Wait, what?
Maz blinks as fast as she can, as hard as she can, to force a reflection to admit its mistake.
The fluorescent buzz goes quiet as the light dips. It returns louder and stays.
In her next blink, her reflection seems to be what the mirror promised it should have been in the first place.
Her thumb shakes over the phone screen.
Maybe you shouldn’t read on. Just pocket the phone. Yep. Splash some water. Mascara be damned. Just leave before you can freak out.
She scrolls down to the comments section instead.
***
Comments:
“At the seventh, speak your truth together, or the door forgets you. You want that seam lit, or do you still choose the dark?”
– Weaver
“Not all truths are for unknotting. Seven steps, one mistake, and the road ends where it began. It’ll be hard to tell if you’re walking out or back in.”
– Elysinth
***
She frowns and moves the phone a notch further away, as if she suspects her sight to be at fault, before reading it again.
What is all this? Was that one from Elysinth always there, or is this the third time it’s changed? Are you still awake?
Her finger taps the ‘Reload’ icon.
The page refreshes. When it comes back, both Weaver’s and Elysinth’s comments wiggle throughout. The letters swap places and reshape themselves. The ascender of an ‘h’ breaks out resembling an ‘n’, the descender of a ‘g’ gives way to its best impression of a ‘u’.
They begin to reassemble, forming different words. The leftover letters, some as broken bits and some as whole, drop to the bottom of the screen, all piling on top of each other in a nonsensical heap.
The comments become something else.
***
Comments:
“To light the door’s true seam in the dark, one will choose for you to forget the seventh.”
– Weaver
“If you can’t find the truth, don’t wake Weaver. She’s still holding on to our threads.”
– Elysinth
***
She scrolls up and down, whizzing past the words and returning, though sheer belief in speed fails to shuffle the letters back into place. Her eyes catch on the last line of her story where her own words fracture, too.
‘…Stay—He–did——Stay—He…did—’
“No.” She taps the screen repeatedly.
“That… That’s not what was there.” Her voice comes out so dry that it cracks at the end, making it sound like a question.
She reads each comment again, aloud this time, as if she could snatch one as it moved and catch the trick.
You saw it. You did. You didn’t make them do that. There’s no way you did that.
Her thumb jabs the screen, without any concern for gentleness, selecting ‘Reply’, without checking which box it lies under, and starts typing without thinking. All her freshly typed letters detach and shift on the screen as she writes, leaning out of their container until they drop onto the gibberish pile at the bottom.
She smacks the phone face down on the sink. Leaving her hand on top of it, she looks up into the mirror.
“What the…” Her reflection lags, a frame behind, lips moving after the fact.
Are you sure you’re not dreaming? Is this what Ari meant? Is this withdrawal? Or something worse?
For a moment, she sees Eli in the glass, or his figure, shadowed so that it seems nothing more than a silhouette, standing behind her. Her fingers spread out and curl around the edges of the phone.
Say his name. Or check the door. Or blink. Any of those would be normal.
The door creaks behind her.
Eli stops at the doorway with his foot raised to take another step. His gaze tries to find hers in the mirror as his reflection moves a second ahead before it snaps back to catch up with his shadowy image.
His face appears both as itself and as a much older version at the same time; the frame seems overly pronounced, and eyes hold more light than they should, as if the fluorescents managed to crank up the contrast on him.
“You’re seeing – tell me you’re seeing that.” Maz stares at the reflections.
He watches his mirrored self stagger to stay on course with his slight recoil before it corrects itself.
That’s not how it normally works, is it?
“Yeah.” He looks at the corners of the glass where it meets the tile.
“How’s that even…?”
Unless the surface is warped, but then the image would distort, not… trail. Let’s say the light’s off, so a delay in… No. Mine’s earlier, hers is later. I did see it. It happened. I’ll figure out why later.
Maz’s phone lights up when her tightening grip unlocks the screen. She lifts it, shaky, pointing it at the mirror so Eli can see its reflection in the glass.
