The Third Mirror

When Eleanor Whitby inherited her grandmother’s Victorian manor on the outskirts of Dagger’s Hollow, she didn’t expect to stay more than a weekend. The house, thick with dust and memories, had stood silent for almost a decade. Yet something about it called to her.

Three mirrors adorned the upstairs hallway—massive, gilded, and identical in design. The first two were clouded with age but otherwise ordinary. The third, however, was peculiar.

It reflected the hallway, yes—but not as it was now.

Eleanor first noticed it on the second night, just before bed. She was brushing her teeth when something felt off. Passing the third mirror on her way to her room, she stopped.

The hallway behind her in the mirror was brighter. No dust, no creaky floorboards, no spiderwebs in the corners. The rug—faded and torn in real life—was rich burgundy in the reflection. And someone was walking down the hall inside it.

Eleanor spun around.

Nothing.

When she looked back, the figure was gone.

She laughed nervously, chalking it up to fatigue. Jet lag, a glass of wine, maybe a little nostalgia. She’d grown up spending summers here, after all. The mind plays tricks.

But the next night, the figure returned.

This time, Eleanor waited. She stood before the third mirror and stared. The hallway in the reflection stretched infinitely long, candles lit along the walls—though no such candles existed now. The wallpaper was fresh, the air inside that mirrored world seemed almost... warmer.

Then she saw the woman.

Dressed in black lace, face pale and solemn, the figure approached the mirror. Her eyes locked with Eleanor’s, and for a breathless moment, Eleanor felt a pull in her chest. A pressure, like suction.

She stumbled back, heart pounding. The mirror returned to normal.

That night, she dreamed of her grandmother. In the dream, she was sewing in her favorite chair by the fire. “Don’t touch the third one,” she whispered without looking up. “It remembers.”


---

On the third day, Eleanor couldn’t help herself. Curiosity had taken root.

She placed her hand against the third mirror.

It was warm.

Then it moved.

Not the glass—the hallway inside. The moment her palm touched the surface, the mirrored hallway shifted, revealing not a reflection, but a space. She could hear faint piano music, distant laughter, clinking teacups. The past, it seemed, was alive inside the mirror.

She pressed harder.

Her hand sank through the surface like water.

A coolness crept up her arm. Her breath hitched. She pulled back—and the sensation vanished. The hallway was still. Empty. Her reflection returned.

But so did the woman in black.

Standing inches from the other side of the mirror, the woman raised a pale hand and mimicked Eleanor’s earlier motion—pressing her palm against the glass. Their fingers met, separated by that thin shimmer of otherworldly light.

And then the woman smiled.

It wasn’t kind.


---

Eleanor tried to leave the next morning, but her car wouldn't start. The storm from the night before had flooded the back road, and the cell reception was gone.

The house had grown colder.

The third mirror showed more each time she passed: a man hanging in the stairwell, a girl hiding under the floorboards, someone screaming wordlessly in the distance. And always the woman in black, following Eleanor through the glass.

By the fifth night, Eleanor stopped sleeping.

She boarded up the mirror with old furniture, refusing to look into it.

But on the sixth night, the boards fell. No crash, no sound—just gone.

And now, the mirror showed her bedroom.

Not the real one—the one inside it. Identical in shape but glowing with a warm, flickering fire. The woman in black sat at the edge of the bed, combing Eleanor’s hair, humming softly.

That night, Eleanor screamed in her sleep.


---

She awoke on the seventh morning to find the third mirror... shattered.

Relief flooded her. She had survived it. Whatever it was, it was over.

Until she looked in the hallway again.

The mirror was gone—but its frame remained. And inside the empty frame was not the wallpaper behind it, but the mirror again, perfectly whole.

And this time, the woman was no longer inside it.

She stood in the hallway, in front of Eleanor’s bedroom door.


---

Eleanor’s body was never found. Police assumed she left during the flood, perhaps injured, perhaps lost in the woods.

But the mirror remains.

And if you ever find yourself at the Whitby House in Dagger’s Hollow, don’t look too long into the third mirror.

It may look like your reflection.

But it isn't.