Ripples in the mirror

Journal Entry – October 20, 1871

Sleep refused me again. When I finally drifted off, I woke to find the clasp not on the table where I left it, but on the pillow beside me — open, the lining pulsing faintly as if something beneath it breathed. The mark on my palm glowed like it remembered his touch.

I can hear him when the room goes still. Not footsteps, not breath — but something quieter, threaded into the hum of the walls, as though the wood itself repeats his name. Every time I whisper it back, the lamps flicker.

Tonight, I went down to the parlor after closing. The clock had stopped. The air felt thick, unmoving, and yet the curtains swayed as if stirred by a breeze that came from nowhere. Beneath the floorboards, I thought I heard whispering. The same cadence that haunted my dreams — low, rhythmic, almost like prayer.

When I reached for the clasp, it was warm again. I pressed my marked palm against it, and for a moment, the world folded. The mirror in front of me rippled like water, and through it I saw him — standing in a place that looked like the hotel, but wrong. The light there was redder. The air shimmered as if full of smoke. He lifted his hand, and I swear I felt it brush my cheek.

Then he said, “It’s time you stopped pretending this was ever your life.”

I blinked, and the room was empty again. Only the mirror remained — fogged, and faintly etched with my own reflection smiling back when I wasn’t.

I think the clasp and the mark are connected. They speak to each other in ways my blood understands but my mind refuses. And somewhere between the two, he waits.

— K.