The Window

The old house at 18 Raven's Way was ordinary at first glance—faded brickwork, crumbling chimney pots, climbing ivy that hugged its shadowed walls—but everyone in the village of Glenholme knew better. They knew about the window.

It was tucked high on the eastern side of the house, visible only when you stood at the edge of the garden and craned your neck upwards. A simple window, eight dusty panes of smudged glass within a splintering wooden frame, yet no one could say what room it belonged to. Within the house, corridors twisted, doors opened into every chamber imaginable, yet none would bring you to that enigmatic window.

On clear nights, the villagers would spot it—at first, an indistinct glow, a smudging of moonlight across the glass, and then, as if summoned from some cursed place, she would appear. Pale, deathly pale, with vacant eyes of smoky glass, staring down with empty patience. Hands pressed to the window, fingertips splayed, as if she longed to push through the glass, to feel the chill air, to reach beyond her prison.

The villagers whispered tales of who she was. Some claimed she was Mary Harcourt, who had vanished in the winter of 1896, taken by illness or perhaps madness. Others said she was Eleanor Blythe, whose husband had returned from war and bricked up her chamber in rage and grief, sentencing her to slowly fade away. Whatever her name, she never spoke. She merely stared, watching.

The house had remained empty for decades until Lily Randall, recently deserted and desperate to escape her heartbreak, bought it at auction, cheap and unseen.

At first, Lily loved the solitude. But soon she sensed something wrong. At night, a gentle tapping, like impatient scratching against glass, whispered from somewhere deep within the walls. Every morning, Lily would search, growing more frustrated, unable to pinpoint the source. The house itself seemed to shift. Doors opened into wrong rooms, corridors twisted back upon themselves, and whispers drifted from empty corners.

Then she heard the village talk. A child pointed up at the window one morning as Lily returned from the shops. The girl shivered, clutching her mother’s skirt, “She was there again last night, Mummy.”

Lily's heart stilled. “Who was?” she asked softly.

“The pale lady in the window,” the girl replied, her voice a trembling whisper, her eyes wide and frightened. “She watches.”

That night, Lily stood at the edge of the garden and gazed up. Moonlight flooded the window, and just as she began to believe the tales were nonsense, a figure slowly emerged, like ink seeping through water.

Pale skin shone unnaturally bright against dark, tangled hair, and eyes, milky and devoid of life, stared down at Lily. The apparition pressed delicate hands to the glass, mouth moving silently. A message never heard. Lily backed away in horror, a coldness gripping her bones.

Desperation drove her. Night after night, she tore through every room, every cupboard, every hidden alcove. Finally, in the dead of night, a scraping sound called her to the attic. As she climbed the narrow ladder, her breath fogged the air, her heartbeat a frantic drum.

Dust lay thick, disturbed by faint footprints that were not her own. She stumbled toward the eastern wall, already knowing — though she could not have said how — that this was where it ended. She stared, then tore at the layers of rotten wallpaper. Her fingers bled as nails caught the brittle plaster, and with each strip she pulled away, the faint scraping sound returned, closer now, as if it came from just beyond. Slowly, a crude doorway emerged, bricked over and sealed.

She became manic, unthinking as she clawed at the crumbling mortar, brick by brick. Hands trembling, nails torn from her bleeding fingers, and her breath clouding before her eyes, the final bricks fell away, revealing a chamber lit by the same cold light that washed the window.

A small, decaying room greeted her, empty but for an overturned wooden chair and a shattered mirror. In the far wall, the mysterious window, smudged with the pale imprints of desperate hands, overlooked the garden.

But the room was empty.

“Lily,” whispered a voice colder than ice. She spun around. Behind her stood the pale woman, her face inches from Lily’s, her eyes endless voids. Her form shimmered like frost upon glass.

“It’s thinning,” the apparition breathed, her fingers extending toward Lily’s trembling chest. “Please…”

Lily screamed and turned to flee, but the doorway was gone—only a bare wall remained. She spun around again, frantic, but found herself alone, the room empty once more, the apparition vanished.

She pounded against the glass, silently screaming—and for a heartbeat, something moved beyond it. Not the garden. Something vast, and wrong.
She froze.
Then, slowly, her hands stilled against the pane.

Below, in the garden, the villagers gathered, watching her from afar, their faces white with fear.

“Look,” one whispered to another, voice trembling. “There she is again...”

“Has her face changed?”

Winter's Daughter

There is a girl inside the glass,
born from breath and frost,
a whisper of a soul
the winter nearly lost.

Her eyes hold secrets
of worlds beneath snow,
memories she longs
for someone else to know.

Her fingers trace patterns
of lace upon the pane,
calling for the spring
she’s destined not to gain.

I passed her once in December,
beneath pale moon's sway,
caught a glimpse, held still—
unable to look away.

She held my gaze
like frost holds the trees,
a face not frightening—
just loneliness
frozen in place.

I raised my hand
to meet hers, trembling,
skin touching ice,
heat stolen, exchanged.

And in that moment,
I understood:
she isn't trapped behind the window—
she's holding it closed.

Guarding us
from the true horror
behind her.