The Place Where Mirrors Wander

Raj and Meera had just finished their A-levels and were thrilled to move to the city for college. After days of hunting, they found a cheap flat in a worn-down neighborhood in Brickfields, sandwiched between two looming condominiums. The flat was on the third floor of a block that smelled of old spices and damp concrete. The rent was absurdly low, and the landlord, a man with squinty eyes and a nervous tic, handed them the keys with a warning: ‘Don’t mind the draft at night. Old building.’ They paid him and moved in that evening, laughing at his superstition.

Day one was chaos. They unpacked boxes, dusted shelves, and argued about where to put the rickety bookshelf. By nightfall, they were exhausted, and Raj threw his favorite mirror—a vintage silver-framed piece he’d inherited from his grandmother—onto the fridge in the kitchen, promising to hang it properly later. They ate instant noodles, crashed on mattresses, and slept the deep sleep of the truly tired.

Day two was mundane. Meera went to the nearby market, Raj fiddled with the water heater, and they both marveled at the city lights from their tiny balcony. They went to bed early, still drained from moving. ‘This place is perfect,’ Meera said, and Raj agreed, not noticing that the fridge was not in the kitchen where he left it, but had migrated to the hallway, and the mirror was no longer on top of it.

Day three, Raj woke to a gray dawn. He stumbled to the bathroom, groggy, and stopped dead. There, on the sink, sat his mirror, propped against the wall as if placed with care. Its silver frame gleamed with a faint residue, like it had been polished in the night. Raj froze. He distinctly remembered placing it on the fridge in the living room the night before. He called out to Meera, who came rubbing her eyes. ‘Did you move my mirror?’ She shook her head, puzzled. ‘Maybe it fell and rolled here?’ But the bathroom was at the end of the hall, and the fridge was in the kitchen, a wall apart. They shrugged it off, blaming their own exhaustion, and went about their day.

But that night, as they sat in the living room, they both saw the mirror on the fridge again, gleaming under the flickering tube light. Raj pointed, throat tight. ‘It’s back.’ Meera whispered, ‘That’s impossible.’ They decided to test it. They removed the mirror, brought it into their bedroom, and locked the door. They placed it face-down on the floor, and both tried to sleep, the silence thick as they waited.

Sometime past 2 a.m., Raj woke with a start. The room was darker than it should be, and the air felt wrong—like something had shifted. He reached for his phone to check the time, but it was gone. He called Meera, but she didn’t stir. He fumbled for the lamp, and when it clicked on, the mirror was gone. In its place, a single white hair, long and wiry, coiled on the floor. He woke Meera, who shrieked. They tore through the flat, and found the mirror in the bathroom, face-up on the tiles, reflecting the empty ceiling. On the glass, written in what looked like dried red powder, was a single word: ‘STAY.’ They didn’t sleep that night.

The next morning, they planned to leave. They packed their bags, but as they reached the front door, the doorknob wouldn’t turn. The lock was frozen. The windows wouldn’t budge. Their phone batteries drained in hours, even when unplugged. The landlord’s number went to a dead line. They were trapped.

Day five, Raj began to notice the mirror appearing in different places each time he blinked: on the ceiling, under the table, inside the fridge when they opened it. Each time, a new word appeared in that red powder: ‘YOURS’, ‘MINE’, ‘HERE’. Meera began to hear a whispering in the walls, a low chant in a language she didn’t know. She grew pale, stopped eating. Raj found her one night sitting in front of the mirror, speaking to it, her voice reverent, her eyes glassy. He shook her, but she didn’t see him. ‘She wants us to stay,’ Meera said, smiling. ‘It’s a woman. She’s lonely.’

On the sixth night, Raj woke to find Meera gone. The front door was ajar, and the corridor outside was darker than the stairwell should be. He followed a trail of white hairs that led to the basement, which had a door he’d never noticed before. It was slightly open, and a faint light spilled out. He pushed it open. Inside, the basement was immaculate, unlike the rest of the building. It was lined with mirrors of all shapes and sizes, all reflecting him from every angle. In the center stood a vanity with a tarnished silver mirror, and in its reflection, Meera stood behind a figure—a tall woman in a white sari, her face obscured by long black hair that moved as if underwater. The woman turned, and through the mirror, Raj saw her eyes: black pools that reflected him back, multiplied infinitely. The woman smiled, and her mouth opened impossibly wide, and from it poured a stream of white hair that coiled around Raj’s ankles, then his waist, pulling him toward the glass. ‘Stay,’ the mirror whispered in his ear, in a voice that was both Meera’s and not.

Raj grabbed at the doorframe, but the hair was too strong. As he was yanked forward, his hand brushed a loose tile on the floor, revealing a stack of yellowed newspaper clippings. For a split second, he saw a headline: ‘Woman Found Mummified in Brickfields Flat, 1987.’ The photo showed a similar mirror, and a young woman with a missing smile. Then the glass swallowed him.

The next morning, a neighbor found the flat empty. The landlord came, and all they found was a single mirror on the fridge, its frame dusty, its glass clear. On the table, a note in neat handwriting: ‘We’ve decided to stay. Please forward our mail to the basement.’

The mirror was sold at an estate sale. Years later, a student bought it and hung it in her dorm room. On the first night, she woke to find it had moved to her bathroom. In the morning, she saw a word written on the glass in red dust: ‘WELCOME.’