“Did you…?” Her nail clicks beside Elysinth’s comment before she flips the phone towards him.
He steps in close enough to read the words, brow furrowing deep.
“Elysinth again?”
How am I so sure I even know how to pronounce that name?
His eyes rise no further than the mirror’s bottom edge.
The words feel like they could be mine, but they’re not. I’m not sure how that’s possible. How can I make sense of this?
“I… don’t think so? I was there. I think. Right?” A laugh escapes, breaking off quickly.
“I’d remember writing that. But… I recognise that line. Somehow.”
He looks at her reflection.
“Who’s Weaver?”
Maz’s shoulders give a slight lift for the stiffest of shrugs.
“Someone who shouldn’t have even heard our word. It feels like we’ve met them. Just…”
Don’t you dare say it, don’t you make it real. Let it go.
“Not in here.”
The lights overhead buzz louder and surrender the room to darkness. They return in stuttering stages with their usual grumble.
Eli keeps his eyes on the mirror as if it might reveal an answer at any moment.
Okay. What am I exactly looking for here? Proof this is real? Proof it’s not? Confirmation that I’m supposed to understand what’s happening and somehow forgot the rules?
Maz taps the screen, nowhere in particular, and Elysinth’s comment disappears from the thread.
“How? I… I didn’t mean to…” She tilts the phone his way.
What did you do? It’s gone. Was it ever there?
She shakes her head, the move still slower in the mirror.
If you turn away, maybe it fixes itself. If you don’t, maybe you disappear too, and he stays, or…
He moves to her side and stands shoulder to shoulder with her. Static prickles between them, lifting the hairs along the backs of their necks.
It forces Eli to inhale a stuttering and stalling breath.
There it is again. That… tightness? No, pull… in my chest. Happened before when we… I stay close to her, and it evens out somehow.
He leans his shoulder against hers until his breathing finds a patchy balance.
Maz’s pulse jumps with a thump behind her mouth, as if her heart were asking for permission to be out. Her vision becomes clearer as she watches their reflections wobble, seeming layered, one carrying a sharp outline, another worn smooth, both misaligned.
“Eli.” Her whisper sounds calm, but her hands, gripping the phone and the sink, tremble.
“What’s happening to us?”
“If I say I remember this, am I lying?”
Her effort at a smile wilts as her reflected face distorts for a second.
“If you are, then… we’re worse off than we thought.”
“I keep thinking there’s a step we must have missed somewhere. Like we were halfway through… something? And… I don’t know. Forgot the cue?”
“What, a ritual you only get to remember in fragments? Nice.” She looks into the sink.
Just take the scale and forget the question. Maybe the mirror will forget this too.
He reaches for her but stops before turning the touch into reality.
I can tell her it’s all right. Is it, though? This is obviously why we need the scales.
She watches the reflection of his hand as it closes the distance and holds her mirrored shoulder.
What? Stop looking. You’re fine. You’re here.
Eli sighs with a groan and wraps his arm around her, drawing her shoulders together, and pulls her closer. The outlines of their reflected selves start to blur, rippling as the couple in the glass leaves a sliver of space between them.
Maz lets go of the sink as she leans against him.
Just be here. Wait… Has he always been this warm?
His other hand picks and pinches at the stitching on his pocket.
Let’s say the world’s always been this broken. I still would’ve remembered something like this. Right. How can this not feel entirely wrong?
He murmurs to the reflection.
“We… We’ve been here… some time ago.” His eyes never leave the mirror.
Not here. Here.
Maz listens to his breaths that begin to settle into a pattern before a grating exhale leaves her.
“We lost more than a few moments, didn’t we?”
Eli huffs a laugh.
“I guess… we’ll find out.”
Not even sure which side of the mirror I’m talking to.
Outside, the staff room door bangs shut.
The lights go out once more. When they sputter back on, Maz and Eli find their reflected selves staring back at them. The glass forgets their doubly layered and improperly presented images. It behaves as a perfectly ordinary mirror again, adorned with all its smudges and the reflection of two people pretending to be fine.
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