Pulse

The mirror showed a reflection that wasn't my own, or that was the thought when I saw the store owner pull down the curtain acting as a veil. I had found myself wandering around Seattle, Washington and was on the hunt for all things oddity related to decorate my new found apartment. There was a sheer sense of freedom in being able to create a living space that was my own without a roommate.

"How much is this thing anyway?" I asked.

The owner stopped and took a deep breath, and just sort of stared at the mirror hanging on the wall. It was a vintage mirror with Ivy that had worn down and tarnished over time. In my mind I saw an up-cycle project, but the mirror itself seemed like it was so fragile. Little black spots all in the corners, to me it needed love to bring it from the early 1900's to 2023.

"Honestly ma'am to tell you the truth, I have had mirrors come and go out of our little shop for awhile now, but this one- it has a vibe."

He looked back at me with his eyes almost looking slightly glazed over as if he was in deep thought. He eventually gathered up the curtain in a little ball, slowly as if he was buying time. Eventually after another moment of awkward silence he finally spoke.

"Let me look in the black book at the counter. The original owner of this shop left specific instructions for those who come in to inquire pricing."

I began to glance around the shop to not make this moment any more awkward than it needed to be. There was jewelry on the counter made from animal bones, leather bound journals collecting dust, and taxidermy rodents dressed and placed in different positions to make them look life-like. As he shuffled away I quietly looked at the mirror, seeing the reflection of his back at me. He was wearing a worn down brown corduroy jacket that looked as dusty as some of the objects in here.

How could I paint this? I pulled out my phone and immediately found Pinterest, the amazing app to get lost for hours in containing ideas on how to up-cycle projects for inspiration. I had been looking for a statement piece and I was determined to make it this mirror. Something I wasn't prepared for, was the little tag I noticed sticking out behind the mirror itself. At first I assumed that this was a price tag, but upon inspection it looked like the corner of an envelope. Yellowed with age, I began to wonder if it was a mistake.

As I started reaching out to touch what I thought to be this envelope, the touch of a hand on my shoulder absolutely startled me. I flung around in a very rapid motion and there he was with the post it note in hand almost getting punched in the face by a very startled me. We both gathered ourselves together. It's hard to not be jumpy in Seattle, lately there has been an overwhelming amount of homeless people stealing things or robbing lately.

"Oh my God I am so fucking sorry. Are you okay?" I asked in a panic.

He looked at me like he had seen a ghost both literally and figuratively. I don't know if it was because I just almost put my fist through his face or if it was something else, but either way something seemed off.

"I'm fine miss." He pushed his glasses up off the bridge of his nose. "Sorry it took me so long I had to do some digging in the back, because normally we keep everything archived up in the Black Book however this particular piece was not listed there."

I looked at the mirror confused. To sort of lighten the tone I asked jokingly, "So does this mean it's free?"

"I am afraid not." Not taking a liking to my joke, he made a motion to follow him to the front.

I walked through all the isles of oddities, until we came upon a glass case and he unlocked a drawer with an old skeleton key. He knelt down and pulled out a very worn out shoe box.

Gringham's Shoe Factory Since 1923 is what read on the front side of the box. I genuinely admired the simplicity of old advertising, it got to the point with no fluff. The owner lifted the lid, and inside was a bunch of old index cards, receipts, and little papers that honestly made no sense. After shuffling around all the odds and ends, he finally got to the bottom of the box which contained an old envelope, similar to the yellowed corner I saw in the mirror. 

He nervously kept shifting his glasses that ever so slowly kept making their way down the bridge of his nose. Flipping the envelope back and forth, I noticed the penmanship on the front. It was that old kind of cursive that they clearly don't teach in school anymore. He opened the envelope and there it was, an invoice.

"Well Miss it seems I have found the original invoice. Trouble is I can't seem to find a price for this mirror." He squinted as he was looking over the receipt. He then abruptly looked past me, as if someone else had come into the store. However it was audibly quiet, and with the two of us I'd probably be the only sale that this guy would have this week. He looked back down and sighed.

"Truthfully I just took over this store a couple of months ago. The original owner was in her late 70's and recently passed away. I agreed to keep the store going because it's been running since the 1900's. Needless to say at the height of the "revival" movement a lot of people would take their oddities here in the hopes of getting right with God, and this mirror has been here since the beginning of the store's opening."

