by Natalie Nee
Intent on investigating the clatter that snatched me from the throes of sleep, I tiptoe down the hallway and past my mother’s still-shut door.
Best to let her rest.
The metal staircase twirls me around and around, releasing me into my grandmother’s living room painted the color of spoiled buttermilk. Half-melted candles still pepper the room from her wake. A dozen white roses on the coffee table are slumped over the vase’s edge, as if vying for escape. Illuminated by a single flame, its thorned shadow stretches across the entirety of the wall.
A fallen candelabra lays next to my grandmother’s treasured music box on the sideboard. Inside its open lid, a ballerina figurine is frozen mid-pirouette in front of a curtain of black silk.
Keep the mirror covered for seven days, Grandmother warned. She claimed it guarded against evil spirits, and souls becoming trapped.
After Grandmother’s death, Mom warned against superstition.
Yawning, I prop the candelabra upright and make my way past the music box, longing for my warm bed. But halfway to the stairs, I hear it.
A whisper.
“Hello?” I utter to the empty room.
My labored breathing and creaking floorboards are the only reply.
Frightened, I hurry to wake my grieving mother. I’m nearly to the upstairs landing when my grandmother’s favorite lullaby stops me in my tracks. Goosebumps ripple across my skin.
“Grandmother?” I ask, peering over the edge of metal railing, straining to listen over the rapid thump of blood in my ears.
The ballerina jumps to life. An answer in itself.
I descend the stairs and walk back to its source. My trembling fingers stretch past the tiny dancer, lifting the delicate gossamer from the mirror. Just before the candle extinguishes behind me, I catch the flash of an unfamiliar smile in the reflection.
Natalie Nee’s writing has appeared in Across the Margin (Best of ATM, 2023), Maudlin House, Cowboy Jamboree Press, BULL, Tiny Wren Lit, Plague Circus Press, Blood+Honey, The Hooghly Review, and elsewhere. She's cooler on Twitter (@novelnatalie).
