The Stillwater Mirror

The first time I noticed something was wrong was on a Tuesday. I’d come home from the university library, my backpack heavy with books I’d barely cracked, and found Aunt May in the kitchen, staring at the wall above the stove. The kettle was whistling, a sharp, frantic shriek, but she just stood there, hands limp at her sides, eyes fixed on a spot where the paint was peeling in a jagged crack. I set my bag down and called her name. She blinked and turned, the usual warm smile spreading across her face as if a switch had been flipped. ‘How was class, Evie?’ she asked, and I told her about the lecture on marine biology, the way the professor had droned on about plankton. But as I talked, I noticed her eyes kept drifting to the window, to the gray sheet of the lake stretching beyond our yard. The lake was still, impossibly still, not a ripple, not a bird. I asked if she was okay, and she said, ‘Of course, dear. Just tired.’ But I didn’t believe her.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. The house was quiet except for the occasional creak of old wood. I got up for a glass of water and passed Aunt May’s room. The door was ajar, and in the sliver of light from the hallway, I saw her sitting on the edge of her bed, facing the mirror on her dresser. She wasn’t moving, just staring at her own reflection. I whispered, ‘Aunt May?’ She didn’t turn. I stepped closer and saw that her reflection in the mirror was slightly off—her hair was parted on the wrong side, her shoulders were tilted at an angle I knew she’d never use. I choked out a scream. The reflection turned its head to look at me, its eyes wide and black, and then Aunt May’s real body turned, her face pinched with worry. ‘Evie? What’s wrong?’ I pointed at the mirror, but when I looked, it was just her normal reflection. I mumbled something about a nightmare and fled back to my room.

The next morning, Aunt May acted like nothing had happened. She made me eggs and toast, chattering about her plans to clean the attic. But I couldn’t shake the feeling. I called my friend Marcus, who was into urban legends. He said it sounded like a doppelganger, a double that appears before death or disaster. He told me to look up the legend of the Stillwater Mirror—a local tale about a hermit who drowned in the lake and whose ghost lures people to the water by mimicking their loved ones. I dismissed it as superstition, but I couldn’t ignore the itch in my spine.

Over the next week, the occurrences multiplied. I’d see Aunt May in the garden, standing motionless among the tomato plants, when she was actually inside reading. I’d hear her voice calling my name from the lake’s edge, but when I ran out, I’d find only the still water, and she’d be in the kitchen, humming. She started to space out more often, her eyes vacant, her mouth slack. I asked her again what was wrong, and she said, ‘I keep seeing your father. He stands at the foot of my bed at night. He doesn’t speak. He just looks at me with those eyes that are his but not his. Then he fades to mist.’ I tried to calm her, but she shook her head. ‘It’s not your father, Evie. It’s something wearing his face.’

I started researching the Stillwater Mirror online. Found an old article from 1932 about a farmer named Silas Bowe who went missing, and his wife claimed she saw him weeks later, but he was ‘wrong’—he’d walk through walls and speak in nonsense. The lake was called Stillwater because it never rippled, even in a storm. Locals said it was a doorway. I printed the article and tucked it in my pocket.

Then came the evening everything changed. I was in my room, studying, when I heard Aunt May’s voice from the backyard. ‘Evie, come see the moon on the water.’ I looked out my window and saw her standing at the edge of the lake, her silhouette silver under the full moon. But the moon was not full—it was a crescent. And the lake was not reflecting the sky; it was dark, like oil. I ran downstairs, my heart pounding. I reached the back door and saw her again, this time in the kitchen, looking at me with a confused expression. ‘Evie, why are you running?’ I spun around. The backyard was empty. The lake was still. A cold dread washed over me. I realized the thing at the lake had been wearing her face, and the real Aunt May was inside.

That night, I locked my door and piled furniture against it. But in the small hours, I woke to a tapping on my window. My room was on the second floor. I pulled back the curtain and saw a face pressed against the glass—my father’s face, but the eyes were pits of blackness, and the skin was stretched too tight over the skull. It smiled, a smile that split too wide, and then it faded like smoke. I screamed, and Aunt May burst in, breaking through my barricade. She held me as I sobbed, and I told her what I saw. She whispered, ‘It’s not your father. It’s the lake. It wants us to come in.’

We packed our bags that night. We were going to leave at dawn, drive to the city, stay with my uncle. But as we stepped out the front door, the morning air was wrong—thick and cold, like the inside of a tomb. The lake was no longer behind the house. It was in front of us, spreading out where the road should be. The water was black and glassy, and on its surface, three figures stood: my father, Aunt May, and me—but they were not us. They were perfect copies, but their movements were jerky, like puppets. They took a step forward, and the water didn’t ripple. Aunt May grabbed my hand. ‘Don’t look,’ she said. ‘Don’t let them see your eyes.’ But it was too late. The copy of me opened its mouth and spoke in my voice, ‘You’ll be trapped forever, Evie. We are you.’

We ran back inside, but the house was wrong. The doors opened to the lake. The windows showed the still water. The ceiling dripped black drops. We were trapped in a mirror world, a reflection of our home. The doppelgangers stood at the lake’s edge, waiting. I realized then that the legend was true: the lake didn’t lure you in—it made a copy of you to take your place, and you became the copy, stuck in the reflection forever. Aunt May and I huddled in the corner of the living room, listening to the sound of our own footsteps approaching from outside, multiplying. The last thing I remember is the lake’s surface rising, swallowing the land, and the feeling of a cold, wet smile pressed against my ear.

I don’t know if we escaped. I don’t know if we’re still alive. But if you see this, beware of any lake that never ripples. And if you ever see a familiar face staring back at you from the water, with eyes that are hollow and a smile that’s just wrong, run. Run and never look back.