If I'd known then what the price of success would be, well, I'd like to say that I never would have bought that mirror in the first place; never would have let it take them from me.
You doubt me, and rightfully so, because a part of me, and not a small part, says I still would have done it. Sure it cost me everything I had, but it’s giving me everything I ever wanted.
We were at the flea market, my wife, Andi, and I. We had the kids with us, Sarah, who was five, and Linny, four, and we were just enjoying the unusually cool summer day by looking at the random stuff people try and sell.
Some people go to a flea market and see yellowed books, rusted tools, warped records, and stolen electronics, but not me. I go to a flea market, and I see potential. There are awesome things at flea markets; you just need to look past all that other crap.
So we were walking around, telling the kids that we were not going to buy them the doll that played the off-key version of “Here Comes The Bride” or the yapping puppy while Andi was telling me that I couldn’t buy anything either, when I saw it.
It was at a space being run by an old man. He didn’t have much, just a single table with some ratty stuffed animals, old romance novels, and a pile of Li’l Bro Kids Meal toys. I would have passed him up completely if not for the item sitting next to his van.
It was as if it called to me, this floor length mirror in a wrought iron frame. I had never seen anything quite like it before. It was beautiful, and it certainly didn’t belong at a table with a bunch of junk.
“How much for the mirror?” I asked the old man.
“What?” he seemed surprised by the question, “The mirror?”
“Yeah, it’s for sale, isn’t it?”
“Oh, honey, no,” Andi said under her breath, “It’s ugly.”
She clearly was not seeing the same mirror I was.
“Oh yes,” the man, “You can have it for… fifty dollars!”
“I’ll give you thirty,” I said, planning to haggle my way up to forty dollars.
“Deal,” the man seemed overjoyed at the deal. I momentarily wondered if I had been out-haggled.
I inspected the mirror closely before handing over any money; it was in perfect condition: no rust, no scratches, no chips, no cracks. Even if the man had been expecting less money for it, I still felt like I had come out the winner.
When I handed over my cash, I took a better look at the man, and saw he was not old at all. Older than I was certainly, but not old; forties maybe. What made him look old was how thin he was, and tired looking; it looked as if he was in the process of starving to death. I wondered if maybe he had cancer or something.
It wasn’t cancer.
We got the mirror home, and, much to Andi’s protests, I placed it by the front door. I thought it looked really good there, but Andi still thought it was ugly.
It was as if someone had turned on a good-luck tap for me. Everything started going right for me. I got a raise at work, my paintings started selling, I started losing weight, and felt better than I had in years. The only bad thing was that I started feeling this little… something chewing at the back of my mind; a hunger that I couldn’t figure out how to sate. I didn’t worry too much about it.
One day a few months after I bought the mirror, that gnawing feeling went away suddenly. Maurice, a friend who ran the High Street Gallery had let me use some space for my new paintings, and it was the first night of the show, so I was there schmoozing with the artsy and the pretentious. I was talking to this stuffed shirt of a man who thought that having money gave him an eye for art when suddenly that feeling went away. I chalked it up to relief that my showing was a success.
It was around nine when I got the call from Andi; she was never a fan of art shows and liked to use the kids as an excuse to not have to go to them. She had called to tell me that she couldn’t find Sarah.
Even though the house had been locked up, we were sure that Sarah had gotten out somehow. I spent the night searching the neighborhood for her. You probably remember the news coverage, right? Sarah was the sort of child the media loves to cover, you know? Cute, white, fair-haired: exactly the sort of kid people go to vigils for.
It was two days later, during the height of the search for Sarah that I got the call from the gallery: One of my paintings was being purchased for the Saatchi Collection.
Things between Andi and I changed after that. I dove deep into my work while she dove deep into a bottle. The grief, or at least that’s what I thought it was, had inspired me to paint like never before. I felt downright compelled to work; so much so that I was using vacation time to stay home and paint.
Of course between my painting and Andi’s drinking, there was not much attention being paid to poor Linny. She had lost more than her sister. Between the two of us, we were making sure that her basic needs, food, bathing, so on, were being met, but beyond that neither of us was paying attention to her.
Linny was never a terribly needy child though, you know? She was one of those kids who sit quietly and play with their toys and can easily make you forget they’re even there. Usually, when I managed to pull myself away from the canvas, I would find her sitting in the front hall clutching Sarah’s pink stuffed bunny, looking into the mirror, and smiling.
“Watcha doing, Little Linny?” I asked her one time when I was going to make her some boxed mac and cheese for dinner.
“Playing with Sarah,” she said.
Even in my distracted state, that sent up a small red flag, “Where’s Sarah, honey?”
She didn’t say anything, she just pointed at her reflection. I looked at her, and at her reflection, and decided that she was just looking at herself; I mean, they were sisters, right? There was a resemblance between them.
Obviously her sister’s abduction, and that’s what it almost certainly had to be, her abduction had affected her more than I had realized. We would have to get her to a therapist, but we could do that later. I had painting to do.
It was about a month after that when the gnawing feeling started up again. I was suddenly finding it a little more difficult to paint, but staring at a blank canvas was still easier than facing Andi. Most of the time I spent with my wife was me throwing a blanket over her unconscious form, and taking away her empty wine bottles.
