The scent of rain clung to the air. Distant thunder grumbled as if the sky itself were growing restless.
Elena hadn't slept since the rose petal incident. Every time she closed her eyes, Seraphina's name whispered like a thread through her dreams. Julian's eyes—his voice, his sorrow—they followed her.
But what terrified her most wasn't the mirror anymore.
It was how much she felt like she belonged to that world.
Like she'd lived it all before.
And it was beginning to show.
"You're pale," Lily said the next morning, sliding her coffee across the counter. "And your eyes are... darker."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Elena mumbled.
"No, seriously. Something's off. You haven't been to class in three days. You jump at every noise. You look like someone who's... being followed."
Elena glanced at the mirror in the hallway—its surface still, but far too quiet.
"I think I am."
Lily blinked. "Come again?"
"I think someone's watching me. From the mirror." She said it quietly, like confessing a sin. "And I think his name is Julian Blackthorne."
Silence.
Not the awkward kind. The heavy kind, where you realize you've either just opened the truth or slammed into madness.
"…You're not joking," Lily said, voice low.
"No."
"I swear to God, if this is one of your weird Victorian horror fiction plots—"
"It's not!" Elena snapped, then softened. "I found a diary. In the floorboards of the library. It belonged to him. To Julian. He lived here in the 1800s. And... I've seen him."
"Seen?"
"In the mirror."
Elena pulled out the diary and opened it to the marked page. She pushed it toward Lily, her fingers trembling.
"The mirror stirred tonight. I heard her voice calling beyond the veil."
Lily read the passage, her brows furrowing. "This is... creepy as hell. Are you sure you're not just projecting? You've been under a lot of pressure—"
Elena reached into her coat pocket and dropped the rose petal onto the counter. It was dry, faded, impossibly old.
"I woke up with this in my hand."
Lily's mouth opened. Then closed.
Elena leaned closer. "Lily, I think I'm her."
"Her?"
"Seraphina. The woman he loved. The woman everyone feared. And I think something happened to them. Something terrible. Something that left a stain here… in this house. In me."
Before Lily could respond, a new voice entered the room.
"You're not entirely wrong."
Both girls whipped around to see Marla, Eleanor's old friend—now in her late sixties—standing at the threshold of the kitchen door. Her eyes were sharp, like someone who had lived through more than she ever spoke of.
"You knew my grandmother," Elena said, stunned. "She left this house to me."
"I also know what happened here," Marla replied. "Or at least, what's been whispered. I warned Eleanor not to keep the mirror."
Elena's stomach turned cold. "Why?"
"Because, dear…" Marla's gaze flicked to the hallway mirror. "That mirror doesn't just reflect. It remembers. And sometimes... it replays."
🪞Later That Evening
Marla sat at the dining table, a steaming cup of tea untouched in front of her. The girls leaned in, listening like children at a campfire ghost story.
"Elena, the Ashthornes were a family once feared for their occult practices," Marla began. "They believed blood could preserve memory. That mirrors could be vessels. Portals, even. The one in this house was theirs."
"And Julian?" Elena asked.
"Julian Blackthorne fell in love with Seraphina Ashthorne. Their love wasn't just forbidden. It was considered cursed. Her family believed she was bound to the mirror—a living seal to protect it."
Elena's breath hitched.
"But she died," Marla whispered. "On the night of their engagement, the manor caught fire. Julian was never found. Some say he perished trying to save her. Others say... he disappeared into the mirror."
Lily laughed nervously. "Okay, this is officially above our pay grade."
"No one could explain the burn marks still on the back of that mirror," Marla added. "And no one ever moved it. Eleanor tried once. The workers refused to come back."
"Why would my grandmother keep it?" Elena asked, her voice barely a whisper.
"Because she believed you were meant to finish the story."
🪞That Night
Rain slashed the windows as lightning split the sky. Elena sat by the mirror, the diary in her lap. Her reflection stared back at her, quiet and pale. She leaned in.
"Julian," she whispered, "if you're still in there… I'm listening."
For a second—just a second—her reflection smiled.
But she didn't.
Elena stumbled back, her heart thudding against her ribs like a warning drum. She stared at the mirror, willing her breath to calm, her brain to reason.
It must have been her imagination. A trick of the light. She was tired. She was—
But her reflection wasn't tired.It was still smiling.
Elena's throat tightened. Her reflection tilted its head slowly, as if observing her. Calculating.
"No," she whispered. "No, no, no—"
The lights flickered.
Behind her, the room stayed still. Yet the mirror seemed to shift, like ripples in water. Her reflection's mouth moved again, forming the words:
"You're close."
Elena's legs gave way as she dropped to her knees, hands shaking. The diary slipped from her lap and landed open to a page she hadn't marked.
A passage written in urgent, blotchy ink:
"She is not gone. She never left. The mirror was never meant to be her prison… but her bridge. If you're reading this—get out. Before the veil remembers you too."
"Elena!" Lily's voice broke through the house like a siren. "Where are you?!"
Elena looked up just as Lily rushed in. The mirror had gone still again. Her reflection now matched her panicked expression.
"Elena, what happened?! You're white as a sheet."
"I—I saw it. Lily, my reflection moved. It smiled. It spoke."
Lily looked at her like she was trying not to panic. "You're scaring me."
"I'm scaring me."
Elena grabbed the diary, flipping to the new page. "Look. This wasn't open before."
Lily read the passage, then looked at the mirror, her voice dropping. "Maybe we need to take this seriously. Maybe we talk to someone who knows—like that Marla woman. Or even a priest. Or—"
"No." Elena stood slowly, a fire awakening in her spine. "I don't think this is something I can run from. I think I need to walk right into it."
"Elena…"
"Something is calling me, Lily. And I think… I've already started answering."
She stared at her reflection, which stared back—obedient now, quiet. But Elena had the growing sense that this mirror wasn't just reflecting her anymore.
It was waiting for her.