Mira blinked. The image held. She walked toward the window, and as she approached, the man looked up. His face was gaunt, eyes deep-set, but unmistakably intelligent. He pressed his palm against the inside of his kitchen window—and she saw her own reflection superimposed over his, as if they were separated by a pane of time rather than glass. Then he mouthed three words: They are watching.

On the tenth night, Mira set up a laser interferometer and a thermal camera. She discovered that the windows weren’t just displaying past or parallel events—they were leaking . The cold draft was actual thermal transfer from a reality where the house existed in a different thermodynamic state. And the man in the herringbone jacket—Thorne—hadn’t been trying to warn her about ghosts. He’d been trying to warn her about the windows themselves.

The window went dark. The normal reflection of her bewildered face returned.