The Crooked Mirror

At eight, I knew nothing of the house’s true shape. It sprawled behind our small apartment, a warren of rooms that our family rented the smallest corner of. We had a living room, a kitchen, my bedroom, and a bathroom, strung together like beads on a string, the bathroom at the end. The bathroom had a sloped ceiling that made the room feel like a crooked box, and a claw-foot tub that looked like a relic from another century. There was no shower, just that tub, and the mirror above the sink was always slightly fogged, no matter how much we cleaned it.

My mother and our neighbor, Dana, were the ones who saw her first. It was late afternoon, the light slanting through the window on the stairs that led to the cramped upper floor. They were coming down, laughing about something, when they both froze. A girl stood at the top of the stairs, maybe twelve, in a dress that seemed from another time: high collar, long sleeves, a pattern of faded blue flowers. She was just standing there, watching them with wide, dark eyes. My mother said the air turned cold, and Dana grabbed her arm so hard it left bruises. The girl didn’t move, didn’t blink, and then she was gone, as if she had never been.

I didn’t see her then, but I knew something was wrong. I used to play in the hallway between our apartment and the others, and sometimes I’d catch a whiff of old perfume, like rosewater and dust. I’d see the bathroom door ajar when I knew I’d closed it, and the mirror would be fogged with a shape that looked like a young girl’s silhouette. I told myself it was my imagination, but at night, I’d lie in bed listening to the floorboards creak above my room, and I’d hear a faint humming, a tune I didn’t know but which made my heart pound.

One evening, curiosity got the better of me. My mom was at work, and Dana had gone out. I crept into the bathroom and closed the door. The room was dim, the only light from the tiny window near the ceiling. The mirror was clear for once, but as I stared at my reflection, it began to change. The face in the mirror wasn’t mine. It was the girl’s. She was right behind me, but when I spun around, there was nothing. I looked back at the mirror, and she was there, her lips moving silently. I leaned closer, trying to read her words, and the mirror steamed up, and a single word appeared: ‘OUT.’ I ran out of the bathroom and didn’t go back in for a week.

A week later, I was coming up the stairs, and I saw her myself. She was at the top, dressed the same, but this time she was holding something—a small, tarnished locket. She looked at me, and her lips moved, and I heard her voice in my head, as clear as if she were speaking: ‘Find me.’ Then she pointed at the bathroom door. I stood there, paralyzed. My mom called my name from the kitchen, and the girl vanished. But I knew what I had seen. I told my mother, and she went pale. She whispered that she and Dana had searched the house after their first sighting, and they had found, tucked behind a loose floorboard in the upstairs attic (which we never used), an old photograph of a girl named Eleanor, who had lived in this house in the 1920s. She had died of a fever, and her parents had moved away, leaving her behind.

After that, we began to notice more. The bathroom mirror would be fogged with that word, ‘OUT,’ every time we entered. The humming grew louder, sometimes turning into a soft crying. Our neighbor Dana, who was a sensible woman, started leaving offerings—a small doll, a piece of candy—at the top of the stairs, hoping to appease her. My mom began to sleep with the lights on.

One night, I woke to a sound coming from the bathroom. It was the sound of water filling the tub. I tiptoed out of bed and saw the bathroom door glowing faintly, a blue light spilling into the hallway. I pushed the door open. The tub was full, and the girl was lying in it, her eyes open, staring at the sloped ceiling. She turned her head and looked at me. ‘I’m stuck,’ she said, her voice echoing. ‘I was trying to get out, but the water came too fast.’ Her hand reached out of the tub, dripping, and she gestured to the mirror. ‘You can see me. Help me.’

I felt a cold dread, but also a strange pity. She was just a child. I moved closer, and the mirror above the sink cracked, a crooked line splitting my reflection. The girl smiled, and then the water in the tub turned black, and she slipped under. I backed away, but I felt a cold hand on my shoulder, and I heard her voice, ‘You’ll always see me now.’ I screamed, and my mother burst in, and the bathroom was empty, the tub dry, but the mirror was cracked, and the word ‘OUT’ was carved into the wall above the tub, as if by a fingernail.

We moved out a month later. I never told my mother that I still see Eleanor sometimes. In the corner of my eye, on bus windows, on rain-streaked glass. She’s always there, in the reflection, watching. And sometimes, when I look into any mirror, I see her behind me, her lips moving, forming the word ‘OUT.’ I never found the locket, but I know what she wants. She wants out of that house, out of that mirror, out of me. And I’m afraid one day, I won’t be able to say no.