The Reflection of Piper Chastidy

1. The Missing Reflections

It started the same way Dad’s story always did.

On my sixteenth birthday, the sun was shining brightly through my closed blinds, making an array of patterns on the carpeted floor. On tired, unsteady legs, I dragged myself across the stuffy room to the window for a breath of fresh air. I pulled back the blinds, prepared to come face to face with a translucent window reflection as usual.

The reflection was not there.

I shook my head, trying to clear it. Don’t worry about it. I told myself. Window reflections depend on the light. Maybe you got up a little later than usual. I nodded. Yes. I must have woken up later. Rubbing my eyes, I pushed open the window, welcoming the wind onto my face. I sighed, my eyes scanning the street below me. It looked the same as always, but that morning, something felt off.

Across the street, the swing set at the park swung an invisible body back and forth, creaking eerily in the wind. The round-a-bout spun around despite being empty, the ghost of children’s laughter and squeals reaching my ears. The wind rustled the leaves on the trees at the edge of the forest behind the park equipment, and as my eyes travelled down the trunk of the tree, I jumped back in fright, twisting myself so my back was against the wall beside the window.

Someone was watching me from beside the tree, their eyes gleaming, a smirk playing around their lips.

In the shadows, I could just make out their features. But— no. It couldn’t be. That would be impossible.

I shook my head as if to clear my thoughts, loose strands of my auburn hair slipping out of their bun and falling around my face in delicate waves. I must have over-slept. I was seeing things.

Turning around, I stumbled into the bathroom. My heart was jumping in my chest as I walked past the mirror, but I forced myself to keep my eyes trained on the ground. I have a reflection. I told myself. I have a reflection. Keeping my back to the glass, I stripped down and had a hot shower in an attempt to relieve my muscles and my nerves. Only the former was successful.

I stepped out of the cubicle, wrapping a towel around my body, and took a deep breath before facing the mirror. The glass was fogged up, the reflection it held only a blur. Written in the fog was one single word in block letters;

Run.

I flinched backwards, my spine slamming painfully into the metal frame of the shower cubicle behind me. I took a few deep breaths, gathering my wits about me. Securing the towel tighter around me, I crept towards the basin, above which sat the mirror. In the blurred image, I couldn’t tell if my reflection was actually there. Hesitantly, I pushed up onto my toes, forcing myself as high as the word written in the fog. What lay between the lines of the word came as no surprise to me.

The mirror only reflected the back wall of the bathroom and the shower cubicle.

I gasped, but forced myself not to flinch away from the glass. As I ran my father’s story through my head, I realised I had to check. He always warned us not to. He always made us promise we understood. But that was when I believed his story to be a work of fiction.

I reached out and touched the glass.

It rippled beneath my finger, and felt as if it were a puddle of water rather than solid glass.

Dad’s story wasn’t just a story, was it? I asked myself, raising my eyebrows.

I took a step away from the mirror and forced myself to get dressed, go down for breakfast, and act like it was any normal day. Accept my birthday presents. Plaster a smile on my face. Pretend nothing ever happened concerning my reflection. When I bounded down the stair case with the fake smile on my lips, I found Dad sitting at the dining table, and Mum and Ami heading to the front door. The two of them turned around as they heard my footsteps.