Elena stood in front of the secret door.
The key in her hand hummed gently—like it knew the spot where it was meant. As soon as she pushed it into the iron keyhole, the house let out a sigh. A sense of quiet change. Floorboards creaked. A shiver ran along the wallpaper.
She turned the key.
Click.
The door groaned open, slowly, and showed a small spiral staircase going down. It went into darkness, the air colder with every breath, as if she was sliding under the skin of the house.
This wasn't a cellar.
This was something else.
She removed a candle from the shelf in the library—her grandmother always maintained real candles in preparation for power failures—and lit it before going down. Each step groaned under her weight. The walls were covered with old portraits, their eyes watching her.
Dust whispered about her feet.
Down at the bottom of the stairs was a wooden door. She opened it.
And stood still.
It was a bedroom.
An antique one.
Not Victorian. Not modern either. Caught somewhere between centuries, stuck in a time outside the world's interference. Parchment, rose petal, and forgotten perfume filled the air.
The bed was crisp, white sheets, ever so yellowed by age. A silver hand mirror sat neatly on the vanity. Candles lit the wall sconces, long since melted to stumps.
But it was the painting over the bed that took her breath away.
A young woman.
Bridal dress.
Hair swept in precisely the same style as Elena's own.
And her face—
It was her.
Not like. Not far.
Her.
In oils, with a pearl necklace Elena had discovered only yesterday in her grandmother's drawer. It seemed impossible. As if someone had photographed her and moved back a hundred years to hang her.
She took a step back, hand clapped over her mouth. "What the fuck is this?"
And then she looked around to the corner of the room.
There was another mirror.
Smaller than the grand hallway one.
But this one glimmered—softly, pulsing—like the surface of water reflecting starlight.
And in it…
She could have sworn she saw a figure.
For a second, that was.
A man.
Standing behind her.
When she turned around—nothing.
Elena retreated from the room, heart pounding, and almost stumbled up the stairs.
It wasn't until she was back at the library that she became aware that she was holding something in her hand.
The silver hand mirror from the vanity.
She hadn't taken it.
And yet. it was there.
Warm.
Later That Night…
In her own room, Elena sat quietly.
The hand mirror sat on her desk, still but heavy with silent weight. She couldn't force herself to gaze into it.
She opened the journal of her grandmother once more. Pages rustled until her eyes settled upon something different:
October 12th, 1983
She discovered the room of mirrors. Just as I did once. But the mirror did not choose to open. I am relieved. and terrified. The cycle always starts anew. She always finds it. Always recalls. in fragments.
Julian waits. He always waits.
He should never have loved her.
It is what damned them both.
Elena sat back, heart aching with a confusion she couldn't name. Was she cursed? Was Julian real? Or a ghost clinging to a past she didn't remember?
Her hand moved toward the silver mirror.
The moment her fingers touched it—
A flicker.
A man's voice whispered across the edge of her mind.
"You promised you'd come back…"
She gasped, dropping it. The mirror clattered to the floor.
But when she looked…
Her reflection wasn't alone.
The silver mirror sat on the rug, unmoving now.
But something about it had changed.
Its surface shimmered with a soft glow that pulsed—like a heartbeat. Elena knelt, her fingers brushing against its edge, hesitant. The echo of that voice still rang in her head, haunting and familiar:
"You promised you'd come back…"
She had not promised anything. Not that she recalled, anyway. But the way he said it—like it was a fact etched into her bones.
And when she finally worked up the courage to glance in the glass once more, her reflection loomed there. but no longer by itself.
This time, Julian was present.
Standing behind her. Unobtrusive. Not like before.
Distinct. Focused. Breathtaking.
A glimpse of him in black formal dress—19th century, maybe. His eyes dark pools of gray, grieving and ferocious. His lips parted as though attempting to say something, yet no voice issued.
Elena spun round—nothing behind her. Again.
But when she glanced back down, his presence lingered.
