I followed his finger toward the backyard. That’s when I saw it—the windows were boarded up, the curtains gone, the paint peeling like it had been abandoned for years. No lights. No movement. My phone slipped in my hand as my mother’s voice continued on the line, insisting she was inside. Then my son whispered, clutching my leg, “Mommy… who is that woman waving from the window?” I looked again. And realized the house wasn’t empty. Someone was inside. But it wasn’t my mother.

She was talking too much. Too fast. Repeating that she was inside, that everything was fine, that I didn’t need to worry. I stepped closer to the fence, phone pressed to my ear, trying to picture her in the kitchen like she said.

That’s when I saw the house clearly.

The windows were boarded up. Not recently—old plywood, warped and gray. The curtains were gone. The paint peeled in long strips, exposing bare wood beneath, the kind of decay that only happens after years of neglect. No porch light. No glow behind the glass. No sign of life at all.

It looked abandoned.

My stomach dropped.

“Mom,” I said slowly, “what room are you in right now?”

There was a pause on the line. Just a fraction of a second too long.

“The living room,” she said. “Why?”

My phone slipped slightly in my hand. I stared at the dark windows, my heart pounding loud enough to drown out the cicadas.

Then my son tugged at my leg.

“Mommy,” he whispered, his voice tight. “Who is that woman waving from the window?”

I froze.

I looked again.

And realized the house wasn’t empty.

Someone was inside.

But it wasn’t my mother.

I lowered the phone slowly, my eyes locked on the second-floor window.

The figure stood just far enough back to be distorted by the dirty glass. A woman. Pale. Her arm lifted, moving in a slow, deliberate wave that felt rehearsed rather than friendly.

My son pressed closer to me.

“Mommy,” he said again, quieter now. “She’s smiling.”

My mother’s voice crackled through the phone, still talking, still insisting she was there. Still lying.

I didn’t answer her.

Instead, I asked my son, “Is she waving like this?” I lifted my hand slightly.

He shook his head. “No. Slower.”

The woman stopped waving.

She stepped closer to the glass.

And mouthed something.

I couldn’t hear it—but I knew, with terrifying certainty, that it was meant for me.

I backed away from the fence, pulling my son with me, my pulse screaming in my ears. My mother finally noticed my silence.

“Why aren’t you answering?” she demanded. “You’re scaring me.”

That was when I understood.

The voice on the phone wasn’t meant to reassure me.

It was meant to buy time.

I hung up without saying goodbye.

I didn’t run. I didn’t scream. I walked—slowly, deliberately—back to the car, my hand firm around my son’s. I didn’t look back at the house again until we were inside and the doors were locked.

That’s when I saw movement in the side mirror.

The front door of the house opened.

The woman stepped onto the porch.

She didn’t chase us. She didn’t shout. She just watched as I started the engine, her smile never leaving her face.

Later, the police would tell me my mother hadn’t been in that house for weeks. She’d been staying with a friend. Her phone had been taken earlier that day—borrowed, she claimed, by someone who said they needed to make a call.

They never found the woman.

But they did find signs someone had been living there. Recently. Quietly.

That night, as my son slept beside me, I replayed his words again and again.

Who is that woman waving from the window?

Children notice what adults try to explain away.

And sometimes, the most terrifying moment isn’t realizing someone is inside a place they shouldn’t be.

It’s realizing they wanted you to see them—and chose a child to make sure you did.