When I first saw it, I knew I had to pick it up for Kate. She collected vintage items – the older, the better, and though our modest income didn’t support the purchase of anything particularly old or valuable, she always seemed to find some pretty good bargains while perusing estate sales, second-hand shops, and the odd antiques store.
In fact, that’s where I was right at that moment, a little hole-in-the-wall antiques shop in a little village in New England that seemed to specialize in musty old treasures. I’d been away for the last week on a business trip to a trade show and would be heading back home in a couple of days to Virginia and to my fiancé.
Most of what was organized neatly on the wooden shelves of the store was far out of my financial reach, even for a birthday present for Kate, but when I spied the mirror haphazardly tucked away on a shelf behind a first edition set of Sherlock Holmes books, it immediately caught my attention.
The mirror itself was odd, an oval design slightly larger than my hand, and was made from some unusual dark glass that seemed exceptionally clear, despite its deeply tinted reflection. The frame surrounding it was a beautiful pewter sculpting of thorny vines, clearly crafted by a skilled artisan.
I carefully pulled it from behind the books, looking for the price tag that I was certain would be out of my range. I’d been saving some money secretly for a while to pick up a nice present for Kate’s thirtieth birthday and this seemed the perfect gift. I was unable to find one of the small yellow cardstock tags on the mirror and turned to make my way through the maze of antiques back to the front counter.
The proprietor, an elderly man, slight of build and with stooped shoulders, rested on a stool behind the glass counter, watery blue eyes occasionally settling on me as I wandered through his store.
He offered me a friendly smile as I approached.
“Hi. Can you help me with this?” I asked, presenting the mirror to him. “I can’t find a price.”
He accepted the piece from me, his face screwing itself into a puzzled expression as he examined it. “What’s this, now?” he said, mostly to himself, as he turned the mirror over in his hands.
“Well, with any luck, it’s going to be a birthday gift for my fiancé,” I replied with a hopeful grin.
“Huh,” he said in that same faraway tone. He looked up at me over the reading glasses perched on his nose. “I don’t recognize this one. Where did you find it?”
I thumbed over my shoulder. “It was on one of the shelves, behind some books back there.”
He frowned again and looked back at the mirror, his gaze settling on the deep black surface for a moment as he scrutinized it. I didn’t miss the frown that passed across his expression like a dark cloud. He pulled his eyes away from it and glanced back over his shoulder for a moment, like he’d heard something behind him.
I followed his gaze and realized that he was probably looking at the antique clock on the wall behind him, which now indicated it was after five. I thought it was likely past his normal closing time on a Sunday afternoon and this was his way of politely reminding me of it.
He turned back to me then, the smile on his face looking a bit more forced than previously, and handed the mirror back to me.
“Well, I don’t recognize it. It’s not one of mine,” he said. “I don’t deal in these sorts of things.”
It was my turn to frown with confusion now. I’d seen plenty of other mirrors on the shelves, though perhaps none quite like this. Still, there was no sense in arguing the point. “I don’t understand. Is it not for sale?” I felt my heart sink a little at the prospect – this was the perfect gift for Kate, and I rarely ever found anything that suited her collection.
He paused a moment, then his smile returned. It still didn’t seem to touch his eyes anymore, though. “Tell you what, son, why don’t you just take that for your little bride-to-be? With my compliments.”
I smiled my gratitude but shook my head. “No, no. I can’t take it for free; I have some money, just not a lot. If you’ll just tell me how much, I’m sure-,”
He forestalled my objections with a raised hand, passing me across a bag and some paper packing from beneath the counter. “I insist, lad. Besides, like I said, I’ve never seen this mirror before. I didn’t buy it, so it wouldn’t be right for me to sell it, I don’t suppose.”
Relenting before we entered into what I anticipated to be a battle of politeness, I gratefully accepted the paper and wrapped the mirror carefully, placing it into the bag and thanking the shopkeeper.
As I headed for the front door, he followed me from behind the counter, wishing me a good day and safe return trip home. As soon as I stepped into the chill afternoon air, I heard the door shut behind me, followed by the lock turning.
