The Haunted Mirror
Short Story : The Haunted Mirror
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark ( Horror Story)
By Prabir Rai Chaudhuri . All Copyright Reserved 2009
Scary Saturday
Scary Story , Hit Horror : Fiction Story
When my grandmother died, the whole family went to watch her. She wanted a vigil in her house for three days so that everyone could come to say goodbye to her, even those who lived in the Lake city. This last wish was respected by all of her children, who were fifteen in total.
My mother was her oldest daughter, she was in charge of organizing everything, she called her siblings, she contacted relatives that she didn't even know existed until that day. I was not particularly close to my grandmother, I had grown up with my parents, I lived further away than everyone and I spent weekends with her until I entered high school, after that I began to dedicate myself to my friends or the things I liked. .
Even though I didn't feel very close, her departure made me very sad, perhaps because I managed to see her alive, two days before she left. She wasn't hearing very well anymore, she was seeing well or so she thought so I went up to greet her, I asked her how she was feeling.
He was already very weak, he didn't answer me immediately, but he looked at me for a long time, with his trembling hand he grabbed my arm, then he smiled toothlessly. Her heart sank, out of nowhere she told me that he had always been a good boy. He stroked my arm a little and then settled down to go to sleep.
Because of that single memory I felt like I had lost something very important, I don't know, people who have lost their grandparents must know what I mean. With such a feeling of nostalgia I bought a mirror. My grandmother had a mirror in her room, the paint on the frame was a little chipped and for as long as she could remember, that mirror had always been on her dressing table.
It was an old mirror, much older than my grandmother's years, it was one of those that are used to decorate spaces, its shape was oval, it ended like a point at the top, with a decoration of leaves, its color was that of an old iron , it looked as if the paint from many years had been falling off little by little due to lack of maintenance.
Despite everything, the mirror was nice, she had it at the height of her table, where she removed the hair clips that kept her hair buns well combed. That mirror reflected her even when she was in bed. I couldn't say if she was especially fond of him, but she had never gotten rid of him, perhaps because of the habit of keeping her things with her for a long time, as she had done with the bed and some blankets that she had knitted herself many years ago. so that they could serve as a quilt for his bed.
When she died, I was left with nothing, not a single memory could my mother save because immediately some of her brothers arranged everything to sell the house to each have their share. I very much regretted that decision. That's why when I saw a similar mirror in that flea market on Downtown Street, I went to look at it carefully until I came to the conclusion that it was not the same, but it was identical.
After haggling with the owner a bit, I was able to get it at a decent price, he wanted to sell it for more because he surely realized my total interest. And yes, he wasn't going to leave that place without the mirror. I arrived home after my outing with some friends to have a few beers, so my dad was surprised that I arrived with a mirror, he thought that because of the alcohol I had ended up buying that trinket, because the mirror looked old, it was also blurry. by the time.
Upon seeing the mirror, my mother immediately knew why I bought it and asked me if I brought it to give it to her. I said yes, although in reality it was because I was nostalgic to see my grandmother and that mirror could help me remember her for a while. little, every day as long as that mirror was near me.
I gave her the mirror, she put it in the living room for decoration, I guess it was also the best place to see it every day. After the novelty of the mirror, we went to sleep late because we were remembering my grandmother's house. In the morning, my mother came to wake me up after eleven.
Raw and with a horrible heaviness I went to breakfast out of obligation. The first thing I saw was the mirror, it didn't reflect anything, I rubbed my eyes, I looked at the mirror again and it looked very blurry, I assumed I hadn't seen it properly because I had drunk a lot the previous afternoon.
After breakfast I began to do the housework, in the coming and going, I saw that my mother had stopped halfway with the basket of clean clothes, she was looking at the mirror. She told me that it seemed strange to her, the night before she didn't see it so blurry, I told her that I thought the same thing.
After finishing wearing my earrings I went to take down the mirror, something made me think that it was not a good idea, I could better use something to make it shine again, so I started looking for tutorials to see how to clean it.
