The Reflection of Piper Chastidy, Sian Webster [good book recommendations txt] 📗

Prologue - Ghost Stories

The fire flickered in the corner of my vision, flying sparks appearing now and then in the reflection of my father’s eyes – carbon copies of my own. A little smirk was on his face, as if he was already aware that he was going to scare the crap out of us with the story he was about to tell. The wind whipped around wildly, rattling the tent behind my father. I pulled my jacket tighter around me, snuggling closer to my little sister, Ami, who gripped her teddy bear tightly to her chest. He started the story the same way he always would.

“A broken mirror brings seven years of bad luck. A mirror without a reflection brings a lifetime.” He began. I could hear the smile in his voice, through the noise of the crackling fire.

“Once, there was a boy,” he continued, “a teenager, of course – teenagers always seem to be the ones getting themselves in trouble. And, well, was he in for some trouble.

“It started when he was sixteen. On his sixteenth birthday, to be exact. He walked past a mirror, and his reflection didn’t follow. In fact, his reflection wasn’t there at all. He only noticed the lack of movement in the corner of his eye, so he wrote it off as his mind playing tricks. That was, until he went to brush his teeth after his breakfast. Standing directly in front of the bathroom mirror, there was no denying it; his reflection had gone missing.”

“But Dad,” Ami interrupted, which soon became such a tradition that she would say it every time the story was told, “reflections can’t go missing.”

“Ah,” Dad smirked, “but this boy’s reflection did.”

A perplexed look coloured Ami’s features, but she didn’t interrupt again.

“Now, the one thing you do not do, when your reflection has gone missing, is lean close to the mirror. Not—” Dad raised his voice, Ami and I jumping out of our skin as our mother’s laughter floated through the open door of the tent. “—under any circumstance. Do you understand?”

At the time, I never understood why he asked us this, but the two of us nodded anyway.

Dad raised his eyebrows at us. “Do either of you want to take a guess of what he did next?”

Despite both of us knowing the answer, neither of us replied with anything other than a brisk shake of the head.

“Okay then,” he sighed, “intrigued, the boy leant in close to the mirror, a quizzical look on his face. He observed the mirror, and his lack of reflection, for what felt like hours. Then, he gathered up the courage to reach out and touch it.

“As his finger came into contact with the mirror’s surface, it rippled – as if he were touching an upright puddle of water, rather than a solid piece of glass. This prickled his curiosity even more; a mirror that rippled? It was the stuff of fairy tales! Or, so he thought. But he soon came to discover that it was, in fact, the stuff of nightmares.

“After convincing himself there was nothing to be afraid of, he reached out towards the mirror once more. Except this time, he didn’t stop when his hand came in contact with the surface of the mirror. He kept reaching and reaching, until his hand came in contact with what felt like a… tap? A tap. On the other side of the mirror. A thought flickered through the back of his mind; what if something grabbed his hand? Frightened out of his wits, he snatched his hand back through the mirror.

“But curiosity got the best of him. He pushed the thought out of his mind and climbed onto the bathroom sink. Cautiously, he stuck his hand through the mirror once more. Then, he leaned forward, and the rest of his body followed suit. When he gathered up the courage to open his eyes and drop down to the floor, he could hardly process what he was seeing; a bathroom, identical to the one he had just crawled out of.

“In a state of shock, the boy decided that was it. He had had enough of this strange experience. He wanted to go home, whether he had a reflection or not. He span around to face the mirror once more, panicking as he heard footsteps coming closer and closer to the closed bathroom door. Still, there was no reflection staring back at him when he looked into the mirror. He reached out towards the mirror before him – so similar yet so alien at the same time – and let his finger fall onto the glass. Yet, that was all that met his skin. Glass. No ripples. No escape.”

At my shoulder, I felt Ami shudder. I looked down and met her eyes, caressing her arm in a silent reminder that it was only a story; that reflections can’t go missing.

“And that,” my father concluded, “is why you never lean close to a mirror if your reflection is missing.”

“But Dad,” Ami said, a smirk playing around her small lips, “reflections can’t go missing.”

The four of us at the campsite laughed, before putting out the fire and clambering into the tent for the night.

Looking back on it now, I wished Ami’s words were true.

1. The Missing Reflections

 

It started the same way Dad’s story always did.