He paused and looked at me. "Look, all the items here have a story. I don't know what you are planning to do with that mirror, but everything that is bought in this store has a no return policy. Meaning once it leaves here you cannot return it."

I turned back and looked at the mirror. "I mean it's just a mirror right?" I chuckled. Soon enough I had it packaged up in brown paper and I was heading to my apartment.

I managed to snag an apartment in the Ballard neighborhood, it was a major art district and would be the perfect place for what my aunt would call "granola eating hippies". Crystal shops everywhere, people playing guitar, it just felt like home. I opened the door to apartment 88 where my judge mental cat Lux greeted me at the door with the look of Really? Another thing?

I set the mirror down, luckily it wasn't too heavy. There were boxes still that lined the walls marked in sharpies for their perspective rooms, and a old radiator that sputtered as it kicked on. I walked into the kitchen to make myself a salami and cheese sandwich and then opened all the curtains to gain some natural light in the room. The owner had wrapped this mirror in brown paper to keep the mirror intact until I could get it here, taped to perfection.

As I casually examined each wall to see which would be the best for hanging, when I heard a rustling noise. Perplexed I turned the corner and saw my cat pawing at the mirror. Sitting on all fours, just batting the paper. I tried to not think anything of it, because let's be real cats do some weird shit regularly. Have you not seen the cats on TikTok jumping at cucumbers?

Once I finally settled on a wall, I unwrapped the paper surrounding the mirror. It was bigger than I expected it to be once he got it down off the wall. However now I had the ability to examine it up close, and man was she beautiful. Old, definitely needed work, but amazingly well crafted. I ran my hands along the frame until I came into contact again with that yellowed piece of paper.

What was this? Curiosity got the best of me and I carefully laid the mirror face down so the back was to the ceiling. The back was barely attatched to the frame itself, as I noticed the little prongs were on it's last leg. Who genuinely knows the last time someone opened the frame. One by one I lifted the prongs with a butter knife until only the cardboard backing was exposed.

Holy fuck. What did I just get myself into?

When I tell you I don't know where to begin with this, I was genuinely floored. So many photos of the same man but the eyes were burnt out. It literally looked like someone took a cigarette to all these photos and made sure the eyes were burnt. Who the hell would do something like this? Clearly someone with a vendetta. I imagined a woman my age, probably got cheated on by this asshole or definitely did something to deserve it at least.

Hell I remember Matthew cheating on me before I moved to Seattle, I burned every damn photo in the bonfire, his sweatshirt, and all our movie ticket stubs. I wanted no reminders, so maybe that's where she was at.

Regardless I emptied out the back and then came across that damn envelope with the yellowed corner. The same envelope that was calling out to me at the store. I began to feel VERY uneasy. It was sealed with a wax seal, but it wasn't a normal wax, because there were layers to it. Red and then black, with a symbol on it. The envelope had the same handwriting as the handwriting I saw at the store, but I honestly couldn't understand what it said. All I could see was it just had that clear cursive handwriting with two words.

Aegrae Animae

I placed everything in a ziplock bag, it honestly just felt wrong to continue to examine these photos. Everything else was from another time. I just kept finding myself asking Who are you? It's not like the dead have a Instagram you can go and stalk all their relatives, see where they went to college and whether or not they have a boat. Clearly whoever this was, someone had a vendetta against them and the energy was heavy.

The next morning I woke up covered in sweat. Like for Seattle mid March there's still a lot of cold days, so to wake up out of dead sleep sweating I had to chalk it up to coming down with a fever. Nothing more, it's post pandemic, and everyone is always getting sick or somehow has COVID. I figured it was an excuse to go get some meds and get the remaining supplies to get this mirror up on the wall.

I threw my hair up in a messy bun, my leggings, and an oversized tee and I was ready to get out of the door. As I was grabbing my keys, Lux approached me meowing loudly. I was genuinely confused, it wasn't a hey bitch you forgot to feed me kind of meow. This was something deep within his chest kind of meow that I hadn't heard before. I chalked it up to him just not used to being in this apartment alone. We were both adjusting still. I quietly assured him I would be back and fed him some treats.

