The Mirror That Answered Too Late

The pickup tore through the night, its engine growling beneath us. Leo was crying, clutching his stuffed dinosaur against his chest as if it could keep him safe.

“How did Mark catch up with us so fast?” I asked, breathless. I smoothed Leo’s damp hair, trying to calm him while my own heart battered my ribs. “I got into a taxi at random.”

Thomas glanced toward the toy in Leo’s arms. His expression darkened. “That’s how he tracked you. The dinosaur is a conduit. Mark put it in your car this morning, and it carries ashes taken from the coffin beneath the old church. As long as Leo holds it, the door inside the mirror can find him.”

My gaze dropped to the toy, and horror tightened through me. I had packed it in Leo’s bag earlier that morning. Mark must have meddled with it, used some kind of dark magic, then hidden it beneath his car seat so it would be ready for the ritual.

I snatched the dinosaur from Leo. He shrieked and reached for it, but I lowered the window and hurled the thing out. It bounced across the cold road and vanished behind us.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” I sobbed, pulling Leo close. “I’ll get you a thousand new ones.” I looked at Thomas. “Where are we going? To the church?”

“There isn’t time,” Thomas said, his jaw clenched as he swerved onto a narrow road. “The ritual will be finished at midnight. Mark doesn’t have to return to the church. He can do it at your house, where it all began. We need the brass key from his office and must lock the mirror from the outside before he throws Leo into it.”

The thought of my son being sent into that glass made me feel sick. I held him tighter, forcing myself to listen as Thomas drove on.

Before long, the pickup stopped a block from my house. The Victorian home loomed in the darkness, its windows black and empty, like hollows staring straight at us.

“I’ll take Leo to hide at a neighbor’s,” Thomas told me, resting a hand on my shoulder. “You go inside and get the key from Mark’s desk drawer. There’s a concealed lock beneath the carved wooden base of the old mirror. Put the key in, lock it, and smash the glass. Can you do that?”

I looked at Leo. He was trembling, his wide eyes bright with tears. The fear inside me didn’t disappear; something stronger simply rose over it. I was his mother. I would not let Mark take him.

“I can,” I said, firm despite the shaking in my voice. I kissed Leo’s forehead. “Wait for me, darling.”

Then I jumped from the truck and ran toward the house. The front door stood unlocked. I didn’t stop to wonder why; I only kept moving, with Thomas and Leo behind me.

Inside, I crept through the unnaturally quiet house, my breath held tight in my chest. Every sound seemed too loud. I made my way upstairs and rushed into Mark’s office.

Papers lay scattered around the room, beside old leather-bound books covered in strange symbols. I went straight to the desk and yanked open its drawer.

There it was: a large brass key, heavy in my palm and cold against my skin.

I closed my fingers around it and turned to go back downstairs. But when I reached the landing, a dark shape filled the top of the staircase, cutting off my way.

Mark stood before me.

His tie was gone, and his sleeves were rolled up. A scratch across the back of his hand had bled. His eyes were solid black, without a trace of the man I had married.

“You’ve disappointed me, Sarah,” he said. His voice sounded wrong, as if several voices spoke through him at once from some deep, terrible place. “You could have lived in comfort, with everything you wanted. All it would have taken was one small sacrifice.”

“You aren’t human,” I hissed. I stepped back, hiding the brass key behind me.

“I’m the one who gave this family everything!” Mark roared, charging up the stairs toward me.

There was nowhere left to retreat. I spun and seized a ceramic vase from the hallway, flinging it at him with all my strength. He lifted an arm to block it. The vase shattered, and he stumbled backward. I rushed past him and pounded down the stairs.

“You can’t get away!” His savage shout chased me, followed by the heavy rhythm of his steps close behind.

I burst into the downstairs hall, where the old mirror stood. Its surface churned like water at a rolling boil, and whispers seeped out from within. Beneath the carved wooden base, between its carved roses, I spotted a narrow, hidden keyhole.

Mark was pursuing me to the mirror. I reached the concealed lock with the key in my hand as the glass began to stir.