The air inside the art hall had thickened overnight, as though the river itself had stopped to watch what the paint would do next.
When Leona pushed open the door, the hinges sighed out a faint grey mist — not dust, not cold, but a kind of breath.
Jonas followed with the lantern raised. Its small circle of gold caught a dozen suspended motes that looked like ashes waiting for names.
The canvas that had spoken yesterday was no longer whispering. Instead, the mirror beside it was fogged from within — as if something trapped behind the glass had begun to breathe.
Leona stepped forward. "Do you smell it?"
Jonas sniffed the air. "Pine resin. And smoke."
"No," she said softly. "Not smoke — memory cooling."
The fog pulsed once against the inner surface of the mirror, like lungs testing faith. For a moment, their own reflections vanished; what stared back were silhouettes of strangers standing in their place, each haloed by soft vapour.
Jonas steadied the lantern. "Reflections from the other side?"
Leona shook her head. "No. They're not reflections. They're remembrances. Smoke keeps a memory of what burned."
I. The Exhalation
The first breath came quietly — a ribbon of smoke unfurling from a crack near the mirror's frame. It didn't climb; it coiled, hovering between them like thought before confession.
Jonas drew a copper wire from his satchel — one of the remnants from the whispering walls — and wrapped it round the lantern's handle. "If the house still listens through copper," he said, "maybe the mirror will translate through light."
He lifted the lantern. The smoke trembled, then arranged itself into shapes: letters made of ember glow. They flickered, reorganised, dissolved, and re-formed into one sentence:
The fire saw itself and could not bear the sight.
Leona read aloud. "It's the Painter's record. He must have stored his confession in reflection rather than paper."
Another line appeared beneath the first:
When colour forgets its purpose, it becomes control.
Jonas exhaled. "That sounds like Daniel after the flood."
"No," she whispered. "That sounds like Caleb."
The smoke thickened suddenly, the letters dissolving into a slow swirl that pressed outward. The mirror convulsed once, twice — then breathed out a low gust of grey light. Every canvas in the room shivered in answer.
Leona took a step back. "It's sharing the room's memory."
II. The Room Remembers
From wall to wall, thin trails of mist crawled over the paintings, tracing their frames, their cracks, their colours.
Each time the smoke touched a surface, it drew out a sound: a laugh, a sob, a snatch of music.
The studio filled with fragments — a gallery of half-remembered moments.
A child's voice: "Don't paint the river angry."
A man's voice: "Light has temperature. Be kind to it."
Then, faint and weary: "Forgive the signature that outlived the artist."
Leona turned slowly. "These are his recordings."
Jonas whispered, "The mirror is the archive. The smoke is how it speaks."
The fog thickened again, concentrating around a single canvas — the unfinished portrait of a woman whose eyes had been left blank. Smoke poured from the eye sockets like slow-moving incense.
Leona felt a chill. "That's her."
"The Collector's daughter?"
"No." She shook her head. "The river's daughter. The one he tried to paint back to life."
Jonas hesitated. "And failed?"
"Or succeeded too well," Leona said. "Sometimes resurrection looks like ruin."
The mirror exhaled harder, until the entire hall shimmered as though underwater. Through the vapour, their own reflections multiplied — versions of themselves painted in different ages, some smiling, some exhausted, one weeping openly.
III. The Confrontation in Glass
One of the reflections spoke first.
"Why did you open the hall again?"
Leona answered, "Because silence was beginning to lie."
"And what did you expect to find?"
"Whatever the river had not yet forgiven."
The reflection smiled, its mouth a perfect echo of hers but the eyes older.
"Then you've come to the right wound."
The mirror cracked along a vertical line, not shattering but unseaming, like fabric pulled apart.
From the split emerged a slow column of smoke, rising to the ceiling and unfolding into the vague outline of a figure — coatless, barefoot, hands darkened with soot.
Jonas whispered, "The Painter?"
The figure nodded once, its features hazy yet kind. It spoke in the same voice that had haunted the copper recordings:
"Fire was never meant to cleanse; only to remember what can burn and still remain kind."
Leona stepped forward. "You left the ledger unfinished."
"Because mercy changes its equation every time someone loves."
The smoke-figure's chest pulsed like a bellows. "I need you to finish it, Leona. The final frame must be breath, not colour."
She felt her throat tighten. "How?"
"By teaching the mirror to exhale on its own."
IV. The Lesson of Breath
Jonas set the lantern on the floor. Its flame reflected ten-fold across the cracked mirror. "How does glass learn to breathe?" he asked.
The smoky Painter smiled — or rather, the space where his mouth should have been brightened slightly.
"It already knows. It just needs to be listened to."
Leona remembered the river's lesson: listen with your shape.
She stepped closer, pressed her palm flat against the mirror's warm surface, and exhaled slowly until her breath clouded it. Her reflection blurred, then divided, then steadied.
The mirror inhaled. The crack sealed itself with a sound like a slow sigh.
When it exhaled again, it released not smoke this time but clear air — light, transparent, carrying only the faint scent of wet cedar.
The figure in smoke bowed once and faded, absorbed into the cleaner air.
The mirror now reflected them honestly — no delay, no ghosts, no echoes.
Jonas said quietly, "It's remembering without suffering."
Leona nodded. "The river's method of forgiveness."
Outside, a heron's call stretched across the valley. The fog that had lain over the water all morning began to lift, revealing the first clean sky in weeks.
V. The Afterimage
They stood together before the mirror, now calm as still water. For a long moment neither spoke.
Then Leona said, "When the river lied twice, it was to hide this."
Jonas frowned. "Hide what?"
"That smoke can be gentle."
He smiled. "And that memory can breathe."
She looked once more into the mirror. Their reflections exhaled at the same time — a shared motion, easy and human. The air in the hall warmed.
Leona turned toward the door. "Come. The river's waiting for what happens next."
Jonas picked up the lantern. "Another bridge?"
She shook her head, smiling faintly. "No. A conversation."
They stepped out into the sunlight, and for the first time since the flood, the mirror did not call them back.
It only breathed once — lightly — and released a thin silver ribbon that drifted upward until it vanished in the sky.