"Hello."
The word echoed in the heavy air, strange and wrong amidst the kitchen's vast chaos, under the gaze of the rat trapped in its glass jar. The lantern illuminated Sami's body, casting him in its pale light, features indistinct, clutching the broken green mirror, staring at his reflection—and that, on the surface, was natural.
But he had expected to see a rat...
No matter how absurd the idea.
Instead, there was his own reflection. In the same soiled clothes, the same uncombed black hair, the same light beard, the same long moustache, the same sunken eyes.
The same everything... yet somehow not resembling him at all.
Their facial expressions differed. Both weary from waking before dawn and chasing a rat through the kitchen, but his reflection seemed... more apathetic.
Its eyes were devoid of the spark of discovery that Sami possessed, empty of fear and curiosity. Its lips slack, its mouth slightly open as if it had forgotten how to close it. It appeared resigned, devoid of passion, like a soldier exhausted from a war that hadn't yet begun. Its skin resembled a grimy grey canvas, and even the shared shadows of sleeplessness appeared darker on it, carving beneath its eyes like the frame of a faded photograph...
"Hello?"
Even its voice sounded feeble, slow and low, as if dragged from the depths of a well...
"Are you a narcissist?"
The question halted Sami's contemplations. He was about to reply sarcastically, but the reflection's expression stopped him, and that eerie seriousness in its voice killed any sarcasm on his lips, aware of the strangeness of whom he was addressing.
"No... I just thought—"
"That you'd see the rat?" Though phrased as a question, it didn't seem to doubt what it said, prompting Sami to wonder: "Isn't that how the ritual should work?"
The reflection replied in the same monotonous tone: "What did you say in the invocation formula?"
Had he erred again? But what was the invocation formula... "Do you mean the phrase I summoned you with?" Then, upon the reflection's nod, he continued, trying to recall the phrase precisely. "Let the mouth—"
"Let the mouth open between me and it... I am that mouth." Why ask if it already knew the answer?
Sami ignored the behavioural strangeness his reflection displayed, then nodded in acknowledgement of the logic underlying its response.
"Could you help me understand this rat, then?" he asked hesitantly.
"Hmm." The response came tepid and lazy, as if it begrudged him even a complete sentence.
With this implicit consent, Sami placed the mirror on the table, propping it against the glass of water, then hurried to fetch the imprisoned rat. The rat squealed in protest as Sami set it on the table before the mirror.
Sami looked at the reflection and asked, "Do you understand what it's saying?"
"That's why you summoned me." The reflection replied, annoyed at having to repeat itself, then added before Sami could interrupt: "And I'm not a translator."
The question died on Sami's tongue, so he quickly rephrased it: "Why was it gnawing at my hammer?" Better to focus on his original plan.
The reflection turned towards the rat in the mirror, then answered: "Because you asked it to." It said it as if truly translating the rat's squeaks, though it had just denied being a translator. The rat nearby shook its head vigorously, pointing at Sami with both front paws as if complaining of injustice.
But Sami ignored its grievances, pondering the reflection's answer.
He had asked it to?
Wait, did it mean the des—
"Yes."
Sami began to feel irritation creeping into his nerves. This reflection didn't content itself with interrupting him; it intruded even into the flow of his thoughts! And ironically, if it did so to save time, its slow manner of speaking made its interruptions waste time rather than shorten it.
"Not slower than your thoughts." The reflection obstructed his thoughts again, with complete seriousness in its tone.
Sami felt insulted and quickly justified himself: "I haven't slept enough, that's all."
The reflection showed no desire to continue the debate, so Sami pulled up his father's chair and sat, resting his heel on the table's edge and propping his head on his hand. After a brief silence, he asked: "What exactly did it ask of him?"
The reflection answered with an indifferent tone: "My job is to help you understand the rat, not to make you understand yourself."
No, Sami wouldn't fall for the same trick again, so he rephrased the question: "What task was the rat trying to fulfil?" Then he raised his eyebrow at the reflection challengingly.
But the reflection showed no reaction, embarrassing Sami.
"To put the wood back in place and hammer the nails."
"But how—"
"My job isn't to explain magic."
Sami suppressed his urge to smash what remained of his mother's mirror with the hammer in his hand, and instead pondered the phrase more deeply, searching for clues.
To put the wood back in place and hammer the nails... to put the wood back in place and hammer the nails...
