The guest bedroom hadn't changed in years. The faded quilt on the bed still smelled faintly of cedar, the wardrobe stood stubbornly in its corner with one door that never quite closed, and the single lamp beside the bed cast a weak orange glow that made shadows stretch unnaturally long across the walls.
Mara set her suitcase down and sat on the edge of the bed. For the first time all day, she let herself exhale. The house was heavy with memory — summers when her parents left her here, afternoons running up and down these halls with her cousins, nights when she'd sworn she heard whispers drifting from the end of the hallway.
Her eyes drifted to the door. From where she sat, she could see just far enough into the hall to catch a glimpse of the mirror at the end. Even from here, its surface seemed wrong. She could see the dull glimmer of the frame, but the glass itself reflected nothing. Not the lamp glow. Not the hallway bulb. Nothing.
Her grandmother's warning floated back: Don't stare too long. That's how it notices you.
Mara rubbed her arms, suddenly chilled. It's just an old mirror, she told herself. It's probably warped, or dirty, or both.
She closed the bedroom door.
Dinner had been quiet. Her grandmother hardly ate, only picked at her food and asked Mara about school, about friends, about her parents. The same questions in the same thin voice. All the while, Mara felt the mirror's presence, even though they were two rooms away. As if it had seeped into the air of the whole house.
By the time she was back in bed, the wind outside had picked up. Branches scraped against the roof. The old frame of the house groaned with each gust, and the walls seemed to pulse with it. Mara lay under the quilt, staring at the ceiling.
The lamp flickered once, twice, and went out.
She sat up sharply. Darkness folded in around her, thick and suffocating. Only a faint glow from the hallway bulb pressed through the crack beneath her door.
That was when she heard it.
A sound like fingernails dragging across glass. Long, deliberate, scraping notes that seemed to echo inside her skull.
Mara's chest tightened. She turned toward the door, toward that faint stripe of light. The sound came again — scrape, scrape, scrape — and this time, she knew exactly where it came from.
The mirror.
Her first instinct was to stay in bed, pull the covers over her head, pretend she hadn't heard anything at all. But curiosity, or perhaps the stubbornness her mother always scolded her for, pushed her legs over the side of the bed. The wooden floor was cold under her feet.
She opened the door.
The hallway stretched before her, impossibly long in the weak light of the single bulb. The mirror stood at the end, tall and waiting. Its frame seemed to shimmer faintly, as though lit from within.
Mara stepped forward, every board underfoot creaking like a warning.
Halfway down, she stopped breathing.
The mirror wasn't empty anymore.
Her reflection stood there, faint but unmistakable. She could see herself in the glass, her hair hanging loose around her face, her eyes wide. But the reflection was… off. Its shoulders were lifted too high. Its head cocked slightly to the left. And then, as Mara stared, it began to smile.
A slow, stretching smile that spread wider than her own face should allow.
Mara's breath hitched. She raised her hand, testing — a small, hesitant wave.
The reflection did not follow.
Instead, it pressed its hand flat against the glass, palm splayed, fingers long and distorted against the dark surface. The smile grew wider, showing teeth.
Mara stumbled back. Her shoulder hit the wall, and the hallway bulb flickered overhead. In that flicker, for the briefest heartbeat, the reflection moved closer to the glass — like it had leaned forward, eager, hungry.
The bulb steadied. Her reflection stood still again, hand against the glass.
Mara ran. She slammed the bedroom door, shoved her suitcase against it as if that flimsy barrier could matter, and crawled beneath the quilt. She pressed her hands over her ears, but she still heard it — faint and patient.
Scrape.Scrape.Scrape.
Nails across glass.
It went on for hours.
And when Mara finally drifted into an uneasy sleep, she dreamed of the mirror's surface cracking open like ice — and something smiling as it crawled through.