The Window Watcher

It's not a veil, really. Not the way people think it is. It's a pane of glass, about the size of one of the portraits hanging in the throne room upstairs. It's perfectly smooth and freezing to the touch, nestled in a tiny room just below the dungeons, a chip of ice in the belly of the sprawling castle. There's no fingerprints, no smudges. No way to leave a mark. If there was, it would’ve been coated in them. I press my hand to it now, the palm, then the back, the cold refreshing in the stale air.  

The landscape beyond the glass is empty, a void the color of milk and swirling fog. After a moment, a lone figure appears in the background, a flickering figure made out of fog only slighter denser than the background. The heat of my hand is alluring and it prowls closer, rough outlines of body parts clarifying into arms and legs and fingers. It stops, roughly 10 feet from me, and I stare at the shadowy bit where I think its eyes must be. We’ve never been able to confirm if they can see us, the way we see them, or if the window is just a one sided glimpse into the beyond. Were we granted the ability to look both backwards and forwards, or just forwards?

The ghost shimmers in front of me, still motionless. The afterlife stretches into oblivion behind him.  

“You better not be antagonizing them again.”  

I turn quickly, hands slinking behind my back to clasp together in guilt. “Sorry, father.”  

He gives me a warm smile and I feel like one of the ghosts, helplessly drawn into his embrace. 

“How are you feeling?” I ask. He’s been ill for months now. I know he grows older, but I feel like there’s still so much to learn before he passes. And I love him. I don’t think I could bear spending the rest of my life at the window, wondering if every ghost is him. Wondering if he can see me.

“Alright.” He says. “Weaker than yesterday, but the physician says I just need some bed rest and I’ll be good as new.”

“But the ambassadors are visiting the window today.”

“You’ll have to receive them alone. I trust you to guard the window. You were born for it, and in my state, you’re much more capable than I am.”

“But I-”

“You’re going to have to do it alone at some point.”

The argument ends there. My father pats me gently on the shoulder and hobbles back up to his room. I wish he would just send a messenger to save his energy, but he never does.

It’s going to be a few hours before the ambassadors arrive. It’s not uncommon for visitors from neighboring countries to want to see the window, the glimpse into the next life that our kingdom boasts of. I’ve never done it without my father at my side. I’m still only the apprentice window watcher, although I’ve been trained for it since birth, like all my ancestors.

I run through the list of everything my father usually tells the visitors, of our ancestor’s mysterious creation of the window, the process and magic required almost as unknown as the contents of the afterlife itself. How the ghosts seem to be unaware of us, unless we are in contact with the glass itself. There is little to truly explain because there is so little we truly know. Why can’t we see their faces? Do they even have faces? What do they do when they’re not in sight of the window?  

I hate the idea of spending eternity as a cold shadow, drifting alone through a white plane. The visitors do too. They always enter curious and leave somber, quiet as the ghosts they’ll someday be.  

The ambassadors come. I stay firmly planted between them and the window. The window watcher’s role as a guard is largely ceremonial, but we’ve kept the window intact for hundreds of years. I’ll be damned if I’m the one to let it break. At best, we’d lose contact with the afterlife. At worst, it would open some kind of doorway, and ghosts would come flooding in by the millions.  

I wish my father was here.

I puff my chest out and try to stand taller than I feel. The guests try to maintain eye contact with me as I speak out of politeness, but they always end up staring wide-eyed into the glass. I bore them with the history until I arrive at what they really want to see.  

I press my hand flat against the window. Almost instantly, as if they can sense the extra bodies in the room, a few shadows appear out of the milky fog, drifting towards us. Aside from a few gasps, the delegation behind me is deadly silent. It’s not raw fear, as we are separated from the ghosts by the glass.  

Everyone thinks they want to know the future, to be able to stare into a looking glass and see your destiny. But it’s stomach churning. No one fears the elderly, but no one wants their own skin to sag and wrinkle. No one wants to be the pale, faceless specters. And no one should have to come face to face with them.  

The ambassadors leave. After years watching the glass, I’m numb to the emotions, but for some reason watching others experience it is draining. I sink into the single chair by the edge of the glass, and wait until the sun sets, when the royal guards will take over and I can retire upstairs and check on my father.  

Something cold presses against my forehead. For a moment, I think it’s a clammy hand, but I jolt back upright and realize I’d simply drifted off against the window. A dozen or so souls drift and waver only feet from the glass, basking in my heat, or life force, or whatever it is that draws them to us. I feel bad for luring them in, like tapping on an aquarium. I hope they can’t see through the glass. I don’t want the dead watching me doze off.

As I sit upright and stretch out the aches in my neck, the figures slowly slide away, and I’m struck by the urge to follow them. I’m still half asleep and there’s something peaceful about the endless white landscape, and I feel like slipping into it would be easier than drifting back to sleep. Like lowering myself into a chilly lake, and just floating on the surface and closing my eyes until everything disappears.

There’s a knock at the door.

“Enter,” I say, eyes still on the last ghost lurking by the glass. I press a finger to the surface and swirl it around. The ghost inches forward.

A messenger peeks into the room. He’s young, younger than I am. The messengers his age either never look at the window, not even for a second, or watch it warily every second the door is open. He’s the first type.

“Watcher, I bring some news of your father.” I think I can hear the boy’s heart beating.

“Oh?” I stifle a yawn with my hand, and peek at the ghost again. “Does he need anything?”  

Something that’s half cough, half gasp comes out of the messenger’s throat. “I’m- I”m so sorry, sir, but the physician has sent me to tell you he passed away in his sleep a few minutes ago. He’s still not entirely sure what’s happened. I’m so sorry.”

“Oh,” I say.

The messenger stands there for a few more seconds, in silence, and then quietly slips back out the door. The room seems to grow several degrees colder in his absence.  

I stand, still stretching, eyes drifting somewhere between the window and the floor. The solitary ghost is still there, in my periphery. Waiting.

I turn to fully face the glass. He’s right in front of me, like my own shadow against the wall. One of my hands reaches out, the cool surface kissing my palm. A flickering gray palm reaches up on the other side, pressing against the other side of the window. Warmth blossoms between my fingers, like I’m holding them in front of a fire. His hand is so hot, hotter than the tears dripping off my chin.  

The nails of the hand loose at my side dig into my skin. My feet take me backwards a half step, the shadow behind the glass mimicking the movement.

I slam my fist into the glass. A thin web of cracks streaks across the surface like lightning. A bit of blood is smeared right where my knuckles hit, and I aim for that spot again, using the red as a bullseye. My eyes squeeze shut right as the last punch lands. I don’t know what I’m bracing myself for. I hear shards of glass collapse to the floor.

I open my eyes. The white landscape is gone, as is the ghost. It’s been replaced by a room identical to our little cell in the dungeons. I’m there. My bloodied fist and the worn chair are there. I bend to pick up a shard from the floor and examine it. My own bloodshot eye stares back. The window to the afterlife, and in three punches I've reduced it to a simple mirror.

I don't know if I broke some hundred year old spell, or destroyed whatever gateway my ancestor had opened. I don't know how I did it. Or why, really. But it's gone. And so is my father.