This Old House

Standing in a dark hallway, just outside an empty bedroom, I push the door open further and venture in. The room smells of old bath powder and stale dust. A piece of covered furniture in the corner draws my eye.  It appears to be a huge mirror.

Bravely, I give the cover a pull. My eyes are glued to the revealed image staring back at me. It is not me. It is not the reflection of the room as it is now. Instead, sunlight sits in the middle of the floor like a big pat of butter. On the edge of the canopy bed sits a beautiful, evanescent young woman-child from another time. She absently pulls at a lock of her hair and wipes at tears on her face with her other hand. In a panic, she looks at me, but it's not me that she sees. There is nothing but cold fear on her face. She listens to a far away sound I cannot hear. Her face blanches, the little bit of color in her cheeks slips out of her face leaving the palest white skin above her collar. Her terror racks my bones and yet, I feel from her an incredible determination to be unafraid.

Suddenly, she stands and runs past me. The wind from her movement rustles my clothing on the living side of the mirror even though the air is still and hot.  Then I hear rapid footfalls run down the hallway away from me.

I cover up the mirror and leave the room, shutting and locking the door behind me. I carefully go back downstairs and I'm left wondering if the girl in the mirror is the woman in all of the pictures. Maybe she’s why my dream house was someone else’s nightmare.  That night, alone, I lay down in the only room clean enough to sleep in and listen to the breathing sounds this old house makes.

I hear a new sound come from upstairs. I can't help it, I'm too curious. I climb out of bed and creep back up the stairs, down the long hallway to the mirror room door. The door stands ajar just as before, even though I know I locked it earlier. I push the door the rest of the way open and on the floor in front of the mirror is the dust cover.

Sitting on the bed in the mirror is the red head—except she isn't crying, now she is very angry. She cruelly yanks the hair from the head of the doll in her lap and looks up at me in the mirror. This time she looks right into me with blood red eyes. She shoots off the bed with hands out like claws and I jerk awake. My body is covered in cold sweat and the mirror from the upstairs room winks at me from the corner. The cover has slipped off on to the floor.



(492 words)