The Face At The Window

The Face At The Window
By Paul McCann

Facing our family home there was this old house and every day we saw the face of a woman who always sat there looking out the window all day long .

I would see her when I got up and went to school and after school she would still be sitting there in the same spot . When I went out the street to play with my friends and when dusk fell, she would still be there .

Sometimes I wondered if there was something wrong with her . I assumed she was unable to walk and needed help to get around . She never left the house and no one ever visited her .

One day I decided to go there and knock on the door and make up some  story to get a closer look at what was going on .

I took over a block of chocolate to sell pretending it was a fundraiser for the school football team . Just before I knocked on the front door, I could hear this mumbling , it sounded like someone was praying , there was a muttering of   words that only God Himself could understand .

 I knocked on the door , a young woman who I assumed was her daughter opened the door , the muffled voice continued  from inside the parlour . 

“Hello , we are having a fundraiser for our school football team . Would you like to buy a bar of chocolate . for half a crown ?

I asked . 

She said. 

“ Just a  minute , I’ll get some change .“

Then she opened the door and went inside the parlour . Just as the door opened, I caught a glimpse of the old woman there at the window who seemed to be tied up to a chair . There was a young woman inside who was standing.

with the old woman and she had her hands over the old woman’s mouth .

I was feeling a little scared  but tried not to show it when the woman returning with some small change for the bar of chocolate .

I didn’t know who to tell . Part of me wanted to tell the police but they weren’t welcome in our neighbourhood so chances are they wouldn’t come anyway even if I did tell them . If I told my parents I would get in trouble for annoying the neighbours so I decided to try and rescue the old woman with the help of a few good friends .

After I told a small group of my friends about the woman being held prisoner in her home , we put together a daring escape plan .

The front garden of the old woman’s home was a mess so we were going to pretend we were boy scouts on a mission to cut grass and tidy up gardens in the neighbour for free as part of our free community clean up service .

There would be a boy at  the back entry of the house with a wheelchair ready to storm inside the house after several of us would come in through the front door and  tie up the two women keeping the old woman captive .

It was a simple enough plan but we knew it could work .

So, two of the rescue  squad went to  knock the door and explain about the community clean up week .

We practised the home invasion  a few times before doing it for real .

After knocking the door, we offered a free garden service and when er got the permission to start we put the plan into operation . One of the team would ask to use the toilet and another would ask for a drink of water which would give us access to the home and division in those in the  home .  Our team out the back of the house had bed  notified to get ready and one of them climbed overstuffed to open the door for the lad with the wheelchair . When we sprang into action , the two ladies were taken by surprise and were tied by the feet and hands . After untying the old lady, she never had need of a wheelchair and told us how then to young women broke into her home and tied her up . They had been living there in her home for a while drawing her pension money and treating her badly .

They put her at the window so the neighbours could see she was ok.

but she was  really helpless to do anything to break free from her captors  . The old lady was very grateful and asked the lads to bring the police because she wanted to press charges and have them locked up in prison for all the harm they had done .

After we visited the police station and told them the story, they came to the old lady’s house and took the two women away .

It turned out that they two women had escaped from the women’s prison about a year ago and the police were grateful  for the boy’s intervention to assist the old lady.

An award was given to everyone and we were the local heroes for a little while  . The old woman had escaped her jailers and was at home again for a little while but she was still unsettled there after what had happened so she ended up selling the place and moving into another house in the country .We never saw her again .

The End