Girl in the Window Series - Window 1, Anne Plaggenborg [read this if txt] 📗

My friend Debbie and I have been taking evening walks after dinner for years. Always around dusk we walk over to the old community next to us purposely to pass the house on the corner. The old community was made up of about 20 homes that were set on giant pieces of property and were very large in size. The house that Deb and I have admired for the past 10 years sat in the middle of three lots with a street in front of it, beside it and behind it. It literally took up two corners. It was as if this dwelling was in a world of its own. Since Deb and I found this house it’s been empty. A tremendous two story building, around 10 thousand square feet, with columns in the front on a dark stone porch and surrounded by land with two long driveways in the front and on the covered by massive looming trees. It was palatial and stood proudly. We loved to stand in front of it and make up fantasies about what we would do if we owned it. Dinner parties, holidays, decorating ideas, we loved our fantasy house and all the dreams that we had about it, but on this one particular night our connection with the house changed. While Deb and I stood in the front of our dream palace talking, we both noticed a little girls face peering out of the top bedroom window. “Did you see that?” Deb whispered. All I could do is nod my head in shock. We both stood there frozen with fright and for a few seconds could not move. Then Deb broke the silence, “We have to go up there.” Deb started walking up the front driveway and I stayed still not moving a muscle. Deb stopped as she reached the front double doors and turned to look at me, “Come on!” she yelled. Reluctantly I met her on the stone porch walking fast frightened of the intimidating trees. We never did this before. We always saw this house as untouchable. My feelings about the house were beginning to change while on the property and I could not understand why. Maybe it was a shadow we saw or the window was dirty. None of this made sense. As I reached Deb, she turned the door knob and the door swung open out of her hand slowly and too easily. She looked back at me amazed. Deb walked in first and I followed and we both stood in the foyer looking around in awe. The house was magnificent. To the right was a tremendous main room with a tall white marble fireplace and two French doors on the side of it. On the left was a half circle wide marble staircase that led up to the second story. Beyond that was more and more house. Everything was white and immense. “Little girl! Little girl! We are here to help you!” Deb shouted through the house. I tapped on Debs shoulder and pointed up the staircase, “She was upstairs Deb.” We both started up the stairs and I realized that it was getting darker outside, so I pulled out my cell phone and used it as light. “It’s this room.” Deb said and led me into an empty bedroom. Nothing and no one was there except a long mirror on the wall. “Give me your phone” Deb murmured. She took the phone and opened up the camera and started snapping pictures. She snapped pictures of the room, the mirror in the room, the hallway, the staircase, the main room and I followed her becoming more and more exasperated. “Let’s go already!” I said feeling very uncomfortable. “Listen, we have always wanted to see the inside of this house, now we have pictures.” Deb said with a little smile. Finally we walk outside the front door and an old man is standing in the street at the end of the driveway. “Uh oh” I said jokingly. As we got closer the man started to introduce himself, “Hi, I am John and I have lived next to this empty house for 50 years, why are you gals in there?” We both looked at each other, “Well, we always walk through this neighborhood at dusk and we make it our business to pass this house because it is so beautiful, so majestic.” Deb explained. “OK, but why did you go in?” John asked impatiently. “We saw a little girl peering through the upstairs window.” I said defensively and pointed towards the window. “That little girl has been gone for a long time.” John said abruptly and then began to walk towards his property. Deb stepped up towards John and bellowed, “What girl? Who is she?” John stopped for a moment then turned around with a very gloomy look, “She was a little girl who was murdered by her nanny, and then the nanny was found dead at the bottom of the stairs. No one knew who did it, but I will never forget how that incident changed this neighborhood.” John walked closer and continued, “The mother went mad and the father committed suicide.” We both stood there in amazement. “See, rumor has it that the nanny was having an affair with the little girl’s father and the nanny found out she was pregnant, but her lover made her get rid of it and out of jealousy she killed his little girl. My neighbors and I have been petitioning for a long time to have this cursed house demolished and finally give us some closure.” Then without a word John turned around and walked back to his property, entering his house without turning around.” Both Deb and I were broken hearted. Our dreams have been destroyed. Our beautiful paradise was now gone. We both walked home together in silence. A few hours later, Deb called me, “I have your cell phone, oh and come over I have something to show you.” When I walked into her house, I saw her sitting at the computer, her face white as a ghost. “What’s wrong?” I asked. Deb just pointed at the screen. It was pictures uploaded from my phone. The first picture was of the main room, a woman was standing there smiling and pointing upstairs. The next picture was of the staircase. At the top of the staircase, stood a man choking a woman, over the stairs. The next picture was in the bedroom, into the mirror. In the mirror was a little girl holding her doll and laughing. “She wanted us to know the truth before they destroyed the house. The father killed the nanny and then himself. Her and her mother got their revenge.” I was speechless. Two weeks later, I found out city hall was planning to tear down our beautiful house. This meant Debbie and I did not have much time to investigate further but the neighborhood looked forward to the long lived black cloud that hung over community to finally lift, but all I could do is wonder, the little girl, the mother, the father and the nanny where were they going to live?

Publication Date: 05-15-2009

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Dedication:
Dedicated to the haunted house in the Coral Hills Neighborhood.