Author: G. Gleason, Word Count: 666
Featured in Spooky Archaeological Story Moot: Live Stream – Halloween 2023
Father brought it home, I remember, during the Stink, when the Thames itself rotted in high
summer, fueled by whatever corruption London’s humanity might generate. It hung there in the hall. It
watched Mother waste and die. We covered its face. We covered it again when Geoff–young Geoff–
grave up the ghost to consumption. When the great Man of Empire himself quaffed his last brandy, we
mourned again, and so covered it. His carved, tanned face looked so serious, even in death. Albert
went–he was eldest. Hannah was trampled by a coach. We covered it. Then, I was the man and there
were only the twins to see after, with cracking boy-voices. I was the man, but I was not much of one.
Dice, cards, and horses earned more than enough red numbers to outpace my income.
It was when I had to let go Sally Murphy that I found myself standing in the hall, before the
bronze mirror. Sally had never let it get dirty, or some force of Hell had let it to glimmer almost golden.
Whatever the reason, every line on my worried frame was meticulously scribed in metal, the pits of my
cheeks lovingly shaded. The cast frame seemed to have on it some mode of Chinese ideograms. Father
had said he’d asked a visiting mandarin who was there to see about some aspect of our troubles with his
country whether he knew the nature of the letters, but the official had admitted ignorance. It would only
later be supposed that the writing was particular of Khitai, but to this day I cannot read it. In any case, I
thought it ought to fetch a good sum at Christie’s.
Their appraisal man was to leave in a fury, as I had called on him and sent him away without
securing any offer, but I found myself staring at the coppery plane without a will to look away. It
seemed some glow had come to my sunken features and that I was perhaps returned to handsomeness.
Not long after a good sum of money had come in from my solicitor. One of Father’s long
investments had unexpectedly matured. When I saw myself again in the bronze I was most surely
fuller! I resolved then to be a good son and brother, putting money where it ought to go rather than
where I might wish it, so I set myself to business as best I knew how.
I was away on such matters when Sam had his bad fall. By the time I got in by hansom, Chas
was in full grief. Our brother had gone.
The mirror saw my secret tears and somehow made them glitter. I myself beheld them and
was filled with a blasphemous mirth that one in mourning does not feel when he is of the human
character. I laughed then, laughed long. Harold, clad in black as he ought to be for his twin, heard me
and looked ill. “It’s the damned mirror!” I protested with elation. Harold watched with disgust as my
trembling hand could not drape the purple cloth over the Khitan letters.
Sam must have hated me then, but I sent him away. It was no great thing, as he was nearing
his time for university, and I had only to dangle the weight of our family name to get him in. He would
not have to trouble himself with the mirror as I have done. I kept myself close to it, for closeness brings
prosperity and neglect brings tragedy.
Such a lesson has been carved through our line with indelible force. I’m writing this letter,
newly married, and placing it in the little cedar box with the cleaning cloth I use. The servant need not
trouble her own hand to clean this metal-work, nor Lutetia. They smile at this eccentricity. “Oh, Rob,”
they say, “You do have such a nervous habit with that Chinese mirror of yours.”
“I suppose I do.” I say.
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