I turned back to wave my goodbye to the old man, but the odd expression of nervous apprehension on his aged features from the other side of the door stayed my hand, and I settled for a simple nod instead. I then pulled my collar up against the cold wind that had just blown up and started down the quiet main street to my rental car, my prize tucked carefully under one arm.
*
“Wow!” Kate exclaimed, dropping the paper wrapping to the floor as she examined the mirror. The glint in her eyes told me I’d made the right decision.
Her birthday wasn’t for another week or so, but after I’d returned home the night before, I was bursting with anticipation and couldn’t wait to give it to her.
“You like it?” I asked unnecessarily. It was clear that she did.
“Absolutely,” she replied, turning the mirror over in her hands as she examined every inch of it. She ran her fingers over the polished surface of the dark glass, then over the steely gray of the pewter frame.
“Ouch!” she exclaimed, drawing her hand back like she’d been bitten.
I saw a small dot of blood form on her fingertip and realized that she’d caught it on the point of one of the sculpted thorns, which was now shiny where it had snagged her.
She put her finger into her mouth and handed me the mirror as she stood and went to the kitchen sink, rinsing it off in the cool water. “Careful, Daniel, those thorns are sharp,” she said over her shoulder as she dried her finger with a paper towel and grabbed a band-aid from the drawer.
I looked down at the mirror and realized that only one or two of the pewter thorns looked sharp – probably just worn down from being handled over the years, I thought. My eyes caught the darkened glass of the mirror and I again marveled at the unique appearance of it. I’d seen plenty of old mirrors that were age-darkened and dull, but never one that looked to have been intentionally crafted in this way. The glass was smooth and clean, my reflection looking like I was sitting in deep shadows. It was a very interesting piece, though I will admit that it was a little unsettling to stare into for too long.
My eyes didn’t seem to care for the deeply tinted quality of the reflection, because it kept exaggerating the shadowy appearance of anything in the background, turning normal items into dark and indistinct blobs, leaving only the viewer’s face perfectly clear. Whoever had made this mirror must have been very talented, I thought, and started to wonder if I might have stumbled onto something rare and valuable.
I turned the mirror over and examined the ebony backing plate. Some faint script was etched towards the bottom, along with an indistinct symbol of some sort. I suspected it likely identified the maker, but it was worn illegible over the years, at least to my inexpert eyes.
Kate returned, her finger neatly covered with the band-aid, and took the mirror back from me, the sparkle of pleasure returning to her eyes immediately.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” she said, flipping it over to look at the back. I could see she was much more cautious in her handling of it now. “I mean, it’s definitely old, but that glass is so unique. It’s like you’re looking at your reflection in oil or something, but clearer. I don’t know how to explain it better than that.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.”
“Oh no – is that a chip in the glass?” she said, pausing a moment in her examination of it and running a finger over the smooth surface, like she was feeling for something. Her frown returned when she couldn’t find any defects and then she narrowed her eyes at her reflection before turning abruptly to look over her shoulder. “Huh, that’s strange…”
“What is?” I asked.
She hesitated, then shook her head, looking back at the mirrored surface. “Nothing. I just thought… It’s nothing. Just a trick of the eyes, I guess.”
Another uneasy glance behind her and I smiled with amusement.
“Yeah, I noticed that the black glass makes the stuff behind you sort of indistinct and strange. I think it’s pretty neat. Must have taken some real skill to make this thing, especially back whenever it was made.”
Kate rested the mirror on her lap and leaned back. She turned to me with an affectionate smile and gave me a kiss. “I love it.”
“I’m glad,” I said. “Hey, I’ve got an idea – maybe we should take it to your friend at that little antique shop up by the highway and see if she knows anything about it? It’d be pretty neat if it turned out to have some interesting history or something.”
She nodded. “That’s a good idea. We can run up there tomorrow after work. Catherine knows her stuff; she’ll be able to tell us something about it, I’m sure.”
She gazed into the mirror again and I could see the concentration on her face as she tried to work something out. She turned again to look over her shoulder, glancing back and forth between that and the mirror as if trying to compare the views. Finally, she smiled and set it down on the coffee table. “That’s some amazing effect the glass has,” she said, shaking her head in wonderment. “I can’t wait to learn more about it.”
