The Painted Window

The farmhouse had always been drafty, but that night the cold crept in like a living thing. I lay in the narrow iron bed, my two younger brothers, Danny and Leo, breathing softly in their cots beside me. We’d decided to stay up late, swapping tales of the things that skulk in the woods and the shadows that move when you’re not looking. Danny’s favorite was the one about the girl in the well, and Leo kept insisting he heard her singing, but I just laughed and told them to hush. My eyelids grew heavy, and despite their protests, I reached over and clicked off the oil lamp. ‘Go to sleep,’ I said, my voice already thick with drowsiness. ‘It’s just stories.’

I don’t remember when the dream began, but suddenly I was standing in a field of tall, dry grass under a sky the color of bruised plums. A girl stood a little way off, her back to me, wearing a white dress that looked like a bedsheet draped over a hanger. Her hair was a tangle of black, hanging past her waist, and she was humming a tune I didn’t recognize. Slowly, she turned, and I saw her face—or rather, the lack of it. Where her eyes should have been, there were only smooth, milky patches of skin, and her mouth was a thin, lipless line that opened to a black void. ‘Play with me,’ she whispered, and the sound came from everywhere and nowhere. ‘Play with me.’ I tried to scream, but my throat was a dry well. She took a step forward, and I woke with a gasp, my heart hammering.

The room was dark except for the faint silver of moonlight streaming through the grimy window. Danny and Leo were still asleep, their chests rising and falling in that lazy rhythm. I told myself it was just a nightmare, but then I glanced at the window. There she was—the same girl, the same white dress, the same featureless face—pressed against the glass from outside, her palms flat against the pane as if she was trying to push through. Her mouth moved, silent words, but I knew what she was saying: ‘Play with me.’ I squeezed my eyes shut, counted to ten, and when I opened them, she was gone. Only my reflection stared back, pale and shaking. I buried my head under the pillow and prayed for dawn.

I must have drifted off, because the next thing I knew, light was bleeding through the curtains, and the rooster was crowing. My brothers were already up, squabbling over the water basin. I felt a strange heaviness in my limbs, and a dull ache in my head, like I’d been crying all night. When I came down for breakfast, my aunt was sitting at the big oak table, a cup of tea in her hands. She looked at me with a frown. ‘Why were you crying last night?’ she asked. ‘You were sobbing in your sleep. I heard you down the hall.’ A chill traced down my spine. ‘I—I wasn’t crying,’ I stammered. ‘I had a dream, that’s all.’ But she shook her head. ‘It wasn’t just a dream, child. There was a little girl standing at the foot of your bed, singing. I thought I was seeing things. But then you started crying, and she disappeared.’ I felt the blood drain from my face. My aunt must have seen my terror, because she put down her cup and pulled me into a hug. ‘It was nothing, dear. Just the shadows playing tricks.’ But I knew better. I looked out the kitchen window, half-expecting to see her there, fingers waving. The glass was fogged with morning condensation, but I could have sworn I saw a handprint on the outside, small and delicate, pressed into the dew. It was the same shape as the girl’s hand from my dream.