Tales from beyond the mirror

                           1.

“I saw something in the mirror that shouldn’t have been there. Now, I’m afraid it’s after me.”

It was the last thing Hans told Ursula. The last words she heard from him before his disappearance. She remembered it clearly, what she had ignored back then, because she did not know what to make of Hans’ rambling. She had thought it the beginning of a story, some idea Hans wanted to run by her before he set it on paper. Hans often did that, offering snatches of half-formed tales to Ursula. She had never known why since she did not have Hans’ imagination. But she had always appreciated these glimpses into his mind. It was the only time he allowed her to know him. The only time he allowed anyone to know him.

People always had a hard time believing Ursula and Hans were twins. They looked so different, like those spirits from legends of old that could not be in the same place at the same time without something catastrophic happening. The opposite of each other, that was how Ursula’s boyfriend had called them once. Ursula was bright and golden, joyful like she had been born on a day of sunlight and birdsong. Hans was dark and bent, covered in shadows, a creature claimed by the night. Sometimes, Ursula had a hard time herself believing he was her brother.

When Hans disappeared, he left nothing but an empty apartment in a dilapidated building. Ursula had no idea why he had been living there. He could have afforded a nicer place. She thought he must have had his reasons, though, because she remembered Hans having reasons for everything he did. Except for the snippets of stories that he would share with her. These seemed Hans’ only indulgence.

After the disappearance, Ursula walked through the apartment in search of something that would point her to Hans’ whereabouts. But Hans had left nothing behind – except the mirrors. He had broken all of them.

                                                           2

Hans wrote horror stories, the kind where you did not know what you were supposed to be scared about, but that left you unsettled and vulnerable to shadows you did not know existed. Ursula remembered Hans’ first story, published in some school magazine. About a dog that wasn’t a dog, and people disappearing, and a sense of loss that was more real and horrifying than one could imagine. Hans was good at portraying loss. Now Ursula thought that he had been anticipating what the people left behind would feel after he was gone. What she would feel.

Right after the disappearance, plenty of people said it was a scam, a way for an eccentric writer to boost the sales of his works. Even Ursula’s friends believed that – or pretended to, for Ursula’s sake. Ursula never found out which.

“He’ll be back before you know it,” they all said. “With some wild tale about being kidnapped by forest sprites or something. And we’ll all pretend to believe him, because he tells good stories, and we all need to believe in something. It keeps life interesting.”

And whenever they said it, Ursula had to pretend she was grateful for their encouragement, smile, and try to act like she was not completely lost. As if a part of her had not vanished and all that was left of it were some cryptic words and broken mirror shards in an empty apartment.

                                          3

Six months passed since Hans’ disappearance. By then, almost no one believed he would be back. Fewer people believed he had left of his own volition, either. Ursula had been through the usual channels: police, missing persons posters, tearful appeals on the evening news to whoever had any idea where Hans was to please come forward, the family needed closure. And all the while, Ursula felt she was playing a role she did not believe in. Deep down, she knew she would not find Hans that way. Because Hans’ disappearance was nothing normal. Hans’ disappearance was connected to the broken mirrors.

One evening, Ursula found herself gazing at her bathroom mirror. She was not looking at her reflection. She was trying to see beyond her reflection, to catch a glimpse of a hidden world with upside-down rules, to spot some shadow in the corner of the mirror, that would look Ursula in the eye and smirk, knowing it had caught her, and she would never escape now.

Ursula grabbed the bathroom counter and held tight. She did not know where that idea had come from. It could not have been hers. Suddenly, she could not escape the feeling that she was thinking Hans’ thoughts. That they had been planted inside her head with the snippets of stories he would offer to her throughout their lives, and now that he was gone they were all raising their heads one by one, like flowers ready to bloom.

                   4.

“Have I ever told you about the King of the Forest?”

“No, Hans, I don’t think you have.”

Ursula was fifteen. She and Hans were on some school camp somewhere in the mountains. It was dusk and the sun was about to set beyond vast forests. The sky grew red while the woods grew dark.

“The King of the Forest lives there,” Hans said, pointing to what lay in the distance. “He changes shape. No one knows what he really looks like. Sometimes he appears like an old man. Sometimes like a crying child, drawing the unwary to him.”

“Have you ever seen him?”

Ursula often played this game. She pretended that her brother’s stories were real. She had long realized Hans was more inclined to talk if Ursula acted as if he was not telling stories, but true experiences.

“I saw him as a knight dressed in black armor,” Hans said, his eyes never leaving the woods. “He had his sword in his hand, and he was beckoning to me. I think he was trying to tell me that, if I came with him, he would spare me from a much darker fate.”

