Eve’s photo inside. The gesture confirms that Eve really is trapped and that her previous life did exist. The real Charlie still looks for Eve.