He rubbed his head, trying to dispel the headache. Nothing came to mind, and his skull refused to stop pounding... Sami suddenly stopped rubbing, his eyes widening.
The pounding... put the wood back and hammer the nails... hammer the nails.
"Hammer!"
He stood suddenly, trembling, and began pacing the kitchen, dodging the broken pieces scattered across the floor.
His desire had been to hammer the nails, but he had pointed his finger—and his desire—only at the plank, while the hammer had been nearby after he repaired the chair...
He stopped abruptly, remembering an important condition from the book's rules of desire.
He couldn't desire what he wasn't skilled at, and he certainly didn't know how to hammer nails without a hammer.
Had his magic automatically struck the only creature capable of fulfilling the desire along the path of his finger?
He rushed back to the chair and sat, then looked directly at the rat and asked: "Did you desire to repair the plank when you were behind it? In the hole behind it?"
The rat nodded hesitantly at first, then with conviction. In that moment, Sami's last doubts vanished...
Suddenly, Sami looked at the rat with its human expressions. "When did you become rational?" he asked.
The rat looked at him with clear confusion, its tilted head expressing... confusion?
Perhaps the rat didn't understand the concept of reason?
"When did you become intelligent?" he rephrased.
No response.
"When did you become a thinker?"
The rat remained silent, its ears trembling slightly.
Sami began to feel despair, grabbing a tuft of his hair as if to pull it out, but he composed himself and took several deep breaths. "When did you start understanding me?" he tried again.
The rat gestured around the kitchen.
"Alright, this isn't working," Sami muttered, frustrated.
"You could ask me to end this." The reflection interjected suddenly, its voice still monotonous.
Sami realised how foolish he'd been not to ask the reflection from the beginning.
Sleep deprivation was truly affecting him.
"When did it be—"
"When the incantation was cast." The reflection preempted his answer.
They exchanged a long look, then Sami shook his head, trying to comprehend. "But the condition that resolved my previous doubt wasn't met—I don't know how to teach a rat languages. And my desire was for the wood to be repaired."
Why, then, did it understand him? How did that help it hammer a few nails?
He finally surrendered, and the reflection answered: "Because it gained a mind."
"But to—"
"My job isn't to explain magic."
Even though it was his dear mother's mirror, Sami felt a wild urge to smash it. But at that moment, he noticed a faint ray of dawn light creeping through the window, touching the table's edge and revealing the swirling dust in the air. The night was receding, and day was announcing its arrival.
Sami sighed deeply, and instead of anger, chose to ask: "Will you stay here?"
"No, I don't desire that." The response came quickly. "But if you need to understand the rat, all you have to do is call me."
Before Sami could ask "How?", something unexpected happened. The reflection vanished. Not gradually, but as if it had never existed. There was no trace of it in the mirror anymore.
Sami grabbed the mirror in bewilderment, pointing it at the rat—its natural reflection appeared. Then he pointed it at himself—the door appeared behind, but not him. The mirror that had reflected his face moments ago was now completely empty when he looked into it.
No, he wouldn't spend another hour thinking about it. He needed to sleep.
Sami headed towards the door, but persistent squeaking stopped him. He looked at the rat and saw its tiny paws urgently pointing at the jar imprisoning it. Sami glanced at the scattered chickpeas on the floor, then at his hand wrapped in the cloth.
"No, you'll stay there."
He climbed to his room and collapsed onto the bed, exhausted.
Hours passed between tossing and fitful sleep until the sun reached midday and began to descend. He awoke suddenly to sharp pain in his hand, sitting up on the bed clutching his swollen wrist.
He carefully removed the cloth, his mouth gaping at what he saw: deep bite marks carved into his flesh, surrounded by redness and swelling. Memories of the night's chase returned to him.
"God, what have I done..." he muttered, burying his face in his hands. He remembered the scattered food in the kitchen with regret, but the foul smell emanating from his wound drove him to get up.
In the bathroom, he looked out the window and saw slanting sun rays embracing the courtyard.
It was afternoon.
He turned on the tap and began cleaning the wound with cold water. Good that he woke up in time... he needed to fill the barrels quickly before the water cut off.
He looked at his now-clean hand, but the wound remained deep. He considered visiting a doctor, but the memory of the few dinars in his pocket made him abandon the idea.
