The Window with No Glass

The rain fell like a curtain of needles, stitching the afternoon sky to the gray rooftops of the Marrow District. Inside the two-story flat, Elara sprawled across the threadbare loveseat, her eyelids heavy with the weight of a sleepless week. Jazz crackled from the ancient radio on the sideboard—some mournful trumpet piece that seemed to bleed into the drumming on the glass. In her hand, a bowl of caramelized puffed rice, which she picked at without appetite.

Her brother, Theo, had taken their old cat, Barnaby, to the vet for a suspected ear mite infestation. She could picture the waiting room: the fluorescent buzz, the dog with a cone of shame, Theo’s nervous tapping foot. But that image dissolved when a different face surfaced in her mind—Domino, the sleek black cat they’d owned years ago, now long gone. Domino was not dead, merely absent, a phantom limb of a cat who had vanished one night and never returned.

In the vision, Domino walked the same cat tower they had built when they first moved in, a monstrous structure of sisal and carpet that reached the ceiling. Elara tried to call her, but her throat seized, and only a strangled gasp escaped. The radio crackled, and the trumpet seemed to warp into a low, hollow hum that vibrated in her sternum. She knew that hum—it was the sound of Domino’s purr, magnified a thousandfold.

She shook her head, convincing herself she was merely tired. The air in the flat was thick as broth, so she pushed herself up, crossed the worn floorboards, and wrestled with the living room window. It hadn’t been opened in years, the frame swollen with moisture. Finally, it gave with a groan of old wood and straining hinges. Outside, the rain had stopped. A rainbow curved over the soot-stained chimneys, vivid against a bruise-colored cloud. Elara breathed deep, expecting the clean scent of petrichor, but instead she inhaled something else—a smell like burnt sugar and old fur.

She leaned out, her fingers gripping the sill, and looked down at the narrow alley below. The cobblestones were slick, and a stray newspaper drifted by. But it was not the paper that caught her eye. It was a reflection—not her own, but a dark shape in the glass of the window opposite, a silhouette of a cat with eyes like pierced copper. Then it was gone, and the rainbow vanished with it, replaced by a sky that churned with charcoal clouds.

A shiver ran down her spine. She turned to close the window, but the room felt different. The jazz had stopped, leaving only a hiss of static. The bowl of puffed rice was on the floor, tipped over, scattered like pale maggots across the linoleum. And on the cat tower, in the corner, sat Domino. Not a ghost, not a memory, but solid, her coat glossy, her tail curled around her paws. Elara’s breath caught. ‘Domino?’ she whispered. The cat blinked slowly, then rose and padded down the tower, disappearing under the credenza.

Elara’s heart hammered. This was impossible. Domino had been gone for ten years. She knelt, peering into the shadows beneath the furniture. Nothing. But when she stood, the radio blared to life with a sudden screech of feedback, and the room began to smell of rain and burnt sugar again, stronger now. She spun around. On the wall, a patch of dampness had formed, spreading like a dark bloom. It traced a pattern—a crooked line, a loop—and Elara realized with a cold jolt that it was the same shape as Domino’s tail, the way she curled it when she was about to pounce.

The dampness moved, sliding down the wall, and a voice, thin as a needle, whispered in her ear. ‘You left the window open.’ Elara whirled, but there was no one. The window was still ajar, the curtains fluttering. She rushed to close it, but the latch was stuck. She pulled harder, and the glass pane slipped from her grasp, shattering on the floor. The noise was deafening, and through the broken frame, the air rushed in, not fresh but stale, carrying the scent of a litter box long unused. A single black hair drifted in the current and landed on her hand.

She pulled back, her skin crawling. The radio switched to a low, mournful string piece, the kind they played at funerals. The door to the hallway clicked shut of its own accord. Elara’s reflection in the cracked window glass moved, but she had not moved. It raised a hand, pressed against the glass from outside. But there was no outside—the window was flush against the wall. The reflection’s eyes were not her own; they were copper, slanted.

Then the light flickered. And in the flicker, she saw Domino again, at the top of the tower, staring directly at her. The cat’s mouth opened, and a sound came out—not a meow, but a wheeze, as if the air was being sucked from the room. Elara tried to scream, but her voice was gone, just a gasp of air, like before. She stumbled back, her legs buckling, and she collapsed onto the loveseat, the springs groaning.

When her vision cleared, the room was still. The window was intact, the latch in place. The radio played a soft bossa nova. The bowl of puffed rice was untouched on the side table. The cat tower stood empty. Elara’s breath came in ragged bursts. She told herself it was a waking dream, a trick of afternoon light. But when her brother returned with Barnaby, she did not mention what she had seen.

That night, she lay in bed, the memory of the copper eyes burning in her mind. The house settled around her, creaking. And from the living room below, she heard a faint, rhythmic scratching—the sound of a cat dragging its claws across sisal. She waited for the cry of a bird outside, for anything to break the spell. But the scratching continued, slow and deliberate, until dawn bled through the curtains. When she finally crept downstairs, the cat tower was slightly askew, as if something had climbed it and let fall the weight. And on the topmost platform, a single black hair gleamed in the light.

She never opened that window again. But every time the rain began, she would feel a presence at her shoulder, and the faint smell of burnt sugar would fill the room, and the radio would crackle with a frequency she could not tune. And sometimes, in the corner of her eye, she would see the reflection of a cat in the glass—when there was nothing there at all.