I spent two hours or maybe three trying to get it shiny, but that didn't happen. You could already see the reflection a little, but the haze of tartar continued. I decided that was all for that day, I would calmly have more time to clean it as time went by. The moldings on the frame were deteriorated, I thought I could repaint it to make it look better.
When I consulted with my mother, she told me that she would have wanted to fix her mother's mirror, painting the frame a wood color, because she really liked that style. That week went by like water, I went to buy the paint on Friday afternoon after work. Since I arrived tired, I didn't pay attention to the mirror, I went to sleep and in the hallway where the rooms on the sides are, my dad was finishing arranging some plastic that he was going to throw away.
He told me if I had noticed that the mirror was peeling. I got worried, maybe she had messed it up when she put the shaving foam on it like I saw in the video. Without thinking about it, I began to check the fractures; it looked like paper or paint that was being lifted.
Along one edge I began to pull that material a little, to see if it left it worse or if there was something I could do. That paper gave way easily so I started pulling out all the excess of that color. Little by little the true color of that frame full of leaves that seemed to follow the wind was revealed. The color was completely black, an opaque color of black.
In the end it looked much better than I had thought, although the glass was still somewhat opaque, I felt lucky to have bought something so beautiful so cheap, I no longer needed to paint it, although my mother did not feel comfortable that it was from a black color for the frame.
He was just telling me that while the four of us were eating in the living room, my brother had come to visit for the weekend. We were talking about my grandmother's mirror when my brother, who was in a position where he could see the mirror easily, told us that it looked like he had a stain on one edge.
We continued reviewing our week while we ate, my brother suddenly got up without saying anything to us. She went to the mirror, started moving in front of it. Then she told us that that mirror had reflected something that was not there. She looked at the table where we were, then looked at the mirror, moved from side to side, crouched down.
He told us that he had seen something standing behind us, where the kitchen was. My mother scolded him, she didn't want to listen to those things, she was very nervous, she couldn't stand the slightest mention of anything that had to do with scary things. We finished eating, my brother went to my room to look at the records he had because he was going to take some to listen to while he worked. He took advantage of the moment to talk to me.
He was worried about the mirror, he told me that he was sure there was something standing there, he was moving from one side to the other to see if due to the reflection of other things, like the refrigerator or the water, he could see that shadow in the house, But it wasn't like that and since I knew that I wasn't going to be able to say anything else to our mother, well at least she was going to warn me.
He was surprised when I told him that I had bought that mirror and that I didn't see anything strange about it. I didn't pay attention to any of his warnings, I left the mirror where it was, I wasn't going to think about what those things required, I was totally skeptical of those things, I thought there was a logical explanation for what I had seen.
I stayed lying in bed reading a book when my parents came out of the room to say goodbye, I fell asleep all afternoon, I woke up early in the morning scared. I hadn't left anything ready for the next day, nor had I finished reviewing the designs I had pending for the following week.
I went to the bathroom, I would have to stay awake for a while I finished putting my things away, I remember that I wanted to put on a shirt that I really liked so I went to the patio to look for it because it was drying. I went back and forth quickly, trying not to make so much noise.
I tripped over a cable and dropped the basket of clothes. I saw my reflection in the mirror out of the corner of my eye while I was picking up the clothes and I managed to see what my brother was referring to when he said it looked like there was a stain on the mirror. It wasn't a stain as such, it was like something painted in the shape of a face.
It looked amorphous , so it could be the distorted light that made me see that. I left the clothes as they were and went to the mirror, turned on the light in the living room, clearly I was still following that shadow painted on the mirror. I took saliva with a finger, I scrubbed trying to remove that stain, it didn't come out.