*
The following afternoon, Kate and I pulled up in the small parking lot of Catherine’s antique shop, a half-hour’s drive from our apartment. The shop was small and filled with what felt like a haphazard collection of old furniture and curiosities. I always found it interesting to wander through the disorganized aisles, as there always seemed to be something unusual to catch my eye, even though I didn’t quite share Kate’s passion for all things old.
Catherine met us as soon as we opened the door, a small brass bell above the entry announcing our arrival. She was older than us by a fair bit – perhaps in her late forties or early fifties. She always reminded me of an aging hippy from the Woodstock generation, with long straight hair shot through with gray streaks and interspersed with thin braids decorated with multicolored beads. A pair of round-lensed glasses hung from a thin chain around her neck and a crocheted shawl adorned her narrow shoulders. She was also one of the most genuinely cheery people I’ve ever known.
“Katie! Daniel!” she exclaimed, rushing up to give both of us hugs as the door closed behind us. “It’s so good to see you again!”
Kate returned the embrace. “Thanks for staying open late, Catherine. We tried to get here sooner, but the day got away from me.”
Catherine waved away the apology and reached past us to lock the door, flipping the closed sign over. “Don’t worry about it at all. Come on back here and let me see this new treasure you’ve found,” she said, waving us towards the back room.
We stepped through the bead curtain that separated the showroom from the back and seated ourselves around a tidy little table covered over with an indigo tablecloth adorned with grinning suns and moons.
Kate produced the cloth-wrapped mirror and handed the bundle to Catherine, who now donned her spectacles as she laid the mirror on the table and unwrapped it.
She whistled faintly, and I could see the wonder in her eyes. “No kidding. I haven’t seen one of these in a while.”
“What is it?” I asked, leaning forward with interest.
She looked up to us for a moment and grinned. “A scrying glass, or at least, that’s what it looks like.” She picked the mirror up and examined the surface for a long moment before turning it over. “This one is pretty unique, though.”
“Careful,” Kate warned. “Those thorns are sharp. One of them bit me last night,” she said with a grin, holding up her band-aid covered finger as proof.
Catherine’s eyebrows arched momentarily, and she nodded her acknowledgment, eyes scanning the details of the piece.
“What did you call it? A scrying glass?” I asked. “It sounds like something a fortune teller would have.”
She nodded absently, still intent on her examination. “It is. They’ve been used to aid in divination by all sorts of occultists over the years. They’re still in use today by practitioners, though it’s a bit of a dying art. Strange that such a stubborn non-believer would make such an interesting discovery.” She looked over the tops of her glasses at me pointedly, the upturned corner of her mouth belying the reproachful tone of her words.
I raised my hands in mock surrender, and she chuckled.
“The strange thing is that I’ve never seen one exactly like this. And I don’t think it’s quite as old as it seems,” she said.
My heart dropped a bit at that. I was starting to feel like I’d gotten Kate’s hopes up over a forgery of some sort. Before I could say anything, though, Catherine continued, looking at both of us with reassuring eyes.
“Don’t worry. It’s definitely an antique, but the frame is styled after Celtic pieces I’ve seen that dated from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The glass and workmanship look newer, though – maybe nineteenth century, if I had to guess. And here,” she said, drawing our attention to the symbols on the back of the frame. “I think this is the maker’s mark. I can’t quite make it out, but with your permission, I’d like to take some pictures of the piece and send them to a man I know that specializes in exactly this sort of thing.”
Kate nodded enthusiastically. “Sure. I’d love to know more about it, so whatever he can tell us would be appreciated.”
Catherine smiled. “Perfect. I’ll send them over to him and ask him to call you with whatever he knows about it.” She turned to me and winked. “And Daniel, I think you found something special here.”
*
Kate didn’t sleep well that night after the visit to Catherine’s shop, tossing and turning in her sleep all through the night. A few times, she woke me with troubled murmurings that I couldn’t understand, but which seemed distressed and insistent. She wasn’t typically prone to nightmares, but it seemed that tonight had been an exception.
