The Ceramic Mask

Our flat on the outskirts of a rainswept town had a hollow quality to it, as if the walls were listening. My sister, Ana, and I had been living there for six years, since we took over the family’s antique restoration business from our ailing father. The flat was above our workshop, and the smell of varnish and old wood permeated everything. Our parents had moved to a coastal village to manage a small inn, leaving us to our work and the quiet hum of the city.

We had our share of strange incidents, which we dismissed as the creaks of an old building. One evening, while I was cataloging a collection of porcelain dolls, Ana was in the kitchen preparing dinner. She had her back to the hallway door, frying fish, when she distinctly heard our mother’s voice from the doorway, ‘Anak, don’t forget to turn off the stove.’ She spun around, but no one was there. She convinced herself it was the radio. Another time, I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth when I saw the reflection of a man in the mirror behind me, a tall figure in a dark coat. I turned, but the room was empty. I blamed the steam and my tired eyes.

The real trouble began when we acquired a crate of items from a demolished mansion on the hill. Among the broken furniture and tarnished silver was a ceramic mask, cracked but intact, painted with a serene face that seemed to shift when you looked away. Ana loved it and hung it in the hallway between our bedrooms. That night, I dreamed I was walking through the mansion’s halls, and the mask was following me. I woke to Ana screaming.

She was in the hallway, staring at the mask. ‘It moved,’ she whispered. ‘It turned its head.’ I tried to calm her, saying it was a draft, a trick of the light, but her hands were shaking. The next evening, as I was working in the workshop, I heard Ana’s voice from upstairs: ‘Come up here, I need your help.’ I climbed the stairs, but Ana was in her room, reading. ‘I didn’t call you,’ she said, puzzled. That was when we realized the voice had a playful, mocking edge our Ana never had.

Over the next week, the presence grew bolder. We found the mask in the kitchen, on the floor, facing the wall. Then in the bathroom, staring at us from the towel rack. We decided to get rid of it. I wrapped it in plastic, took it to the river, and threw it in. We watched it sink into the murky water, feeling a sense of relief. But that night, as I passed the hallway, I saw the mask hanging in its original place, dry and pristine.

We tried burning it, but the fire refused to catch. We tried smashing it, but the cracks resealed before our eyes. Desperate, we consulted a local antique dealer who whispered of a curse. ‘The mask was a conduit for a vengeful spirit from the mansion’s forgotten family,’ he said. ‘It was buried with its owner, but they dug it up. Now it wants to return. You must never let it out of your sight, or it will claim the first person to look away.’

We took turns watching the mask, but we were only two. Sleep deprivation made us jumpy. In the dead of night, I caught a shadow moving in the corridor. I shouted for Ana, but she was fast asleep, exhausted. The mask was gone. Fear gripped me. I searched the flat, heart pounding. I found it in Ana’s room, hovering above her sleeping form. As I lunged, it turned to face me, and I saw not the serene face but a gaping black void. I heard Ana’s voice, but twisted and echoing: ‘Why did you let me out?’

I grabbed the mask, but it was stone cold and heavy. A force pulled it toward Ana’s face. I screamed, and she woke, her eyes wide. She saw the mask inches from her, and she screamed too. In that moment, the mask shattered into a thousand pieces, and a gust of wind swirled them away. Silence fell. We were both panting, the room back to normal.

We never spoke of it again. But sometimes, I catch Ana staring at her reflection in mirrors, a distant look in her eyes. And once, I saw her fingers trace an invisible line across her face, as if placing something. The mask is gone, but I can’t help but wonder if it found a new home, inside us.