The Glass in the West Wall

I’ve never been one to stay in one place for long. My family moved every few years, chasing my father’s work, and I learned to pack my memories into cardboard boxes. But the first home I truly remember—the one that shapes my nightmares—was a weathered farmhouse in the dusty plains of eastern Montana. I was four when we moved in, nine when we fled. The house stood alone against the wind, its clapboard siding bleached by sun and salt, and it had a peculiar feature: a single, tall window on the west wall of my upstairs bedroom. That window faced the endless prairie, and I was terrified of it from the first night.

My room was at the top of a narrow staircase that creaked with every step. The window was not large, but it was oddly positioned—set high in the wall, so that when I stood, I could see only sky, and when I lay in bed, I saw the frame and the faint glow that seemed to emanate from it even on the darkest nights. My parents thought I was just a scared child, so they moved my bed to the far corner, but I still refused to sleep unless I was buried under blankets, facing the door. I never went upstairs alone during the day; I would wait at the bottom of the stairs until someone could accompany me.

The first strange thing happened when I was six. I had a nightmare where the window swung open, and a hand reached in, grabbing my ankle and pulling me toward the glass. I woke with a scream, my heart pounding, and found myself lying on the floor beside my bed, my sheets tangled around my legs. The window was shut, but the glass was cold, and there was a faint smear on the inside that looked like a child’s handprint. I told my mother, but she dismissed it as condensation.

Then there was the summer of the drought. The prairie grass turned brittle, and the sky held no moisture. One evening, as the sun bled into the horizon, I was sitting on my bed, reading under the weak glow of my lamp. The light flickered, and the window seemed to pulse with a pale luminescence, like the light from a TV in a dark room, but there was no source. I watched, transfixed, as a shape formed in the glass—a face, pressed against the pane from the outside, its features distorted, its mouth open in a silent howl. I blinked, and it was gone. The light died, and the window was just a black rectangle. I bolted down the stairs so fast I nearly fell, and I refused to go back up that night, sobbing until my mother let me sleep in her room.

My clearest memory, though, is from when I was eight. It was a winter night, and a blizzard raged outside, the wind shrieking around the house. My parents had gone to a neighbor’s for a few hours, leaving me with a babysitter who fell asleep on the couch. I was in my room, lying in bed, unable to sleep, listening to the storm. The window was a pale grey square, but I noticed it was getting brighter, as if a light were approaching from the field. I sat up, and the brightness grew until it filled the glass, and through it I saw a landscape that was not the snowy prairie. It was a desert, vast and dark, with a single figure walking toward me—a child about my age, wearing a torn nightgown, her hair matted. She reached the window, pressed her palms to the glass, and her mouth moved as if she were speaking, but I heard nothing. Then she tilted her head, and her eyes were black, and she began to pound on the glass, silently, and the window started to rattle.

I screamed, and the babysitter woke up. She ran up the stairs, but when she entered, the window was dark, and I was huddled in the corner, sobbing. She didn’t see anything, but she noted the window was cold, and there was frost on the inside, in the shape of a hand. She told my parents I had a nightmare, and they made me go back to bed. I spent the rest of the night with my back to the window, staring at the door, feeling a cold draft on my neck.

We moved three months later, when my father got a job in a city far away. I was relieved, but I never told anyone about the window, because I thought they would think I was crazy. I still dream of it sometimes. In my dreams, I am back in that room, and the window is open, and the woman in the desert is standing beside me, whispering words I cannot understand. And always, I am drawn to the glass, as if something on the other side is calling me home.