Dawn was still a couple hours away when I woke to find her sitting upright on the edge of our bed, still in her pajamas and hair stringy with perspiration. The pale moonlight cast a dim beam across her form from our bedroom window, and I saw that she’d opened the curtains at some point during the night.
When I reached over to touch her shoulder, she let out a yelp and jumped like I’d just shocked her with an electric wire. She shot to her feet and spun around, facing me with wide and unrecognizing eyes. Her breathing was ragged, her chest rising and falling rapidly, and her face was frighteningly pale and beaded with sweat.
“Jesus, Kate,” I exclaimed, scrambling out of bed, and rushing to her side. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
She didn’t flinch away from me, but I could see the remnants of fear ringing her eyes. “N-nothing. You just startled me is all,” she croaked out, turning from me to scan the darkness that covered the wooded landscape outside our window.
I turned her back towards me and lifted her chin, looking into her bloodshot eyes. “Kate, are you feeling okay? You don’t look too good, sweetheart.”
She shrugged my hand away and nodded, her eyes drifting away from mine. “I’m fine, Daniel. I-I just didn’t sleep well. Bad dreams.”
“Yeah, I’d say so,” I replied.
Kate shook her head, looking like she was about to say something else, then suddenly jerked her head around in the direction of our closet. “What was that?”
I hadn’t heard anything, but I followed her gaze and saw the shadowed door to the walk-in closet was unlatched and slightly ajar. I was pretty sure I’d closed it, but I also knew that the latch didn’t fully catch and the airflow from the central heat would cause it to drift open sometimes.
“It’s nothing, Kate,” I reassured her, taking a step towards the closet.
“Don’t!” she hissed, and I could see real terror in her eyes now as she gripped my wrist painfully. “That’s where it’s hiding.”
“What? What are you talking about, Kate? Where what’s hiding? It’s just our closet.”
I gently pried her fingers from around my wrist and moved to the door, glancing back at her. I’d never seen her so frightened before and it was starting to worry me. She looked like a cornered animal, muscles tense and ready to bolt.
In a smooth movement, I grabbed the door handle and pulled it open before Kate’s dread could start playing tricks on my imagination.
Only shadow greeted me from within.
No hidden intruder, no boogeyman, crouching in the darkness, nothing. Nothing but the dark interior of our closet. I reached in and yanked the pull-cord of the ceiling lamp. Immediately, the interior of the closet was filled with bright light, spilling out into our room and chasing away the darkness that had been there a moment before.
“See, Kate? It’s fine,” I said, turning back to her. “There’s nothing in there but our clothes.”
She hovered a moment, eyes never losing that lunatic gaze, looking past me, but not really seeing. She seemed lost in her own mind, kept company by worrying thoughts of some nature.
But then, something sent a shiver up my spine, and I suddenly felt exposed, vulnerable, somehow, standing there with my back to the open closet door.
I was about to say something else when she shook herself and drew a deep, trembling breath. She nodded reassuringly, more to herself than to me, and forced a weak smile to her lips. “I’m sorry, Daniel. I don’t know what’s got me so rattled. It’s not like me – I don’t-,” she started, but then her eyes went wide and focused over my shoulder.
Before I could turn to see what caught her attention, it happened.
The lightbulb in the closet lamp popped and went dark with a sizzle, casting us again in the dim illumination of the moonlight streaming in through the window. My ears filled with a sound, reminiscent of thick and rotten canvas in a gale, scraping and snapping in the wind, like a ghost ship of old. And then another sound, loud enough to ring my ears and blur my vision, a heavy resonance that seemed almost alive, rolling and rancid and reaching. It was no language, but I understood well enough what it conveyed.
Trembling anticipation.
Hunger.
Abruptly, I felt myself roughly thrown aside as if I were nothing, swept from my feet as my spine connected painfully with the edge of our dresser before I fell in a heap to the floor, my breath stolen painfully from my lungs.
I had the sense of something rushing past me, dragging with it a fetid, decayed stench of age and of things long dead, though I don’t have the craft to describe it better than that.
