Things in the Mirror by DJ Shaw Read Free Book Online Page A

Doesn’t everyone do that when they enter a bathroom? Almost like your eyes are drawn to the mirror hanging there? But what I saw gave me pause. In the upper right hand corner of the mirror was a purple blob, just kind of oozing out of the corner. I looked behind me to the area of the ceiling where the blob thing should have been reflected in the mirror, but didn’t see anything. I shrugged and did my business. As I was leaving, I glanced back into the mirror and saw that the blob remained.
    This went on for a few more weeks, the blob getting bigger each visit , always appearing only in the mirror. One afternoon I’d finally had it and decided I needed to let my mom know. I had a primal fear of the blob and the mirror by this time, afraid that it would finish its oozing out of the reflection and I really didn’t want to see what it manifested into. I called my mom into the bathroom, pointed to the blob and asked her what it was. She looked in the mirror then looked behind us at the wall. Seeing nothing outside of the mirror, the color drained from her face. She told me to finish up and rushed out of the bathroom. Seeing my mom scared of whatever this blob was only intensified my fear of it. I hurried, setting a record time a six or seven year old used the bathroom.
    On the way home, my mother tried to explain the rumors of the apartments being haunted. When I asked if she meant ghosts, she simply nodded and said, “Among other things.” That was the end of the discussion. I never did find out what the blob was and I refused to use that bathroom again. My mother was a firm believer in second sight. She always told me that it could be in the form of premonition or in the form of seeing things that most people couldn’t. She believed that I had the latter. She spent the next ten years teaching me how to function in everyday life while seeing what others couldn’t.
     
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    By the time I was nine, my fear of mirrors had truly set in. One of my friends came to school one day with a story her older brother had told her over the weekend; the urban myth of Bloody Mary. She admitted to me that she was terrified, yet curious about whether it was real or if it was something her brother had told her just to scare her into behaving for him. She convinced a couple of other girls and me to use the school bathroom at lunchtime to find out. I tried to talk them out of it, telling them that I didn’t think it was a good idea. I was teased and called a Scaredy Cat, but I didn’t care. I had a really bad feeling about what was going to happen.
    I buckled under the peer pressure and name -calling, and followed the girls into the bathroom. Nina waited until all of us had filed in before locking the door and turning off the lights. We all stood side by side in front of the line of mirrors, waiting for Nina to join us and start. She was the only one of us who knew what to do. There was no special ceremony, no trinkets. We just faced the row of mirrors and listened to her chant “Bloody Mary” over and over again. After five minutes, she stood in front of us and said, “You guys need to chant with me. Nothing is going to happen if I’m the only one calling her.” She sounded almost disappointed and a little disgusted with us. We nodded like little bobble heads and that seemed to pacify her enough to get back in line with us and begin the chanting again, with us joining her.
    Another ten minutes and I began to feel something. I looked at the girl on my left to see if she could feel it but she seemed un-phased. Looking to Nina and the girl on my right showed more of the same. I tried to shrug it off, but the feeling, the power for lack of a better word, just kept growing. When my attention returned to the mirror, I saw an extra reflection. Something, someone, was walking slowly to the mirror’s surface, her hand outstretched. She seemed to be reaching out for me. Her hand came through the mirror, scratching my right arm. At the