Whispers In The Dark

The Reflecting Glass (by Lady Eckland)

"Yes," Marcel said flatly. "It was Grandmére's request. We honor it."

Her sharp words died unspoken as he met her gaze. The house on Esplanade was his now – their childhood quarrels had no power here. She tossed her head, Vivienne-shaped defiance burning in her eyes, but she said nothing as the men loaded the mirror.

That night, back in his newly familiar bedroom, the old worry circled in his belly. Every fiber of his being rebelled against what he was about to do – remove the coverings and look into the mirrors he'd diligently avoided. He'd never believed in the old folklore, dismissed it as the remnants of bygone superstition. Yet, as his hand fell upon the cool linen covering his dresser mirror, a tremor coursed through him.

Pulling the fabric back, he met his own reflection with forced stoicism. He was different from those days – no longer the gawky, bookish boy, but a man with the marks of ambition etched on his face. A writer, successful by most measures. He owed that to Grandmére. Moving through the house, Marcel repeated the process. Bathroom mirrors, small decorative mirrors by the entryway, all revealed nothing but his own harried visage and the undisturbed house behind him. Until he reached the living room.

Beneath the sheet, the towering mirror was a dark monolith. Something about it made the fine hairs on his neck stand on end. Even though it was only dusk, shadows clung to its corners. Marcel steeled himself and snatched the fabric away.

At first, it was merely his reflection, and an echo of disappointment whispered through him. Old wives' tales were just that, after all. But then, something snagged his gaze. An anomaly within the polished glass: a sliver of pale fabric, a flicker of blonde hair. Vivienne.

Marcel blinked hard, but the image persisted. She stood stiffly within a room he did not recognize, an expression of raw terror marring her usual veneer of elegance. But what chilled him to the bone was what stood just behind her.

Grandmére.

Yet this was not the serene grandmother he remembered. Her expression was one of contorted fury, her hands gnarled claws as they reached for an invisible throat. As Vivienne began to thrash, hands scrambling uselessly at empty air, a scream bubbled up in his throat. It died when her figure wavered like heat haze, fading as an unseen power dragged her toward the back of the mirrored room.

He knew with bone-deep certainty that was no simple reflection he was seeing. His grandmother's rage, Vivienne's greed – somehow that ugly dance reflected into the mirror had made this…thing… real. The soul trap worked in reverse, a door flung wide upon a spirit's fury.

The image within the glass flickered again. Grandmére’s spectral gaze turned toward him, the echo of her voice slicing through the silence of the room.

"Save her, Marcel. It's the only way."

Before he could question, rationalize, or allow fear to fully encompass him, he dove headfirst into the mirror.

For an instant, there was nothing but cold and a sickening sense of vertigo. Then, icy needles plunged into his skin, tearing him back to an almost painful state of awareness. He lay sprawled on something hard and unforgiving, a dim luminescence painting the surroundings. The walls had a disconcerting, oily sheen to them, slick and clammy. It took him a long moment to process that those weren't walls at all, but the polished edges of the warped mirror from within. He'd fallen into the soul trap.

In front of him, just as he'd last seen her, Vivienne thrashed about wordlessly. With every tug, with every inch she was dragged further into the abyss, more of her faded. Fear had given way to wide-eyed insanity in her face – now more a mask of horror than an image of his sister.