The Mannequin in Room Seven

We moved to the old mill town of Harrow Creek for my father’s new job managing the textile factory. The company provided us with a house on the hill, a Victorian relic that had been empty for years. The first week, we heard sounds—footsteps in the attic, the clatter of a dropped pot in the kitchen when no one was there. But the strangest thing happened in the upstairs hallway.

My younger sister, Ellie, was the first. She claimed she saw our mother standing at the end of the hall, wearing a pale yellow dress with a high collar, a dress we had never seen. But when Ellie called out, the figure walked into the guest bedroom and vanished. Mom was in the garden at that moment, waving at us through the window. Ellie was pale for days.

I thought she was imagining things until I saw it myself. One evening, I went to grab a book from the study. The hallway light was flickering, and there, at the door to the spare room, stood my father. But it wasn’t him—this man had sunken cheeks, wore a moth-eaten suit, and held a pocket watch that swung like a pendulum. He stared at me with hollow eyes, then turned and walked through the closed door. I ran downstairs, and there was my father, reading the paper. My heart pounded.

Then it happened to Dad. He came home from work one day and saw me, or rather, an exact copy of me, standing in the living room, facing the wall. The copy wore my favorite hoodie, but it was stained with dark splotches. When Dad called my name, the figure slowly turned its head one hundred eighty degrees, revealing a face that was melting, features sliding off like wax. That night, I found my hoodie in the garbage, torn and stained with something dark.

We tried to rationalize it. Maybe it was stress, a gas leak, or collective hysteria. But the doppelgangers grew bolder. One night, Mom screamed from the bathroom. She had seen me and Ellie, both of us, standing in the tub, smiling at her with too-wide grins, our arms linked. The water was running, and their mouths moved in unison, but no sound came out. I woke up drenched in cold water, my pajamas soaked, but I had no memory of getting up.

Then came the day of the mannequin. This house belonged to a seamstress years ago. Her workshop was in the attic, and among the junk, we found a dressmaker’s mannequin, worn and cracked. After that, each doppelganger appeared wearing the same pale yellow dress, the one from Ellie’s first sighting. They would stand in the hallway, in the kitchen, at the foot of our beds, always the same dress, always facing away, until you approached. Then they would turn, and it would be your own face, but with eyes that were pits of black.

Desperate, we hired a paranormal investigator. She set up cameras and told us to document everything. On the third night, she screamed. The footage showed her, alone in the hallway, when a figure emerged from the spare room—it was her doppelganger, but wearing the yellow dress. The figure walked toward her, and the investigator backed away, but the doppelganger matched her every move. When she turned to run, she collided with another version of herself, this one holding a pair of scissors. The camera cut out.

We found her in the attic, catatonic, clutching a piece of yellow fabric. The police couldn’t explain it. After that, we decided to leave. On our last night, I packed my bag in my room. I heard a knock. I opened the door, and there stood my family—Dad, Mom, Ellie, and me—all wearing the yellow dress, all with the same melted face. They spoke in unison: ‘Don’t leave us, we’re the only ones left.’ I slammed the door and climbed out the window. I ran to the car, but when I looked back at the house, every window was filled with our faces, all staring down at me. I drove all night without stopping.

I still see them sometimes. In reflections, in crowds, I catch a glimpse of my own face, but with those black pits for eyes, wearing a tattered yellow dress. The house is still there, waiting for the next family. And somewhere, in the attic, the mannequin now wears a new dress—one with the exact pattern of the last investigator’s blouse. Its head turns, its wooden joints creak, and it wonders who will open the door next.