The whitmore house

(This story might scare some people) The wind rattled the shutters of the old Whitmore house, a place most of the children in town dared each other to step foot inside. Its roof sagged, its windows were stained with age, and the garden had grown into a tangle of thorns and brambles. Nobody had lived there for decades, or so people said.

Fourteen-year-old Lila crouched by the rusty gate, her backpack heavy on her shoulders. She could feel her heartbeat in her ears. She wasn’t supposed to be here—her mom had forbidden it—but the Whitmore house had been calling to her in dreams for weeks.

Each night, she’d see a figure at one of the upstairs windows, pale as moonlight, whispering something she couldn’t quite hear. But last night the dream changed. Last night, the whisper had been clear:

"Can you see me?"

That voice had echoed in her chest long after she woke up.

Now here she was, standing at the threshold of the house everyone said was cursed.

Lila pushed the gate open. The hinges screeched like something alive. The garden seemed to hold its breath as she stepped inside.

The front door was unlocked.

Inside, the house smelled of damp wood and dust. Lila tugged her flashlight from her backpack, sweeping the beam across faded wallpaper and cracked picture frames. The silence was thick, broken only by the groan of the old floorboards.

She made her way to the staircase. It rose into darkness like a throat leading to some unknown mouth. Her stomach twisted.

She should leave. She should go back to the safety of her room, her warm bed, her mother’s voice calling her down for breakfast.

But she remembered the dream.

"Can you see me?"

The voice had been lonely. Desperate.

Step by step, she climbed.

The second floor was colder. Dust drifted like ash in her flashlight beam. She tried one door. It opened into a child’s bedroom, the furniture small and old-fashioned. Dolls slumped in corners, their glass eyes clouded. One sat in a rocking chair facing the window, as if it had been waiting for her.

Lila shivered.

The mirror above the dresser caught her flashlight and bounced it back. For a moment, she thought she saw someone standing behind her—a girl her age, hair tangled, eyes wide. But when she spun, the room was empty.

“Hello?” Lila whispered. Her voice cracked. “Is someone there?”

The air seemed to shift. The rocking chair creaked as if nudged by an invisible hand.

Then came the whisper.

"Can you see me?"

Lila froze. It was the exact voice from her dreams, soft and hollow, yet close enough to brush her ear.

“Yes,” she whispered back before she could stop herself. “I can.”

The mirror rippled. Not like water—more like a curtain being tugged aside. Slowly, the pale girl appeared again in the glass. Not a reflection. A presence. She stood where Lila stood but not in the same world.

Her lips moved. The words were silent at first, then bled into Lila’s ears.

"You see me. Finally."

Lila’s knees nearly buckled. “Who… who are you?”

The girl tilted her head. “I don’t remember. They locked me in. They forgot me. But you came.”

The flashlight flickered, sputtered, then went out. The only light now was moonlight spilling through the broken window.

“Why me?” Lila whispered.

“Because you listen. Because you look.” The girl pressed her hands against the inside of the mirror. Her palms left no prints. “Please. Don’t leave me here.”

Lila should have run. She should have bolted down the stairs, through the rotting door, out into the night. But something in the girl’s eyes held her still. It wasn’t malice. It was hunger, yes—but not for harm. For freedom.

“How do I help?” Lila asked before she could think.

The girl’s lips curved into something like a smile. “Break the glass.”

Lila raised her flashlight and hesitated. Every instinct screamed don’t. But the girl’s eyes were full of such aching loneliness.

She swung.

The mirror cracked. Shards rained onto the dresser, clinking like brittle ice. The glass didn’t fall inward or outward—it fell both ways, some scattering across the floor, some vanishing into the other side.

For a heartbeat, there was silence.

Then the girl stepped through.

Her feet touched the carpet without sound. Her skin was pale, her dress yellowed and torn, her hair hanging in limp knots. But her eyes—those eyes glowed faintly, like embers hidden under ash.

“You freed me,” she breathed.

Lila stumbled back. “What… what are you?”

The girl tilted her head again, as though puzzled by the question. Then she smiled wider.

“Can you see me now?”

“Yes,” Lila whispered.

“Good,” the girl said. “Because now you can’t unsee me.”

From that night on, Lila wasn’t alone.

At first, the girl hovered in corners of her room, silent, watching. Then she began to speak—sometimes in whispers, sometimes in laughter. She followed Lila to school, invisible to others but always brushing close to her shoulder.

Teachers asked why Lila was distracted, why she stared into empty corners, why she whispered under her breath when no one was there.

Her mother worried. “You’re pale, sweetheart. Are you sleeping?”

Lila nodded, but it was a lie. The girl didn’t let her sleep much.

Because every night, without fail, the girl leaned over her bed and asked:

"Can you see me?"

And Lila had to answer.

Yes.

Always yes.

Weeks passed. Lila grew thinner. Shadows bloomed under her eyes. She stopped eating lunch at school. She stopped answering texts from her friends. The girl’s presence was constant, clinging like a second skin.

But the girl wasn’t cruel. Not at first. She told Lila stories—half-remembered fragments of another time. She spoke of gardens and laughter, of a father who locked the door and a mother who never came back.

“They forgot me,” she whispered. “But you didn’t.”

Sometimes, she’d take Lila’s hand in hers. It was cold as river stones.

“I just need you to remember me,” the girl said. “Promise?”

Lila, exhausted, always promised.

One night, Lila woke to find the girl sitting on her chest, her eyes glowing brighter than ever.

“Can you see me?” she asked.

“Yes,” Lila gasped, struggling to breathe.

The girl’s smile widened, teeth sharp in the moonlight. “Then you’ll never be rid of me.”

Her weight pressed heavier. Lila clawed at her, but her hands passed through smoke and shadow. Panic surged.

“What do you want from me?” Lila cried.

The girl leaned close. Her voice was a whisper and a roar at once.

“Everything.”

The next morning, Lila’s mother found her bed empty. The window was open, curtains billowing in the dawn breeze. On the glass of the dresser mirror, written in a child’s hand, were the words:

"Can you see me?"

And if anyone looked close enough, they might notice a pale figure standing just behind the reflection—smiling, waiting, watching.