The Looming Reel

My name is Eira, and I grew up in a small town in the mountains of Norway, where the winters were long and the nights were longer. This is the story of what happened when I was eight, one bleak October morning.

Our house was an old timber building, with a large living room dominated by a wide, L-shaped sofa that faced a massive stone fireplace. On the opposite wall, a heavy oak clock ticked, and beside it, a tall, antique mirror reflected the entire room. I was the first to wake that Saturday, the house silent except for the wind rattling the windows. I padded into the living room, my bare feet cold on the wooden floor, and settled into the far corner of the sofa with a bowl of cereal, flipping on the small television that sat on a low table.

As I watched a cartoon, a strange sensation crept over me, an inexplicable urge to look to my left. The sofa’s long arm stretched away from me, ending in a high back that blocked the view of the doorway. I turned my head slowly, and there, peeking around the backrest, was a face. It was not a human face, but something pale and elongated, with eyes too wide and dark, and a mouth stretched into a grotesque, silent smile. It lingered for a moment, unmoving, then slipped away behind the couch as if retreating.

I remember feeling a cold chill that had nothing to do with the draft, yet I didn’t scream. I sat there, frozen, my cereal forgotten. The face had been so clear, so detailed, that I couldn’t dismiss it as a trick of light. After a few minutes, I gathered my courage and peered behind the sofa. Nothing. The space was empty, save for a single, dusty toy that had been lost for months.

I tried to convince myself it was my imagination, but the image remained seared in my mind. Over the following weeks, I began to see it more often, always from the corner of my eye, always disappearing when I looked directly. It seemed to lurk in the periphery, by the grandfather clock, in the hallway mirror, even in the reflection of the television screen. My parents dismissed my fears as childish fancies, but they noticed I became reluctant to be alone.

Then, one night, I woke to a sound from the living room, a low, rhythmic scratching, like something was being dragged across the floor. I crept to the top of the stairs and peered down. In the dim moonlight streaming through the window, I saw the face—not in the shadows, but fully visible, peering out from behind the sofa arm, as if it were watching me watch it. This time, its mouth moved, and I heard a faint, high-pitched whisper that seemed to come from inside my own head: ‘Come closer.’

I ran back to my bed and pulled the covers over my head, my heart pounding. The whispering continued, growing louder, until it filled my ears. I clamped my hands over my ears, but it was as if the sound was inside me. Then, just as suddenly, it stopped, and I heard the grandfather clock chime three.

The next morning, I told my parents everything, begging them to search the house. They found nothing, of course, but they noticed that the mirror in the living room had been turned to face the wall. When they asked if I had done it, I said no. A deep unease settled over the house, and my mother finally confessed that she, too, had felt watched recently.

A week later, I was alone in the living room, trying to read a book, when I caught a glimpse of the face in the mirror—now back in its place. It was smiling wider, and its eyes seemed to glisten with a wet sheen. I stared at it, paralyzed, and then it began to move, slowly emerging from the mirror, the glass rippling like water. It stepped out, tall and wispy, its form shifting like smoke. It reached out a long, bony hand toward me, and I screamed.

My father burst in, and the figure vanished, but the mirror cracked from top to bottom. My father tried to calm me, but I was shaking uncontrollably. He decided to remove the mirror, and as he lifted it, a small, dusty reel of film fell from behind it. He picked it up, curious. It was old, silent film stock, with a label reading ‘October 14th, 1923.’

That evening, my father set up an old projector he found in the attic, and we watched the reel. It showed a family—a man, a woman, and a child—playing in a field. Then, the child disappeared, and the parents looked around frantically. The film cut to a close-up of a face, smiling, exactly like the one I had seen. The projector jammed, and smoke began to rise from the reels. My father yanked the plug, but the film was already melting, the image twisting into a grotesque grin before it burned away.

We never saw the face again, but sometimes, when I pass that spot in the living room, I feel a cold draft, and I catch a whiff of something old and dusty, like an attic. And in the silence of the night, I sometimes hear that faint whisper, not in my ears, but in my mind: ‘Come closer, Eira. I want to remember.’

That was thirty years ago. I moved away, but the house remains, and I never go back. Yet I can’t shake the feeling that the face is still there, waiting behind the couch, or in the mirror, or in any reflection that catches a glimpse of me. And sometimes, when I look into my own eyes in the mirror, I see a flicker of that smile, and I wonder if it is not the face that follows me, but I who carry it with me.

Perhaps it’s best that I have never returned, for the reel may not be the only thing that can replay a memory. And the face, I think, is the memory of a story that was never finished, a child who never grew up, and a family that was torn apart by a secret they couldn’t remember. I hope they found peace, but I fear they did not, and that the face will always be there, watching, waiting for someone to come closer.