The Mirror That Spoke

When the will was read, I expected nothing but fading trinkets. My grandmother had lived quietly, collecting antiques and silence in equal measure. Yet the solicitor’s voice carried one peculiar detail: I was to inherit her house and everything inside it. The house was old, leaning against time, and filled with the smell of dust and lavender. But what captured me most wasn’t the crooked stairwell or the drafty parlor. It was the mirror.

It stood nearly seven feet tall, framed in carved mahogany darkened with age. The glass was slightly clouded, as though smoke lingered within it. As a child, I had always avoided it, choosing to walk around rather than past it, because I swore it looked back with more intent than glass should. Now, as the new owner, I could no longer avoid its presence. The mirror sat waiting in the hallway, where shadows lingered longest.

The first night in the house, I passed it carrying a candle. My reflection appeared as expected—same tired eyes, same nervous mouth—but the flame I held in my hand did not move the same way in the glass. My reflection’s flame flickered twice while mine held steady. I blinked, convinced it was my imagination, or a trick of old glass. But when I turned away, I thought I saw my reflection hesitate, standing still a fraction longer than I did.

I told myself it was nothing. A draft. A tired mind.

But the second night, the house proved me wrong.

As I walked down the creaking hallway, the mirror sighed. A faint, whispering exhale that didn’t belong to me. I froze, candle dripping wax onto the floor. Then, clear as breath against my ear, it spoke my name. Soft. Almost mournful.

The sound rooted me. My heart hammered, yet my legs refused to move. The mirror whispered again, this time more urgent: “Not all is as it seems.”

I stepped closer. The surface shimmered faintly, as if water rippled just beneath it. My reflection tilted its head, but I hadn’t moved.

Panic clawed through me. I backed away, fled into the kitchen, and stayed there until morning. The light of day made everything smaller, more manageable. The mirror looked harmless again—just glass, old wood, nothing more. But unease burrowed into me, refusing to leave.

By the third night, curiosity outweighed fear. I set a chair in front of the mirror and sat, candle burning low. I stared at myself, waiting. Minutes passed. Then my reflection blinked—once, twice—while my own eyes remained wide open.

“Who are you?” I whispered.

The reflection leaned closer to the glass. Its lips moved, but the sound came from the air around me, not from the figure within. “I am you, and I am not.”

The words chilled me.

It told me fragments of things—memories I had forgotten, or perhaps never lived. My grandmother standing before the mirror, speaking softly to it night after night. A warning left unsaid, hidden within the folds of silence she carried to her grave.

Each evening, the mirror revealed more. My reflection became bolder, smiling when I frowned, speaking when I stayed silent. It told me that the glass was not a barrier but a doorway. That every choice I had ever abandoned lived on the other side, branching into countless versions of me.

And it wanted out.

The more I listened, the thinner the glass seemed. I began to see flickers of movement—rooms behind the reflection that were not mine, skies of unfamiliar color, a staircase leading down into nowhere. Sometimes I saw figures behind my reflection, waiting in the shadows.

On the seventh night, the mirror asked for my hand.

“If you touch the glass,” it whispered, “you will see the truth.”

I raised my hand slowly, trembling. My reflection smiled wider, eyes gleaming like polished obsidian. The glass felt cold, then warm, then alive beneath my fingertips. A pulse, steady and slow, beat against my skin.

I yanked my hand back. The reflection’s smile vanished, replaced with a look of hunger. For the first time, I realized—it wasn’t me I was seeing. Not truly. It was something older, something wearing my shape like a mask.

I covered the mirror with a heavy sheet and locked the hallway door. But even through the fabric, I swear I hear it whispering still. My name. My choices. Promises of a world where everything I lost can be reclaimed.

I don’t know how long I can resist.

Because at night, when the house settles and shadows gather, I feel the pull. The sheet shifts as though someone beneath it is breathing. The whispers grow sweeter, more persuasive.

And sometimes, when I dare glance at the covered frame, I see the faint glow of two eyes staring through the fabric, waiting for me to return.