The Mirror Between Us

The old apartment on Rue Deschamps had many secrets. The floor creaked in strange rhythms at night, the walls whispered when the wind changed, and the mirror in the hallway refused to show your reflection if you stared at it too long. The landlady warned everyone never to look into it after midnight. Most tenants laughed and ignored her. But Clara was not like most tenants.

She moved into the apartment on the first night of autumn, carrying her camera, her notebooks, and a heart that had forgotten how to trust. She was a photographer who captured broken things, abandoned houses, shattered glass, wilted flowers. Maybe that was why the apartment chose her.

The mirror stood tall, framed in dark wood carved with unfamiliar symbols. It had been there long before the building was renovated. Clara did not mind it. She thought it added character. Until the night it looked back.

She had been editing photos past midnight when the power flickered. The air turned cold. She walked to the hallway, candle in hand, and saw it, her reflection smiling, even though she was not. Her heart stopped. She stepped closer. The reflection moved differently now, slower, deliberate, as if it were someone else entirely.

Who are you, she whispered.

The reflection tilted its head. Then, to her horror, it whispered back. You called me.

The candle flickered violently. I did not.

Yes, you did, the voice said softly. Every night you take pictures of lost things. I am one of them.

The mirror surface rippled like water. Clara’s fear turned into fascination. What do you want

Not what, it said. Who.

A figure began to form in the reflection, a man, tall, with eyes like midnight rain. He looked at her as though he had been waiting centuries. My name is Lucien, he said.

She stumbled backward. This is not real.

Neither is loneliness, he said. But you still feel it, do not you.

From that night on, Lucien appeared in the mirror whenever she passed by. He spoke little, but his presence filled the room like quiet thunder. She learned that he had once lived in the same apartment, a century ago. A painter, cursed by his own creation. The mirror had been his masterpiece, it captured souls instead of faces.

I made it to remember her, Lucien told her one night, his eyes distant. The woman I loved died before I could finish her portrait. I wanted a way to see her again. But the mirror took more than I intended. It took me.

Clara listened, feeling something stir inside her, empathy, curiosity, and something dangerously close to affection. Why do I see you

Because you look like her, he said. And because you listen.

Days passed. She began talking to the mirror every evening. Her friends noticed her distraction, her growing solitude. But how could she explain that her heart no longer belonged entirely to the world outside. Sometimes, when she stood close enough, she swore she could feel the warmth of his breath through the glass.

One night, during a storm, the power went out again. The mirror glowed faintly in the dark. Lucien appeared, but he looked different, more vivid, more real. His hand pressed against the surface. Clara, he said. The barrier is thin tonight.

She stepped closer. What does that mean

I can cross, he whispered. But only if you ask me to.

Her pulse quickened. And what happens then

I stay, he said, but you go.

The room trembled. She realized what he meant, for him to come into her world, she would have to enter his. The mirror would take her place.

Lucien, she said, trembling, if I go, will anyone remember me

He looked at her with infinite sadness. I will.

Tears burned her eyes. Then that is not enough.

He smiled softly. You have already given me more than I deserved, someone to talk to, someone to see me. That is more than eternity has offered me in a hundred years.

Lightning flashed, illuminating his face. He was beautiful in the way ghosts are beautiful, fleeting, untouchable. Do not forget me, she whispered.

I could not if I tried, he said. But you must promise me something. Live.

The mirror dimmed, his image fading. Wait, she cried. Please.

And then he was gone. Her reflection returned, pale, hollow, but hers again.

She fell to the floor and wept.

In the weeks that followed, she avoided the hallway. She tried to photograph life again, sunlight, faces, laughter. But every time she passed the mirror, she felt him watching, silent and kind. One morning, she found a single magnolia petal lying on the floor beneath the mirror. It had not been there before. She smiled through her tears. Maybe he still found ways to reach her.

Years later, when the building was renovated again, the workers removed the mirror. They said it was too heavy, too old. But one of them swore he saw something move inside it, the faint outline of a woman holding a camera, smiling beside a man with midnight eyes.

No one believed him, of course.

But sometimes, late at night, the new tenant says she hears a whisper when she walks by the wall where the mirror once hung.

A man’s voice, low and tender, I kept my promise.