The Mannequin in the Window

It was a Tuesday, and I had just returned to my apartment in the city after a month-long remodeling job upstate. The place felt stale, as if it had been holding its breath in my absence. I dropped my bags in the hallway, cracked open a window to let in the evening air, and sat down at my desk to check my messages online.

My friend Elena was online, and we started chatting about nothing in particular. She said she needed to throw something in the oven and would be right back, so I got up to stretch. My new apartment had a large bay window that overlooked the bustling street below, but the curtains were always drawn. I rarely opened them, preferring the dim privacy of my own space.

I decided to unpack a few boxes, and as I lifted one from the corner, something caught my eye through the sheer fabric of the curtain. A figure stood on the sidewalk across the street, near the entrance of a closed fabric store. It was too still to be a person waiting, too rigid. It was a mannequin, draped in a tattered maroon velvet dress, propped against the store’s glass door.

I remember thinking it was odd that the store owners would leave a mannequin out like that, but I shrugged it off and continued unpacking. On a whim, I walked to the window and pulled the curtain aside just a crack. The mannequin’s face was porcelain pale, with a soft, knowing smile painted on its lips. Its eyes were glass, catching the amber glow of the streetlight.

I went back to my guitar, strumming a few chords to warm up. As I played, a chill swept through the room, raising goosebumps on my arms. The air thickened, and I felt a presence behind me. I turned expecting to see Elena had returned, but the doorway was empty. The feeling of being watched pricked at the back of my neck.

I set the guitar down and walked back to the window. The mannequin was gone. In its place, a tall, shadowy figure in a long coat stood looking up at my window. I felt a jolt of fear, but then it turned and walked away, disappearing into the night.

I tried to shake it off, convincing myself it was just a passerby who had been standing there. I sat back down, but the unease clung to me like spider silk. Later that night, as I was lying in bed, I heard a faint scratching at my window, rhythmic, like a finger tracing patterns on the glass. I froze, unable to move. The sound grew louder, more insistent, until it stopped.

I forced myself to my feet and pulled the curtain aside. Pressed against the glass was a porcelain face, identical to the mannequin’s, with that same knowing smile. But its eyes were no longer glass. They were human, dark and glistening, and they met my gaze.

I stumbled backward, my heart thundering. When I looked again, the face was gone. But on the windowsill, just outside, was a small piece of paper, folded neatly. Against my better judgment, I opened the window and snatched it. In careful, looping handwriting, it read: ‘I can see you, too.’

The next day, I asked the landlady about the mannequin. She gave me a strange look and told me the fabric store had been closed for years, and there had never been a mannequin in the window. She then said, in a hushed tone, that a previous tenant had jumped from that same window, a young woman who used to stand by it every night, watching the street.

I never saw the mannequin again, but the feeling of being watched never left. Sometimes, when I pass the window, I catch a glimpse of a pale face in the glass, smiling back at me. And I know, with a certainty that chills me to the bone, that it wasn’t a mannequin at all. It was something waiting for someone to open the curtain.