Girl in the Window. Penny Joelson

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      My eyes turn towards the upstairs window at the house opposite. The curtains are closed and there’s no one there – but then I see one curtain move. A hand – a face – dark eyes, looking out. Then nothing. Again, I didn’t see clearly, but I’m sure it’s the same face I glimpsed before and I’m even more certain now that it wasn’t the face of the woman who lives there. This face is narrower, younger. A girl. Who is she? She disappeared so quickly.

      The couple have a baby, but I’ve never seen a girl come in or out of that house. If she’s the one who was looking out of the window, then why did the woman lie about anyone else living there?

5

      ‘Mum, did you know there’s a girl living over at number forty-eight?’ I ask. ‘As well as that couple and their baby. ‘I’ve never seen her go out. Don’t you think that’s weird?’

      ‘A girl? I’ve not seen a girl,’ Mum says as she picks up an empty mug from my bedside cabinet. ‘Are you sure?’

      ‘Yes,’ I tell her.

      I start watching the girl’s window more closely. I’m certain she’s real. A couple of days later, I see her again, just as I hear Mum coming up the stairs. I call her urgently. I want her to see the girl – to prove that she exists. Mum comes running, thinking something’s wrong.

      ‘Mum – look! She’s there now! The girl!’

      I only turned away for a second, but as Mum reaches the window and I turn back, the girl has gone.

      Mum peers across the road. ‘I don’t see her, mój kotku. What’s so interesting about this girl?’

      ‘I think it was her,’ I tell Mum. ‘I think she was the one who saw what I saw, when that woman was dragged into the car. And the police didn’t speak to her, did they? Should I call the police again and tell them?’

      ‘But the police went and talked to the people in the house, and nobody saw anything. You know that,’ says Mum. ‘If a woman was abducted, surely someone would have missed her by now and reported it. They found no one missing, did they? Maybe you mistook what you saw?’

      I shake my head. ‘I know what I saw – and there is a girl across the road. I’ve seen her too. And I never see her go out.’

      ‘Someone could say the same about you,’ Mum comments.

      ‘Yes. Maybe that’s it!’ I exclaim. ‘She could be ill like me – and that’s why she doesn’t go out. Perhaps the people across the road didn’t want her stressed with questions and that’s why they didn’t mention her to the police?’

      ‘It’s possible, I suppose,’ says Mum. ‘If unlikely.’

      ‘I want to go across the road and ask them,’ I tell Mum. ‘Maybe we could even be friends?’

      ‘Oh Kasia. I don’t want you going round there annoying them. If you really think this girl exists and she might be stuck inside, ill like you, then perhaps I could go over and ask for you.’

      ‘Would you, Mum? Thanks! That’d be great.’

      Mum goes downstairs and I sit at the window and watch her cross the road to number forty-eight. It’s the man who opens the door. I can see Mum talking, but she isn’t there long.

      I wait eagerly for her to come in and back upstairs.

      ‘So?’ I ask. ‘What did he say?’

      ‘Well, I asked – you saw me. And the man had no idea what I was talking about,’ she tells me. ‘I felt embarrassed, Kasia.’

      ‘What did he say?’

      Mum gives me a quizzical look. ‘He said there’s no girl there.’

      ‘What? Did he speak English? Maybe he didn’t understand,’ I say, bewildered.

      ‘He had an accent, but his English was clear enough,’ says Mum. ‘Perhaps you imagined her. Or maybe a girl was there and now she’s gone – I don’t know. But she isn’t there now and I think you should put your mind to other things.’

      I go and lie down on the bed – but I can’t stop thinking about it. I don’t understand what’s going on. The man must be lying – but why would he? I’m sure I saw her! Only glimpses I know, but why would I imagine it? If only she wouldn’t always vanish so quickly . . .

      As I think more, prickles start running up my spine. And then I start having properly crazy thoughts, like, what if the reason she vanishes so quickly and that no one else has seen her, not even the people who live there – what if that’s because she’s . . . a ghost?

       Today I looked out of the window – even though I know that I should not – and I was shocked. I saw the ghost of myself – looking back at me. A girl in the window opposite. She peered out, just as I did, her shadowy shape a mirror-image of mine, though her hair was light, her face pale. Is she a ghost, just as I am? Is the whole street perhaps full of ghosts like me, and we know nothing of each other’s plight, or why we can neither live nor our souls rest in peace?

6

      I look out of the window as often as I can that evening and the next day, but she doesn’t reappear. Then, in the evening, I see the woman coming out of the house. She’s on her mobile. She walks up past the bus stop towards the shops, barely glancing left or right as she crosses the road.

      She’s deep in conversation with someone and I can’t help wondering what they’re talking about. Perhaps she’s telling a friend how the house gives her the creeps – especially that small front bedroom. She gets a chill every time she’s in there and it makes her shudder. She wants to move.

      I know this is just my imagination running riot but as I watch, the woman turns and walks back to the house, still speaking in an animated way into the phone. She isn’t going anywhere – she just came out to talk privately. Maybe she was nervous of speaking about the weird atmosphere in that room. She can’t tell her husband. He’d think she was crazy. And she can’t explain it but she feels as if she’s being watched.

      She looks like she’s shouting into the phone now. She’s so loud I can hear a bit of it but I can’t make out the words and anyway, I don’t think it’s English.

      The woman is back at her front door now. She glances up in my direction as she takes a key from her pocket, and she sees me. I pull back from the window, embarrassed, partly about being seen amd partly because of the story I’ve been making up. I wait a minute and then look out cautiously again. She must have gone inside.

      The ghost theory keeps going round and round in my head even though I try to ignore it. I don’t think I believe in ghosts but right now I can’t think of another reason why I keep seeing a girl that nobody else sees – not even the people who live there.

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