The Window on Maple Street

It was the kind of autumn evening that made you want to pull your coat tighter and hurry home. The old Victorian at the end of Maple Street had stood empty for years, its gingerbread trim peeling like sunburnt skin. When my partner and I moved in, we thought we were getting a bargain. We didn’t count on the renovation project that came with it, nor the locked attic that the realtor said was ‘just storage space.’

From the first night, I felt watched. I’d be unpacking boxes in the living room, and I’d catch a flicker of movement from the corner of my eye, always near the staircase. But when I turned, there was nothing. My partner, Carla, dismissed it as nerves, the old house settling. She was a pragmatist, grounded in the visible world. I was not so sure.

One evening, while clearing dead leaves from the front garden, I stopped to catch my breath. The attic window, a small round porthole above the porch, was dark as always. But then, something moved. A small face pressed against the glass, pale and indistinct. I squinted, and it was gone. I told myself it was just a shadow, a trick of the fading light. But the image stuck in my mind like a burr.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I heard soft thuds from above, as if someone were dropping a tennis ball over and over. I got up and crept to the attic door. It was padlocked, just as we’d left it. I put my ear to the wood. The sound stopped. Then, clear as a bell, a child’s voice whispered, ‘Are you my friend?’

I didn’t answer. I backed away, my heart hammering. When I told Carla in the morning, she laughed. ‘It’s probably just a raccoon or something. Or the wind.’ But her smile was thin, and she didn’t meet my eyes. That day, we both went about our business, but we avoided the attic door.

The next night, the sounds were more insistent: footsteps pacing, a low humming. I found Carla standing at the foot of the attic stairs, her face pale. ‘There’s something up there,’ she said. ‘I felt a cold draft, and I heard a little girl crying.’ We decided to open the attic.

The padlock gave way with a rusty groan. The stairs were narrow and steep, dust swirling in the beam of our flashlights. The attic was vast and empty except for a single rocking chair, facing the small round window. On the windowsill sat a porcelain doll, its glass eyes glinting. There was no ball, no toys, nothing else. But as we stood there, the rocking chair began to move back and forth, gently, as if pushed by an invisible hand.

We fled, slamming the attic door behind us. I felt a chill crawl up my spine. That night, as we lay in bed, I heard a soft padding on the floor above, the sound of small feet running, and then a giggle. It was not a happy sound.

We tried to find out about the house’s history. The old neighbors, the Wilsons, told us that a family had lived there in the 1900s, and their little girl, Emily, had died of scarlet fever. She’d been very lonely, they said, always standing at that window, waiting for someone to play with. Her parents had been cold, distant, and after she died, they sealed off the attic.

Then we noticed the doll. We had left it up there, but each morning, we’d find it in a different spot in the attic, or sometimes in the hallway. I once saw it on the kitchen table, staring at us. We tried to get rid of it, but it always mysteriously returned.

One night, I woke to a soft whisper in my ear: ‘You can be my friend now.’ I turned, and there was a little girl standing at the foot of our bed, her hair in braids, a long white dress with lace at the collar. She was translucent, but her eyes were dark and hungry. ‘Come play,’ she said, and pointed to the attic.

Carla woke too, and we both froze. The girl smiled, and then vanished. A cold wind swept through the room, and I heard the attic door creak open by itself. We grabbed our coats and fled the house, not daring to look back.

We stayed at a motel, but we knew we couldn’t leave that house as it was, not with that poor child trapped there. So we formed a small team, a band of believers and skeptics, to help others like us. We returned the next day, armed with sage and prayers and a plan.

We climbed to the attic, and there was the doll, sitting in the rocking chair. We spoke to the child, told her she could rest now, that it was okay to let go. The temperature dropped, and we saw a faint shimmer near the window. The doll rocked, slowly. And then, all at once, the window blew open, and a gust of wind swept through the room, carrying the doll out into the night.

We sealed off the attic again, and this time, it seemed to work. The house felt quieter, emptier. But we always wondered if she was really gone, or if she had just found a new home in some other lost soul. Now, when we help others with their haunted houses, we tell them that sometimes, the lonely stay behind, waiting for a friend who will never come. And we listen, always, for that soft giggle and the sound of a bouncing ball in the room above.