The Glass Wardens

In the spring of 1998, I was twelve, and the state had decided that my school would pilot a new testing schedule. For two weeks, we were dismissed at noon, and my best friend, Marcus, would come over every day, his parents believing he was still in class until three. My parents wouldn’t be home until five, so we had the old Victorian house on Birchwood Lane to ourselves, a fact that thrilled us beyond reason.

The heart of our domain was the living room, dominated by a monstrous rear-projection television that my father had won in a raffle, and two worn leather recliners that creaked like old bones. The room was cavernous, with ceilings that soared into shadow, and the walls were papered in a dark, floral pattern that seemed to writhe in the dim light. But the most striking feature was the pair of full-length mirrors my mother had hung on the wall opposite the entrance to my parents’ bedroom. They were antique, with frames of tarnished gold, and they faced the bedroom door, which was always ajar, revealing a sliver of the dark hallway that led to the bathroom and closet on the right, and the three shallow steps that descended into the sunken bedroom on the left.

That afternoon, we were sprawled on the floor, surrounded by comic books, arguing about whether the X-Men could beat the Justice League. The TV murmured in the background, playing some show we’d long ignored. I had chosen the floor, while Marcus, as always, had claimed the left recliner, the one that gave him a direct line of sight through the bedroom door and into the mirrors. He was slouched, his feet propped on the Ottoman, and I remember he was mid-sentence, ‘…but Superman is basically invincible, so…’ when I felt a familiar pressure in my bladder.

‘I’ll be right back,’ I said, scrambling to my feet and heading for the hall bathroom. I was gone maybe three minutes, but when I returned, something was off. Marcus was still in the recliner, but he was frozen, his comic book lying unopened in his lap, his gaze locked on the mirror across the room. His face had gone pale, and his mouth was slightly open.

‘Marcus?’ I said, stepping into the room. He didn’t respond. I followed his gaze to the mirror. In the reflection, I saw the open doorway of my parents’ bedroom, but instead of the dim hallway, there was a figure standing in the shadows, just beyond the threshold. It was tall, impossibly thin, with limbs that seemed too long, and its head was tilted at an unnatural angle. It was staring at us through the glass, not with eyes, but with hollow pits that seemed to absorb the light.

‘Do you see that?’ Marcus whispered, his voice barely audible.

I couldn’t speak. I just nodded. We both watched, frozen, as the figure took a step forward, crossing the threshold into the bedroom proper. It moved with a fluid, gliding motion, as if its joints didn’t bend. It paused at the top of the three steps that led down into the room, and then it descended, each step silent, its head never moving, always facing us.

‘He’s coming,’ Marcus said, and his voice cracked. ‘The mirror… he’s coming through the mirror.’

I wanted to run, to grab Marcus and flee the house, but my legs were like lead. I watched in horror as the figure reached the bottom of the steps and began to walk toward the bedroom door, toward the living room, toward us. But when it reached the doorframe, it didn’t step through. Instead, it paused, turned its head to look directly at us, and then faded, dissolving like smoke.

We both let out a breath we didn’t know we were holding. Marcus was shaking. ‘What was that?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know,’ I said, my heart hammering. ‘Maybe it was a trick of the light?’ But we both knew it wasn’t. The house felt wrong, suddenly colder, and the shadows in the corners seemed deeper.

The next day, we avoided the left recliner and the view of the bedroom. But the mirror seemed to pull at us. We placed a sheet over it, but every time we passed, the sheet would be slightly askew, as if something had peeked out. Marcus started calling them ‘The Glass Wardens,’ claiming they were ancient beings that guarded the threshold between worlds, and that they had taken an interest in us.

I didn’t want to believe him, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were being watched. The house had always had an odd layout, with the bedroom sunken and the mirrors positioned to create a sightline, but now it felt deliberate, as if the house had been built to facilitate these visitations. My parents never noticed anything, but Marcus and I, we started to see things everywhere. A flicker in the corner of our eye, a shadow that moved against the wind, a whisper that sounded like our names.

By the end of the first week, Marcus refused to come over. He said the Glass Wardens were too strong, that they were feeding on our fear. He told me to cover the mirrors with salt and iron, to banish them. I laughed it off, but I tried it anyway, just to feel safe. I didn’t tell my parents, of course, but I snuck some supplies from the garage and traced a line of salt along the bottom of the mirror frames, and I hung a small iron horseshoe above the bedroom door.

The next day, Marcus came back, because his parents didn’t know about the half days either, and he had nowhere else to go. We sat in the living room, on the floor, far away from the recliners and the mirrors. We didn’t look at them, but we could feel their presence, a weight in the air. I had to use the bathroom again, but I was terrified to leave him alone. ‘Come with me,’ I said.

He shook his head. ‘I’ll be okay. Just be quick.’

I hesitated, then sprinted to the bathroom, leaving the door ajar, ready to run if I heard anything. When I came back, Marcus was gone. The front door was open, swinging slightly in the breeze. I ran out onto the porch, but the yard was empty. He had just vanished.

I searched the neighborhood for hours, calling his name, but he was nowhere. When my parents came home, I told them Marcus had left early, and they didn’t think much of it. But Marcus never showed up at school. His parents filed a missing person report. The police canvassed the area, but they found no trace. I was questioned, but I couldn’t tell them the truth, not without sounding insane.

I never told anyone about the Glass Wardens, but I kept one of the mirrors in my room. I couldn’t bear to smash it, because part of me hoped that Marcus would come back through it. But as years passed, I never saw him again. I moved away, but the image of his face, lit by the ghostly glow of the television, staring into that mirror with a mixture of terror and awe, never left me.

I still live with that guilt, and with the knowledge that something took him. Something that came through a pane of silvered glass, called by our curiosity, waiting for us to look away. And sometimes, late at night, when I catch a glimpse of my own reflection, I think I see those hollow pits staring back, waiting for me to make the same mistake.

I never go to antique shops anymore, and I avoid mirrors in old houses. But the Glass Wardens are patient. They wait in the reflections, watching, always watching, until the day you look into the glass and see someone else looking back. And then, they take you too.

—

I wrote this not as a ghost story, but as a warning. If you ever find yourself in a house with a mirror that reflects an open door, cover it. Always cover it. And never, ever sit with your back to the glass. Because they are there, on the other side, and they are always just a glance away from stepping through.