The Girl in the Mirror208Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKOFJcDrgbk
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Edison hadn't been himself for days. He laughed too quickly, stared too long, and sometimes seemed to forget where he was, mid-sentence.
Tuesday morning, Nora caught him staring into his locker.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
He didn't seem to hear her; he was staring into his locker mirror at a faded girl with dark hair and pale skin. Her mouth seemed to be saying words, but there wasn't any sound. Her eyes were wide, pleading, then she was gone.
Nora's heart thudded as she asked, "Edison?"
"I just thought I saw something." He shut the locker door.
"What did you see?"
"Nothing," his voice was sharp and defensive and he wouldn't meet her eyes as he adjusted his backpack.
"You're scaring me."
Then he softened for a moment. "I'm fine, Nora, I'm just tired. Really." He forced a smile. "Still coming over for geometry?"
He's not fine, he's lying. "Yeah, I'll be there."
"Good." He squeezed her shoulder and walked away, leaving her standing alone in the hallway.
Nora stared at his closed locker. The metal surface reflected the fluorescent lights, the passing students, the ordinary chaos of a school morning.
But for just a moment, she thought she saw the girl's face again, pressed against the inside of the metal, desperate.
Help him.
The rest of the day crawled by. In third period, Edison dozed off during the lecture. In fifth, he got a question wrong that he would normally ace. At lunch, he barely touched his food.
"You sure you're okay?" Nora asked, watching him push his sandwich around his tray.
"Stop asking me that." He rubbed his temples. "I'm just... off today."
Off didn't cover it. There was something wrong, something deeper than exhaustion. The warmth she'd felt around him before—the protective presence—felt fainter now, like it was fading.
"Maybe you should go home," she suggested.
"I'm fine." But his hands trembled as he picked up his water bottle.
When Anna walked past their table, she glanced at Edison with a small, satisfied smile. Nora's stomach twisted.
She knows something. She's doing this to him.
But how do you accuse someone of... what? Witchcraft? Possession? She'd sound insane.
After school, Nora sat in Edison's room, geometry textbook open between them, but neither of them was paying attention.
"You saw her, didn't you?" Nora said quietly. "In the locker."
Edison's jaw tightened. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Listen, I—"
"Drop it, Nora." He stood abruptly. "I need some air."
He left her sitting there, the unsolved equations mocking her from the page.
He's slipping away. And I don't know how to stop it.
That night, Nora's dreams were strange, laced with symbols she didn't understand. Salt lines drawn across thresholds. Candles flickering in the dark. Her grandmother's voice, low and urgent, speaking words in a language Nora had never learned.
And somewhere in between those shifting dream fragments, she saw the girl again.
She stood in a hallway that looked like Edison's school, but wrong—darker, colder, the walls bleeding into shadow. The girl wore old-fashioned clothes, a simple dress that might have been from another era. Her hair hung loose around her shoulders.
She looked at Nora with desperate recognition.
"You have to help him," the girl whispered, though her lips didn't move. The words echoed inside Nora's skull.
"Who are you?" Nora tried to ask, but her voice wouldn't work.
The girl reached out, her fingers cold as they brushed Nora's hand.
"My name is Gracie. I tried to stop her but I failed."
The dream shifted. Nora saw flashes—a courtroom, torches, screaming. A girl accused. A girl condemned. A girl who died knowing the truth but powerless to speak it.
"Don't let it happen again. Please."
The shadows surged forward, swallowing Gracie whole. Nora tried to reach for her, but the darkness pulled them apart, and then she woke up.
Nora sat up in bed, heart pounding, the sheets tangled around her legs. Her room was dark except for the glow of her alarm clock: 3:47 a.m.
The witching hour had passed, but something still lingered in the air—cold and watchful.
She grabbed her phone and typed out a text to Edison: Are you awake?
No response.
She stared at the ceiling, replaying the dream. The girl's face. Her desperation. The name that had been whispered like a prayer.
Gracie.
When Nora finally drifted back to sleep just before dawn, the name stayed with her, echoing in the space between waking and dreaming.
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