The Borrowed Sky

This happened six years ago, when I was sixteen, in the dusty attic of my aunt’s farmhouse in the middle of a heatwave. I was up there looking for a box fan my uncle swore he kept, rummaging through old trunks and cardboard boxes, when a chill crept up my spine, despite the sweltering heat. I froze, my hand on a stack of yellowed newspapers, and I felt a presence. It was like the air itself thickened, and the light through the one small window seemed to dim. I looked up, and through that window, I saw a figure. It was tall, impossibly tall, with a head that brushed the top of the frame, and its body was a void, a blackness so deep it seemed to swallow the summer light. It moved past the window with a slow, deliberate stride, and then it was gone.

My first thought was my uncle, who is a large man, but this was taller, and the way it moved was too fluid, too smooth. I ran to the other window on the opposite wall, but I only saw the empty field and the line of trees at the edge. The feeling vanished, leaving me dizzy and drenched in sweat. I told my aunt about it later, but she just laughed and said it was the heat playing tricks on me. That night, though, I couldn’t sleep. I got up, found a flashlight, and went outside to measure the window. I stood on a crate and checked the height: the top was just over six feet. The figure’s head had been level with it, meaning it was at least six and a half feet tall, but it had been so thin, like a scarecrow stretched too far.

I shrugged it off and tried to forget, but over the next week, I noticed things. The dogs would bark at nothing, and the horses in the pasture would spook and run to the far fence. I started seeing the figure out of the corner of my eye, always near windows, always at dusk or in the deep shade. Once, I saw it standing by the barn, and when I turned to look directly, it was gone. I felt a growing unease, a sense that I was being watched, but I told myself it was my imagination.

Then, one afternoon, my cousin came to stay for a few days. We were in the living room, watching TV, and she suddenly clutched my arm and pointed at the big picture window. ‘Who is that?’ she whispered. I looked, and the figure was there, right outside, its head level with the top of the window, its body a silhouette against the bright afternoon. It was just standing there, not moving. And then, slowly, it raised one long arm and pointed at us. My cousin screamed, and the figure vanished. I looked at her, and her face was white. She had seen it too.

That evening, we questioned my uncle and aunt. They became serious, and my uncle finally admitted that strange things had been happening on the farm for months. He said the animals had been restless, and he’d found strange tracks in the fields, like nothing he’d ever seen. He showed us an old journal from his grandfather, who had written about a ‘tall dark thing’ that haunted the property during the summer of 1934. It would appear near windows, and it was said to ‘steal the sky,’ causing sudden drops in temperature and a sense of dread. The journal said it was a ‘hungry spirit’ that fed on fear.

My cousin and I were terrified. We refused to stay alone, but that night, I woke to a sound outside my bedroom window. It was a low, almost imperceptible hum. I crept to the window and peeked through the curtains. The figure was there, its head level with the window, its face a void. It raised a hand, and I saw that its fingers were too long, with too many joints. It touched the glass, and a crack spiderwebbed across the pane. I stumbled back, and the humming grew louder, like a swarm of bees. I looked out again, and the figure was gone, but the window was cracked, and the room was freezing.

The next day, I decided I had to confront it. I knew it was drawn to windows, to looking in, to being seen. I planned to go to the attic, to the spot where I’d first seen it, and to wait with a camera. I told my cousin, and she begged me not to, but I was determined. That afternoon, I climbed the attic stairs, my heart pounding. The attic was stifling, but I felt a chill as I approached the window. I positioned myself to the side, ready to snap a photo. I waited for what felt like hours. The sun began to set, casting long shadows. Then, I saw it. The figure stepped out from behind the chimney, and it walked directly toward the window. I raised the camera, but as it got closer, the glass began to frost. The figure stopped right outside, its head level with the top, and it turned its face toward me. I saw that where its eyes should be, there were two darker voids, like holes in the universe.

I took the photo, and the flash went off. The figure didn’t flinch. Instead, it seemed to smile—a wrong, toothless horror. I looked at the camera screen, and the image showed only a blur of black, but behind me, in the reflection of the window, I saw something worse: my own silhouette, but with my arms too long and my head too high, like I was being stretched. I dropped the camera and ran down the stairs, tripping and tumbling to the bottom. When I got up, I looked back, and the figure was gone.

I never saw the figure again, but ever since that day, I’ve had a fear of windows. I can’t look out of one without feeling that something might be looking back. And sometimes, late at night, I see strange movements in the reflection, and I worry that I brought something back with me, something that now lives in my own reflection. The camera’s photo was useless, just a black blur, but I kept it. On the back, I wrote a note: ‘He was here. He saw me. He borrowed my sky.’