For the past two months, it had been the same awkward conversation almost every week. Sometimes twice. The old woman in the house directly across the street from hers would call out whenever she saw her, leaning against her fence with that thin, bird-like frame and curious eyes. Her hair was white and wiry, curling out from under a knitted cap no matter the weather. And every time, her question was the same.
“How come your roommate’s so rude?”
The first time she’d heard it, she’d laughed.
“I don’t have a roommate,”
She had said, adjusting the strap of her work bag.
“It’s just me.”
But the old lady didn’t laugh back. She frowned, folding her arms across her chest.
“Oh, you do,”
She said matter-of-factly.
“I’ve seen her. She never waves. Never says hello. Walks in and out like she owns the place. Always at odd hours.”
She brushed it off as some strange misunderstanding. Maybe the woman was mistaking her for someone else. Or maybe she was just lonely, making conversation out of nothing. But it didn’t stop there.
The following week, she heard the same thing. This time the old lady gave more details—how the “roommate” was a little older, taller, with long dark hair, and a tendency to wear the same baggy sweater. She even claimed she’d seen her peeking out of the upstairs window one night when the lights were off. Every time she tried to explain that she lived alone, the woman’s expression would turn vaguely pitying, as if she thought she was lying to herself. By the third week, it had gone from strange to irritating.
One evening, after a particularly exhausting day at work, she trudged up her front steps, fishing for her keys. The street was quiet, bathed in the amber glow of the streetlamps. Just as she fit the key into the lock, the old lady’s voice floated across the street.
“Miss! Miss! I’ve got to talk to you!”
Her shoulders sagged. She didn’t have the patience for another round of you have a roommate / no I don’t. But the urgency in the woman’s voice made her pause. She turned to see her standing by her gate, waving her over with a trembling hand. She almost ignored her. Almost. But something about the way she kept glancing toward the house, then back at her, finally made her cross the street. When she reached her, the old lady didn’t waste time.
“I have proof,”
She said, and from the pocket of her cardigan, she pulled out a small digital camera.
“I told you she’s real. I told you.”
They stepped into her front garden, where the old lady fumbled with the buttons on the camera until a video started playing. The footage was grainy, taken from the second-story window of the old woman’s house. And there, clear as day was her front door. The latch clicked open. The door swung outward. A woman emerged. Her breath caught in her throat.
The figure was a little older than her, with pale skin, stringy dark hair hanging over her face, and that same shapeless gray sweater the old lady had described. She didn’t hurry. She didn’t glance around. She simply stepped outside, looked toward the street as if checking for witnesses, and walked away, disappearing out of frame.
“That’s… impossible,”
She murmured, her throat dry.
The old lady shook her head.
“I saw her with my own eyes. That’s not the first time.”
She replayed the video. And then again. Each time, she tried to catch some clue—some sign it was a trick of the light, a reflection, a glitch in the camera. But no. She was real.
Her fingers were trembling as she pulled out her phone and dialed the police. When the officers arrived, they didn’t dismiss her. Not after seeing the footage. They moved through her house methodically, opening cupboards, closets, the basement door, even the small crawlspace in the attic she’d forgotten existed. It wasn’t until one of them called from upstairs that she realized she’d been holding her breath.
They had found her. The woman was crouched in the narrow gap between the dresser and the wall of the guest room, her knees drawn to her chest. She looked smaller than she had in the video, but her eyes were sharp and fixed, like an animal cornered. She didn’t speak. Didn’t even flinch when they pulled her out. One of the officers explained later, as they loaded her into the back of the patrol car, that they’d found a sleeping bag stuffed behind the attic hatch. Crumpled food wrappers. Empty water bottles. She had been living there for months. Months.
That night, she changed the locks. She had a locksmith install a deadbolt, then bought a set of motion sensors and a new security camera system. She triple-checked every window. She barely slept, the image of that woman slipping silently through her front door playing over and over in her mind. The next day, she brought the old lady a basket of groceries and a heartfelt thank-you. Without her, she never would have known.The old woman just nodded and said
“Always trust what you see, dear. Even if nobody else believes you.”
Weeks passed. The fear began to fade into a bad memory. She told herself it was over. That she was safe now. But sometimes, when she’s lying in bed late at night, she swears she can hear faint, almost imperceptible footsteps coming from the attic.