I eventually got to my safe haven Michael's. The arts and crafts store that cures even the worst heart breaks. Eventually I settled on a navy blue spray paint and got something to reinforce the backing on the mirror itself, as well as some new hardware for installing. The last thing I needed was this mirror toppling to its demise. My goal was to get this mirror project done ASAP and move on to the next DIY project until my apartment was fully furnished.

As I was strolling through the isles, because let's be real- no one sits inside of Michael's and goes in for just one thing. You sit and window shop and gain ideas for future projects, when I happened to come across the mosaic and mirrors section. Started looking into stained glass projects, when I caught my reflection in a nearby mirror and it stopped me in my tracks. I felt the color drain from my face in real time as my eyes turned black. Without impulse control, I let out this horrifying screech, and suddenly I started losing my sight and ringing became unbearably loud in my ears.

Next thing I knew I woke up in a hospital bed. I heard these beeps and ringing noises, and damn my head was pounding. Where the hell was I?

"Oh thank God babe you had us worried." a concerned voice I recognized as being my mom. "Hey sweetheart can you hear me?"

I mean I could but I couldn't verbalize jack shit, I barely could see anything at all. In fact everything was blurry. I even started trying to rub my eyes but to no avail everything looked like I couldn't see a damn thing. I guessed this is what it would seem like if I had a new pair of glasses or contact lenses. I wouldn't know, though I never needed them in my life.

"Dale, go get the nurse and let them know she finally woke up." Dale is my step dad, he's the voice of reason when my mom starts going crazy. He never had kids, so basically I got to be the daughter he never had. I heard him shuffle the chair over towards the wall and shift the curtain. Next thing I knew there were multiple doctors and nurses in my room.

They were shining lights in my eyes, and asking me to repeat words, but I wasn't really even remotely coming close to hitting the marks that they were requesting. After being poked and prodded like a pin cushion my doctor alerted me I had been in the hospital for 3 days due to a random seizure. Evidently I hit my head hard and according to security camera footage I broke the mirror section with the way I fell. Meaning I had broken every mirror that was in the aisle, and it couldn't be explained.

Seizure? I mean that was news to me, the closest I had ever had a medical issue was twisting my ankle in the 3rd grade playing soft ball. Eventually after a couple of days of monitoring me, they urged me to see an Opthomologist and Neurologist assuring me there wasn't more that could be done. It seemed like I was going to be that person that remained on meds for the rest of my life to prevent this from happening again. Truthfully, at that point I just wanted a shower and my own bed.

My mom came and stayed with me out of an abundance of caution. She was so concerned that she slept on my couch and helped cook me food. My apartment was peaceful and quiet, but like with everything my mom soaked everywhere she went with prayer.

"You know babe, I am so proud of you." I knew she wasn't sarcastic but I knew where this was going. "I just don't understand why you had to break up with Matthew. He had such a good career going for him, like he could've been the one to help mend you up."

I huffed this long breath, "Mom we went over this, Matthew cheated on me. With MULTIPLE women."

"But babe, he's a good Christian man. Men of faith rarely do stuff like that, and God calls us to forgive." She paused. "Look, you're almost 30, I'm just worried that you haven't settled down and the only thing that you now come home to is your cat."

I sighed, the only thing my mom ever wanted was for me to work in ministry and it just never was in the cards for me. Her concerns were valid, she just wanted grandkids, and to see me plant roots somewhere. But in reality I was in pain. I never felt a real sense of betrayal up until that point. Coming home and seeing your boyfriend on the couch hooking up with your childhood best friend, it's not exactly the kind of conversation I was going to have with my mom.

"Look mom I know you mean well, but I need time to process and start over. To find myself again, is that a bad thing? I just don't feel like I know who I am right now, and this seizure just made things worse."

She got up from the couch and started pacing back and forth until she noticed my mirror. "Where did you get this? It honestly looks kind of cool! I haven't seen anything like this before."

I didn't have the energy to tell her, I felt exhausted and not to mention I was still missing some of my eye sight. "I don't know, I just know I went to a store and picked it up downtown with the intention to upcycle it."

