The Glass-Eyed Saint

It began with the moth. Not a subtle thing, but a fat, gray creature that beat its wings against the porch light every night for a week, as if trying to get in. I told myself it was just the season, but my sister, Mira, had a different theory. She said it was a sign, a messenger from the Hollow, the old abandoned church at the edge of our land. We’d moved into my late grandmother’s farmhouse in the autumn, hoping for a fresh start after our mother’s death. The house was a relic, with peeling wallpaper and a staircase that groaned like a wounded animal. But it was ours, and we had each other.

Our grandmother, Elena, had been a recluse, a woman the townsfolk whispered about. They said she kept strange things in the basement, that she ‘communed’ with the dead. We’d found her journals in the attic, filled with references to a ‘Glass-Eyed Saint’ who could bridge the living and the dead. I dismissed it as the ramblings of an old woman, but Mira was fascinated. She’d spend hours reading them aloud, her voice taking on a dreamy quality, until our arguments turned to silence.

The first incident was small. I woke to find the kitchen cabinets open, their contents scattered on the floor, as if a gust of wind had swept through. Mira claimed she’d heard footsteps in the hall, but I chalked it up to the radiator. Then the dreams came: a figure in a tattered robe, its face obscured by a porcelain mask with two glass eyes, always standing at the foot of my bed, reaching out with a hand that shimmered like heat. I’d wake with a start, my breath ragged, and find Mira’s door open, her bed empty. She’d be in the kitchen, staring at the wall, whispering numbers that made no sense.

It wasn’t long before Mira changed. She grew pale, her eyes hollowed, and she began to talk about ‘the Saint’ as if it were a friend. She’d set a place for it at dinner, leave offerings of bread and honey on the windowsill. I tried to reason with her, but she’d simply smile, a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. The house grew colder, and the moth eventually died, but its delicate wings remained stuck to the screen, a grim trophy.

One night, I heard a crash from the basement. I found Mira standing in the center of the room, surrounded by shattered glass, holding a small porcelain figure—the very likeness of the Saint. She was bleeding from her palm, but she didn’t seem to notice. ‘He’s coming,’ she said, her voice flat. ‘He wants to finish what Grandmother started.’ I pried the figurine from her hands, threw it in the trash, and locked the basement door. But that night, the dreams returned, more vivid than ever. I saw the Saint clearly, his eyes glinting like marbles, his broken finger pointing at me. He spoke in a voice that rustled like dry leaves: ‘You cannot bury the conduit.’

The next morning, I found Mira gone. Her bed was empty, the covers thrown aside, and on the pillow lay a single glass eye, clear and cold. I ran through the house, calling her name, but the rooms were silent except for the creaking of the floorboards. Then I saw the basement door, standing ajar. I descended the steps, my heart hammering, and found her in the far corner, kneeling before a wall I’d never noticed, covered in peeling wallpaper that depicted a tree with gnarled roots. She was pressing her hands against it, and as I watched, the wallpaper began to ripple, as if something were moving beneath it. ‘He’s here,’ she said, turning to me, and her eyes were not her own—they were glass, reflecting my own terrified face.

I yanked her away, but she grabbed my arm with inhuman strength, pulling me toward the wall. The wallpaper tore, revealing a hollow space, and inside, propped against the timbers, was a wooden box, tied with twine. ‘Open it,’ she whispered. ‘It’s the only way to send him back.’ I hesitated, but she was pleading, and I needed to end this. I untied the knot, lifted the lid, and inside found a leather-bound book, its pages filled with my grandmother’s cramped handwriting. On the first page, it read: ‘To bond the Saint, one must break the mirror.’ I closed the box, and when I looked up, Mira was gone.

I searched for hours, but she had vanished. The sheriff’s department dragged the pond, but found nothing. I moved out shortly after, unable to bear the silence of the house. But before I left, I buried the box, with the book and the glass eye, beneath the oak tree in the backyard, praying that would be the end of it. For months, I tried to convince myself it was all a trauma response, that Mira had run away, that I’d imagined the supernatural elements. But last week, I received a letter postmarked from a town I’d never heard of. Inside was a single photograph: Mira, standing in front of a church I recognized as the Hollow, and beside her, a figure in a tattered robe, its face obscured by a porcelain mask. On the back, in Mira’s handwriting: ‘He has freed me. Now he waits for you.’ I dropped the photograph, and as it fell, I noticed something else—a small, gray moth, fluttering at my window, its wings beating against the glass as if trying to get in.