The mirror had always been just a mirror.
Silver-backed, hung on the wall opposite Isla's bed, framed in peeling white wood with little painted roses Isla had added at age ten. For years, it had reflected birthdays, quiet arguments, whispered secrets, and all the restless moments in between. It was just glass.
But tonight, it was something else.
Elara stood in front of it now, one hand loosely at her side, the other brushing Isla's old pendant, a silver charm shaped like an eye. She didn't remember Isla wearing it often, but it had turned up in her desk drawer, tucked beneath a tangle of dried lavender and graphite pencils. Elara wore it now like armor.
The mirror watched her.
She stared at herself. At least, she thought it was herself. Her eyes were darker than usual. Tired. Too wide. Her hair curled messily over her shoulders, a detail she normally wouldn't notice, but tonight, the mirror made it obvious. It exaggerated things.
And then it moved.
She didn't.
Not her real body.
Just the one inside the glass.
She gasped and stepped back.
The reflected Elara had tilted her head a moment too late. Just slightly. Enough for her stomach to clench.
She blinked hard. The mirror returned to normal.
Sweat dotted her brow.
Maybe she was overtired. Maybe the grief was catching up to her. Or maybe her mother's cryptic confession had finally cracked something open inside her.
"You were there. The night your father died. You saw everything. But you locked it away. You let Mara take the memory."
Mara.
The name pulsed through her like a second heartbeat.
She moved to the window, yanking the curtain aside. The backyard was shrouded in mist. The trees beyond the fence stood tall and skeletal, unmoving. The lake wasn't visible from here, but she could feel its presence, cold, wet, waiting.
She didn't know what she expected to see. Someone watching, maybe. A figure standing where Isla once believed they were being watched. But nothing moved.
She returned to the mirror cautiously.
Just her again.
Same haunted eyes. Same confusion.
But this time, there was something… off.
A shape in the reflection, behind her.
She turned.
Nothing.
Her breath caught.
Back to the mirror.
Now it was closer.
A silhouette. Female. Barefoot. Wearing something light, a nightgown?
Elara turned again, faster this time.
Still nothing.
She backed away.
The mirror shimmered.
And then, for a split second, it cracked.
Not physically. The sound echoed a brittle, high-pitched fracture in her skull.
And the figure smiled.
She screamed and threw the pendant at the mirror.
It struck glass and bounced to the floor. The mirror didn't break. Didn't react at all.
She stared at it, breath hitching, chest rising and falling like a child waking from a nightmare.
She was losing it.
She was going mad.
Or…
She was remembering.
The next morning, Elara woke with her back against Isla's door. She had fallen asleep sitting there, too afraid to lie down in the bed. Her body ached. Her mind was foggy.
Downstairs, her mother was gone.
A note on the kitchen counter read:
"Church. Back afternoon."
Elara ate nothing. Drank water. Her hands still trembled. The mirror had been quiet this morning, back to its ordinary state. But she refused to look directly into it. Not yet.
Instead, she went to the attic.
The attic door stuck at first, swollen with years of humidity and disuse. But it gave way under her shoulder, creaking open like it had been waiting for her return.
The air was musty. Dry. Still.
Dust floated in golden beams of sunlight leaking through a small side window. Boxes were stacked everywhere. Old toys. Holiday decorations. Childhood drawings in plastic bins. She dug until she found what she was looking for.
Home videos.
A collection of VHS tapes, labeled in her father's handwriting.
Elara & Isla — Age 4
Trip to the Lake — 1997
Christmas 2001
She took them downstairs, digging through the hall closet until she found the old TV and VCR combo that still worked.
She pushed in the tape labeled "Trip to the Lake 1997" and pressed PLAY.
The screen fuzzed, then cleared.
Isla and Elara, age five. Running through the tall grass near the lake's edge. Their father was behind the camera, laughing. "Don't go too far!" he calls.
Their mother is sitting on a picnic blanket, reading a book.
Then the camera shifts.
A moment, too fast to be intentional.
The lens pans briefly to the woods behind them.
And there, for half a second, a woman.
Standing just inside the tree line.
Not moving. Watching.
Wearing white.
The footage cuts. Rewinds itself automatically.
Elara stared at the screen.
She rewound the moment. Paused.
Grainy.
But the woman was there.
It wasn't Margaret. It wasn't Isla. It wasn't her.
Who was she?
Her breath came faster.
Was that Anna?
Or… Mara?
She tried another tape.
Elara & Isla — Age 4.
More home footage. More smiles. Birthday cake. Toys. Their father lifted them both at once and spun.
Then a strange moment.
The camera is on Isla, playing in the corner with blocks.
She turns to the camera and says, "Don't show her. She gets angry."
Her mother's voice off camera: "Who gets angry, sweetheart?"
Isla's eyes go wide. She whispers, "Mara."
Elara hit pause. The tape whirred to a stop.
She sat in stunned silence.
This was real. Isla had remembered. She had tried to say something.
Even as children.
Mara had always been more than a game.
She thought back to the drawing the one of the two girls. One with a face, one without.
What if Mara hadn't been a separate person?
What if Mara had been her?
Or the part of her that remembered what happened that night.
Later that afternoon, Elara ventured into the woods.
She wasn't sure why. Maybe to feel closer to the truth. Or to Isla.
Or maybe to walk the path to the lake her sister had taken in her final moments.
Branches clawed at her sleeves. Leaves whispered underfoot. She followed the barely visible trail Isla used to take when she needed solitude.
Then she saw it.
The cabin.
Hidden among the trees. A skeleton of a structure, half-eaten by ivy, roof sagging.
It was real.
Her mother had said, "That place should've burned with him."
Elara approached slowly.
The door hung on its hinges.
Inside, it smelled of mildew and old fire.
A single chair sat in the center. And carved into the wall behind it, over and over again:
MARA MARA MARA MARA
In the corner of the room was a child's drawing, pinned beneath a rock.
Stick figures. A small girl. A tall man.
Red scribbles.
Blood?
And a date: July 12, 2004
The night her father disappeared.
Elara's knees buckled slightly.
Something had happened here.
Something she had seen.
Something Isla had remembered.
That night, she stood in front of the mirror again.
She stared long and hard.
And then, without thinking, she whispered:
"Mara."
The glass rippled.
And her reflection changed.
It was still her. But not.
The eyes were colder. The smile was cruel.
"Finally," the reflection said. "You're waking up."
Elara stumbled backward, crashing into the dresser.
The reflection did not mimic her.
It just smiled wider.
"You remember what you did, don't you?"