She paused in front of it, inspecting it's old frame. "You know something, you should take it to an appraiser to see if you could get some information on it. I bet you it's got a cool story to it. Something frozen in time!" She smiled authentically, little did she know there was a ziplock bag in a box with a bunch of old photos with burnt eye holes in all the pictures. And a mysterious envelope with random words on it. She had a point though, I knew nothing about the mirror other than I felt drawn to it, and that store.

A couple of days later I went to an eye doctor where I was told for the first time in my life I would actually need glasses. No one warned me which would be harder, knowing I would need to be on anti-seizure medication or that I would need to spend the entire day scrolling through the endless racks of Coach frames. Either way I settled on a basic pair of frames and left with my mom. I still couldn't drive, and I was going to unfortunately be reliant on an Uber or riding a bicycle to get to where I needed to for a long time. The DMV revoked my license, and I was now stuck with this again new reality of things being different.

Eventually Matthew tried calling my mom after he had heard what had happened but I wanted nothing to do with him. "Please talk to him." I cringed at the idea of her trying to convince me of this. "He's seriously sorry, he's just really concerned and we both agree it's time you moved on and worked through all of this."

"Mom, I'm not interested." I was stubborn as a mule, and it seemed to have been made worse with the seizure. I was becoming increasingly more irritable, I was getting more frequent headaches, and worse I was feeling very low. I didn't know if it was the side effects of the meds, or if it was something else but everything felt off. I was no longer the person I used to be. I was completely reliant on my mom, and while I was grateful for her help, I was beginning to feel like I was losing myself in the process. But the one that bothered me the most hearing this thumping sound coming from the mirror. 

Late at night around 3 am I get woken up, my mom never does, and all I hear is Thud.....Thud.....Thud. It's so loud that you can hear the mirror shaking and hitting the wall. Eventually it stops and I drift off to sleep again. On my way to the eye doctor 2 weeks later I mentioned this to my mom and she looked at me like I was insane.

"Honey, are you sure this isn't something you're dreaming? You know that doctor warned us of all those side effects."

It could be something to do with that but honestly I wasn't in a place to argue with her about my sanity. I just knew what I was seeing wasn't normal, but truthfully I needed to figure it out. Somehow I was beginning to think maybe that mirror was the issue to the noises I was hearing at night.

I got my glasses and I finally could see again. It was like a fresh breath of air. Eventually after a very long month and some serious convincing my mom left, only under the condition that I called her daily to check in. It was finally just me and Lux in my studio apartment. I turned on my TV, and decided to order some take out Chinese food. As I sat waiting for the delivery guy, I saw a commercial for Antique RoadShow coming into town. I remember seeing it on PBS growing up and thought this would be really cool to see if I could get some history of my latest purchase.

Eventually my fried rice and orange chicken arrived, as I started to doze off into a take out sleepy stage. I don't know when or how but eventually I woke up to Lux meowing that God awful meow again but this time he was actively in front of the mirror. I threw my glasses on to see what the commotion was and to my utter horror the envelope that was in the box was now in front of the mirror. What was even worse is all the photos were placed in a perfect circle around my God damn cat. All these horrifying burnt black eyes, the same ones I saw at the store in the mirror were all staring at Lux.

Lux looked like he was almost paralyzed or unable to move, like he was pinned in place by an invisible force. There was genuinely no way to explain this away. Mom wasn't here, it was just me and my damn cat. To stunned to move I shouted out the Lord's prayer. I mean who was I kidding, I went to Sunday school but the unseen forces probably knew I was a phony anyway. Eventually Lux was able to free himself, and he ran over to the arm of my couch and I breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

I surveyed the pictures all in all, and again found them to be the same man, probably in his late 20's or early 30's. Slicked back blonde hair, and a mustache. Minus all the weird burn marks to the eyes he's actually cute. I started noticing all the little scenes of him at the beach, hanging out with friends, smoking a cigar, like he lived a relatively normal life, so why would someone hate him? As I tucked all these little photos away in the ziplock bag again, it finally came time to pick up the envelope and tuck it away with the rest. As I bent down the mirror visibly began to shake, and again next thing I knew I was out cold again.

After a week of random painful headaches, I started to physically wonder if the mirror was beginning to be a legitimate problem child. Or maybe all of this was just in my head. Maybe my mom was right, maybe it's side effects of all these meds I'm on. But either way I knew she had one thing correct, I wanted to know about this mirror so I took it to the Road Show via Uber obviously.

