The Empty Frame

The house on Maple Street had always been an oddity, but it wasn’t until the summer of my twelfth year that I learned why the neighbors crossed the road to avoid it. My family had moved there the previous fall, and while the peeling paint and crooked porch were charming in a forgotten way, the upstairs window—the one facing the street—was always dark, even in the heat of July. My mother said it was just an old house settling, but the kids at school whispered that a woman in white liked to watch from that window, a woman who hadn’t been alive for decades.

I thought it was just a story, the kind of thing kids make up to scare newcomers. So when I woke that night to a soft knocking on my door, I was more annoyed than frightened. My cousin Evan, who was staying with us for the summer, had a habit of knocking in his sleep. But the knocking didn’t stop, and it wasn’t coming from the hallway. It was coming from the wall beside my bed—the wall that separated my room from the unused attic above the garage. I pressed my ear to the wallpaper and heard three deliberate taps, then a rustling sound, like silk being dragged over wood.

A chill ran down my spine, but I told myself it was just the house settling. I tried to go back to sleep, but the knocking grew more insistent, coming from closer, inside the wall, as if something was trying to get out. I bolted upright, my heart racing. The digital clock read 3:03 AM. And then I heard a woman’s voice, soft and muffled, as if coming from a great distance: ‘Let me in.’

I didn’t sleep that night. When morning came, I told my mother, but she dismissed it as a bad dream, reminding me that the attic door was locked and had been since we moved in. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was waiting for me. That afternoon, I climbed the rickety stairs to the attic, ignoring the warning my mother had given me. The door was unlocked, the wood swollen from humidity. I pushed it open and was hit with the smell of dust and old mothballs. The attic was cluttered with forgotten furniture, and in the center, covered with a white sheet, was a large, ornate mirror. The glass was clouded with age, but I could see my reflection faintly, and behind me, a darker shape that didn’t move when I did.

I froze. The shape in the mirror had a woman’s silhouette, but her face was a blur, a void. I scrambled backward, knocking over a stack of books, and the mirror clattered to the floor, shattering. The pieces scattered, and in each shard, I saw the same faint figure, now multiplying, watching me from every angle. I ran out of the attic, slamming the door behind me. I didn’t tell anyone what I had seen, but that night, the knocking returned, this time from my closet. I held my breath, listening to the sound of fingernails scratching on wood.

The scratching grew louder, and then the closet door creaked open a crack. Through the opening, I saw a pale hand, so thin the bones seemed visible, reaching out. I screamed, and the hand retracted, but I heard the voice again, now clearer, with a tone of hunger: ‘You broke my mirror. Now you must take my place.’

I didn’t know what that meant, but I knew I had to leave. I sprinted to my parents’ room, but when I burst through the door, the bed was empty. The sheets were rumpled, as if they’d just gotten up. I called out, but the only response was a faint tapping from the attic above. I ran to Evan’s room, but his bed was empty too. Panic overtook me, and I fled the house, running down Maple Street in my pajamas, my bare feet slapping against the cold pavement. I didn’t stop until I reached the convenience store on the corner, its fluorescent lights a beacon of safety.

I burst through the door, gasping, and the clerk looked up with a strange, knowing smile. ‘You should’ve stayed away from that attic,’ he said, his voice taking on a hollow tone. ‘She’s been waiting for a new face for a long time.’ I turned to look out the window, and there, in the reflection of the glass, I saw my own face, but it was not mine. It was the face of the woman in the mirror, gaunt and pale, with hollow eyes. I tried to scream, but no sound came out. The clerk just shook his head and said, ‘You’ll get used to it. She did.’

The last thing I remember was the sound of glass shattering, and then I woke up in my bed, the morning light streaming through the curtains. I thought it had all been a nightmare, but when I got up to look in the bathroom mirror, there was a crack running down the center of the glass, and my reflection was slightly off, a beat too slow. I’ve been living with that reflection ever since, always watching me, always waiting for me to forget it’s there. But I never do. And some nights, when I pass by the unused attic, I hear a knock from inside, and I know she’s still there, waiting for someone else who makes the mistake of breaking her mirror.