I got very close to the mirror, rubbing harder, then I saw the reflection of something walking down the hallway. It was a quick glance, like when someone runs from one room to another. I turned to look at the hallway, the clothes were still on the floor, it was impossible for someone to pass through the hallway that quickly, especially if the clothes were lying there. I was left with doubts, but I decided that the best thing would be to check things carefully in the morning light, perhaps my imagination was playing a trick on me.
The next day, when I got home from work my dad was sitting in the living room having a beer, I got worried. I just turned off the headphones and walked over. He told me that my mother was crying in the room, I thought they had argued, I didn't want to ask what had happened because of how uncomfortable that would be.
After a silence he told me that my mother had said that she had seen her mother at the house. She didn't expect what she told me at all. I replied that that was impossible, she replied that he believed the same, but he had also seen her. The blood was hitting my head because I was afraid that they were both sick or something, maybe they had hallucinated.
He asked me, “don't you believe me? Look at the mirror.” I looked at the mirror in the living room, there was nothing, I looked at my dad so he would understand that I didn't see anything, he answered without me asking him anything that he only expected. I kept looking at the mirror, I thought I was following something stupid, how could I see my grandmother there? There were the photos of her, they better put a photograph of her on the wall. As she was bothering me more and more about it, I saw what they had seen. From the room where brother slept before, the silhouette of my grandmother in her bathrobe emerged, then disappeared when entering the bathroom.
I jumped back, took off my headphones, got rid of my backpack, and walked over to the mirror. I stayed for a while looking at it, my breath painted on the glass. After a few minutes, I saw the opaque figure of my grandmother again, I recognized the robe she was wearing, the slippers. That was unreal.
I looked at my dad in horror, he finished his beer in one fell swoop, he told me that he hadn't believed it at first either but that since the morning, my mom was crying in the room because she didn't even believe it herself, then he locked himself in to cry. without letting him come in to see how she was.
I went to the door of his bedroom, I thought the best thing would be to break the plate, we couldn't leave it there all day, without eating or drinking water, he answered me very calmly that we should give him his time, that I didn't know what was happening. It meant the death of her mother, they had been very close but in recent years she had not been able to visit her much because she was fighting with Lucero, her youngest sister, who stayed to live with her because she was a single mother.
I didn't want to give her time, my mom could be in bad shape, and if that was the case perhaps it was more important to be with her. I knocked on the door slowly, told her she had come home from work, asked why she hadn't let my dad in. I didn't hear his response.
My dad spoke to her, she didn't answer either, we looked at each other worried and with a single blow with all my weight on the door, the frame broke, allowing me to enter to see her. She was sitting on the floor, leaning her back against the bed, around her there were clothes scattered, some notebooks and old books, but what caught my attention the most was a box of cookies in which there were many photographs with some letters tied with a rope. They were letters from my grandmother to her, when she had gone to live with my aunt Genoveva, in the United States.
She was as if she were gone, you could see the streaks of tears she had shed all day. I panicked, my dad too, but neither of us knew what to do. We ended up calling an ambulance and the paramedics called our attention when my mother explained that she was fine, they checked that everything was in order. They told us that maybe we should take her to a psychologist. Poor my mom, she had to answer a thousand uncomfortable questions, they thought she had tried to commit suicide or something.
When everything happened and the three of us stayed in the house, I told them that I was going to call my brother to let him know what had happened, but they didn't want to, they didn't want to bother him for something that didn't make sense. My mother left the room to the bathroom, I saw her standing in the middle of the hallway, my father came out to see what was happening to her.
She stared at the mirror, then began to cry, covering her mouth with one hand, grabbing her skirt tightly with the other. My dad let out a “Jesus!!” from his mouth. I approached and my grandmother was reflected behind my mother, it seemed like she was touching her shoulder. My mother collapsed from shock, now she was fainted.
I got tired of having to look at that damn mirror, what was happening was stupid, something incredible. But it was even sillier to let my mom be suffering like this. I went for the hammer and began to remove the nails that I put in to fix it. My mother left the room staggering, she told me not to remove the mirror, perhaps it was her mother's that's why she was reflected there.