The lights were really really bright. People were coming and going carrying all kinds of weird items, everything from cabinets, to pottery and like me, even mirrors. When it finally got to be my turn, a lady in a pencil skirt motioned me to the table. Her job was to get people in and out and keep things running smoothly. Once I set the mirror down this older guy didn't say much, but he was kind. I started telling him about how I acquired it, and the look on his face slowly started shifting into a look of concern.

Occult.

Mirrors like these were common to people who were in the Occult. There was a surge in the 1850's of the practice. He began to tell me the mirror was from France, made of pure silver, and there was a gap in the back because people would sometimes hide their valuables in the mirror for safe keeping like jewelry or guns. However when it came to the Occult sometimes they would be known to bind people's souls to the mirror, or summon dark entities.

"So hypothetically speaking, say someone open the back of a mirror after it had been sealed what would happen?" I asked in a laughing and joking manner.

"Well I would imagine you would probably release whatever was bound to the object." He paused casually lifting the mirror, "Did you find anything?"

I mean I had, but I wasn't going to tell this guy anything. I mean the last thing I needed was basically unleashing a demon at a convention center. I loaded the mirror in the next Uber and headed home, and decided now it was a good time to pull out my Macbook and do some research on Occult studies. Since I had the year it was created, I was able to do some internet sleuthing. Each mirror has a serial number on the inside, so I was able to find the original company that created the mirrors.

Obviously they are no longer in business, but I did however notice something odd. The name of one of the owners Manuel Lavigne, eventually immigrated to the America. Article after article started showing that Manuel had closed his mirror business in France and started a shoe business called Gringham's in the 1900's here in the Pacific NorthWest. It became very successful, for what it seemed like they would throw parties similar to the Great Gatsby, and it was an exclusive invite only.

The tea was he had a business partner named George Louis and they both madly fell in love with a girl name Cynthia Williams. At some point Cynthia was sleeping with the both of them and playing them to get company money and drugs. When he realized what George was doing, rumor had it that Manuel killed George. But no one could prove it, they never found a body, for all intensive purposes, he could've gone and just started a new life somewhere while dropping off the map either way, after a party one night he disappeared and no one had heard from him again.

Images tab. Click. There he was- the man in the photos was George Louis and he went missing at the age of 29.

Damn. I literally just uncovered a whole missing person's case with the help of Google. So Manuel literally burnt cigarettes into this man's eye holes, all because of a woman. I imagined him doing this over a glass of bourbon in a fancy tuxedo. He was in pain, and I could relate to that. I grabbed my backpack and pulled out the photos and the envelope and spread them all around me. No wonder he looked happy, it's before the betrayal sunk in.

I finally picked up the envelope, even though my gut was in knots. I peeled away the wax seal, and to my horror I found a letter and a lock of hair. Dirty Blonde blonde hair. I dropped the letter in horror. There's no way this is a confessional. I had human fucking hair in my hand.

"Did he kill him?" I screamed out, tears burning in the corners of my eyes splattering below on the photos around me. For years this mirror held the secrets of a man murdered, and now I am the one bringing the truth to light. I got up and seated myself to look into the mirror.

Sitting down I could easily do my makeup in this mirror, or fix my hair. But today, I felt like I needed to talk. To myself and to the many faces that have looked into this before me. Every glance telling a different story, knowing that at one point a possible murderer got dressed in this exact mirror. Did George ever look into this mirror? I'm guessing he never knew a random girl over a hundred years later would solve his death or disaperance. It felt like maybe just maybe a part of him was attached to this mirror.

I eventually braced myself and opened the letter. Also yellowed with age and the same hand writing, I began reading.

My Beloved Manuel, January 3rd, 1912

I write to you with a heavy heart, for I have come to the painful realization that our love was not meant to be. Our differences are too great, and our paths in life diverge. I will always treasure the memories we shared, the walks in the park, the laughter we shared, and the love we once had. But alas, it is time for us to part ways.

-Cynthia.

As I closed my eyes as a wave of emotion came over me. All too well did I relate to that same sense of pain and heart ache. Reminding me I had wounds to heal as well, and as I opened my eyes staring right back at me was the face of George. He was ready to speak with me, and this time in color with eyes of hazel.