The rain over the Derbyshire moors had a way of making the ordinary feel ominous. It fell in steady, silver sheets, blurring the lone figure standing at the gate of “6 Alexandra View.”
Her aunt, Lydia, had vanished from this very porch. No note. No struggle. Just a dropped watering can and a single, patent leather shoe.
Eliza pushed the creaking gate open. The key was still under the third frog statue, just as her mother had described. The lock turned with a reluctant clunk . 6 alexandra view
When she looked back at the mirror, the girl was closer. She was mouthing words. Eliza leaned in, heart hammering. The girl’s lips formed a single, desperate sentence: “He didn’t leave. He went in.”
But it was the framed photograph above the fireplace that drew Eliza in: Lydia, beaming, her arm around a man with a kind face and a military posture. Her great-uncle, Arthur. The one who had died six months before Lydia vanished. The one whose bedroom—a locked room at the end of the upstairs hall—Eliza had never been allowed to enter. The rain over the Derbyshire moors had a
As the footsteps arrived at the door, the last thing Eliza saw was her reflection splitting in two: one version screaming, the other smiling, holding the door open for Arthur.
A child. Standing behind her. A small girl in a white nightgown, her face indistinct, holding a patent leather shoe. No struggle
The lock was rusted, but a firm shoulder broke the jamb. The room was empty. No furniture, no clothes, no mementos. Just a single, incongruous object: a large, antique mirror facing the far wall. Its silver was intact, and in the dim light, Eliza saw her own reflection—and something else.
A sound broke the silence—a heavy, dragging footstep from the attic above.
Eliza tried to run, but her feet were rooted. The girl in the mirror reached out a cold, small hand. And for the first time, Eliza recognized the child’s face. It was her own—from a photograph taken at age six. The year before she’d developed a sudden, inexplicable fear of mirrors.