The Uncovered Glass

I was six when my grandmother first noticed. She said I’d sit in my crib, giggling and cooing at the empty corner, as if someone were playing peek-a-boo. My mother chalked it up to an overactive imagination, but my lola would just shake her head and mutter about the ‘old blood’ in our family. I didn’t understand then. I was just a kid who liked to laugh.

Ten years later, I learned exactly what that blood meant. It was the death of my grandfather, Lolo Ernesto, that brought it into sharp focus. He was a hard man, a former karate master who ran a dojo in our small town. He was ambushed one rainy night—thirteen gunshots, the local paper said. The wake was held in our ancestral house, a sprawling two-story structure with creaky wooden floors and the smell of old incense. The entire family swarmed in like ants, setting up tables of food downstairs, filling the air with prayers and whispered condolences.

It was a sweltering afternoon when my cousins, siblings, and I escaped the suffocating atmosphere of grief downstairs. We trudged up to the second floor, which served as the old dojo. A huge, dusty mirror stretched across one wall, facing the door. In our ignorance, we didn’t know that all mirrors in a house of mourning must be draped in cloth—to keep the dead from getting trapped, or so the elders said. But no one had covered this one.

We started making faces at our reflections—sticking out tongues, pulling at our eyelids, contorting into grotesque masks. I laughed, but a cold tingle ran down my spine. My reflection seemed a beat slow, its smile a shade too wide. I figured it was just the dim light and the dusty glass. But then, I saw it.

In the mirror, behind my shoulder, a face appeared. Not one of my cousins. It was gaunt, hollow-cheeked, with eyes like dried pits. It was wearing a white polo shirt, dark slacks—the same clothes my lolo was buried in. I froze, my laughter dying in my throat. The face stared back at me, not at my reflection, but directly at me, as if it could see through the glass and into my very soul. Then it smiled—a slow, chilling grin that split its pallid face.

I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came out. I saw the face mouth something: ‘Count the shots.’ I blinked, and it was gone. My cousins were still giggling, oblivious. I staggered back, my heart hammering. I looked around the room, expecting to see someone, but we were alone. I told my cousins what I saw, but they just laughed, saying I was seeing things. But I knew what I saw.

The next day, I couldn’t shake it. I kept creeping back to the mirror, hypnotized. Each time, the room felt colder. I started to notice that the mirror didn’t reflect the room perfectly. The door would be slightly ajar in the reflection when it was closed. A shadow would shift in a corner that didn’t exist in reality. The air grew thick, and I could hear a faint, rhythmic tapping, like knuckles on wood—or the click of a gun being loaded.

On the second night, I went up alone, my bare feet silent on the worn floorboards. The moon cast a pale light through the windows, but the mirror was a black void. I approached, my breath fogging in the chill. Suddenly, my reflection wasn’t my own. It was my lolo, standing there, his face a mask of agony. His shirt was soaked with dark, spreading stains. He raised his hand, trembling, and pointed at me, then at his chest. Thirteen bullet wounds, leaking into the white fabric.

I stumbled backward, tripping over a dumbbell. I scrambled to my feet, but the image in the mirror didn’t change. It began to mouth words, almost silent, but I could feel them forming in my mind: ‘Thirteen. They gave me thirteen. But the one who pulled the trigger… you know him.’ I shook my head, backing away. ‘You’ve seen him. In the mirror. He’s coming.’

Then the reflection of the room shifted. I saw my lolo’s face twist, and the wounds began to close, the blood receding. He looked almost peaceful. He whispered, ‘Watch the glass. He’s always watching.’ Then he faded, leaving me staring at my own terrified face. I ran downstairs, huddled with the adults, but I couldn’t tell them. Who would believe me? A ten-year-old with an overactive imagination?

The next morning, the last day of the wake, the family gathered for the final rites. The room was heavy with grief and the smell of jasmine. I avoided the mirror, but I couldn’t avoid the feeling that I was being watched. As the coffin was being sealed, I caught a glimpse of my own reflection in the lacquered wood. For a split second, I saw a stranger’s face—a man with a thin scar on his cheek, and cold, dead eyes. He was looking at me from the reflection, not at the coffin.

I gasped, and my mother asked what was wrong. I could only point at the coffin, but by then, the image was gone. I spent the rest of the day in a daze. That night, as I lay in my bed, unable to sleep, I heard a soft tapping on my window. I pulled back the curtain. There was nothing there but the reflection of my own room. And there, in the glass, was the man with the scar. He pressed a finger to his lips, then drew a small cross on the glass, and mouthed, ‘It’s time.’

I screamed, and my parents rushed in. They found me sobbing, pointing at the window. But when they looked, there was only the moon. The next day, the police came to the house. They said they found new evidence in Lolo Ernesto’s case. A witness had come forward, someone who saw the shooter: a man with a scar on his cheek. And as they said his name, I felt the blood drain from my face. It was the same name I had seen on a faded photograph in the attic—my lolo’s old student, whom he had expelled for drug use years ago.

The man was arrested, and at the trial, he confessed. He had killed my grandfather out of revenge. I never told anyone about the mirror, but I never forgot. And to this day, whenever I see a mirror, I hesitate, afraid of what might look back. I carry the burden of an old gift, a curse maybe, that shows me the dead and their unfinished business. Some say I’m haunted. But I think I’m just a witness, forced to see the truths that others refuse to see. And I’ve learned to always cover the mirrors, for the dead don’t rest easy, and the living don’t need to see what’s waiting for them.

Now, whenever I pass a reflective surface, I can’t help but glance, half-expecting to see the man with the scar, watching me, forever bound to the glass, waiting for someone else to see him. And I wonder, if I don’t look, will he find another way out? Or will he stay trapped, a prisoner of the uncovered glass, for eternity?