The Window

**The Window** is a story from More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. It is about a woman who sees a strange looking figure through a window. This story is a retelling of Croglin Grange by Augustus Hare.

## Plot

Margaret and her brothers, Paul and David, shared a small house on top of a hill just outside the village.
It was so warm one summer's night that Margaret could not sleep. She sat up in bed in the darkness of her room watching the moon move across the sky. Suddenly something caught her eye.

She saw two small yellow-green lights moving through the woods near the graveyard at the bottom of the hill. They looked like the eyes of some animal. But she could not make out what kind of creature it was. Soon the creature left the woods and moved up the hill toward the house. For a few minutes, Margaret lost sight of it. Then she saw it coming across the lawn toward her window. It looked something like a man, and yet it didn't. Margaret was terrified. She wanted to run from her room. But the door was next to her window. She was afraid the creature would see her and break in before she could escape.

When the creature turned and moved in another direction, Margaret rushed to the door. But before she could open the door, it was back. Margaret found herself staring through the window at a shrunken face like that of a mummy. Its yellow-green eyes gleamed like a cat's eyes. She wanted to scream, but she was so frightened that she could not make a sound. The creature broke the window glass, unlocked the window, and crawled inside. Margaret tried to flee, but the creature caught her. It twisted its long, bony fingers into her hair, pulled back her head, and sank its teeth into her throat. Margaret screamed, and fainted. When her brothers heard her piercing scream, they rushed to her room. But by the time they got the door unlocked, the creature fled. Margaret lay on the floor bleeding and unconscious. While Paul tried to stop the bleeding, David chased the creature down the hill toward the churchyard. But soon he lost sight of it.

The police thought it was the work of an escaped lunatic who believed he was a vampire. When Margaret recovered, her brothers wanted to move to a safer place where it would be harder to break in. But Margaret refused. The creature would never come back. She was sure of that. But just in case, Paul and David began to keep loaded pistols in their rooms. One night months later, Margaret was awakened by a scratching sound at the window. When she opened the eyes, there was the same shrunken face staring in at her. That night her brothers heard her cries in time. They chased the creature down the hill, and David shot it in the leg. But the creature managed to scramble over the graveyard wall and disappeared near an old burial vault.

The next day, Margaret and her brothers watched as the sexton of the church opened the burial vault. Inside was a horrifying scene--broken coffins, bones, and rotting flesh were scattered all over the floor. Only one coffin had not been disturbed. When the sexton opened it, there lay the creature with the shrunken face that had attacked Margaret. The telltale bullet was in its leg. They did the only thing they knew of to rid themselves of a vampire. The sexton built a roaring blaze outside the vault, and fed the shrunken body to the flames. They watched the body burn until nothing remained but ashes.