Ursula would later ask herself if Hans had not known all along he was bound to disappear one day and leave only broken shards behind. Maybe he had been trying to prepare Ursula for that day, giving her the only weapons he had.

That night when Ursula was fifteen, she had seen it coming out of the woods. A black knight waving his sword. The King of the Forest looking for Hans – or for her? Maybe they were both heading for a much darker fate.

   5.

Ursula did not break her mirrors. She wondered briefly if she should not at least cover them up, to keep whatever was there from looking at her. Then she decided it would not work. Hans had tried eluding the things in the mirrors like that and it had not worked. He was gone. Ursula would not repeat his mistake.

She tried to remember the last time she had seen Hans. They had met in his favorite coffee shop. Ursula had never liked the place. It was too dark and too quiet, without any personality. Hans had once told her it was the only place where his thoughts left him in peace. Ursula had never understood what that meant, but she had never refused to meet him there whenever Hans offered.

“I don’t like mirrors very much, either,” Ursula confided in him then. “It feels like they show me too much. They know too much about me. Even the things I want to keep hidden.”

That was the last thing she had said to Hans. The only confidence she had given him. They had both left the coffee shop knowing a little more about each other. Maybe they also knew they would never see each other again.

Then Ursula began to notice the mirrors. Not just the ones in her house, but every other surface that showed her face. The windows of the shops she passed on her way to work. The clean, impersonal walls of the elevator. Even fresh puddles after a summer rain made her freeze. She was surrounded by mirrors, Ursula realized. Outnumbered by them. Unlike Hans, she discovered the truth quite quickly. There was no escape. If something from the mirrors was really after her, she could not be saved by running from it. She would have to face it head-on.

                      6.

Ursula had once heard twins described as mirror images of each other. Of course, that was supposed to be about identical twins, not about her and Hans. But the words were truer than people knew. Especially now that Hans was gone. Especially now that Ursula was sure she would glimpse him in the mirror if she looked carefully. If she waited long enough.

Two nights after visiting Hans’ empty apartment, Ursula lay in bed unable to sleep. She could not get the image out of her mind – the floor covered in broken shards, the mirrors all cracked and damaged. Her reflection staring back at her from those bits of glass, fragmented and broken just like them. Lost and alone in a world that showed her too much of herself.

In the darkness, she heard the scratching. At first, she thought something was at her window. Perhaps a bat was trying to get in. But the scratching went on, and, as she lay there, she could not deny it anymore – it was coming from her room. Something was there with her.

Or maybe not in the room exactly. The scratches were coming from her bedroom mirror. Something was inside it, demanding to be left out – or asking Ursula to walk in.

She lay in bed as the scratching continued, threatening and pleading with her. She wondered what would happen if she switched on her lamp. What would she see? Would there be something in the mirror, staring at her, beckoning to her like the King of the Forest had beckoned years ago? Or would there be nothing, just a mirror like any other, that did not harbor any secrets except for the ones you were hiding from yourself?

In the end, Ursula did not turn on the light because she was afraid she might see Hans. She did not want to see how the mirror had changed him.

         7.

Ursula went to the library the next day and searched for books on mirrors. The librarian looked her up and down, surprised. She supposed she did not look like the kind of person who checked out esoteric books, and it amused her that she had ended up doing this.

There were a lot of superstitions about mirrors. They held one’s soul. They were a portal to another world. They were unnatural in many ways, showing you things you did not want to see. Breaking them meant bad luck. Yet again, Ursula thought of the broken mirrors in Hans’ apartment. If Hans was missing, who would have his bad luck? Her, probably, since she had been closer to Hans than anyone else.

Her research yielded nothing of substance. Ursula had to admit she had never expected it to. What had happened to Hans, what was happening to her, was beyond rumors and superstitions. Those were other people’s legends. This was their myth. Ursula would not find answers to it in any books. She had to find the answers in herself. In the glimpses of stories Hans had gifted her.

8.

Years later, Ursula would think the end was rather anticlimactic. There certainly was nothing of the epic struggle she had been expecting. It was all quiet and hidden, like Hans’ own struggles and fears. Like Hans’ own life and disappearance.

It was late in the evening when Ursula noticed a crack in the bathroom mirror. She was certain it had not been there before. Understanding came to her, sudden and unforgiving. She should have figured it out long before, while she had been standing in that empty apartment. She had been too grief-stricken then to think clearly, but the answer had been in front of her eyes all along. Hans had not broken the mirrors. They had broken themselves.