Kate shrieked a scream of surprised pain and staggered backwards, her right hand going immediately to her left shoulder and her left hand stretched before her to ward off whatever invisible force assaulted her. Her eyes were wide and wild, her breathing hitched, and I could almost hear her racing heartbeat as she cowered close to the wall. She scanned the room around her madly, desperately.
And then it was silent, save for the quiet whimpering of my fiancé.
I saw the blood on her shoulder, bright and wet in the harsh light cast by the closet lamp, and leapt to my feet.
“Kate!” I exclaimed, stumbling over to her, ignoring the flash of pain in my back.
“What-,” she mouthed, nearly in shock, as her eyes went to the torn shoulder of her pajamas. “What’s happening?” she almost pleaded. The fingertips of her left hand, which she had used to shield herself from whatever had been there, were bright red, inflamed and almost pulsing.
Without a word, I quickly pulled her into the bathroom and turned on the light, sitting her on the edge of the bathtub so I could examine her more closely.
The blood, a hand-sized blot of wet crimson, surrounded a ragged tear in the fabric and was slowly spreading as it continued to wick into the cloth. I helped her out of her pajama top, wincing at what I saw.
It looked like a bite from an animal, from a predator.
Ragged and deep punctures penetrated the flesh on the front and back of her shoulder, weeping blood down her otherwise smooth skin. I grabbed a washcloth from under the sink, wet it, and began carefully cleaning the blood away from the wounds.
What the hell? I pushed the thoughts away for the moment, focusing on my fiancé.
“I think you may need stitches, Kate,” I said, pressing the cloth against the cuts to stem the bleeding. It wasn’t enough to worry about blood loss, but none of it made sense. I had to get her to the emergency room and have her checked out.
“Hold this here,” I told her, placing her right hand over the washcloth.
A stray sound from our bedroom reached my ears, a quiet, almost stealthy movement that may have just been my imagination.
I reached for her left hand, gingerly raising it to inspect her fingers. They were still an angry bright red, for all the world looking like she’d burned herself on a hot stovetop. I could almost feel the residual heat radiating from them and could already see blisters forming on the pads of her fingertips.
“Oh my God, Kate. Your hand,” I breathed. I turned on the cool water and gently moved her fingers under the stream, noting well the grimace of pain that streaked across her features.
“We need to get you to the hospital,” I told her.
She shook her head in refusal. “No. No hospital.”
“Kate, what are you talking about? We need to get these looked at. You’re hurt,” I said in confused frustration.
Kate only shook her head again, more insistent this time. “No, Daniel. No hospital! We need to stay here. It’s not safe.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but the look in her eyes took the words from my mouth and I only nodded dumbly. Instead, I retrieved an adhesive bandage from the medicine cabinet and dressed the injury as best I could.
I helped her into a clean T-shirt, noting the way she winced as I lifted her arm to put it on her. I then carefully applied some burn ointment to her hand and wrapped it loosely. I could see the pain in her expression with every touch, but she bore it without so much as a whimper.
I wasn’t sure what else to do for her.
*
We sat at the small kitchen table in silence, sipping at our steaming mugs, until the muted sunlight of the overcast winter morning flooded through the kitchen window, dulling the edge of lunacy from the previous night.
Kate’s eyes were still troubled, but color had begun to return to her face by now, and she no longer had that same haunted look about her. I’d tried prodding her for more details about what had happened, about what she had seen, but the memories seemed to have fled with the arrival of morning. She was unable to articulate anything other than vague feelings of a base, almost primitive terror and a creeping dread that stayed with her still.
I didn’t miss the fact that she averted her eyes at that, and I felt like she was keeping something from me, using the excuse of clouded memories to repress what she knew had happened. It didn’t make any sense, but then again, little about the previous night made any sense now.
It was just after 9AM when Kate’s phone rang. She was startled at the sound but didn’t move to answer it. I reached over and swung it around, looking at an unfamiliar number.
With a quick glance to her, I accepted the call and put it on speakerphone.
“Hello?”
The voice that answered was that of an older man, though not one I recognized.
“Good morning. I was looking for Kate Jackson. My name is Richard Mayhew. I’m a friend of Catherine Schneider’s and she gave me this number.”
