The Mirror in the Blue Room

I first set foot in Rowan’s house when I was sixteen, though by then I’d heard enough of her stories to make my skin crawl. Rowan lived in an old Victorian on the edge of a town called Ashford, a place where the streets were lined with maple trees that seemed to droop in the damp. I didn’t believe in ghosts then. I figured the creaks and groans were just the house settling, the way old places do. But there was one room that always made my heart beat a little faster: the blue room, as we called it, because of the faded blue wallpaper peeling at the corners.

The blue room was at the end of the upstairs hallway, its door always slightly ajar as if inviting you in. The moment you stepped inside, you felt a cold draft that had nothing to do with the weather. The room had a large, antique mirror leaning against the far wall, its glass clouded with age. To the left of the mirror stood a heavy oak dresser with a tarnished brass handle. To the right, a narrow window looked out onto the backyard, where the branches of a gnarled oak scraped against the glass like bony fingers.

It was in that room that I experienced things I still can’t explain. The first time I entered, I saw my reflection in the mirror, but my reflection seemed to move a half-second after I did. I blinked, and it was normal. I laughed it off as a trick of the light. But whenever I lingered in the blue room, I felt an overwhelming sense of being watched. The air grew thick, and I’d hear a faint whispering, like the sound of dry leaves skittering across pavement.

One afternoon, Rowan left me alone in the house to run an errand. I was in the blue room, trying to read a book, but I couldn’t concentrate. The whispers were louder that day, forming words I almost understood. I put the book down and stood before the mirror. The glass was cold, and my reflection seemed to shimmer. I touched the surface, and it rippled like water. I jerked my hand back, but the ripples continued, and the reflection began to smile—a wide, unnatural smile that stretched beyond the edges of a human mouth.

I stumbled backward, tripping over the rug, and landed on the floor. The reflection in the mirror wasn’t me anymore. It was a woman in a white dress, her face pale and gaunt, her eyes hollow black pits. She pressed her hands against the glass from inside, and I could see her lips moving, soundless words that made the air around me vibrate. Then the room grew dark, and I felt cold fingers wrap around my ankle. I screamed and kicked, and the grip vanished.

I scrambled to my feet and ran out of the blue room, slamming the door behind me. I didn’t go back in there for days. When Rowan returned, I told her what happened. She just nodded, as if expecting it. She told me that the mirror had belonged to a woman named Elsie, who had lived in the house a century ago. Elsie had gone mad after losing her child, and she’d hung herself in that room, in front of the mirror, so that her face would be the last thing she saw.

The next time I was brave enough to enter the blue room, the mirror was gone. I asked Rowan about it, but she said she hadn’t moved it. For weeks, I avoided that room, but I could feel its pull. At night, I’d wake up to the sound of footsteps above my head, even though no one was there. I’d hear soft crying, muffled, as if from behind a wall.

Then, one evening, I was helping Rowan clean the attic. Tucked behind an old trunk, I found the mirror, cracked and covered in dust. As I lifted it, I saw my reflection, but it was older, tired, with dark circles under its eyes. It smiled at me, the same unnatural smile, and then whispered, ‘You can’t escape me.’ I dropped the mirror, and it shattered into a thousand pieces. But even as the fragments scattered, each shard showed the same reflection, staring back at me.

Rowan and I tried to sweep up the pieces, but every time we disposed of them, they reappeared in the blue room, reassembled, the crack now a spiderweb across the glass. I stopped sleeping. I saw the woman in every reflective surface—mirrors, windows, even the toaster. She was always smiling, always watching.

I moved out at the end of the summer. I haven’t seen Rowan in years. But the mirror followed me. It’s in my apartment now, leaning against the wall in my bedroom. I tried to cover it with a blanket, but I can feel it breathing. Last night, I saw my reflection in the glass, and it was crying. I don’t know how much longer I can resist. Every time I look, my reflection gets closer, and the woman behind it gets clearer. I think she wants me to join her, in the blue room, forever.