My Grandmother’s Mirror Only Reflects the Dead

The Mirror’s First Secret

I almost sold the mirror the day after Grandma Lillian’s funeral. It was an ugly thing—a heavy oak frame carved with twisting vines, the glass smoky with age. But Mom insisted: "She wanted you to have it. Said it was special."

Special. Right.

I propped it up in my apartment hallway, where it mostly gathered dust. Until the night I stumbled home after a late shift and saw him in the glass.

A man in a 1940s suit stood behind me.

I whirled around. No one was there.

But in the mirror, he smiled.

"It Only Shows the Dead"

Grandma Lillian’s voice whispered in my memory: "A clever girl like you will figure it out."

I ran my fingers over the frame’s carvings—were those initials?—and Googled until sunrise.

Oakwood Mirror, 1922. A hit: a newspaper clipping about a "parlor trick" mirror owned by a psychic named Eleanor Voss. "Claims it reflects departed souls," the article sneered.

Eleanor vanished in 1923. The mirror went missing.

Until now.

The Rules of the Dead

• 1. The mirror only reflects the dead. (I tested this by dancing naked in front of it. My reflection? Gone. The ghost of a Victorian child pointing and laughing? Very much present.)
• 2. They can talk—if they want to. (Most just stared. A few whispered things like "Check the basement" or "He’s not your real father.")
• 3. The longer you look, the more they see YOU.
• That last one? I learned it the hard way.

Grandma’s Message

Three weeks in, she appeared.

Grandma Lillian, wearing her favorite blue dress, pressed her palm to the glass like she used to against my cheek.

"Clara," she said, her voice clear as day. "You need to—"

Then the man in the 1940s suit shoved her aside.

"Tell Samuel I’m waiting," he hissed. "Tell him the debt’s due."

The mirror fogged over. When it cleared, they were gone.

The Debt

Samuel was Grandpa’s name. He’d died before I was born.

The library archives coughed up another clue: a 1948 police report about a "Samuel Carter" being questioned in connection with Eleanor Voss’s disappearance. No charges were filed.

That night, the mirror showed me Samuel, young, sweating, digging a shallow grave in the woods.

Eleanor wore Grandma Lillian’s blue dress.

Breaking the Glass

I drove to Grandma’s old house. The dirt in the basement was soft under my sneakers.

Six feet down, I found Eleanor. Tucked in her skeletal hand was a note:

"The mirror doesn’t just show the dead. It binds them. Break it, and we all go free."

Back home, I raised a hammer.

The ghosts in the glass screamed.

Grandma nodded.

I swung.

The Last Reflection

Shards glittered on my floor like trapped stars.

In the largest piece, Grandma mouthed thank you—then faded.

Now? My hallway mirror shows my

tired face. No suits, no graves, no secrets.

But sometimes, when I’m half-asleep, I swear I hear a whisper:

"Some debts stay paid."

The End.