The Vertical Woman

I remember that New Year’s Eve at my cousin’s farmhouse, the one buried in the pine woods where the cell signal died and the only sound was the wind scraping branches against the roof. My family was downstairs, laughing over champagne and the TV’s crackling fireworks, but I was in the attic bedroom, a dusty space with slanted ceilings and a single window that looked out onto a black tangle of trees. My name is Eleanor, and I was twenty-six, and I had spent the entire year spiraling into a pit of my own making. I had lost my job, my apartment, my sense of self, and I was convinced that the new year would be just another loop of the same gray misery.

I lay on the narrow bed, staring at the ceiling, feeling the weight of my own bones. The mattress smelled of mothballs and old wood. I could hear my uncle’s booming laugh, my aunt’s high-pitched giggle, my cousin’s voice. They were in a different world, one where hope was a currency, not a cruel joke. I hated them a little for it. I hated everyone. I hated myself most of all.

I turned my head to the window. The glass was cold, and the view was all darkness and the occasional flicker of a distant porch light. I blinked, and tears blurred the reflection of the room—the dressing table with its cracked mirror, the stack of old National Geographic magazines, the bare bulb hanging from a frayed cord. I closed my eyes, not to sleep, but to escape. Just for a moment. Just to feel nothing.

When I opened them, she was there.

She stood at the foot of the bed, about three meters away, between the dressing table and the door. She was impossibly tall, her head almost grazing the sloped ceiling, and she had to stoop slightly, like a crane in a room built for sparrows. She wore a long, dark coat that reached her ankles, and her skin was pale as ash, almost luminous in the dim light. Her hair was black and hung straight, framing a face that was all sharp angles—high cheekbones, a narrow jaw, and eyes that were too wide, too dark, like bottomless wells.

I did not scream. I could not. My breath caught in my throat, and my heart hammered against my ribs, but my body was frozen, as if I were pinned by a weight. I was not asleep—I was acutely aware of the sheets beneath me, the pillow under my neck, the faint hum of the refrigerator from somewhere below. The dressing table was still there, the magazines, the bare bulb—I could sense them, but they seemed muted, as if seen through a film of water.

The woman did not move. She just stood there, watching me. And I watched her back, my eyes wide, my mind racing through impossible explanations—a sleep paralysis demon, a hallucination born of stress, a trick of the light. But she was too solid, too real. I could see the texture of her coat, the way it hung with a weight that suggested wet cloth. I could see the faint rise and fall of her chest, though I did not hear her breathe.

Then she spoke. Her voice was not loud, but it filled the room, as if it came from all directions at once. It was low, and smooth, and utterly devoid of emotion. She said, ‘You have been chosen.’

I managed to whisper, ‘Chosen for what?’

She tilted her head, a slow, unnatural motion, like a bird’s. ‘To see what lies beyond. You have spent so long looking inward that you have forgotten the world outside. I am here to remind you.’

She raised one long arm, pointing a thin finger toward the window. I followed the gesture, and my blood went cold. Through the glass, the darkness had shifted. Instead of the pine forest, I saw a vast, empty plain under a sky of sickly green, with a single, twisted tree in the distance, its branches like reaching hands. On the horizon, a sun hung low, but it was wrong—too red, too large, and it seemed to pulse, like a heartbeat.

I turned back to her, my mouth dry. ‘Where is that?’

She smiled, and it was worse than her blankness—her lips stretched too wide, showing teeth that were too many, too long. ‘That is where you were going. That is the place of your own making, the place of endless nothing. But I have seen your pain, and I have taken pity. I offer you a different path.’

I felt a surge of something—fear, but also a glimmer of curiosity. For the first time in months, I felt a spark. ‘What path?’

‘Follow me,’ she said, and she began to walk toward the window. But she did not pass me; she walked through the dressing table, her form passing through the wood as if it were air, and she stood at the window, her back to me. She reached out and pressed her hand to the glass, and the glass rippled like water. Then she looked over her shoulder, and her eyes were no longer dark—they were burning, a dull orange glow, like embers.

‘Now or never, little one.’

I should have stayed. I should have screamed for my family. But something in my chest, something that had been cold and dead, stirred. I swung my legs off the bed, my feet touching the cold floor. I stood, and I felt my body move, as if I were a puppet and she held the strings. I walked toward her, my steps silent on the wooden floor.

She smiled again, and she stepped through the window, vanishing into the green-lit world. The glass trembled, and I hesitated at the sill. I looked back at the room, at the bed, the magazines, the light. Everything was there, exactly as I had left it. But I knew that if I stayed, I would be in that room forever, alone with my depression, slowly wasting away. And I knew that if I followed her, I might die—but at least I would be living.

I closed my eyes, and I stepped through.

The glass was cold, then it was not. I opened my eyes, and I was standing on the plain, the grass whispering against my ankles. The sky churned with green and black clouds, and the red sun bled light across the land. She stood a few meters ahead, waiting for me. She reached out her hand.

‘Come, Eleanor. Let me show you what you are truly made of.’

I took her hand. It was cold, and dry, and I felt a jolt of energy run through me, like lightning. Together, we walked toward the twisted tree, and I did not look back at the window, because I knew it was gone.

I spent the rest of that night—or what felt like a night—in that other place. She showed me things: rivers of black water, forests of silent stone, cities of glass that reflected nothing. She showed me my own fears, made solid, and I faced them one by one. And with each step, I felt something inside me shift, like a lock turning.

When I finally returned—I don’t know how, or when—I was back in the attic room, the morning light streaming through the window. The dressing table, the magazines, the bare bulb—all were as they had been. But I was different. The heavy weight in my chest was gone, replaced by a strange, clear calm.

I never saw her again, but I often think of her. The vertical woman, who came in the darkest hour and led me out of myself. I don’t know if she was real, or a figment of my broken mind. But I know this: if she ever appears again, I will follow her, without hesitation, because she gave me the one thing I thought I had lost forever—the will to see what lies beyond.

And that is my story. I tell it every New Year’s Eve, to anyone who will listen. Some think I’m crazy. But I know the truth. The vertical woman exists, and she is patient, and she waits for those who have given up. If you see her, don’t be afraid. She may just save you.