With last night’s events, I’d almost forgotten about the whole thing, and it took me a moment to reply. “Oh, yeah. Right. You’re her friend that specializes in the mirrors, right? I’m Daniel Conway, Kate’s fiancé. She’s here as well. I have you on speaker. Sorry, we had a bit of a rough night.”
“I hope nothing untoward has occurred. I know this is probably a bad time for my call, but I have information that cannot wait,” he said.
“It’s fine,” I lied, my eyes flicking to Kate, who was watching the phone with some interest, the weary frown still plastered on her face. I hoped that this man was calling with some good news about the mirror – perhaps something to help add some light to the dreary morning. “Thank you for calling, Mr. Mayhew. I assume you know something about the mirror?”
“I do,” he replied, his tone clear that something wasn’t right.
I started to get the impression that he wasn’t calling with good news.
“The mirror that you have isn’t strictly a scrying glass, as Catherine had thought,” he said. “What you have in your possession is what’s known as a dark mirror.”
“Okay,” I said slowly, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“Mr. Conway, given the situation, I’m going to forego pleasantries and just get to the point. These instruments are known to be treacherous even in their most mundane form. They are ritual items used throughout the ages to summon horrible and dark things from the other side,” he said, sounding very much like a professor lecturing a class. “This particular example, however, is different from those more common apparatus. I recognized the markings on the back plate immediately when I saw the pictures. It was crafted by a particularly unpleasant Italian glassmaker named Enzio di Romani in the early 1800’s. What you have in your hands is what’s known as a diaboli fenestra – a devil’s window. It is one of only five such item believed to have been created by di Romani, and only the second that I’ve ever come across in all my years of investigation.”
I frowned, glancing worriedly at Kate. “That’s interesting, Mr. Mayhew, but what does all that mean to us?”
The previous day’s hopes that I may have found something valuable for Kate’s collection didn’t even register in my mind.
Not now.
“Mr. Conway,” he said slowly, deliberately. “How long have you been in possession of this mirror?”
“A couple of days. I found it in an antiques shop on a business trip.”
“I see. This may seem an unorthodox question, but please, bear with me. Have either of you experienced anything strange since then? Anything odd or unexplainable?”
I hesitated, swallowing down the lunatic words about our experience that were fighting to spill out. “Like what?” I asked instead.
Mayhew sounded uncomfortable, like he was forcing himself to do something he really didn’t want to do. “Anything that may have struck you as…unaccountable? Movements out of the corner of your eye? Shadows moving on their own? Whispers or voices where there shouldn’t have been any? Even just the unshakeable feeling that you weren’t alone when you knew you were?”
I opened my mouth, unsure what I was going to say, when Kate spoke suddenly.
“Yes,” she said, her voice hoarse and weary. “All of that. It started last night.”
I could hear Mayhew’s sharp inhale at her reply. “Then I can assume that you peered into the glass and saw something. Am I correct?”
Kate nodded as if he could see her. “When Daniel first gave it to me and I was looking it over, yes. It was like something was wrong with the image in the black glass, like I was looking at a flawed copy instead of a real reflection. It seemed like there was…something standing behind me, but when I looked over my shoulder, there wasn’t anything there.”
I remembered Kate’s confusion when she was first examining the mirror, how her eyes had darted between the reflection and the room behind her. It had seemed trivial then, but the pieces started falling into place now.
“There’s more,” I said. “Last night, Kate was attacked by something. She has burns on her fingers and what looks like a bite mark on her shoulder. I can’t explain what happened, but I was there. Whatever it was threw me to the ground like I was nothing to it.”
“I see,” he said quietly.
There was another long pause, and when Mayhew spoke again, his voice had a strangely resigned tone.
“I’m very sorry, Miss Jackson. I wish there was something I could do to help you.” His voice was filled with what sounded like sympathy, as if he were a doctor delivering a diagnosis of a terminal illness.
“Sorry about what, Mr. Mayhew?” I said, growing agitated. It was clear that he knew more than he was saying, and it was starting to anger me, especially if Kate was in some sort of danger.
