The Half-Open Curtain

It was a humid August night, the kind that made the air feel thick and sticky, even with all the windows open in our old farmhouse. I was the only one still awake, enjoying the rare stillness after a chaotic family dinner. I’d just finished a glass of water in the kitchen and was heading to my room when I remembered I’d left my phone charger in the living room. I turned back, my bare feet padding softly on the creaky wooden floor.

As I passed the hallway that led to the guest bedroom, I noticed a faint, cool draft coming from under the door. Odd, because we never opened that room, and the window in there was painted shut. I shrugged it off as my imagination, too tired to investigate. The moonlight streamed through the sheer curtains of the parlor window, casting a pale, silver glow across the opposite wall. I saw my own shadow stretch out before me, and I stopped dead.

Something was wrong. The shadow on the wall didn’t match me. I had just pulled my long hair into a messy bun at the nape of my neck, and my loose linen shirt was wrinkled. But the shadow showed a woman with wild, untamed curls that tumbled past her shoulders, and she wore a large, ornate bow on the top of her head, almost comically oversized, like something out of an old Victorian portrait. Her dress seemed long and flowing, with puffed sleeves, and she was holding something in her hands, but I couldn’t make it out.

I gasped and blinked hard, forcing my eyes to adjust. The shadow was still there, perfectly still, as if it had been waiting for me to notice it. I felt a cold sweat prickle at the back of my neck. I tried to move, to turn away, but my legs felt like lead. The shadow began to slowly lift one arm, pointing a finger directly at me. I saw a thin, spindly finger, elongated in the distortion of the light, and then it started to trace a pattern on the wall, as if writing invisible words.

I finally broke free of the paralysis and stumbled backward, my heart pounding. I turned and ran to my father’s study, where he was still reading by lamplight. I burst in, breathless, and told him what I had seen. He frowned, setting down his book. ‘There’s an old portrait in the attic,’ he said, his voice low. ‘It belonged to your great-great-grandmother. She was known for her love of elaborate bows.’

He led me up the narrow attic stairs and dug through a dusty trunk until he found a framed photograph, its glass cracked. It showed a stern-faced woman with wild, curly hair, a large bow perched on her head, and a long, old-fashioned dress. She was holding a small, ornate hand mirror. ‘She was a photographer,’ my father said. ‘She took her own portrait just before she died, and she swore she never used a flash. She claimed the shadow in the picture wasn’t hers.’

I stared at the photograph, my blood running cold. The woman’s eyes seemed to look out at me, and I noticed the hand mirror in her hands reflected a shadowy figure behind her, a figure with a messy bun and a loose linen shirt. It was me, standing in that same hallway, looking at the photograph, as if trapped in a loop across time.

I turned to my father, but he was gone. The attic was silent except for the faint sound of a woman’s laughter, echoing softly from the walls. I ran back down the stairs, but the hallway was darker now, and the door to the guest bedroom was wide open. Inside, on the dusty bed, lay my shadow, solid and black, wearing the same bow, its head cocked at an unnatural angle. Its mouth opened, and it whispered, ‘You finally see me.’

I ran out of the house that night, barefoot, and never returned. But sometimes, when I catch my reflection in a dark window or a dimly lit mirror, I see the woman with the bow, standing just behind me, watching, waiting. And I know that she has finally found a way to cross over, using my own shadow as her doorway.

I now live in a small apartment with no windows, and I am terrified of even the smallest flicker of light. Because I know that every shadow has a voice, and some are not our own.