I thought that at the time his brothers sold everything in the house, the mirror had passed from hand to hand to the place where I saw it. That was impossible, the mirror had differences from my grandmother's, I told her. She dropped to her knees on the floor, holding only the arm of one of the chairs, my dad was behind her touching her back.
She was crying more and more uncontrollably, I had never seen her like this. In the midst of crying she told me that perhaps we had seen the mirror wrong or remembered it differently. That had to be my grandmother's mirror, but we didn't remember well what it looked like.
I didn't care what he said, that mirror had to come down, and if my dad didn't do it I was going to do it. I took it with both hands and raised it, my grandmother's figure was reflected right behind me. It shook me to the core, I wanted to be rational despite everything, so I told myself that that wasn't true, that she wasn't behind me, but I felt a breath of peppermint on my right side, I don't even know how to explain what I felt it, but if I wasn't strong enough I think I would have been just as bad as my mother.
I knew that my grandmother always smelled like mint, she liked to chew the leaves of her favorite plant. I lowered the mirror and put it on an armchair, I walked away to get some air. My dad was pale, he looked very bad from the shock, although he couldn't physically see it. He had seen my grandmother's reflection behind me. My mother told me over and over again if she could believe her that she was my grandmother.
I didn't even mention the aroma, nor did I say anything that confirmed anything to him, it was too dangerous for his mind or anyone else's. I went to the kitchen to get the cloth, then I put it on the mirror. I told them we had to calm down so we knew what to do.
We all sat in the living room, the mirror was next to me. I started talking since neither of them were saying anything to me. I told them that I bought that mirror and I was going to get rid of it because it was harming my mother, regardless of whether it was bewitched or possessed or whatever, she was suffering.
As she said this, she rushed forward so my dad could hug her. She was still crying, her eyes looked swollen. She told me that she couldn't get rid of the mirror, that she knew why her mother was there, she had been a bad daughter, she had to pay for abandoning her.
My dad told her no, that she wasn't bad, that her sister was the one who caused the stroke with all the stress he put on her. There I found out that my aunt Lucero, whom I disliked because she was rude to me, always gossiped about the neighbors or caused problems with their husbands. I was not surprised to learn that that kind of person had something to do with the death of my grandmother.
I was going to answer when my mom started saying no, no, no, no, please no. She repeated that over and over. My dad hugged her to contain her nervous breakdown, she just told me to look at my side. The kitchen towel she had placed on the mirror moved. It wasn't the air, it wasn't that he was falling, I clearly saw him jump, as if something was pushing him.
My body felt heavy, I don't know how I didn't faint because I even began to see blurry, my hands were sweating, it began to be difficult for me to breathe, I was terrified. The most horrible thing was that the cloth seemed to move by an invisible force, little by little it jumped without being able to detect that it was moving. The movement stopped, but I couldn't get up from the chair either, I felt dizzy. My mom passed out in my dad's arms.
This was getting out of control, my dad stood up, leaving my mom fainted on the couch, he took the mirror, went out to the street and threw it, closing the door. She stood against the door, with her back turned, she said that was the best, we were all going crazy for the mirror.
Outside we heard how the mirror burst, as it was a street where many people and some cars were passing, we began to listen to what they were saying. The mirror was broken, I sighed, I began to have ownership of my body again. Minutes passed, my mother was still unconscious, we began to worry when an hour had passed and she did not react, no matter how much we moved her or talked to her.
We took her to the emergency room. She was hospitalized and diagnosed with diabetes, we couldn't believe it, her appearance had caused such deep damage that even she had gotten sick. My dad and I were quiet, I think we were processing what had just happened, when my brother arrived we talked to him about what had happened. He rarely believed us at first, he said that mirror gave him a bad feeling from the beginning, I felt like a crazy person talking about a possessed mirror. I don't know how or why that mirror could reflect my grandmother, but that wasn't her, she would never have hurt her daughter like that.