The Glass Eye of Prudence

The morning sun finally clawed through the grimy windows of the motel, and I knew I could put it into words. Not that the light made it any less real, but at least I could see the cracks in the ceiling and remind myself I was still in the land of the living.

My ex-husband, Paul, and I had driven six hours from our cramped apartment in Winston to his family’s reunion in the northern part of the state, a place called Hollow Creek. The town itself was a whisper on the map, just a few dozen houses huddled around a feed store and a church with a crooked steeple. His family’s property was a sprawling tract of overgrown fields and tangled woods, and the road that ran through it was barely a gravel strip. Every other mailbox bore the name ‘Harlow,’ and the houses were all variations on the same theme: weathered clapboard, sagging porches, and windows that seemed to watch you.

The centerpiece of the family land was the ‘old Harlow place’—the original farmhouse built by Paul’s great-great-grandparents in the 1880s. It stood a hundred yards off the road, partially hidden behind a wall of oak trees and wild blackberry brambles. The house had never been torn down, just left to rot. The porch had collapsed on one side, the roof had a hole the size of a dinner plate, and the windows were so clouded with grime that they looked like cataracts. The family used it as a dare, a rite of passage for the younger generation. ‘Go spend an hour in the old place,’ they’d say, ‘and you’re a true Harlow.’

The reason they dared each other was because of Prudence. Great-great-grandmother Prudence Harlow had been a recluse, a woman who, according to family lore, had a glass eye. Not a prosthetic that looked real, but one that was a milky blue, like a marble from a child’s game. The story went that she lost her real eye in a farming accident, and the glass one was her pride. She was buried with it, in the family plot behind the church. But the old house still held her collection of glass eyes—dozens of them, in various shades and sizes, kept in a velvet-lined box on the mantelpiece. The family whispered that Prudence’s spirit lingered there, watching through those glass orbs, and that if you looked into them, she’d see you back.

I never believed any of it. I was a city girl, pragmatic to a fault. Paul, on the other hand, was a born skeptic but loved the attention. So when his cousin Ray dared him to spend the night in the old house, Paul laughed and agreed before I could protest. ‘It’s just a dare, Kate,’ he said. ‘We’ll be out by sunrise.’

The night of the reunion, the whole clan had gathered for a pig pickin’ in the yard of Paul’s parents, and the air was thick with smoke and cheap beer. As the fire died down, the talk turned to the old place. I watched as Paul’s bravado grew with each sip, and finally, at around 11 PM, he grabbed a flashlight and announced, ‘Two hours. I’ll be back before the coals are cold.’ His cousin Ray and a few of the young bucks offered to go with him, but Paul waved them off. ‘No, the dare was for one person. I’ll do it alone.’ I gave him a look that said this was a terrible idea, but he just grinned and kissed my forehead. ‘Don’t wait up.’

He was gone longer than two hours. The fire had turned to ash, and the crickets had gone silent. I sat on the porch steps, watching the dark shape of the old house through the trees. At 1:30 AM, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I grabbed a lantern from the barn and started walking across the field. The grass was wet with dew, and my feet were soon numb, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to find Paul and get back to the warm house.

I crossed the road and pushed through the brambles, the thorns snagging at my jeans. The front door of the old place was ajar, and I could see a faint, wavering light inside—the kind a candle makes. I called out his name, but the only answer was the creak of old wood settling. I stepped through the doorway, my lantern casting long shadows across the peeling wallpaper. The living room was a museum of decay: a horsehair sofa with stuffing bursting out, a china cabinet full of spider webs, and on the mantel above the cold fireplace, I saw it—the velvet box, black with age. I didn’t touch it. I just kept walking, calling.

I found Paul in the upstairs bedroom, sitting on the edge of a mildewed mattress, staring at the wall. The flashlight in his hand was dead, but there was a single candle in a tin holder on the nightstand, its flame steady despite the draft. His face was pale, and his eyes were wide, unblinking. I grabbed his shoulder, and he flinched, finally looking at me. ‘I saw her,’ he whispered. ‘Prudence. She was standing right there, in the corner. She had her glass eye in her hand, rolling it between her fingers.’ I laughed, a nervous, shaky laugh. ‘You’re drunk, Paul. Let’s go.’ But he shook his head. ‘No, wait. Look.’ He pointed to the floor under the window. There was a small, round object glowing in the candlelight. I knelt down and picked it up. It was a glass eye, milky blue, cold as the dead. It had a tiny metal loop on the back, as if for a chain. I stared at it, and for a moment, I could have sworn it looked back at me.

We left the house, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were being watched. The glass eye I had slipped into my coat pocket felt like a lead weight. Back at the house, Paul was subdued, and his family laughed at us, assuming we’d gotten scared. But Paul wouldn’t talk about what saw. He just said, ‘We’re leaving tomorrow.’ We left the next morning, and I forgot about the eye in the chaos of packing. It wasn’t until we got home, weeks later, that I found it in the pocket of my coat, and I felt a chill run down my spine.

I tried to throw it away, but every time I put it in the trash, I found myself retrieving it, placing it on the windowsill by my reading chair. It seemed to call to me, a subtle whisper in the back of my mind. Paul and I started fighting—over nothing, over everything. The divorce was final six months later, and when we divided our belongings, he took the eye. I never knew why he wanted it, but I felt a sense of relief.

Last night, three years after that Halloween dare, I got a call from an unknown number. It was Ray, Paul’s cousin, his voice ragged. He told me that Paul had been found dead in his apartment, puffy-eyed and cold. The cause: a stroke, but Ray said something else was off. ‘Kate,’ he said, ‘they found a glass eye in his hand. And his real eye… it was gone.’ I dropped the phone, and I could feel it again, that cold weight in my pocket, even though I knew I had sent the eye with Paul. I reached into my coat, and my fingers brushed against something smooth, round, and cold. I pulled it out—the same milky blue eye, with its tiny metal loop. And as I held it, I heard a voice, soft as dust, whisper, ‘You’re mine now.’

The glass eye sits on my nightstand now. I’ve tried to smash it, to bury it, to mail it to the bottom of the ocean. But it always finds its way back. Prudence had one true eye and one glass one. Now she has two glass eyes, and she’s looking for a third.