There was a flash of feeling on his face. He held up his hand in the mirror—pressing it against the interior of the glass. As though reaching out to her.
Her throat constricted. "Who are you?" she breathed.
And that was it. The mirror darkened. Her reflection stayed behind.
????The Next Morning…
Elena could not sleep. The hand mirror now rested swathed in cloth in her drawer. The image of Julian—the way he'd gazed at her—would not depart from her thoughts.
She wandered through the manor as a ghost herself, retracing footsteps. Attempting to seek reason.
Before sunlight filtered through the east windows, she had decided.
Claire had to know.
????Flashback Entry: Eleanor Harper's Diary (Unseen Until Now)
I see her daily now. The girl. She passes the halls in the same manner I used to—looking for something that she cannot define. And the mirror, oh, the mirror—it knows her.
I never mustered up the courage to fully open it. But she will. I just know it in my bones. And when she does… Julian will wake up.
He never remembers her face. Not even when time takes her name.
In the library, Elena discovered a hidden envelope among the last pages of the diary.
Sealed with red wax. On the back: her name.
Nothing but silence on either side of it.
Elena.
She opened the seal with shaking fingers and drew out one sheet of paper.
"When the mirror loves you back, you are no longer alone. But be warned—the glass doesn't forget… and it never forgives."
Elena's back went rigid. Something had shifted.
She could sense it. In the walls. In the atmosphere. In her skin.
And the worst part?
All of the mirrors in the house hummed.
As if they waited.
The clock struck 7 p.m. when Elena finally knocked on Claire's door.
The housekeeper opened it almost instantly, her expression tightening the moment she saw Elena's face. She didn't need to ask—she already knew something had changed.
"Elena," Claire said softly, stepping aside. "Come in."
The parlor smelled of cinnamon tea and old wood. A fire crackled gently, casting flickering shadows against the walls. Elena sat down on the plush armchair, hands clenched in her lap.
"I need to talk," she began. "Something… is happening in this house."
Claire didn't interrupt. She simply poured tea into two delicate china cups and waited.
"I found a hidden room. Behind the library," Elena said. "There was a… bedroom. Frozen in time. With a portrait of me—except it wasn't me. And then I… I saw someone. In a mirror. A man."
Claire flinched.
"You saw him," she murmured. Not a question. A truth.
"Yes. His name's Julian, isn't it?"
Claire closed her eyes. "It begins again."
"What begins?" Elena's voice cracked. "What is this? A haunting? A trick? Am I losing my mind?"
"No." Claire looked up, her expression a mix of grief and dread. "You're remembering."
Elena blinked. "Remembering what?"
Claire stood and crossed to a cabinet she rarely touched. From it, she pulled out a velvet-wrapped bundle. She handed it to Elena.
Inside was a diary—old, fragile, bound in silver thread. On the first page:
To My Bride,In every lifetime, I find you.In every lifetime, I lose you.– Julian Blackthorne
Elena stared at the name. Her chest tightened.
Claire's voice trembled as she spoke:"Julian was real. He lived over a century ago. He was the heir to Rosehill and… he was cursed. The mirror was his prison. And you, Elena… you were his bride."
The air left her lungs.
"No. That can't be—"
"It can. And it is." Claire looked heartbroken. "Your grandmother, Eleanor, believed the cycle had ended. But it never does. You've always come back. Every time Rosehill passes to a Harper woman, the mirror awakens."
Elena shook her head. "This is insane."
"I thought so too," Claire said. "Until I saw you the first time. You walked through this house like you'd lived here before. You spoke to the rooms. The way Eleanor once did."
Elena's voice was barely a whisper. "Why didn't you tell me?"
Claire's eyes were glassy. "Because once you remember everything… the mirror begins to take."
Later that night, Elena sat alone in her bedroom, the silver mirror beside her. She hadn't dared look into it since that morning.
But she could feel him.
Waiting.
Watching.
And slowly… she was starting to remember.