The Glass Eye of Mulberry Lane

The bell above the door of the Green Grocer’s clattered, announcing my first customer of the day. I looked up from the crate of oranges I was stocking, expecting old Mrs. Higgins for her weekly gossip and a bag of bruised apples. Instead, a tall, gaunt man in a black coat stood just inside, his face pale and slick with cold sweat. He didn’t look at me, but his eyes, wide and staring, were fixed on the back wall where the door to the old storage room was—the room that had been sealed since they’d found old man Withers dead in his chair.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. ‘Can I help you?’ I asked, my voice cracking. He didn’t answer. He just stood there, trembling, his lips moving as if he were whispering to himself. Then, without a word, he turned and walked out, leaving the bell to chime a mournful note behind him. I rubbed my arms, feeling a sudden chill despite the warm winter sun streaming through the windows. That was the third time that week I’d seen a stranger like that, always at the threshold, always staring at the storage room, and always leaving without a word.

A few days later, I was out back, tending to the overgrown rose bushes that wrapped around the old house where Withers had lived. It was a two-story Victorian, its paint peeling and windows mostly cracked or boarded. I’d been avoiding it since that first time I thought I saw a face at the window—a gaunt, jaundiced face, glaring at me with an intensity that made my blood run cold. I’d dismissed it as a trick of the light, but now I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. The house sat there, silent and still, as I pruned and weeded, trying to ignore the heavy weight of its presence.

It was then I noticed the glass eye. It was lying in the dirt at the base of the steps, half-buried in the soil. I picked it up, wiping the dirt away. It was a prosthetic eye, the iris a murky green, the white marbled with tiny red veins. It felt impossibly cold, as if it had been chilling in a freezer. I knew it must have belonged to Withers—I’d heard he had a glass eye, a result of an old accident. But why was it here, in the garden?

I pocketed it, intending to give it to the estate agent who handled the property, and went back to work. But as I dug deeper into the flower bed, my spade struck something solid. I knelt down, brushing away the dark earth, and uncovered a small, rusted tin. My heart hammered as I pried it open. Inside, wrapped in a piece of oilcloth, was a diary—Withers’ diary, its pages yellowed and brittle. I opened it to a random page and began to read.

Withers had been an alcoholic, everyone knew that, but the diary told a different story. He’d been sober for three years before his death, and he’d begun to notice things happening in the shop and house that he couldn’t explain. He wrote of waking up to find his furniture rearranged, of hearing someone whisper his name when he was alone, of seeing a dark figure at the foot of his bed. He wrote that he’d found a key in the storage room that didn’t open any door he knew, and that he’d felt an overwhelming dread, as if something was watching him, waiting.

I closed the diary, my hands shaking. The glass eye in my pocket seemed to burn against my leg. I looked up at the house, and there it was again—the face at the window. Not the sick man from before, but Withers himself, his face pale and hollow, his remaining eye black and empty, staring straight at me. He mouthed something, but I couldn’t understand. Then he was gone.

That evening, I couldn’t get the face out of my mind. I decided to go back, to see if there was something I’d missed. I climbed the rickety steps, my torch beam cutting through the darkness. The door was unlocked, as if it had been waiting for me. The air inside was thick with the smell of dust and decay. I moved through the room, the floorboards creaking under my weight. In the back, there was a locked door—the one Withers had written about. The key in the diary was still there, and I turned it with trembling fingers.

The door swung open to reveal a small, windowless room. In the center was a table with a single object on it: a brass lantern, its glass panels dark and sooty. A chill wrapped around me like a shroud. I stepped closer, and as my torch beam fell on the lantern, I saw something move inside—a dark mass, writhing like a nest of snakes. I backed away, but the door slammed shut behind me, plunging me into darkness. The lantern began to glow with a sickly green light, casting long shadows that danced on the walls.

I felt a presence, an oppressive weight pressing down on me. A voice, like the sound of dry leaves skittering across pavement, whispered in my ear: ‘You should not have found me.’

I don’t remember how I got out. I just remember running, stumbling through the night, the glass eye still clutched in my hand. Since then, I’ve been seeing them everywhere—those gaunt, pale-faced people at the edge of my vision, always watching, always whispering. The bell on the shop door now rings even when no one is there, and I feel their absence like a presence. I know now that when I found that glass eye, I didn’t uncover a secret; I woke something that had been sleeping in the soil, something that Withers had tried to keep buried. And now it’s turned its gaze on me.

I write this as a warning. The old house on Mulberry Lane is still there, and the garden still grows, but the roses have turned black. The eye is still in my pocket, and I can feel it move, ever so slightly, as if it’s watching me. If you find a glass eye in the dirt, don’t pick it up. Leave it where it lies, and forget you ever saw it. Because what’s watching from the window doesn’t want to be discovered, and it will do anything to make sure you keep its secret.