The House at the End of Glass Road

If you’ve lived in Coldwater, Maine, long enough, you learn its two rules.

The House at the End of Glass Road

If you’ve lived in Coldwater, Maine, long enough, you learn its two rules.
First: news travels faster than sound. Second: nothing much ever changes.

It’s the kind of town where the hardware store doubles as the post office, and you can tell how bad the winter’s going to be by how early the old-timers start stacking wood. If a stranger comes to town, they’re talked about over coffee at Dee-Dee’s Bakery before they’ve even unpacked.

Ellen Marsh had lived all thirty two of her years here. She grew up in her mother’s yellow farmhouse off Route 6, took over part of the bakery deliveries for her aunt after high school, and figured that was the beginning and end of her big life plans. She liked the quiet. She liked knowing every road and shortcut, every face in the grocery store.

But last Thursday, she saw something she shouldn’t have.

It was just another delivery day. A dozen pies stacked in the back of her dented Subaru: two for the Jamisons up on Pike Hill, a pumpkin pie for Mrs. Danvers on Cedar Street, and one for a “M. Harrow” at the end of Glass Road.

Glass Road wasn’t long, half a mile, maybe. It started just behind the elementary school, ran past six houses, and ended where a wall of pine trees swallowed the light. Ellen had driven down it plenty of times. She’d have sworn she could draw it from memory.

But when she turned onto it that day, there it was.

A house.

Two stories, white clapboard dulled to the color of bone, with a wide porch sagging under its own weight. The steps leaned to the right, as if they were trying to slide off the porch entirely. The boards had a strange tint, not the silver-gray of weathered wood, but something paler. Ash-gray. Sick-gray.

On the far side sat a single rocking chair, moving gently even though the air was still.

She slowed the car, scanning the windows for movement. Nothing. No sign of life. Just the soft, unnatural sway of that chair.

The mailbox read M. Harrow in neat block letters. She placed the pie on the top step, knocked once, and hurried back to the car.

In the rearview mirror, the rocking chair had stopped.

That night, she thought about the house while brushing her teeth. She thought about it while turning down her bed. Coldwater wasn’t the kind of place where a whole building just appeared. Folks noticed when someone painted their fence a new color. This? This would’ve been the talk of the town for weeks.

But no one had said a word.

By Saturday, the thought had rooted itself so deep she couldn’t shake it. She closed the bakery at four, drove the short route to Glass Road, and parked by the mailbox.

The air felt heavier here. She stepped onto the porch and the boards moaned under her sneakers. The rocking chair swayed, though the branches overhead didn’t stir.

Ellen cupped her hands to the window.

The inside wasn’t dusty or ruined. It was just wrong. Every piece of furniture faced away from the front door, as if the whole room had turned to look at something unseen at the back.

On the mantle sat a photograph in a plain wooden frame.

Her own face smiled back at her. One arm slung around a man she didn’t recognize: short dark hair, eyes so pale they looked almost colorless.

The date in the corner: August 15, 2025.

Tomorrow.

She stepped back fast, nearly tripping over the rocking chair. This time she noticed it wasn’t moving anymore.

She hardly slept that night. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw that man’s pale eyes, the strange comfort of her own smile in the photo. In the morning, she worked the bakery as if nothing was wrong; served Mr. Greeley his usual coffee, boxed muffins for the librarian. But her eyes kept flicking to the clock.

At seven, she was back in her car.

The house looked exactly the same. The rocking chair was still, but the door stood ajar.

The smell hit her as she stepped inside. Old wood, dry dust, and something faintly sweet, like apples gone soft. The furniture still faced the back, toward a narrow hallway.

At the end of it, a door stood open.

On the wall inside hung another photograph. The same man. The same pale eyes. And her. Walking up these steps, a pie box in hand.

The date: today.

Something thumped behind her.

The rocking chair sat just inside the door now, as if it had been waiting for her.

That night she didn’t try to sleep. She sat at her kitchen table, staring at nothing until the clock read 3:12 a.m.

When she turned, there was a photograph on her nightstand.

She was in bed, asleep.

The date: today.

By morning she’d decided to leave. She packed a bag, grabbed her keys. But the Subaru’s engine didn’t even click. Her phone read No Service. The landline was dead.

She walked.

Glass Road felt longer this time. The shadows under the pines stretched deep, and the house stood waiting like it had known she’d come. The rocking chair swayed, just slightly.

The man stood in the doorway. He held a photograph.

She took it without thinking.

It was the two of them, side by side on the porch. Her smile was softer now, resigned.

The date was blank.

“This one,” he said, his voice almost kind, “is for when you’re ready.”

She stepped inside.

The rocking chair creaked, and the sound went on and on, long after the door closed.

Nobody in Coldwater saw Ellen Marsh again.

But the pies from Dee-Dee’s Bakery still came down Glass Road, once in a while to a seventh house at the end, where a wide porch sagged under its own weight and a rocking chair swayed in still air.

Inside, on the mantle, a photograph waited.

Sometimes the date was tomorrow.

And sometimes, it wasn’t dated at all.