The Mirror That Answered Too Late

I didn’t wait for Mark to answer. I hurriedly got Leo into the taxi’s back seat and slammed the door. “Please, drive! Go fast!” I shouted to the driver.

The cab surged away. I looked back through the rear window. Mark wasn’t chasing us. He remained beside his car, bent to retrieve Leo’s blue dinosaur, then lifted his head and smiled. It was the same smile I’d seen in the mirror.

I held Leo close, struggling to catch my breath. My phone buzzed again inside my pocket.

A new message had arrived from an unknown number.

You did well. Don’t go home. That mirror isn’t showing the past or the future. It’s a door—and he opened it from the other side.

I raised my eyes to the taxi’s rearview mirror, expecting to see my own face. But the reflection wasn’t mine.

A gaunt man stared back at me, his cheeks hollow and his eyes sunk deep. Uncle Thomas.

The face in the mirror fixed its gaze on me. His pale lips moved, and a rough voice reached me—not through the phone, but straight inside my mind.

“Turn left at the intersection, Sarah. We have three seconds before he catches up.”

The taxi swung left at the crossroads, its tires squealing against the pavement. I clasped Leo against me, my heart hammering wildly. He tucked his face into the curve of my neck, breathing warm against my skin and giving little, muffled sobs now and then.

“Mom, my arm hurts,” Leo whispered, tears filling his eyes.

I looked down at him. Beneath the sleeve of his yellow puffer jacket, dark red marks from Mark’s fingers stood out on his small upper arm. My throat tightened. I gently touched the marks, fighting back tears. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m sorry. Nobody will hurt you again.”

I turned toward the driver. My voice came out hoarse. “Could you stop at the diner ahead? Somewhere with a lot of people, please.”

The taxi pulled up outside an old-fashioned diner, its neon OPEN sign flickering. I paid in a rush and hurried inside with Leo in my arms. The air smelled of burnt coffee and sickly sweet syrup; dishes clattered somewhere behind the counter. Those ordinary sounds seemed to wrap around us like protection. In a bright, crowded place, I thought, Mark couldn’t hurt us.

I ordered Leo a large strawberry milkshake and a plate of pastries. He sat curled into the corner of a red booth, his wide eyes still carrying the fear of what had happened.

“Eat up, okay? I’m just going to wash my hands.” I smoothed his messy hair and forced a reassuring smile. “I’ll be right back.”

The women’s restroom was at the end of a narrow, deserted hallway. Overhead fluorescent lights flickered now and then, buzzing until my head began to ache. I locked the door, went to the sink, turned on the cold water, and splashed my face. The chill helped me feel a little more present. When I lifted my head, my pale face, shadowed eyes, and tangled hair stared back from the broad mirror above the basin.

My phone vibrated in my pocket again.

I pulled it out quickly. The same unknown number had sent another message: Are you safe yet?

I set the phone on the edge of the sink and gripped the porcelain with both hands. Then I looked straight into my reflection. “Who are you?” I whispered into the empty room, remembering how that gravelly voice had spoken inside my mind in the taxi. “How do you know about the mirror?”

In the glass, my image began to blur. A thin film of mist spread across the surface, as though someone on the other side had breathed against it. The haze slowly cleared, but the person facing me was no longer my reflection.

It was Uncle Thomas, the gaunt man from the school. He stood against the shabby restroom behind him, his deep-set eyes fixed on me with weary intensity.

“I’m Thomas,” he said. His voice sounded low and dull, seeming to echo from the cold tiled walls. “I’m Mark’s biological brother—the one he erased from his life.”

I froze. “Mark doesn’t have a brother. He was an only child. His parents died in an accident when he was young…”

The man in the diner mirror claimed to be Thomas, Mark’s supposedly nonexistent brother, and began to uncover the family’s buried past.