He ignored my question and continued speaking to Kate. “Miss Jackson – Kate – I strongly advise you to destroy the mirror immediately,” he said.
“Destroy it?” I said incredulously. “Why? Will that help? I don’t understand what’s going on, Mr. Mayhew! If you know something about this, just speak clearly. Stop beating around the bush.”
“That’s a fair request,” he replied, almost to himself. “Very well. Mr. Conway, I’m going to be blunt with you. Every person who has ever looked into a di Romani mirror and has seen something that should not exist in its black reflection, has died. Every person, without exception. I have pages detailing the identities of more than thirty-two unwitting souls who have fallen victim to this dreadful thing over the last two hundred years.”
I shook my head in denial. A cursed mirror? The concept was simply too much – too outlandish for my brain to accept.
“Mr. Mayhew, please. Now is not the time for fairy tales or ghost stories.”
I could hear papers shuffling on the other end before he replied.
“1824, Vienna - Gabriele Giordano, age 23, a new bride, found mangled in her own locked dressing room by her husband.
“1838, Manchester – Robert McCandles, age 52, a collector, his body discovered in his bed, torn apart.
“1840, London – Vanessa Cornwall, age 30, a chambermaid, found disemboweled in her mistresses’ wardrobe.”
I almost shouted into the phone, then, outraged. “Mr. Mayhew, that’s enough! You’re scaring Kate!”
He continued as if I hadn’t spoken.
“The list goes on for another twenty souls before the mirror crossed the Atlantic into the states sometime in the late 20th century.
“1996, New York City – Shannon Jones, age 24, antiques dealer, found eviscerated in the storeroom of her Manhattan shop.”
This time, I did shout, and Kate jumped at the ferocity of my voice. “Mr. Mayhew! I said that’s enough!”
He fell silent then, but after a long pause, he spoke again.
“There is one more recent addition to the list, Mr. Conway,” he said quietly. “Two days ago, Bar Harbor, Maine – Walter Parks, age 81, antiques dealer, his mutilated body found in the middle of his store.”
My mouth gaped when I understood what Mayhew had just said. I was shocked to muteness, and I felt the color drain from my face.
The old man…
“Sometimes, when you look into such a mirror, Mr. Conway, something else looks back. With the diaboli fenestra, it is always within the reflection, waiting for its chance. Biding its time.”
“Why?” asked Kate, and I hated the defeated sound of her voice. It sounded like resignation, a surrender.
“I honestly don’t know, Kate. Enzio di Romani was a vile man, by all accounts, driven to madness by some darkness in his life that history doesn’t describe. But the “why” doesn’t really matter now. Again, I’m sorry, so very sorry for both of you.”
“Mr. Mayhew…” I trailed off, not knowing what to say.
“Destroy the mirror, Kate. Break the chain. Don’t let this happen again to someone else,” he said. “And please, don’t try to contact me. There is nothing I can do to help you now.”
The call disconnected and the phone’s screen went dark on the table between us. I found Kate’s eyes, somehow empty and overwhelmed at the same time, and tried to form words to comfort her, but nothing came.
Then she smiled a sad smile at me and reached out to hold my hand. I felt a single tear well up and trace its way down my face.
“I’m going to lay down for a while, I think,” she said, rising and kissing my forehead before disappearing into our bedroom.
I couldn’t do anything except watch her go.
*
It’s now after dark. The only illumination in the shadowed house is from the light in the kitchen.
Kate hasn’t returned from our room since she went in this morning. A while ago, I thought I heard something, something that almost sounded like the rustle of leathery wings.
The stealthy drag of clawed feet upon our hardwood floors.
Perhaps a muffled cry.
But I haven’t gone to investigate, and I haven’t heard anything since. I couldn’t bring myself to lay eyes on what I knew awaited me in our room.
I didn’t want to see Kate that way.
I just couldn’t. Perhaps I’m a coward. I know some would say that and I’m not sure I would disagree.
I’m just sitting here now on the living room couch, not bothering to wipe the tears from my cheeks as I stare unblinking into the face of that damned black mirror, just waiting to see what she’d seen. What they’d all seen.
Waiting to be seen by whatever is looking back.