The Eighth Window

Ever since I turned six, I’ve been counting the windows in my bedroom like other kids count sheep. There are eight, all of them looking out onto the deep, pine-choked valley that surrounds our house. But it’s the eighth window, the one closest to my bed, that has always felt different. It doesn’t face the valley; it faces a sheer rock face, close enough that on a clear day I can trace the moss veins in the granite. And every night, just after the last light fades, I see him—a tall, thin man made of smoke and shadow, standing on that rock face, just outside the pane. He has no face, but he has a cigarette, and the ember glows like a small, patient eye.

I never screamed or woke my parents. He was just there, like the moon or the wind, part of the dark. But last November, on the night of my tenth birthday, I woke to find him not on the rock, but inside my room, standing directly over my bed, the ember of his cigarette a hand’s breadth from my face. The smoke from it curled not upward, but sideways, as if it were searching for a way into my lungs. I did the only thing I could think of: I called for my mom.

My mother, Elena, came in, her robe clutched around her, her eyes puffy from deep sleep. She flipped the light switch, and in the sudden glare, the room was empty. ‘What is it, Mira? Shadows again?’ Her voice was gentle but impatient. I pointed to the far corner, where the smoke still hung like a lingering secret. ‘He’s there,’ I said. ‘In the dark.’ She sighed, walked over, and flipped the light off. The room plunged into blackness, and I heard her breath catch. She stood there, staring at the corner, for a long minute. Then she turned to me, her face a pale moon in the dark, and said, ‘There’s nothing there, sweetheart. See?’ She flipped the light back on, and the corner was just the corner, with its peeling floral wallpaper.

But I saw her face as she turned away. It was the face of someone who had just seen something she wished she hadn’t.

After that night, my mother started leaving a nightlight on in the hallway, and she began to check my room every few hours. But she never turned on the light herself. She’d open the door a crack, and I’d see her silhouette, and behind her, in the hall, the yellow glow of the nightlight. And every time she opened that door, I saw the smoke drift out from under my bed, as if it were greeting her. One night, I asked her to stay. She sat on the edge of my bed, her hand stroking my hair, and she hummed the same lullaby she’d hummed when I was a baby. But her eyes kept darting to that corner.

The figure came more often now. Not always at night. Once, in the late afternoon, I saw him in the reflection of the TV screen, a dark silhouette with a burning tip. I told my father, but he just laughed and said I had an overactive imagination. But my mother grew quieter. She began to spend her evenings in the kitchen, smoking herself, something I’d never seen her do before. She’d stare out the window over the sink, and I knew she was looking at the rock face.

Two weeks before Christmas, I woke to the smell of smoke, not from the fireplace, but thick and acrid, like a cigarette factory. He was in the middle of the room, and this time, the ember grew brighter, illuminating a jaw, a thin slash of mouth. His voice, when it came, was like gravel and dry leaves. ‘She sees me too,’ he said. ‘But she won’t tell you.’ I asked, ‘Who?’ The ember pulsed, and he said, ‘Your mother. She knows what I want.’

I ran to my parents’ room, but my mom wasn’t there. The covers were thrown back, and the window was open. The night air was cold, and I could see footprints in the frost leading toward the rock face. I followed them, my bare feet freezing, until I reached the bottom of the rock. There, I saw my mother standing in a small clearing, looking up at the cliff. She was talking, but not to me. She was saying, ‘Take me instead. She’s only a child.’ And the figure, now solid enough to cast a shadow, answered, ‘No. It has to be her. She’s the one who sees.’

I screamed, and my mother turned. Her face was streaked with tears, and she ran to me, scooping me into her arms. ‘It’s okay, Mira,’ she sobbed. ‘I won’t let it take you.’ But as she carried me back to the house, I saw over her shoulder that the figure was now at the edge of the clearing, and its ember was pointing at my mother, not me.

We moved away after that. I’m sixteen now, and we live in a city apartment with no windows that face rock. But last night, I woke to the smell of cigarette smoke, and I saw him standing at the foot of my bed, the ember bright enough to cast shadows on the wall. He spoke, and this time his voice was like a whisper through a cracked door: ‘You can’t escape me. I live in the dark, and the dark is everywhere.’ I looked at my mother, who was asleep beside me (she’d taken to sleeping in my room), and I noticed that in her hand, she clutched a pack of cigarettes, unopened, the brand she used to smoke before I was born. And on the nightstand, there was an ashtray, and in it, a single cigarette butt, still smoldering. I looked back at the figure, and for the first time, I saw his face—it was my mother’s face, young, and smiling. And then I understood: the man in the dark wasn’t a monster. He was the ghost of the child she never had.