Using his good hand, he cupped water to wash his face, but froze suddenly mid-motion.
Where was he?
He ran his hand over his wet face—it didn't pass through.
So he wasn't a ghost, that was certain.
Then where was his reflection?
He slowly raised his head towards the old bathroom mirror... completely empty.
He waved his hand in front of the mirror. Nothing.
He approached closer and touched its cold, solid... real glass surface. But no reflection.
"No no no."
Sami burst out of the bathroom in panic, leaping down the stairs three steps at a time, nearly losing his balance and falling. He rushed to the kitchen, ignoring the rat still screaming inside the jar, grabbed the small mirror with his trembling hand and shouted: "Where is my reflection?!"
Silence was the only answer. The mirror showed only emptiness.
His hands began to shake as he tried to repeat the ritual. He dampened the cloth with water dripping from his injured hand, wiping the mirror's frame haphazardly, repeating in a quavering voice: "Let the mouth open between me and it, let the water be its voice, and the spectre its face..."
Sami waited anxiously until he saw the light reflect in the broken mirror, then sharply pronounced "rat." And suddenly... his reflection appeared, but not in a corresponding position to him, rather standing behind the kitchen door.
Not his real kitchen door, but the kitchen door in the reflection, as if the reflection had been wandering somewhere inside the house. Strangely, the reflection stepped over the floor's chaos in the mirror as if it were real.
The scene was so natural that it made Sami look behind him, fearful that his reflection might actually be in his house. But he saw only emptiness. When he returned to the mirror, he found the reflection standing as if looking at him through a window.
"Where is my reflection?" Sami repeated, his voice nearly choking in his throat.
The reflection looked at itself in the mirror's emptiness, answering his question.
"Why do you have—" Sami tried to ask.
"I am your reflection." The reflection cut him off.
"How?"
"My job isn't—"
"How!" Sami screamed and slammed his hand hard on the table, making it shake, causing the rat to scream in fear inside its jar.
But the reflection replied in the same maddeningly monotonous tone: "My job isn't to explain magic."
Sami couldn't bear it this time. He grabbed the mirror and smashed it onto the table with force, shattering it into scattered shards.
He stood for a moment, breathing heavily, anger still boiling within him, then... looked at the scattered shards.
His mother's mirror.
The only mirror that...
"Oh no..." The anger evaporated, replaced by the realisation that he had destroyed his mother's only mirror. He bent down to touch the shards, but his fingers trembled and dared not touch them. Memories raced towards him: his mother cleaning this mirror every morning, styling her hair before it, laughing as she replied to his father through the mirror's reflection... and now he had destroyed it in a moment of rage.
Sami slumped onto the chair in complete collapse. "Brilliant, now I'm a mirror-breaker too," he whispered, as if trying to convince himself it wasn't that significant, but his hands, when he rose, trembled more than they should for someone mocking himself.
He began gathering the glass shards with trembling hands. He arranged the pieces on the wooden frame blindly, not stopping even when the sharp shards pierced his skin, leaving bloody lines on his fingers.
He could have used the desire ritual to repair it, as he had repaired his father's chair, but he knew that unlike his father, his mother wouldn't have accepted cold, practical solutions. And now she wasn't here to object or agree. Most importantly, he no longer had the energy or desire to use any ritual—not after losing his reflection without understanding why.
His hands suddenly stopped above the shards. The idea he had been trying to escape returned with force.
What if what he had lost wasn't just a reflection?
He didn't feel as if he'd lost a part of his body, but if that entity—whatever it was—could steal his reflection, what prevented it from stealing other immaterial things?
What if it had stolen his soul?
He leaned further back in the chair, his left hand touching the worn leather cover of the book.
What if the "understanding" ritual was like the "desire" ritual? The desire ritual demanded sacrifice of something desired but unperceived, but the understanding ritual hadn't required an obvious sacrifice.
Did all rituals demand a sacrifice?
He looked at the broken mirror, but even if he saw his reflection now, he was certain he wouldn't get an answer.
Did this mean he had lost his reflection forever?
And what if he wanted to use the ritual again without a reflection? Would the ritual take something else?
He shuddered at the thought. He didn't want to take the risk.
He looked at the rat still imprisoned in the jar, and anger renewed in his chest. Had he wasted a ritual that could have helped him understand anything... for a rat? "Fine, let's deal with you now."