The Room With a Locked Window

I never believed in hauntings—until the house at 88 Halberd Street tried to teach me otherwise.

When I first stepped inside, it was the smell I noticed. Not must or mold, like you'd expect from a house empty for ten years. But lavender. Sharp, sweet, cloying. Like someone had sprayed it moments before I arrived.

The realtor, a thin woman named Marcy with over-bleached teeth and a clipboard, barely paused at the threshold. “It’s structurally sound,” she said. “Last owner left a few things behind, but nothing you’d call clutter.”

I didn't care. I just wanted quiet. After the divorce, after the miscarriage, after the job loss—I needed quiet more than I needed furniture. Or friends. Or sunlight.

I signed the papers the next day.

---

The window was in the second bedroom.

Tall, narrow, with a thick wooden frame painted bone white.

It didn’t open. No matter how I pushed or pulled or begged.

The first time I touched it, I felt a pulse. A vibration under the skin, like it was breathing—or remembering. I yanked my hand back and laughed at myself. But not loud. Never loud. The house didn’t like loud.

---

I unpacked slowly. Left the second bedroom empty. Even the cat refused to go in.

Each night, the lavender smell returned. Some nights it was faint. Other nights, thick as fog. I stopped mentioning it to friends—they'd already decided I was “healing weird.”

Then, the dreams started.

I’d see a woman. Standing under the locked window.

Sometimes brushing her hair.

Sometimes crying.

Once, bleeding from the mouth as she pointed at me.

I never saw her face. But I always felt her pain. And always woke up to the window rattling. Just once. Like it wanted me to come back.

---

I tried to pry it open one night.

Hammer. Screwdriver. Razorblade. Nothing worked.

Instead, I found a message etched faintly in the frame. Barely visible unless the light hit it right.

> “If you open it, you forget.”

Forget what? I hadn’t remembered anything new in months. I had a therapist’s worth of trauma stuffed in tidy boxes. I wanted to forget. Why would anyone warn against it?

---

I started seeing her during the day.

Faint reflections in the kitchen faucet.

A shape in the mirror when I wasn’t looking at myself.

Lavender rising stronger each time she appeared.

I wasn't scared. That was the worst part.

I was curious.

There’s a kind of grief that hollows you out so deeply, fear has nowhere left to grow.

---

On the thirty-second night, I stopped resisting.

I sat in front of the window with my coffee and just waited.

She came.

Closer than before. Almost real.

Hair like damp leaves. Eyes like mine.

She didn’t speak. Just placed her hand on the glass.

So I placed mine on the other side.

I felt warmth. Then cold.

Then—

memories that weren’t mine.

A child falling down stairs.

Screaming that echoed too long.

A man’s belt.

A mother’s silence.

The locked door.

The lavender perfume bottle smashed on the floor.

I gasped awake, on my living room rug, coffee cold, window still shut.

---

I tried to leave the house the next day.

Got in my car, made it halfway down the street.

Then forgot where I was going.

Then forgot why I wanted to leave.

Then forgot who I was calling when I picked up the phone.

I turned around. Parked in the driveway. Walked back in.

The lavender hit me like a slap. I didn’t flinch.

---

She came again that night.

This time, closer.

She pointed to the frame. Her mouth moved. I read the words:

> “If you open it, you forget. If you don’t, you rot.”

I understood, finally.

She wasn’t trapped.

I was.

Not in the house.

In the past.

In the boxes.

In the forgetting.

---

I didn’t sleep. I sat with her.

Until morning.

Until the light through the window made her vanish.

And I remembered something I’d buried:

A room.

A crib.

Blood.

Silence.

A door locked from the outside.

---

Today is my last day in the house.

I didn’t pack. I won’t need anything.

I only need to remember.

I’ve written this so someone will know what happened.

I’m going to break the window.

I’m ready to forget—or not.

But I won’t rot.