CHAPTER 11 — THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW
The morning after reading Rebecca's diary, Mara found herself unable to stop thinking about the final entry.
Tonight Dad says we're leaving. But I don't think everyone is going with us.
The sentence had followed her through breakfast, through the quiet rooms of Blackwood House, and into the afternoon.
She eventually decided to get some fresh air and stood near the upstairs window overlooking the road.
The woods were unusually still. Across from the property, beyond a narrow stretch of overgrown grass, stood an abandoned house that George had noticed on their first day but had never bothered to investigate.
Its roof was partially collapsed, several windows were broken, and thick vines covered one side of the building.
According to the local records, nobody had lived there for years.
Mara was about to turn away when something moved behind one of the upper windows.
She stopped. At first she thought it was a curtain shifting in the wind.
Then the shape became clearer. A woman was standing behind the glass.
Mara froze. The figure was motionless, facing directly toward Blackwood House.
She appeared to be wearing a long, pale-colored coat or dress, though the distance made it impossible to tell.
Mara stepped closer to the window. “Hello?”
she whispered, knowing the woman couldn't possibly hear her.
The figure didn't move. Mara's heart began beating faster.
She looked toward the abandoned property again.
The woman was still there. She could see the outline of dark hair around her face.
For one brief moment, Mara thought the woman lifted her hand and placed it against the glass.
Then a branch moved across Mara's view, blocking the window.
When it passed, the figure was gone. Mara remained frozen for several seconds.
She considered calling George, but instead hurried downstairs.
She found him in the kitchen examining the documents they had collected.
“George,” she said. “There's someone in the house across the road.”
George immediately looked up. “What?” Mara pointed toward the window.
“I saw a woman upstairs.” George studied her expression.
“Are you sure?” Mara nodded. “She was standing in the window.”
George glanced outside. The abandoned house looked exactly as it had before—empty, dark, and partially swallowed by vegetation.
“That place has been abandoned for years,” he said.
“I know.” Mara grabbed her coat. “Then we should check.”
George hesitated. Everything they had discovered over the past few days had taught him not to dismiss Mara's instincts.
He followed her outside. They crossed the grass and approached the rusted gate.
Up close, the property looked even more neglected.
The front door hung slightly open, and weeds had grown through cracks in the stone path.
George pushed the door wider. It moved with a long, unpleasant creak.
Inside, the air smelled of damp wood and mold.
George switched on his flashlight and swept it across the entrance hall.
Dust covered almost everything. The staircase was partially damaged, and pieces of plaster had fallen from the ceiling.
Mara looked toward the upper floor. “She was up there.”
George nodded and began climbing. Each step groaned beneath their weight.
They checked the first room. Empty. The second.
Empty. The third room contained only a broken chair and a pile of fallen plaster.
George searched behind the doors, inside the cupboards, and beneath the windows.
There was no sign of anyone. No coat. No bag.
No food. No water. No indication that a person had been living there.
Mara stood in the upstairs hallway, confused.
“I saw her,” she said quietly. George believed her.
He just couldn't explain what she had seen.
Then George noticed the window.
He walked toward it and examined the dusty floor beneath the glass.
At first there was nothing. Then his flashlight caught a mark in the dust.
A footprint. George crouched immediately.
It was fresh. The outline was sharp, with almost no dust settled inside it.
He moved the light across the floor and found another.
Then another. A trail of footprints crossed the room.
Mara stepped closer. “Someone was here.”
George nodded. “Recently.” The footprints continued through the hallway, down the staircase, and toward the back entrance.
George followed them carefully. The door at the rear of the house was open by several inches.
Beyond it was a narrow patch of ground leading toward the woods.
The footprints continued outside. George stepped onto the damp earth and followed them with his flashlight.
They were not leading toward the abandoned house.
They were leading away from it.
Toward the woods.
George followed the trail for several yards before stopping near the tree line.
The footprints became harder to see where the ground was covered with leaves and pine needles, but they were still visible in places.
Whoever had made them had walked quickly.
There was no evidence that the person had come from the road.
No tire tracks. No second set of footprints.
Nothing. Mara stood beside George, staring into the trees.
“So she was real,” she said. George nodded.
“Looks like it.” “Then where did she go?”
George looked deeper into the woods. “We don't know.”
Mara's eyes moved toward the darkness between the trees.
“Maybe she went to Blackwood House.” George looked at her.
“Why?” Mara thought about the woman in the window, the hidden photograph, Rebecca's diary, and the three knocks. “Because she was looking at our house.”
They returned to Blackwood House before sunset.
George locked the front door and checked every window.
Mara went upstairs and stood again beside the window overlooking the abandoned property.
The woman was gone. Nothing moved behind the broken glass.
The building looked empty once more. George joined her.
“You were right,” he said. Mara looked at him.
“About what?” “Someone was there.” Mara nodded, but she didn't look relieved.
“That's not what worries me.” George waited.
She pointed toward the woods beyond the abandoned property.
“Those footprints didn't come from the road.”
George followed her gaze. “No.” “They came from somewhere else.”
George thought about it. “Or someone was already inside that house.”
Mara turned toward him. “Then why would they stand in the window and watch us?” George had no answer.
That night, Mara returned to Rebecca's diary.
She read the final entries again, searching for anything she might have missed.
Near the middle of the diary, she found a sentence she had overlooked because it had been written in the margin beside a drawing of the woods.
“Mom says the woman across the road isn't supposed to be there.”
Mara stopped breathing for a moment. She read it again.
The sentence had been written years before.
She looked toward the window. Across the road, the abandoned house stood in darkness.
The woods beyond it were almost invisible beneath the night sky.
Mara slowly closed the diary and looked at George. “I think Rebecca saw her too.”
George took the diary from her and read the sentence himself.
His expression hardened. The woman in the window was no longer simply an unexplained sighting.
She was another piece of a mystery that had begun decades earlier.
Someone had been seen in the abandoned house.
Fresh footprints had led from that building into the woods.
Rebecca had apparently written about a woman across the road years before. And now Mara had seen the same thing.
Outside, somewhere beyond the trees, a branch snapped. George looked toward the window. Mara reached for his hand. Neither of them spoke. Then, from the darkness outside, came the faint sound of footsteps moving toward Blackwood Road.