The Reflection Shifts

November 2, 1871

The mirror has begun to misbehave.

Morning came with frost on the windowpanes and the smell of coffee thick in the hallway. Ma Bender was arguing with Pa about the cost of coal again, her voice sharp as a bell. I wiped the bar, stacked the bottles, smiled at travelers who would never remember my name. Ordinary things. Yet every time I passed the parlor mirror, I caught a flicker — like the glass inhaled when I did.

By nightfall, the inn had gone quiet. Only the groan of the rafters and the slow hiss of the lantern oil kept me company. I repeated the verses meant to banish shadows, the same I practiced behind the counter when no one was watching. My reflection delayed — a heartbeat behind me — as if waiting to see what I’d do first.

Tonight, it didn’t follow at all. It simply watched. My lips moved, but hers did not. Her eyes were wider, sharper, catching the candlelight in a way that made them shimmer like glass wet with tears. Then her mouth curved into a small smile, slow and deliberate, as though humoring a child who had spoken out of turn.

I dropped the book and stepped back. My reflection didn’t. It stayed close to the glass, breath fogging against the inside rather than out. The frost spread in the pattern of veins, branching outward until I couldn’t see her face at all.

The text says mirrors are “thin spaces” — thresholds that respond to name and intent. I didn’t say mine aloud. But I think she knows it now. I covered the mirror with a cloth, but sometimes I see a faint shimmer beneath, as though light were leaking through from the other side.

She is patient.

She is waiting for me to look again.