The Whispering Window

It was a cold September evening when Anna arrived at the cottage.

She had never liked old houses. But this one — tucked in a forgotten European village — belonged to her late grandmother. The family wanted her to stay for two days, collect important documents, and prepare the house for sale.

The cottage stood alone near a thick forest. It had stone walls, wooden beams, and tall windows that looked like they hadn't been cleaned in decades. Fog surrounded the fields. The air smelled like earth and age.

Anna thought she could handle two nights.

She was wrong.

That first night, she lay in a narrow bed upstairs. The wind howled outside. The house groaned as if it remembered things. Anna closed her eyes.

And then — she heard it.

A whisper.

"Anna..."

She sat up. The room was dark. Only the pale moonlight came through the large window near her bed.

She listened again.

Silence.

She went to the window and looked out. Just mist. No person. No animal. No sound.

She shook her head. “Maybe it’s jetlag,” she whispered to herself, and went back to bed.

The second night, it happened again — but louder.

"Anna... come closer..."

She stared at the window. Her heart raced. The air felt colder. She stepped toward the glass slowly.

Outside, the fog was thicker now, hugging the trees. And then, on the inside of the glass, a mark appeared.

A handprint.

It was long and pale — too long to be human.

Anna screamed.

She backed away, tripping over a chair, falling hard on the wooden floor. She grabbed her flashlight and ran downstairs. The whole night, she sat by the fireplace, too afraid to sleep.

In the morning, she found an old journal in the attic.

It belonged to her grandmother.

The first page read:

> “The window speaks. Don’t answer it. It remembers names.”

– Grandmother Eliza

Her hands trembled. She turned more pages:

> “It whispered at night again. It knew my name.”

“I covered the window. It laughed.”

“I burned the curtains. It left ash behind.”

“The window knows things.”

Anna closed the journal and stepped back.

Her grandmother hadn’t died peacefully — she had disappeared. No one ever found her.

Anna suddenly wanted to leave. Right away.

She packed her bag, grabbed her coat, and went to the front door.

But it wouldn’t open.

The lock was jammed. The windows wouldn’t budge. Her phone had no signal. She was trapped.

And then, upstairs — the window slammed open by itself.

Anna heard her name again.

"Anna... I waited for you..."

She ran upstairs — why, she didn’t know. Maybe because she had to see it with her own eyes.

And there, near the open window, was a paper doll. Small, white, and folded carefully. Written on its chest was her name:

"Anna"

She picked it up.

Then the window glass fogged over. Words began to appear from inside:

> “Say my name.”

Anna dropped the doll and ran. She screamed, kicked the door, cried — but nothing worked.

The whisper turned deeper now.

"Say it… or I will."

Suddenly, she heard laughter — from the mirror.

She turned.

Her reflection was smiling — but she wasn’t. Its eyes were black. Its mouth too wide.

Anna screamed and threw a candle at the mirror. It shattered.

In that moment, the whisper stopped.

The fog disappeared.

The door unlocked.

She left without looking back.

No bag. No journal. No paper doll.

Just her life.

She never returned to the cottage.

A year later, Anna now lives in a small apartment in Berlin.

She keeps all windows closed, even in summer. She avoids mirrors at night. She never says her name aloud when she’s alone.

But sometimes…

When she walks past a fogged window…

She sees a handprint.

From the inside.

And when she’s brushing her teeth — if she looks up at the mirror too quickly — she sees her reflection smile…

Even when she isn’t.