On my sixteenth birthday, the sun was shining brightly through my closed blinds, making an array of patterns on the carpeted floor. On tired, unsteady legs, I dragged myself across the stuffy room to the window for a breath of fresh air. I pulled back the blinds, prepared to come face to face with a translucent window reflection as usual.

The reflection was not there.

I shook my head, trying to clear it. Don’t worry about it. I told myself. Window reflections depend on the light. Maybe you got up a little later than usual. I nodded. Yes. I must have woken up later. Rubbing my eyes, I pushed open the window, welcoming the wind onto my face. I sighed, my eyes scanning the street below me. It looked the same as always, but that morning, something felt off.

Across the street, the swing set at the park swung an invisible body back and forth, creaking eerily in the wind. The round-a-bout spun around despite being empty, the ghost of children’s laughter and squeals reaching my ears. The wind rustled the leaves on the trees at the edge of the forest behind the park equipment, and as my eyes travelled down the trunk of the tree, I jumped back in fright, twisting myself so my back was against the wall beside the window.

Someone was watching me from beside the tree, their eyes gleaming, a smirk playing around their lips.

In the shadows, I could just make out their features. But— no. It couldn’t be. That would be impossible.

I shook my head as if to clear my thoughts, loose strands of my auburn hair slipping out of their bun and falling around my face in delicate waves. I must have over-slept. I was seeing things.

Turning around, I stumbled into the bathroom. My heart was jumping in my chest as I walked past the mirror, but I forced myself to keep my eyes trained on the ground. I have a reflection. I told myself. I have a reflection. Keeping my back to the glass, I stripped down and had a hot shower in an attempt to relieve my muscles and my nerves. Only the former was successful.

I stepped out of the cubicle, wrapping a towel around my body, and took a deep breath before facing the mirror. The glass was fogged up, the reflection it held only a blur. Written in the fog was one single word in block letters;

Run.

I flinched backwards, my spine slamming painfully into the metal frame of the shower cubicle behind me. I took a few deep breaths, gathering my wits about me. Securing the towel tighter around me, I crept towards the basin, above which sat the mirror. In the blurred image, I couldn’t tell if my reflection was actually there. Hesitantly, I pushed up onto my toes, forcing myself as high as the word written in the fog. What lay between the lines of the word came as no surprise to me.

The mirror only reflected the back wall of the bathroom and the shower cubicle.

I gasped, but forced myself not to flinch away from the glass. As I ran my father’s story through my head, I realised I had to check. He always warned us not to. He always made us promise we understood. But that was when I believed his story to be a work of fiction.

I reached out and touched the glass.

It rippled beneath my finger, and felt as if it were a puddle of water rather than solid glass.

Dad’s story wasn’t just a story, was it? I asked myself, raising my eyebrows.

I took a step away from the mirror and forced myself to get dressed, go down for breakfast, and act like it was any normal day. Accept my birthday presents. Plaster a smile on my face. Pretend nothing ever happened concerning my reflection. When I bounded down the stair case with the fake smile on my lips, I found Dad sitting at the dining table, and Mum and Ami heading to the front door. The two of them turned around as they heard my footsteps.

“Happy birthday, Piper!” Ami called, her smile wide.

Mum smiled over at me as well. “We’re just nipping out to pick up your birthday cake, but we’ll be back soon.”

“That’s okay,” I told her, “take all the time you need.” I needed to talk to Dad.

They said their goodbyes and made their way out the door.

“Are you alright, Pipes?” Dad asked me as I shuffled over to the kitchen. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I-I’m fine.” I cursed my voice as it shook.

I couldn’t see it because my back was to him, but I could imagine him raising a single eyebrow at me. “Are you sure? You don’t sound—”

“I’m fine, Dad.” I insisted.

He held his hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay! I was just checking.”

I couldn’t stop a smile from spreading across my face. “I know,” I said, walking over and kissing him on the cheek, “thank you anyway.”

He smiled up at me. “Do you want to see your birthday present?” He asked quietly, as if he were afraid the walls of the empty house would hear his words. “You can’t tell your mother I showed you, though.”

My eyes lit up and I nodded. Dad stood up from his seat at the table and placed his hands over my eyes before leading me somewhere. When he uncovered them, we were in the living room. Sitting on a stand in front of the television was a brand new silver-burst Gibson Les Paul guitar. I felt my eyes widen as my jaw dropped.

“Dad!” I gasped. “Are you serious? Is this even real?”

He chuckled. “You can go over and touch it if you’re so concerned.”

Hesitantly, I made my way over to