I know, I’m a complete bastard, right? I should have taken her to a doctor and Linny to a therapist, but when your muse is speaking to you, you have to follow it, You understand that, don’t you? And of course when your muse stops talking to you, you have to try and force her to start talking again.
You can probably guess what happened next, right? Yeah, the gnawing feeling went away, and when I went to make Linny some lunch, she was gone. I found Sarah’s stuffed rabbit sitting in front of the mirror, but no Linny.
Cue the second media flurry. How could such tragedy strike a family twice in one year? Of course the media blamed us this time. I was a rising star in the art world which mean I had some sort of motive to get rid of my kids because they got in the way of my stardom, or some such bullshit.
Andi was an easier target for the press. Suffering from both depression and alcoholism, the media would alternate between theorizing that she was covering for me, or that she was consumed with her own guilt for murdering our two little angels. If it was possible at that point to drive Andi any further into her cups, that did it.
Of course I ignored her; I ignored it all. The muse had returned, and my paintings were selling like Pokemon cards. Who wouldn’t want to get a piece of original art by someone who might eventually be convicted of murdering his own children? Not many people it would seem.
Maurice was selling my paintings almost as fast as I could produce them, so I was making enough money by this time that it didn’t matter that Andi and I had been fired from our jobs. We didn’t leave the house at all anymore: we were social pariahs, and everyone knew us on sight. I had groceries delivered to the house, and Maurice, or one of his employees, would come by to take new paintings to the gallery.
Even though we were locked up in the house together, we rarely talked. When we did talk it was usually limited to her calling me an asshole for not caring that our children were missing. This was not true: it’s not that I didn’t care, it was just that I couldn’t stop. There was art in me, and it had to come out.
It was late one night, and I was still painting when I heard Andi start screaming upstairs. It took some effort, but I managed to put down my brush and look for her. I found her in the entry hall, a half empty bottle of white zinfandel in one hand. She was motioning at the mirror with the bottle,
“Oh my God,” she screamed, “They’re in there! They’re in there!”
“Who’s in where?” I said, keeping back from her in case she tried to swing the bottle at me.
“Sarah! Linny! Oh God, Ryan, they’re in the mirror!”
I looked at the mirror, and all I saw was her tear-streaked face and bleary red eyes, and me standing behind her looking disturbingly calm.
“There’s no one in the mirror, Andi, it’s a mirror.”
“No, don’t you see them? They’re right there,” she motioned at the mirror with the bottle again.
I really wanted to get back to my painting, but I forced myself to stay, “I think we need to get you to the doctor. You’re sick.”
“I’m sick? You’re the one hiding in the basement crapping out that stuff you call art while my daughters are trapped in that goddamned mirror of yours,” she turned and yelled to the mirror, “Mommy’s going to get you out, girls!”
She pulled her arm back to throw the bottle. I stepped forward to grab her, but was too slow. She threw the bottle at the mirror glass, and I mentally braced myself for the shattering.
Instead of shards of glass raining down on the floor, what I got was nothing. The bottle was gone; had just disappeared in mid-flight. If I was having trouble trying to wrap my head around what happened, it was ten times worse for Andi in her permanently inebriated state.
Andi stood there, mouth open like she was trying to form words when the bottle reappeared, but reversing its course away from the mirror. It thudded dully against Andi’s head, and she dropped to the floor, the bottle rolling in a semicircle next to her, spilling the last of its contents on the floor.
I know what you’re thinking here, completely unbelievable, right? Well, that’s nothing. What happened next would have tested the sanity of the most level-headed man on Earth. The mirror came for her.
You know the bad guy in Terminator 2? How he looked when he melted? It looked just like that; like quicksilver flowing out of the mirror frame. It started at her feet, went up her legs to her waist, and then up to her armpits, wrapping around her like a tentacle from some crappy old horror flick. When it had a good enough grasp of her, it pulled her, and slid into the frame like it was an open window.
Then I was all alone in the house, just me and the mirror.
I guess that was when it clicked for me. My muse, the reason for my sudden changes of fortune, was the mirror. The mirror had given me everything I wanted, but it had taken everything I had in exchange.
I resisted it for a while; resisted it when that gnawing feeling inside me started up again. I started growing thinner, older; dark circles bloomed under my eyes. I started to look like the man from the flea market. You’d never know it to look at me now though, huh? I don’t look a day over thirty now.
I tried breaking the mirror, but it resisted all my efforts. I tried throwing it away only to find it back in the hallway later, or in the bedroom, or the basement. I realized why the old man had been so happy when I offered to buy it: someone has to want to take if from you.
Then I realized something else: why fight it? It had already taken Andi and the girls, and not using it wasn’t going to bring them back. That’s when I started feeding it.
The first was after I reported my wife missing; the cops came and tore this place apart, thinking for sure that I had murdered her; murdered them all. They didn’t find anything though, well, that one guy who thought he would try and beat a confession out of me did when the mirror came for him, but he’s hardly going to tell anyone, is he?
I may have to move soon though; this neighborhood has really gone downhill, what with all the disappearances. It’s just not safe here anymore, and I can afford better than this now. I’m gonna be so famous that Thomas Kinkade’s gonna look like some guy posting stuff on DeviantART.
Now if you’ll please stop struggling, those ropes aren’t going to break, my muse is hungry. I hope it doesn’t take the chair too this time though; I’m running out.