The Mirrors That Stayed Covered

Chapter 1: No Mirrors Please

The first thing I noticed about the house was that there were no mirrors.

Not a single one.

It was a strange thing to notice when you were standing in a home filled with boxes, old furniture, and the dusty smell of a place that had been empty for too long. But after carrying my grandmother’s last box into the living room, I realized every wall, every hallway, and every bedroom had been carefully arranged to avoid one simple object.

A mirror.

I found it odd because my grandmother had always loved them.

When I was a child, I used to sit on the floor of her bedroom while she brushed her silver hair in front of a large oval mirror. She would tell me stories about her youth while adjusting her earrings and checking the wrinkles around her eyes.

“Mirrors remember things,” she used to say.

I always thought she meant memories.

I didn’t know she meant something else.

My name is Daniel Harper, and I moved into my grandmother’s house three weeks after her funeral. I was thirty-two years old, recently divorced, and completely exhausted from trying to rebuild a life that had fallen apart faster than I could understand.