I was reading one late October night when I heard someone knocking on my front door.
It was around eleven.
I wasn’t expecting anyone, so I didn’t answer.
The knocking stopped after a few seconds.
I went back to my book.
Then it happened again.
Three knocks.
This time I got up and looked through the peephole.
Nobody was there.
I waited for a minute, then checked the window beside the door. I couldn’t see anyone outside either.
I figured it was probably some kids messing around. Halloween was coming up, and there were already decorations all over the neighborhood.
I went back to the couch.
About ten minutes later, somebody knocked again.
I ignored it.
Then I heard my door handle move.
Not violently. Someone just pushed it down once and let go.
I stood there for a while, trying to decide if I should call someone.
Then I heard a voice outside.
“Sorry. Wrong house.”
It sounded like an older woman.
I looked through the peephole again.
There was nobody there.
I didn’t open the door.
The next morning I mentioned it to my neighbor while we were both getting our mail.
She looked at me for a second and asked what time it happened.
I told her.
She said, “Probably nothing.”
Then she changed the subject.
I thought that was strange, but I didn’t ask about it.
A few days later, I was cleaning my garage and found an old cardboard box left by the previous owner.
I almost threw it away without looking inside.
There were some Christmas lights, a broken lamp and a stack of old magazines.
Most of them were from the early 2000s.
One was a Halloween magazine with a section about scary halloween stories to read.
I started flipping through it because I was bored.
There was a story about a woman who kept knocking on the wrong house.
The story wasn’t very good.
I remember that because I almost threw the magazine away.
Then I saw a photograph on the next page.
It was a picture of my street.
Not a similar street.
My street.
The house in the photograph was mine.
I looked at the address printed underneath.
It was correct.
I sat on the garage floor for a few minutes.
The magazine was old enough that I knew the photograph couldn’t have been taken recently.
I checked the date.
2004…
I went outside and looked at the house.
It looked almost exactly the same.
There was one difference.
In the old photograph, there was a woman standing outside my front door.
I couldn’t see her face clearly.
I took the magazine inside and showed my neighbor.
She didn’t say anything at first.
Then she asked me where I found it.
I told her.
She said the previous owner had been an older man who lived there for years.
I asked if she knew anything about the woman in the picture.
She said no.
Then, after a pause, she said, “Actually, I think I remember someone coming around here when I was a kid.”
That was all she said.
I didn’t ask more.
That night I put the magazine in the trash.
Around midnight, someone knocked on my door.
Three knocks.
I didn’t move.
After a few seconds, I heard the same woman’s voice.
“Sorry. Wrong house.”
I stayed on the couch until morning.
There was nothing outside when I checked.
I still don’t know who she was.
Maybe the photograph was some strange coincidence.
Maybe someone had taken a picture of the house years ago and the woman just happened to be standing there.
I can come up with explanations for most of it.
I just can’t explain why the magazine was in my garage.
And I definitely can’t explain why, when I looked at the trash the next morning, the magazine wasn’t there.
