The Window
When I was a teen, me and my family bought a modest-sized house in a quite neighborhood on the outskirts of New Albany, Ohio. The house was in rough shape, a real fixer-upper. But Mum said the house had "potential" and we spent most of the summer renovating the outside of house. Replacing old boards and re-plastering the walls, but what struck me as odd was that the outside of the house had 12 windows in total, but I only ever counted 11 inside. I brought this up to my Dad, "Son, you know these old houses, patched and rigged beyond recognition, that window is probably behind the shower now or something." He told me. I didn't pursue the question any further, my parents already though I focused too much on the trivial things in life.
By the time August rolled around we had fully moved in, me, my Mum and Dad and my younger sister. My room was on the second floor, near the back of the house, which gave me a great view of our back yard and my Mum's garden, or what was left of it, for the chill early fall air had killed off most of the flowers. But Mum was persistent and still tried to nudge the flowers into life. I was busy reading one of new books when I happened to look up and notice one of my sister's "My Persnickety Pony" dolls on my shelf. I sat my book down and when over to remove the doll. "Sally!" I called, "Come get your stupid horse out of my room!" I heard my sister long before I saw her, she sounded like a herd of elephants when she ran. "Mrs. Crabapple there you are." She said as I handed her the horse. ""Mrs. Crabapple" needs to learn that she doesn't belong on my shelf Sally." I said as I pointed to my shelf and the replica skull "Mrs. Crabapple" was next to when I found her. Then I realized that the shelf was too high up for Sally to have placed the doll. "Hey, uh Sally..." But before I could ask her how she had pulled that off, she had ran back to her room.
I tried to rationalize how she could of put the doll up there, but I couldn't think of anything. There's no way Dad would have let her drag a ladder upstairs, and my bed was too far away from the shelf for her to stand on it. I'm overthinking this. I though to myself, and soon the event was out of my mind. The next few weeks passed without much incident, until one late September day when I was out front raking leaves when a couple of local kids came riding up on their bikes, they were about my sisters age. "Hey, can Sally come out and play?" One asked me. "No, I'm sorry but Sally isn't home, she had a doctor's appointment today." I told them. The second kid pointed at the house, "Your lying, I can see here right there in the window!" She said. I turned and looked where the kid was pointing. The window at the far right of the house, the one that didn't lead anywhere. "There's no one in that window, it doesn't go anywhere". I told them. "Sure there's someone in it, they have long blond hair, like Sally!" The first kid said. "She looks sad, is she in trouble?" The second kid asked. I looked again at the window, but still didn't see anything. The kids soon rode off, I guess no longer in the mood to play. I'd be lying if that little event didn't give me the chills. After I was done raking the leaves I headed inside to read for a bit, when I got to the top of the stairs, I looked off towards where the window should have been on the inside of the house, but there was only a wall. Me and my sister's room were across the hall from each other, on opposite ends of the house, if there is enough space for my sister's room to be at the front of the house, could it be possible that...
"Dad I think our house has a hidden room!" I told my Dad at dinner that night. "Pfft, and I'm the Duke of Brookshire. Son, I know every inch of this house, there are no hidden rooms." He said in his usual dismissive tone. "But Dad, today these kids said they saw a little girl in that window, that darkened one." I tried to explain to him. "Son, their kids, kids say all kinds of things. Really, a little girl in the window? You need to lay off of the horror flicks." He said. That night I laid in my bed thinking things over, and I decided that first thing in the morning, I was going to open that hidden room, and prove to my Dad that I was right.
Once my parents had left for the day, and Sally was off at her playdate, I went and got my Dad's old toolbox and started to work. The end of the hall was covered in wallpaper, but with a little probing I was able to find an old metal latch beneath the wallpaper. I pryed away the wallpaper and found an old oak door, bolted shut and flush with the surrounding wall. "Yes! I was right." I proclaimed to myself. I carefully unhinged the latch and pulled the door open, it was surprisingly heavy and creaked and groaned with resistance. What I found inside made my blood run cold, the room was done up in pastel colors, and filled with girly flourishes. A layer of dust covered the room, and there, in the tiny bed lay a little skeleton. She was dressed in a light-colored gown and tiara. Bits of hair still clung to the diminutive skull, and one bony hand clutched a crayon, worn down into a nub. On the wall, scrawled in crayon was the words "I was a bad girl, and they left me, I was a bad girl, and they left me..."
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