The next morning arrived quietly, as if the house itself was afraid to make noise.
Emily woke early, her heartbeat already fluttering with the memory of the night before - the funeral, the snow, the girl's desperate plea for help. The moment she blinked awake, she thought of the quilt.
Her mother was already in the kitchen, pouring coffee into a mug with shaky hands. Her father sat at the table, staring down the hallway toward the mirror like it might move on its own at any moment.
"Morning, sweetheart," her mother said softly.
Emily slid into her chair. "We have to find the quilt."
Her father exhaled heavily, rubbing his temples. "Emily... we don't know if it still exists."
"It does," Emily said firmly. "She wouldn't show it to me if it didn't."
Her parents exchanged a look - the kind of look adults share when they want to say something scary but don't want their child to hear it.
Finally, her father nodded. "We'll start with the mirror itself."
⸻
The Mirror's Frame
Emily stood beside her father as he examined the mirror closely for the first time since buying it. He ran his fingers along the tarnished silver frame, tracing the carved vines.
"Look at this," he muttered.
Emily leaned closer.
Hidden beneath the vines, faded but still legible, were initials burned into the wood:
A.W. & M.W.
1891.
Her father whispered, "Initials of the original owners... maybe the family the girl belonged to."
Emily's heart pounded with excitement. "Maybe that's the father and mother in the memories!"
Her mother came closer. "If that's true, we should look them up. Maybe there are records. Maybe the quilt is in a museum or belonged to relatives."
Emily stared at the date again.
1891.
The mirror was older than any of them realized.
⸻
A Hidden Drawer
As her father pressed along the bottom edge of the frame, a faint click echoed from behind the glass.
"Wait," he whispered. "Something moved."
He pressed again.
A small wooden panel slid open from the back - so thin and so perfectly blended that it had gone unnoticed.
Inside was a folded piece of brittle yellow paper tied with a thread.
Her mother gasped. "Is that...?"
Her father carefully pulled it out and laid it on the kitchen table.
Emily watched with wide, unblinking eyes as he untied the thread and unfolded the paper.
It wasn't a letter.
It was a sketch.
A charcoal drawing - rough but detailed - of a quilt.
And there, in the center, clear and dark and bold, was the symbol:
Circle
Line
Circle
"Their pattern," Emily whispered. "The one her mother stitched."
Her father swallowed hard. "This looks like a pattern guide. An original design."
Her mother picked up the sketch. "If someone hid this inside the mirror... they wanted it to be found."
Emily felt chills crawl up her arms.
"What if the quilt is still out there?" she whispered. "What if the girl's family hid it to protect something?"
Her father slowly nodded. "Then we need to find where the mirror came from."
⸻
Back to the Yard Sale
By late morning, they were in the car.
Baxter refused to come - he wouldn't even walk near the mirror - so her mother left him with a neighbor.
Emily sat in the backseat, clutching the drawing of the quilt. She felt strangely calm, like this was exactly what she was supposed to be doing.
The yard sale house looked different in the daylight - smaller, quieter, almost embarrassed by its own past. The elderly woman who sold them the mirror answered the door slowly, surprise flickering in her pale blue eyes.
"Well, hello again," she said. "Something wrong with the mirror?"
Emily's father cleared his throat. "Not wrong. Just... strange. We wanted to ask if you know who owned it before you."
The woman stared at the mirror sketch in his hand, her expression tightening. For a moment, Emily thought she might shut the door on them.
Instead, the woman stepped aside. "Come in."
⸻
The Woman's Memory
The living room was filled with antiques - old clocks, framed sepia photos, mismatched furniture. Dusty and warm. It smelled like lavender and old stories.
The woman lowered herself into an armchair and looked toward the window.
"That mirror..." she began, her voice soft and far away, "has been in my family for generations. My grandmother told me her grandmother had it. Said it was a wedding gift."
Emily stepped closer. "Do you know their names?"
The woman smiled gently. "Anna and Matthew Whitlock. Married in 1891."
Emily's breath caught.
A.W. & M.W.
Her father whispered, "Do you know what happened to them?"
The woman looked down at her hands, her fingers shaking slightly. "Not all of it. Just what my grandmother said..."
She took a slow, trembling breath.
"They had three children. One boy died young."
Emily felt her stomach drop.
The boy with the wooden blocks.
"And then one winter... something terrible happened. The family fled their home. Only one child survived."
Emily's eyes widened.
"The girl in the white dress," she whispered.
The woman nodded, sadness filling her eyes. "Her name was Lydia."
Emily felt tears burn her eyes.
Lydia.
She had a name.
The woman continued, "The quilt... that was Lydia's mother's pride. She stitched their family symbol into every version she made. But after the tragedy, Lydia never allowed the quilt to be displayed again. She hid it somewhere. No one ever found it."
Emily clutched the sketch.
"We have to find it," she said softly. "Lydia... she needs us to."
The woman's eyes drifted toward the window again.
"My grandmother used to say one thing: 'The quilt protects what the mirror remembers.'"
Emily shivered.
Her father straightened. "Do you know where they lived?"
The woman nodded slowly.
"I can show you."
BINABASA MO ANG
THE MEMORY IN THE MIRROR
FantasyWhen the Thomas family buys a century-old mirror at a yard sale, they expect nothing more than a bit of vintage charm. But the moment they hang it in their hallway, their eight-year-old daughter, Emily, feels something stir behind the glass. Where e...
