The Tale of the Mirror

"I didn't even want to come to this party Hannah, why did I let you convince me it was a good idea." Jane said, giving her friend a playful shove.

"I can think of a few reasons you came. Honey colored eyes, winning sense of humor, those big arms. Ring a bell?" Hannah giggled. It was a brisk October evening, and the group of friends had gathered for a bonfire.

"Tommy hasn't even looked my way since I got here, I wish I had just stayed home." Jane sighed. "Plus, he brought some other girl with him."

"I wouldn't worry about that, I asked Mark, she's just his cousin visiting from out of town."

As if summoned by the mention of his name, Mark appeared behind Hannah, wrapping his arms around her waist.

"That's enough secrets ladies, come to the bonfire. We're gonna tell some spooky stories to get you girls all scared and clinging to us boys in fear."

Hannah and Jane both rolled their eyes, and began to walk towards the fire as Mark trailed behind. The bonfire was the only light in the secluded forest, and the looming pines muddled in darkness obscured everything, leaving only their little well-lit circle. Jane strategically sat on the log next to Tommy, as Hannah and Mark made a little love nest on the ground.

Tommy and Jane exchanged greetings, and he introduced her to his cousin Madelyn. She seemed strange, not the kind of person Jane would normally hang out with. There was something about her eyes that didn't seem right. Like she wasn't completely there.

Tommy addressed the small group, "Okay, okay quiet down everyone. This is my cousin Madelyn and she's got a really spooky story to tell. Everyone say hi."

"Hi Madelyn!" The group of friends said in jolly unison. Madelyn looked a little embarrassed. Yet with remarkable confidence she began her story immediately, with a projecting voice that captured everyone's attention.

"What if the stories we tell ourselves as kids are really just distractions? When you think about it, these childish rituals never seem real enough to truly scare us. But they thrill us enough, so we repeat them. Over and over.

She stopped to look around. "You guys have played Bloody Mary, right?"

Some people in the group nodded in affirmation.

She continued. "That's what I figured, I bet we've all seen the same scary movies, played silly creepy games, and messed with Ouija boards. But, would we do it if we felt any real risk was involved? I mean, I don't know about you guys, but I think jumping off a cliff sounds scary and exciting, but I don't go and do it! Because I know I'm likely to break every bone in my body. But ask me to explore a haunted house with you..."

The group giggled. They were ready to be scared, knowing that afterwards they would go home to brush their teeth, watch a funny movie, and fall asleep in their safe beds.

"These stories thrill us, being scared is exhilarating, but deep down we sense that we're safe from these made up creatures."

A frigid burst of wind rustled through the trees, and everyone huddled in a little closer to the fire.

"But, what if I told you that the real monster lurking under the bed, that rattling ghost in the attic..."

She paused. The group was hanging onto her every word.

"It's you." The friends exchanged questioning glances.

"That's who you should be most afraid of. Yourself. This is the story about a girl who loved being scared, a little too much. Her love of fear led her beyond the realm of our beastly distractions, into the far more terrifying unknown. I call this story, 'The Tale of the Mirror'."

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Once there was a girl, similar to any of us; her name was Linda. She was in high school, about our age, and she also loved scary stories. In fact, she loved them a little too much. She was obsessed with fear. The problem was, nothing seemed to scare her. Linda saw all the classic horror movies, rode the scariest rides at the nearby amusement park, and was the personal tour guide to any classmates who wished to explore an abandoned house. But nothing could frighten her, and she desperately wanted to be terrified. She craved the thrill, and so she kept trying.

She'd try anything.

But, Linda would come to find that fear wasn't always an exciting burst of adrenaline. Sometimes fear was gradual, slowly accumulating into something truly unrecognizable. Sometimes fear creeps silently in the shadows, not wanting to be detected; and when it finally catches up to you, it might be too late to be scared.

Linda didn't remember how she had heard about the mirror game, it was just some rumor that had circulated around school. She had to put together bits and pieces to form her own version of the childish scrying game. She figured she'd test it out for her classmates that were too afraid.

In the window, she placed a lit red candle, this was supposed to guide her back to the material world. Then she sat at her vanity, and gazed into the mirror, reciting some made up incantation to set the mood. Nobody said exactly what would happen. Someone said you'd see a glimpse of your future husband, or maybe a skull to symbolize an early death.

If only she had heard the part about not staring into the mirror for too long, or that you really shouldn't make direct eye contact with yourself.

The first time wasn't anything special, she got bored after a few minutes, and blew out the candle, disappointed once again. Yet something compelled her to try again the next day, and the next. Each day she would gaze a little longer at her reflection in the mirror. She never spoke about what she was looking at, in fact she didn't seem to remember she had done it at all.

It started off small, but each day the mirror took a little more of her. She didn't even bother lighting the candle anymore, and would find herself gazing into the mirror for hours at a time. It was a quiet, measured obsession that grew and grew over the following months.

Slowly, she began slipping in school, a once straight A student. Then she stopped hanging out with her friends, stopped caring about horror movies, and theme parks. Her parents thought she was depressed, but they were too preoccupied to realize what was actually happening.

Eventually she stopped going to school altogether. She couldn't walk down the hallway, or brush her teeth without getting trapped in the gaze, unable to tear herself away from the reflection. When her parents finally realized what was happening they removed the vanity from her room, and took her to a psychiatrist that suggested removing all mirrors from the house.

Her parents really did try towards the end, but the thing about mirrors, is that they're everywhere. Puddles on the sidewalk, the distorted reflection in the tea kettle, the black television screen. Even when eating cereal, the spoon would catch her gaze.

She had stopped speaking completely by this point, and the only way she could escape the mirror was to be shaken back to reality by a living distraction.

The mirror seemed to be feeding on her, and little by little she was fading away. An empty shell of the fearless girl that would laugh at a story like this one. After consulting self-help books, doctors, and psychiatrists; her parents decided the only thing they could do was put her in a mental institution. One of those blank white rooms that had nothing to see at all. Maybe, just maybe if she could stay away from the reflection long enough, she might come back.

Madelyn paused as if the story was complete. Without realizing the group had taken in a collective breath, waiting for the finale.

"Well, what happened?" Hannah demanded, a little too loudly.

"If you really want to know... why don't you try asking this." From her bag, Madelyn produced a silver hand mirror, those antique looking ones.

The group laughed at this final display, it broke the tension everyone was feeling. They shrugged off the unsettling story, and tried to keep up conversation around the dying fire.

An unprecedented thunderstorm ended the night early, and the group headed back to the safety of town. Jane was the first one to be dropped off. It appeared the storm had knocked out the power for several blocks.

"Are you gonna be okay?" Hannah yelled, half hanging out the car window. "You can come to my house if you want!"

"No, I'll be fine...I'll light a candle!" Jane said.

The girls laughed remembering the ridiculous story, but the laugh came out a little too breathy and forced.

Jane was relieved by the familiar sound of her creaking wooden porch steps, happy to be back home. She kept replaying how before she left Tommy had given her a kiss on the cheek, and asked her to see a movie tomorrow.

She went inside, directly heading for the kitchen to find a candle. After rummaging through the drawers, she found one, and went upstairs to her bedroom.

She placed the lit candle in the window, and began getting ready for bed. After taking off her sweater, she caught her reflection in the mirror. It looked distorted from the darkness, and her features looked deep and crude, hollowed by the candle’s light.

It was just a story she thought, but she couldn’t help but looking into the mirror, staring at her own reflection.