The Stillwater Portrait

Elena and I moved into the old farmhouse outside of Corbin’s Reach six months ago. It was a sprawling, drafty place with rooms that smelled of mothballs and forgotten time. The previous owners had left a few things behind; in the upstairs hallway, there was a full-length mirror in a heavy oak frame, its glass clouded with age. Elena, who had a sentimental streak, insisted we keep it and put it in our bedroom, in the corner on my side of the bed. She said it made the room feel larger, brighter. I didn’t care for it. The way it caught the light, the way my own reflection seemed too sharp, too defined in its depths. But I loved Elena, and I didn’t want to argue.

Nights came with a strange rhythm. The house settled with creaks and groans, the wind whistled through gaps in the window frames, and the mirror stood sentinel in the corner, a silent observer to our sleep. I would often wake in the small hours, turning away from the glass, my back to the cold, reflective surface. I could feel its presence like a weight on my spine, and sometimes, in the moment between waking and sleeping, I thought I saw a flicker of movement at the edge of my vision. I dismissed it as a trick of the night, a stray moonbeam, or my own tired eyes.

It was on a night like any other, three weeks after we moved in, that the false peace shattered. I awoke to a deep, unnatural stillness. The room was bathed in a sickly yellow light, as if the moon had turned jaundiced. My mind felt muddled, as if I were swimming through molasses. I tried to move, to turn toward Elena, but my body was rigid. My left arm was frozen at a 45-degree angle above my body, my hand clenched into a fist. I understood, with a horrible clarity, that I was in the throes of sleep paralysis. Every rational part of me said: this is just a glitch in your brain. You’re awake, but your body is asleep. Just relax, and you’ll be fine.

But then, the mirror. I felt a pull, a force like a cold, invisible hand, gripping my rigid shoulder. It was not a gentle tug; it was a yank so violent that my entire torso levered upward, and I was dragged across the sheets, my body moving as a single, stiff plank, until I toppled over the edge of the mattress and crashed onto the hardwood floor. The impact jarred my teeth, but I couldn’t even cry out. I lay there, face down, my breath knocked from me, and I could feel the mirror’s cold surface inches from my cheek. The pull ceased, and I was released. I shuddered, gasping for air, and slowly, painfully, I managed to crawl back into bed. Elena hadn’t stirred.

A year passed. The event faded from my immediate fear, though the lingering unease remained. I never told Elena the full story; I just said I had a nightmare and fell out of bed. We adjusted. The mirror stayed. But something in the house seemed to have been awakened. I started feeling watched, not just in the bedroom, but throughout the house. I would be in the kitchen, and I’d feel a cool draft, as if a door had been opened, but when I turned, nothing was there. Elena dismissed my concerns as nerves. She was pregnant, and perhaps that fueled her desire for calm, but she never seemed to notice the subtle shifts in the atmosphere.

Two nights ago, I woke at 4 AM from a dream so vivid it felt more real than waking life. It was a haze of sensation, of heat and desire, of Elena’s skin against mine, but when my eyes opened, I found myself staring at the ceiling, the room humped in darkness. Elena was beside me, her breathing deep and rhythmic, undisturbed. My body still tingled with a phantom arousal, the ghost of tactile pleasure. Then I felt it. A chill, like the brush of a winter wind, but exquisitely focused, running down my belly, pooling at my groin. It was not the cold of a draft; it was a cold that felt alive, that felt like a presence touching me, a presence that was intangible yet undeniably there. It was oddly comforting, almost intimate, but beneath the surface of that comfort, a primal terror rose up, clawing at my throat. I tried to move, to flinch away, but I was frozen again.

This time, the paralysis was different. It was not the immobility of sleep, but the paralysis of being pinned by an unseen force. The cold intensified, and I had the distinct impression of something bending over me, its face inches from mine, though I could see nothing. I could feel its breath, a frosty whisper on my cheek, and I heard a sound, like a faint, wet rasp, as though something were licking its lips. The cold touch moved lower, and a wave of nausea mixed with the inexplicable pleasure washed over me. I wanted to scream, but my throat was sealed.

Then, just as suddenly as it began, the presence withdrew. The cold receded, and I could move again. I sat up, heart pounding, and I turned to look at the mirror. In the dim light, I could make out my reflection, a pale, terrified figure in the bed. But behind my reflection, in the depths of the glass, I saw a second figure. It was a woman, or something that had once been a woman. Her hair was stringy and dark, her skin gray and mottled, her eyes wide and white, without iris or pupil. She was standing, or perhaps hovering, just behind my shoulder, her mouth open in a silent, hungry grimace. And then, she smiled. Her teeth were needle-thin and serrated. I waited for her to blink, but she didn’t. Instead, she began to lift her hand, a claw-like appendage, and reach toward the glass, toward me.

I screamed. The sound tore from my throat, raw and ragged. Elena jolted awake, her eyes wide with alarm. ‘What? What is it?’ She reached for me, her hand stopping as she saw my face, the sheer terror etched there. I couldn’t speak. I just pointed at the mirror. Elena followed my gaze, and I saw her brow furrow in confusion. ‘There’s nothing there, Jack. It’s just the mirror.’ I forced myself to look again. The reflection showed only me, my face a mask of panic, the room behind me empty. But I knew, with a certainty that chilled my bones, that I had seen what I had seen. She was there, and she would be back.

Now, I lie in bed, always facing Elena, my back to the mirror. I do not sleep. I watch the minutes tick by, tears tracking silently into the pillow. Elena sleeps peacefully, her belly a soft mound growing with new life. I wonder if the entity in the mirror knows about the child. I wonder if it has plans for it. And I wonder if, one day soon, the cold touch will become something more than a ghostly caress, something that will leave a mark I cannot hide. The mirror stands in the corner, still as death, and I can feel its gaze upon me, patient and insatiable. The house around me is silent, but I hear a whisper, faint as the moth’s wing against a lantern: the sound of something long dead, growing hungry.

Tonight, I am too afraid to close my eyes. But I am also too afraid to look at the mirror. So I lie, trapped between two fears, and I wait for the dawn that I pray will come.