The Girl in the Window

Athena Pierce stretched her arms above her head as she woke, reaching for her thick, black-rimmed glasses on the nightstand. She slipped them on and crossed the room to her window, pulling open the blinds. Morning light shimmered over the vast lake outside, and she let out a soft sigh.

“Maybe I’ll go deeper today,” she mused aloud to her dog.

Ginger, a small cairn terrier with bright blue eyes and a wheat-colored coat, thumped her tail against the bed. Athena smiled. Her brother had always teased her about the name—“Ginger? She’s not even red!”—but Athena didn’t care. She’d named her after Ginger Grant fromGilligan’s Island, a show they used to watch together while waiting for their mom to get home from work. Ginger had originally been a gift for their mother, just before she passed. Now, the dog was one more piece of her mother Athena could hold on to.

Athena loved adventure, especially testing her limits in the lake just outside her home. Lately, she’d been diving deeper each day, pushing herself to see how long she could stay underwater. She ruffled Ginger’s fur as she passed by the bed and headed into the bathroom.

In the mirror, her reflection didn’t lie. Her shoulder-length blond hair stuck out at odd angles, and the bags under her blue eyes told her she hadn’t slept as well as she’d hoped. She sighed, turned on the shower, and began to undress.

She had always been this way—bold, curious, restless. As a child, she gave her mother heart attacks with her wandering tendencies. Back then, her mom’s worry had seemed overblown. Now, Athena understood it. She’d written too many articles about children who disappeared. Every time she interviewed grieving parents, something inside her cracked. Hope in their eyes, pain in their voices—it haunted her more than any ghost story.

Some stories were worse than others. She hated writing about the aftermath—the bodies, the closures. Those were the pieces that stayed with her.

After her shower, she wrapped herself in a towel and walked to her dresser. She pulled on a pair of skinny jeans and a faded blue t-shirt, then combed her damp hair into a loose braid. She rarely kept her hair long, but her mother had loved it that way. They had the same hair—blond and soft—and keeping it was one more way of holding on to her.

Her mother had died a few years ago. The doctors never figured out why. One day she was fine, the next... gone. The mystery had shattered Athena’s trust in medicine. No answers. No closure. Just silence.

Glasses back in place, she headed downstairs to the kitchen.

Athena filled Ginger’s bowl and set it down, then turned to fix herself breakfast. As she stirred pancake mix in a bowl, the kitchen phone rang. She tucked it between her shoulder and ear without stopping her mixing.

“Hello?” she said.

“Miss Athena?” a familiar gravelly voice replied. “Hi!”

She smiled. “Mr. Schneider?”

He chuckled. “The one and only. I’ve got something for you, and I think you’re going to like it. Right up your alley.”

“What is it?” she asked, just as the spoon slipped from her fingers and clattered to the floor, sending pancake batter splattering. “Damn it,” she muttered, crouching to pick it up.

His amused laugh came through the line. “Still as graceful as ever.”

Athena winced. “Sorry, you heard that, huh?”

“Loud and clear. Anyway—remember the Sarton Asylum?”

She paused, spoon in hand. “The abandoned one?”

“The very same,” he said, his voice bright with triumph. “I finally got the green light. After years of hounding the city, someone finally approved it. I want you to be the first reporter inside.”

Athena walked to the sink, rinsing the spoon slowly. “People say that place is haunted, Mr. Schneider.”

“That hasn’t stopped you before,” he replied. “Come on, you’ve stayed in worse places.”

He wasn’t wrong. She had once spent two nights in a so-called haunted house for a feature. Nothing had happened. The place was more drafty than spooky. Still, something about Sarton Asylum tugged at her in a different way.

“Alright,” she said after a moment. “I’ll do it.”

“Good. I’ll send the directions to your email,” Mr. Schneider said. “Talk to you soon, Miss Athena.”

Of course, email. She had tried for years to teach him how to send a text, but he still preferred typing on his old desktop. Eventually, she stopped arguing. It worked well enough.

“Thanks, Mr. Schneider. Goodbye.”

She returned the phone to its cradle, washed the spoon again, and then covered the pancake batter with plastic wrap before sliding the bowl into the fridge. Her appetite had vanished.

Sarton Asylum. No one had entered it in decades—at least not officially. Ten years ago, someone tried. They never came out. Search teams went in after him but found nothing. No trace. No body. Just whispers. Athena shivered.

Ginger nudged her ankle with a soft whine.

“I’m okay, girl,” she said softly, forcing a smile. “Come on, let’s get you outside.”

Athena opened the back door, and Ginger darted out into the fenced yard. A soft chime from her computer alerted her to a new message. She crossed the room, opened her laptop, and clicked the email from Mr. Schneider. Directions—detailed as always. She punched them into her phone’s GPS.

Ginger scratched at the door, and Athena let her back in. “Looks like he wants me to head out today,” she told her dog. “I’ll text Derek to take care of you, alright?”

She ran a hand down Ginger’s back, texting quickly. Then she went upstairs to pack.

Thirty minutes later, Athena stood by the front door with her small suitcase. She never knew how long an assignment would last, so she always packed a few essentials and changes of clothes—just in case.

A knock came at the door. She opened it to find Derek standing there with a duffel bag slung over one shoulder. He grinned. He knew the drill as well as she did.

“Hey, Derek,” she greeted, stepping aside to let him in. She handed him a printed sheet with Ginger’s schedule.

He groaned dramatically. “Really? You don’t trust me to remember by now?”

She smirked and gave him a quick hug. “I trust you. You wouldn’t be on Ginger duty if I didn’t.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, ruffling Ginger’s ears. The little dog jumped up to greet him, tail wagging.

“Bye, baby,” Athena said, crouching to give Ginger one last scratch behind the ears. Then she stood, looking at Derek. “Take care. I’ll see you both soon.”

“Be safe, sis.”

She gave a nod, grabbed her suitcase, and walked out to her car. After stowing her bag in the trunk, she climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine. When she looked up, Derek stood at the door with Ginger beside him, watching her go.

I’ll be back soon,she told herself, and pulled out of the driveway, headed for Sarton Asylum.