Short story about a boy, a window and his sister who never exists

October 21, 2013 4:59 AM

I'm pretty sure I came across this through the blue in the last few years: a story by an American author about a boy who becomes fascinated by a window he can see on the outside of his house (round? high?) that doesn't correspond with a window on the inside, and he cajoles his sister into touching it, and when she does she and the window don't vanish, they cease to have ever existed. What is it?

Can't find the post or the story. It's possible I'm misremembering details. It's possible someone touched it and it ceased to have ever existed.

Swore I'd never post one of these, but I've been asked to read a story for Hallowe'en and this would be perfect.

posted by Hogshead to Media & Arts (7 answers total)

Could it have been something out of this massive post, "We are for the dark"?

"Robert Aickman wrote some of the best ghost stories of the last fifty years. He also edited one of the finest genre anthology series of his time: The Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories. Between 1964 and 1972, he curated eight volumes of horror fiction without repeating an author, favoring always the subtle, the psychological, the poetic, the rare, the neglected. 59 of his selections can be found online."
posted by MonkeyToes at 5:25 AM on October 21, 2013

This is probably a long shot, but it reminds me of "The Five and a Half Minute Hallway" in House of Leaves.
posted by quiet coyote at 5:26 AM on October 21, 2013

Best answer: Is it Windeye by Brian Evenson?
posted by mittens at 5:57 AM on October 21, 2013 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Windeye. Thank you. And this was the FPP I was remembering.

It wasn't the Aickman post; though that was a fantastic post.
posted by Hogshead at 6:08 AM on October 21, 2013

The link isn't working in the FPP - for those (like me) who were curious, you can read Windeye in the sample on Amazon...
posted by arnicae at 6:37 AM on October 21, 2013 [2 favorites]

You can read it through the magic of the Internet Wayback machine here.
posted by Maecenas at 6:49 AM on October 21, 2013 [1 favorite]

Just the title of this post brought the story back to mind - it was published in Glimmertrain, wasn't it?
posted by annathea at 7:17 AM on October 21, 2013