The Third Floor Window

I never believed in ghosts, not even when my daughter started talking about the man in the attic. We lived in an old Victorian house, the kind with creaking floorboards and a third floor we never used. My wife, Sarah, had died two years ago, and I’d moved here with our six-year-old, Lily, hoping a fresh start would help us heal. Instead, it felt like the house was waiting for something.

The first incident happened on a rainy Tuesday night. I’d tucked Lily into her canopy bed, read her a story, and kissed her forehead. She was asleep before I left the room. I went to my study, lost myself in work, and didn’t check on her until midnight. When I opened her door, the hallway light spilled across her bed. She was lying on her back, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling. ‘Lily?’ I whispered, stepping closer. She didn’t move. I knelt beside her, and she slowly turned her head. There was a man standing behind you,’ she said, her voice flat. ‘He was tall, and he had no mouth.’ I spun around, but the room was empty. I tried to laugh it off. ‘Must have been a bad dream, sweetie.’ She just closed her eyes and turned away.

I told myself it was imagination, but I couldn’t shake the cold dread that settled in my gut. The next week, I was closing up the house for the night, checking the doors and windows. As I passed the foot of the stairs, I heard a faint thumping from above, like someone bouncing a ball on the third floor. I froze. The staircase to the third floor was behind a locked door, which I hadn’t opened since we moved in. I crept up to the second floor, where the door stood ajar. I never left it open. I pushed it wider, revealing the narrow, dusty steps leading up into darkness. At the top, a pale light flickered, as if someone was holding a candle. I called out, ‘Hello?’ The light vanished, and the thumping stopped. I stood there for a long time, my heart pounding, before I slammed the door shut and locked it.

Lily started acting strangely. She’d have conversations with ‘her friend’ in the hallway at night, though when I asked her about it, she’d say, ‘He lives in the attic. He’s lonely.’ She began to draw pictures at the kitchen table: crude stick figures with hollow eyes, their arms outstretched. One day, she handed me a drawing. It showed two figures, one tall with no mouth, and one small, with a big smile. ‘That’s me and my friend,’ she said. ‘He wants to play a game with you.’ I crumpled the paper and threw it away, but I couldn’t ignore the creeping feeling that something was wrong.

A month later, I was putting Lily to bed and we did the usual routine: story, goodnight, and I lay beside her until she dozed off. I waited until her breathing evened out, then quietly slipped out to my computer. Hours passed, and I was about to call it a night. I walked into her room to check on her, only to find her blanket had kicked off. As I reached down to pull it up, Lily shot upright in bed and shouted, ‘Hey! Come back here! Where are you going?’ I jumped back, my heart racing. ‘Lily, it’s just me.’ She blinked, seeming disoriented. She slid off the bed, went to the bathroom, and when she came back, she stood in the doorway, frowning. ‘Where did your friends go?’ she asked. ‘What friends?’ I said. ‘When you came in, there were two men with you. They went out the window.’ I looked at the window, closed and latched. There was no one in the room. ‘There’s no one here, Lily.’ She stomped her foot. ‘Yes there was! They were standing right behind you, and they went out the window!’ I tried to calm her, but she insisted. After she finally settled, I called my aunt, who’d always been a bit eccentric, and she listened to my account. ‘Oh, honey,’ she said, her voice grave. ‘You need to get out of that house. The third floor, has it been sealed?’ I told her about the door. ‘It’s a doorway,’ she said. ‘They’re coming through it. You need to have a priest bless the house, and seal that floor with salt and iron.’ I hung up, skeptical, but I couldn’t shake her words.

The next night, I decided to investigate the third floor myself. I had a flashlight and a heavy crowbar. I unlocked the door, climbed the stairs, and found a dusty room with a single window facing the backyard. In the corner, a child’s rocking horse swayed gently, as if recently moved. I went to the window, and in the glass, I saw a reflection: not mine, but two gaunt faces with hollow eyes, leaning over my shoulders. I spun around, but there was nothing. The rocking horse had stopped. I backed away, my hand shaking on the crowbar. From below, I heard Lily’s voice, ‘Daddy, come play.’

I ran down the stairs, my heart hammering. Lily was standing at the bottom, smiling. ‘He says he likes you,’ she said. ‘He wants you to stay.’ I grabbed her hand and told her we were leaving. I packed a bag, and we drove to a motel that night. I never looked back. But even now, when I close my eyes, I see the reflection in that window, the two men with no faces, and I wonder if they followed us. Sometimes, Lily still talks to ‘the man,’ and I find herself drawing pictures of a house with a high, dark window. I don’t know if we can ever truly escape, but I know one thing: that door on the third floor is never to be opened again.