The Painted Veil

At fifteen, my cousin Lena and I were inseparable, but that summer, our family fractured. My aunt and uncle’s marriage collapsed, and their three kids—Jules, Mira, and little Theo—came to live with us in our creaky Victorian house on Maplewood Lane. My sister, Bea, was fourteen, and I, Mara, was twelve. With six kids under one roof, chaos was the norm. But one muggy July night, Jules, who was eleven and full of restless energy, dared us to try the old mirror legend. Not Bloody Mary, but something older, something our grandmother used to warn us about: ‘The Lady in the Painted Veil.’ She said that if you stood in the dark, staring into a mirror, and said her name three times, she would show you your true death. I scoffed, but the others were intrigued. We decided to do it in the upstairs bathroom, the one with the cracked mirror and the peeling blue wallpaper.

I was the oldest, so I took the challenge. The bathroom smelled of mothballs and rust. I locked the door, turned off the light, and faced the mirror. The room was pitch black, save for a sliver of moonlight through the frosted window. I took a breath and whispered, ‘The Lady in the Painted Veil.’ The words felt foreign on my tongue. I said it a second time, my heart starting to pound. On the third, I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for nothing. But then I felt a cold draft, like the window had opened, but it hadn’t. I opened my eyes, and there she was—not in the mirror, but right in front of me, inches from my face. She was tall, draped in a dark hooded cloak, and beneath the hood, her face was a swirling mass of shadows, but I could see her eyes—burning red, like two embers. I screamed, stumbled back, fumbled for the light. When the fluorescent light flickered on, she was gone. The door burst open, the kids rushed in, but I was alone. They laughed, said I was trying to scare them. I didn’t sleep that night, but I convinced myself it was my imagination, a trick of the dark.

The weirdness didn’t end there. Over the next few years, small things began to shift. I’d find the bathroom light on when I was sure I’d turned it off. I’d hear footsteps in the attic, but when I checked, nothing. Once, I saw the reflection of a woman in the TV screen, but when I turned, no one was there. My cousins and sister dismissed it as old house noises. I started to think I was going crazy. Then, when I was seventeen, the night terrors began. I’d be half-asleep, drifting in that limbo between waking and dreaming, and I’d hear my name—not spoken, but whispered, like the rustle of dry leaves. My bed would shudder, a violent tremor that rattled my teeth. And at the foot of the bed, a figure would materialize: a man in a long trench coat and a fedora, his face obscured by shadow, but his eyes—sunken, black pits—fixed on me. He never moved, just stood there, watching. I’d scream, and he’d vanish, but the feeling of being watched lingered.

I didn’t tell anyone at first. But one night, I couldn’t take it anymore. I bolted upright, gasping, and saw the man again. Only this time, he raised his hand, and in his palm, a small silver locket gleamed. The locket was familiar—it was my grandmother’s, the one she’d worn every day, the one my mother had kept after she passed. But that locket was in my mother’s jewelry box, locked in her nightstand. The man didn’t speak, but he slowly opened the locket, and inside it was a tiny painting of a woman in a hooded cloak, her face hidden. I blinked, and he was gone. But the locket remained, lying on my pillow. I picked it up, trembling. The clasp was warm, and I felt a chill run down my spine.

I confronted my mother the next morning, holding the locket. Her face went pale. ‘Where did you find this?’ she demanded. I told her about the figure, about the night terrors, about the Lady in the Painted Veil. My mother’s voice cracked. She told me that my grandmother was not just a quirky old woman, but a keeper of secrets. The Lady in the Painted Veil was not a myth but a curse—a spirit that attached itself to those who called her name, feeding on their fear until it could pull them into its dimension. She said the man was the Lady’s emissary, a harbinger of death. And the locket? It was the key. The Lady’s true name was hidden inside her own portrait, and only by painting over it with a specific mixture of ash and graveyard soil could we free ourselves.

My mother went to the attic, where she knew her mother’s old occult supplies were stored. She emerged with a vial of gray powder and a paintbrush. ‘You must paint over the face in the locket,’ she said, ‘but you have to do it at midnight, in the bathroom, with the lights off, because she needs to see the act.’ That night, I followed her instructions. I stood in the dark bathroom, the locket open on the counter, the brush in my hand. I painted over the woman’s face, but as I did, I heard a high-pitched whine, like static. The mirror began to frost over, and the image of the hooded figure appeared behind me. Her red eyes burned in the glass. ‘You cannot erase me, child,’ she hissed. ‘I am you.’ I kept painting, and the whine grew louder, then stopped. When I finished, the mirror was normal. I looked at the locket—the face was gone, replaced by a blank oval. I felt a sudden lightness, as if a weight had lifted.

But the story doesn’t end there. A week later, I woke to find the locket on my nightstand, the paint gone, the woman’s face back, but this time, her eyes were not red—they were empty, white, like mine in the mirror. I haven’t seen the man since, but I often catch glimpses of a hooded figure in mirrors, always a second behind my reflection. I’ve learned to live with it, but sometimes, when I look too long into my own eyes, I see a flicker of red. I’m not sure if she’s gone or if she’s just waiting for me to forget her name.