A Cautionary Tale
This is a cautionary tale. One you may have heard before, yet few listen. It started many centuries ago, but I’ll tell you the most recent one. A family. A mother and father and two sons. They bought a century-old house, with plans to renovate it. I know this because I watched as they ripped out the interior to replace it with new floorboards and fancy electronics. The couple removed all the old furniture and auctioned it off, making enough to retire on. The only thing they kept was a mirror in a hand-carved wooden frame.
“It just suits the house,” The couple explained when others asked about it. It was true that they could have made a few thousand off the centuries-old mirror, but the pair couldn’t part with it. It took almost a decade before the couple were satisfied with their new home. By then, both sons had moved out, leaving the parents all alone in the large house.
I watched the next few decades pass in the blink of an eye. The couple grew old until a heart attack took the husband. His wife followed a few months later in her sleep. Even though they’d died, the pair still wandered the house.
At first, they appeared human, as alive as they’d always looked, but soon they changed as all spirits did. Claws lengthened from their brittle hands. Eyes that were once blue and green darkened to red. Their pale skin hung from non-existent bones, melting into their clothes that tore along the edges. They weren’t human anymore. Spirits bound to this world never remained human very long. The energy of the world prevented it. If they didn’t pass over fast enough, then they transformed into demons.
Like all demons, they were attracted to mirrors. I sat back and watched as they each approached the reflective surface. Ignoring their howls as the pure material took hold of their twisted souls and pulled them in. I kept silent when they entered my realm, screaming and clawing at the glass that showed the house but would never release them into it again as long as the mirror remained intact.
I repeat this is a cautionary tale. There is a reason why “breaking a mirror causes seven years bad luck” is a saying in the living realm. Unfortunately, few take the warning seriously.
When the couple died in their home, one of the sons took it over. He moved his family into the old house. His wife and two young children, Alice and Jonathan, protested the new home but soon adjusted to it. I sat back and watched as they moved in large boxes and new furniture into the lobby and living room. The wife noticed a mirror.
“We should get rid of that.” She told her husband, waving at the mirror trapped in a hand-carved wooden frame. He agreed. Yet the mirror never moved from its position above the fireplace in the living room. When their friends asked about it, the couple shrugged.
“It just suits the place.” They would smile as if forgetting about their earlier agreement to get rid of it. I sat back and smiled. The demon’s claws at the windows but couldn’t get through. On some nights, the family would wake, complaining about an unexplainable noise. When that happened, I had to push the demons to the back of the mirror realm. It would take them some time to get to the windows and start their howling and scratching again. That gave the family time to forget about the strange noises. I couldn’t have them investigating. Not yet.
The wife put a clock on the wall, across from the hand-carved mirror. I watched the tiny black hands tick throughout the day and night. The demons grew more agitated. Soon.
I smiled and sat back. Blood dripped from my fingers, slowly drying. I raised a hand and touched my lips, painting a bloody smile on my face. The clock continued to tick.
I watched through a smaller window as Jonathan and two of his friends kicked around a white ball. His mother called him, telling them to take it outside. The three boys ignored her. They were too busy laughing and trying to kick the ball at each other’s faces. The ball rolled into the living room. I turned to the main window to watch. My nails tapped the black throne under me. Soon. The blood on my hands slowly turned brown.
“Jonathan!” His mother yelled a moment too late. Jonathan gave the ball a hard kick. It flew over his friend’s head and at the mirror near the door. The shattering sound echoed through the house. I smiled. Black lines filled the once bright window, spreading out like a spider web. The demons bolted to the cracks, pressing their bodies to it. Bones snapped. Flesh oozed through the thin lines. The sound was lost as the mother yelled at her son. I sat back as the demons forced their bodies through the cracked window and back into the realm of the living.
There is a reason why you should never break a mirror. You never know what you could be releasing. In Jonathan’s case, he released two demons who were once his grandparents. There is something the living always get wrong. It wasn’t seven years of bad luck. It was an eternity with whatever you released from the mirror realm.
I watched through the hand-carved mirror as the demons circled Jonathan. They hissed and cackled without sound. Jonathan’s mother finished yelling at the boys and sent her son to his room and the other two home. Jonathan sulked up the stairs. The demons followed only a breath away. The blood on my hands cracked when I flexed my fingers.
Whenever a demon is free, they destroy. This was no different for this family. Dishes flew across the room and shattered on the walls, doors slammed at random, and lights sparked and flickered. Jonathan grew angrier and more violent. The longer the demons stayed with him, the more twisted his soul became. Jonathan would become a living demon if his soul continued to be trapped by the demons. Eventually, the events became too much for the family. They called a priest.
The priest that arrived paced the house, waving his bible and chanting holy scripture. The demons only laughed at the man’s attempt to remove them. When the destruction continued. The family called another priest.
This woman walked in, and instantly I knew she could sense us. I sunk as far back into the mirror realm as I could so she wouldn’t sense me. She entered the living room and looked around.
“There’s something here.” She told the parents. The father scanned the room as if to check what she was saying. “It’s not good either.”
I wanted to laugh at that. No ghost was good—the only “good” spirits were the young ones that hadn’t turned into demons. The Priestess scanned the room again.
“Where is your son?” She asked suddenly. The mother blinked a few times before answering. Upstairs. He never left his bedroom anymore. The Priestess moved up to his room. That I couldn’t see, since Jonathan had covered his mirror with a dark cloth. He would mumble about demons in the mirror, not knowing that they escaped the moment he broke the mirror with the soccer ball. I could hear them, though.
The Priestess asked Jonathan a variety of questions. At first, Jonathan answered, but as the questioning dragged on, he stopped responding. At first, I didn’t understand why. The questions she asked seemed to be reasonable. His age (fourteen). His friends (Alex and Thomas). His favourite food (Chocolate cake). It wasn’t until I saw the Priestess again did I understand why she spent so long talking to him.
Within her shadow, the two demons fought and struggled to escape the dark snares she cast around them. They clawed and howled, but she kept them contained. I returned to my throne and smiled. The Priestess absorbed the demons and would destroy them the minute she walked onto holy ground. Very few human souls could withstand the evil of demon spirits.
Binding the pair must have taken time and concentration, which would explain why she spent so long asking useless questions. I fixed my long, dark hair around my face as the Priestess left, claiming there were no more demons in the house. The family was skeptical but thanked her anyway. After a few weeks, it became clear she was telling the truth. Jonathan became happier without the demons sucking the life from his soul, and nothing else in the house broke. I smiled, feeling the drying blood crack on my cheeks. Soon. The clock ticked away across from me. Very soon