The scene that Ursula had imagined all this time was false. She had pictured Hans smashing the mirrors, face twisted in a show of uncharacteristic panic. But no – the mirrors had smashed around him. What had Hans done then? Had he tried to run? Or had he stood there ready to face what would come out, knowing outrunning it was impossible?

Ursula did not even think of running. She did not think of waiting until the mirror cracked completely. Taking a deep breath, she raised a trembling hand and pressed a finger against the crack.

  9

Ursula did not feel the glass pricking her finger. She saw the spot of blood, but it was like it did not belong to her. Against her will, she remembered Sleeping Beauty pricking her finger and falling into an enchanted sleep. Hans had his own version of Sleeping Beauty where she did not wake up, but kept strolling along silver corridors, surrounded by the shadows of the world she left behind.

The mirror grew larger and closer. It reached out its glassy walls, threatening to swallow Ursula. She did not move. She allowed herself to be taken inside the mirror. Dimly, she wondered if Hans had ever gotten this far. Perhaps she was finally no longer treading in his footsteps. Perhaps, with this decision, she could avoid his fate.

The world changed around her, losing substance and gaining a glassy quality. Ursula twisted round. She could see her bathroom far away, but it was like looking at a picture from another world. She was behind the mirror.

It was strange, but the thought did not frighten her. It was as if she had been expecting this conclusion to her story. As if all her life had been leading to this moment.

The place did not feel real. It was all upside-down shadows, insubstantial and untouchable. Perhaps this was a good thing. It meant she was only a visitor, and she could return to her own world whenever she wanted. She would not disappear. She would not become a lost cause, like Hans. And, if the mirrors had anything to do with his disappearance, she would avenge her twin before she returned.

10.

One of Ursula’s favorite stories from Hans was about a young girl who went on a dangerous quest deep in a dark enchanted forest to defeat a dragon that guarded her beloved’s heart in a glass case. Ursula had always felt an unexplainable kinship with the character. She now wondered if it was not supposed to be her. She was not on a rescue mission – she doubted there was anything left of Hans to rescue. But she felt just as undeterred as the heroine of the story.

Ursula walked through silent corridors of glass, listening to the echoing whispers of a thousand shadows. They were aware of her, but they did not challenge her. They did not stop her, and Ursula wondered briefly if she should not take this as a bad sign. Maybe she was being led into a trap. As she advanced deeper and deeper into the mirror, she became more and more vulnerable. She was in foreign territory now, on her own with no one to help her. With no one aware of where she had gone. Any mistake from her would lead to her being trapped there for all eternity.

Was this why there were shadows beyond the mirrors? Was it the lost souls of others who had lost their way, and now they could never get home? If Ursula got stuck, would she become one of them, scratching at mirrors, luring others to the glassy realm? Was all the human race doomed to be swallowed by the mirrors?

The hours crawled by, different than outside the mirror. Ursula felt herself growing old. Time seemed to take her away on a journey of its own. Still, she walked on.

From time to time, Ursula caught glimpses of rooms and people, the world beyond the mirror going about its business, unaware they were not alone. She shivered and wondered if she could approach one of them. If she could beckon for them to join her, extend her hand and smile at them, a ghostly apparition.

The shadows were getting bolder. They surrounded her, stretching thin arms towards her. Some touched Ursula. Their touch felt like a thousand shards of glass breaking against her. It was pain and heartbreak, and Ursula found herself crying. She did not turn away. She did not beg them to stop. She did not ask to be sent back.

Ursula went on. Somewhere up ahead lay the center of the mirror world. The answer to her adventure. And she would not be driven back.

11.

Ursula broke into a run. She ran down slippery corridors, dodging shadows that reached out to stop her, threatening to swallow her whole and make her one of them. She closed her mind to them. Instead, she focused on every snippet Hans had given her, the stories about the King of the Forest and the enterprising heroine and the pursuers in the mirror. All of them she brought forth and now put together as a puzzle, the key that would help get her through this. Their time had come.

In that final trek towards her destination, Ursula felt herself becoming something else. She was Sleeping Beauty, trying to escape the dream world. She was the spirit on the edge of the forest, luring people to her, saving them from a fate far worse than they could imagine. She was the hero of a grand quest, searching the world for her prize. She was the dragon guarding the greatest secret that ever was. But, more than everything, she was Hans’ twin sister, part of him in ways she had never understood before. She had come to rescue Hans because that was the only way she could rescue herself.

She reached an empty room. Shadows were stalking it, all the prisoners of all the mirrors in the world. There was a slab of marble in the center. On it stood an enormous mirror. Nothing reflected in it. Ursula could not see her face. She could not see the shadows.

