The drive up to Thorne Manor was a slow crawl through a tunnel of weeping willows and skeletal oaks. Elias kept his eyes on the road, trying to ignore the way the fog seemed to press against his windshield like seeking fingers. He was thirty-two, a man of logic and ledgers, yet the sight of the manor made his skin crawl with a childhood dread he thought he’d outgrown.
Clara had stayed. While Elias had built a life in the city, she had remained the warden of their family’s decaying legacy. Now, she was gone, found at the base of the grand staircase with her neck broken and her eyes wide with a terror that hadn’t faded even in death.
Entering the foyer was like stepping into a tomb. The air was stagnant, smelling of dust and something metallic. Elias clicked on his flashlight, the beam cutting through the gloom to find the grand mirror that hung opposite the door. It was a massive piece of Victorian craftsmanship, the silvering aged and mottled. He avoided his own reflection instinctively.
He spent the first few hours in Clara’s study. It was a mess of loose papers and half-empty tea cups. Amidst the chaos, he found her final journal. The entries from the last month were harrowing. She spoke of movement in the corners of her eyes, of voices whispering from behind the walls, and most chillingly, of the mirrors.
“Tuesday,” one entry read. “I saw Mother today. Not the Mother who died in the hospital. The Mother who used to hide in the attic. She was in the hallway mirror. She wasn’t looking at me; she was looking at something behind me. When I turned, there was nothing but the dark.”
Elias rubbed his temples. Clara had a history of depression, but this sounded like something else—something architectural, something built into the very bones of the Thorne estate. As he read on, a soft clink sounded from the hallway.
He froze. It sounded like glass tapping against wood.
He grabbed his flashlight and stepped out. The hallway was a long ribcage of shadows. At the far end, near the guest wing, a small hand-mirror lay face down on the floorboards. It hadn’t been there when he arrived.
He approached it slowly, his heart hammering against his ribs. He knelt and reached for the handle. As he flipped it over, the beam of his light hit the glass. For a split second, he didn’t see himself. He saw a man with skin the color of ash, standing right over his shoulder, reaching out with long, spindly fingers.
Elias gasped and spun around, swinging the heavy flashlight. There was nothing. Just the empty, dark hallway and the sound of his own ragged breathing. When he looked back at the hand-mirror, his own pale, terrified face stared back at him.
“Just the light,” he whispered, though he didn’t believe it. “Just a trick of the light.”
