The Hollow Glass

In the summer of my ninth year, my family drove from our dusty Kansas town to a resort nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The lodge, a towering structure of glass and timber, had opened only months before, and its corridors still smelled of fresh varnish and cedar. My parents, my grandmother, and I had come to celebrate my grandfather’s retirement, but he fell ill that first evening and stayed in our room with Nana while Dad and I went down to the indoor pool. Mom preferred the hot tub on the adjoining patio, wrapped in steam against the cool mountain night.

The pool was a great blue rectangle, lit from below, and the far wall was a single pane of glass that looked out onto the black void where the forest began. The glass was so clear that it seemed there was no boundary at all—only the reflection of the water and the white plastic chairs on the tiled floor. The only other sounds were the soft hum of the filter and the occasional drip from the showers. I did laps, counting strokes, while Dad sat at the edge, his feet dangling in the water, checking his phone.

After a while, Dad said he had to take Nana her medication. He told me to stay put, that he’d be back in five minutes. I nodded, cradling my kickboard, and watched him leave through the glass door. I was alone. The silence pressed in, and the reflection on the glass shimmered. I noticed something odd: the reflection of the chairs seemed to be at a slightly different angle than the real ones. I looked closer, and the reflection rippled, as if the water in the unreal pool had been disturbed. A shape coalesced—at first just a darker patch in the reflection, then a figure. It was a boy, about my age, but his skin was the color of old cheese, and his hair hung in wet ropes over his face. He was standing on the other side of the glass, but the glass was supposed to be a window, not a mirror. I saw him clearly: he was standing in the forest, but there was no forest in the reflection—only the same tiled room, as if the glass was a door to another version of the pool.

The boy raised his hand and pressed it against the glass. His palm left a smudge, like condensation, but the glass is supposed to be seamless. I stepped back, and the water sloshed. He smiled, and his teeth were like tiny, rotten pebbles. He mouthed something, but no sound came through. I couldn’t read his lips. He pointed down, to the floor, and I followed his gaze. On the tile, just below the glass, was a small puddle of water. It hadn’t been there before. The boy in the reflection pointed to the puddle, then to his mouth, then pointed at me. He mimed drinking from the puddle. I shook my head, and the reflection rippled again. The boy tilted his head, and then he began to walk away, into the darkness of the reflected room, but instead of growing faint, he became more solid, and the reflection of the chairs dissolved into a black forest. He looked back over his shoulder one last time, and his eyes were like holes. Then he was gone.

My heart hammered. I scrambled out of the pool, and I ran to the door. But as I reached for the handle, I saw my own reflection in the glass pane. It was me, of course, dripping wet and shivering, but behind my reflection, in the dark of the forest, a pale hand was reaching up, as if to touch my shoulder from the other side. I didn’t stop to look. I slammed through the door and ran down the corridor, my wet feet slapping on the carpet. I found Dad in the elevator lobby, and I babbled about the boy in the window. He listened, then sighed and said, “It was just a reflection, sweetie. Your imagination.” But I saw his eyes flick to the emergency exit, and he hurried us back to the room. That night, I couldn’t sleep. I stared at the window in our room, and I swear I saw a silhouette against the glass, swaying like a drowned thing. But it might have been the curtains.

We checked out the next morning. As we drove away, I looked back at the lodge, and the glass wall of the pool area caught the morning light. I could see the chairs, the pool, and there—pressed against the inside of the glass—a small, pale handprint. The kind a child’s hand would make, but the fingers were too long, and they were on the outside, facing us. I didn’t tell anyone. They’d only call me a liar again. But I know what I saw. And I know that glass was not a window. It was a door, and something had left it ajar. Now, whenever I see a reflection, I check to see if it’s looking back. So far, it hasn’t. But sometimes, at the edge of my vision, I see a boy, standing just behind my own mirrored self, and he’s always smiling.

Years have passed, but I’ve never returned to that lodge. I’ve read that it closed down within a year, “due to structural issues.” They say the glass wall shattered one night, spontaneously, and the forest beyond seemed just a little too dark, a little too quiet, as if it had been transplanted from somewhere else. I don’t need to go back. I carry that reflection with me. And sometimes, when I look in a mirror, I don’t see my own face staring back. I see a boy, and he’s still pointing at the floor, to a puddle that shouldn’t be there, and he’s mouthing my name.

I’ve learned to never drink water from a puddle. And I’ve learned that some glass isn’t meant to be seen through. But it’s too late for that lesson. The boy on the other side already knows my name, and he’s waiting for me to look again.