Her Mother’s Mirror

The store was festooned with banners in bright colours. “The Emporium of Wonder, Grand Opening!” they declared.

Her brow crinkling, Harriet’s eyes flitted from perfect face to perfect face, acutely aware of their scrutiny. As usual – no, as always – the faces she wove her way through were perfect. Unlike her own. She dipped her head and pushed through the throng of perfection.

Until the window display captured her attention.

Mirrors. It was a mirror store.

“I’d better take a quick peek and sort myself out.”

Harriet aligned herself with the nearest mirror – it was rather plain, with a simple wooden frame – not as lovely as the gilt one her mother had given her, but it would do for this brief moment.

But the face she saw reflected back was not her own.

“It’s crooked. Still, I can make it work.”

Harriet’s eyes scanned the faces around her. Strangely, no one in the crowd bore the beautiful face she’d seen.

“Ah, it’s not a mirror after all – it’s a picture.”

A strand of hair blew across her forehead and she reached up to tuck it back behind her ear.

The image in the mirror did the same.

“I’m seeing ghosts, now.” Did ghosts have hair that blew in the wind?

She moved again.

The perfect image moved with her.

“Someone’s mimicking me,” was her next conclusion.

Soon, the pack of perfection around her moved on, and Harriet stood alone, gazing through the window at that reflection.

“That’s not right.” She shook her head and walked through the revolving door into a room full of light.

In the first mirror, that perfect face stared back.

And in the next mirror.

And in the next.

“Magic mirrors, showing you what you want to see.”

Troubled, she went on her way.

That night, in the comforting privacy of her room she gazed into her mother’s mirror. At the real her. With all her flaws. Exactly as she knew she was.

“If only.”

And she dreamt being as perfect as the falsehood shown by those deceptive mirrors.

On the wall behind her head, a beam of moonlight formed a twisted image, reflected off her mother’s gift – a funfair mirror given as a toy.