She could see Hans’ empty apartment, though. Shadows moved in there. The broken mirrors were building themselves back, shards slithering on the dusty floor. Ursula watched in horror, knowing that she had to put a stop to whatever was happening. If she did not, the shadows from the mirrors would break free. And the world would be doomed.

As Ursula drew closer to her destination, her hand outstretched, the shadows suddenly made their presence felt. They gathered around Ursula, making a wall between her and the mirror. They did not try to attack her, but Ursula knew that if she tried to get closer, they would be on her immediately. She hesitated, suddenly at a loss.

“I’ve come so far. Why do this to me now?”

She was not armed. There was no way to fight the army of shadows. But she remembered that the heroes in Hans’ stories were never armed. They ploughed on, not caring of the risks. Great daring when all the odds were against you was its own reward.

Ursula squared her shoulders. This could very likely kill her, and she did not want to die. She wanted to live in a world where mirrors posed no threats. She wanted to make that world happen. And such a wish was bound to require sacrifices.

She lifted her chin in a gesture of defiance. She wondered what Hans would think of her if he could see her. Would he be impressed by her bravery? Or was it something that he had anticipated all along?

Ursula took a step forward. Then another, and another. She was completely engulfed in shadows. She felt their touch, soft and sharp at the same time. Their pain became her pain. Tears flowed freely on her face, and she no longer knew if it was fear or pity for the lost souls of the mirrors. Still, she kept walking. Her hands outstretched to keep the shadows away as much as she could, Ursula advanced towards her goal.

For an instant, Ursula thought the shadows had her own face. They were her own reflections. The bits of her own soul she had left in various mirrors over the years. She had to free them.

Ursula was now standing in front of the giant mirror. The shadows had extended dark tendrils all around her, binding her to them. She wanted to raise her hand and break the mirror, but her arms were held tightly to her sides. Her feet were stuck to the ground. Ursula struggled to break free.

It was then that Ursula noticed the other shadow. It was standing apart from the others. So far, it had not tried to hinder Ursula. She felt something then, a kinship stronger than with the scattered bits of herself that were keeping her immobile. It was strange, but the sight of that lonely figure made her feel as if she was coming home.

The figure reached out. Its gestures were not threatening, though. It was an offer for help. Ursula hesitated briefly. Their hands met and clasped. The touch was cold, the touch of a dead thing. Ursula did not feel repulsed, though. Only immeasurably sad.

“Come on then,” she said, and she could feel herself smiling. “Let’s break the mirror together.”

The figure drew her away from the coiling shadows until Ursula stood in front of the mirror. There, her helper placed itself as a shield between her and her enemies. Ursula lifted her hand. She knew she would change her world by breaking the mirror. Once she did that, there would be no going back, no stopping the change that would be coming.

Closing her eyes, she struck. The mirror shattered. The shards cut her hand, but she could not feel them. She could only feel the shadows disintegrating, becoming once more part of herself. All her lost identities returning home.

12

Ursula had the cuts on her hand to remind her of her adventure. Otherwise, she would not have believed it had happened. The world was moving on, oblivious to her struggle. The mirrors were safe now. She heard no more noises from them. She did not glimpse anymore shadows. It should not have made her sad, but it did. She felt as if she had lost an important part of herself.

She had also lost the connection with all the stories Hans had given her over the years. Ursula could barely remember them now. She had to take out one of Hans’ books if she wanted to see what they sounded like. But those were the things Hans had written for the world. They were polished and changed, with nothing of that raw magic that he had kept for Ursula alone. And now they were fading. She did not need them anymore and they were leaving her. There were nights when Ursula would wake up with tears in her eyes and a crippling sense of loss.

Ursula never mentioned her adventures or that lonely figure inside the mirror. The one that had helped her. The one she had felt so close to, so connected, even though it was not one of the pieces of her lost soul. Even though it had not reunited with her, like the others. But Ursula knew who it was. She did not want to admit it out loud, but she knew.

Every night, Ursula would stand in front of the mirror. She would place her palm against the glass, gently, as if she were touching a child. She would look into the depths of the mirror, beyond her questing eyes, beyond her hopeful face. She would search for a dark silhouette hidden in the mirror, waiting for the day it would reach out towards her, as he had back then, when he had helped her when all hope was lost.

“Hans?” she would ask, every night without fail. “It’s Ursula. It’s safe to come out now.”

                                                                           The end

Copyright Simina Lungu 2025. First published in Mobius BLVD. No.3, January 2024