19th Century Belief

Emmery never thought she’d see the day that she would wish to never see her beloved father again. When the cancer killed him, all she had wanted to see was his face, full of its trademark expressiveness, one last time. But now, four months later, she dreaded that very sight; begged the universe, and every deity, to never see it again.

It was always the same, he always looked heart-breakingly terrified and in so much pain. His banging fists; screams, pleads and yelling of her name, should have filled the house, but all Emmery could hear was complete silence. She’d watch, unblinking and unable to look away, as her father struggled, fought and broke mere feet away from her face. He needed her to help him, to save him. But she couldn’t, no-one could. She could never undo what had been done. She was powerless.

As the helplessness consumed her, Emmery’s nails dug into the wounds made every time her father appeared, her fists clenched until her knuckles turned white and her muscles ached.

As her father clawed at the crack in the mirror, the result of an attempt to save him, the only thing Emmery felt more than uselessness was her guilt. It was her fault. Her father’s soul was trapped and suffering because he had the misfortune of having sired a clumsy daughter.

They knew, the night he died, they knew his death was imminent. They’d taken the black silk and covered every mirror in preparation. They did everything they could to keep his soul safe. He deserved to go where he needed to. When it happened, Emmery was in the hallway, stopping the grandfather clock’s steady heartbeat. It felt wrong that it should continue even a second after her father’s heart had stopped. They were in mourning. Her mother had yelled for her to hurry, the time had come. In her panic, Emmery’s foot betrayed her, catching on thin air and sending her to the ground. As she pushed herself up from the floor, she felt something like material liquid under her fingers. Black silk. Looking upward, she saw her great-grandmother’s oil-on-canvas face reflected back at her. Emmery’s heart stopped.

A ‘no’, filled with distraught grief, shrieked down the hall. Emmery sprang to her feet, hastily throwing the silk onto the mirror. She yelped as the mirror became blistering hot and her hands, with the silk, fell from the surface. It was too late. She began to cry hysterically as the chestnut brown eyes, thrice broken nose and moustached lip of Edgar. E. Leons appeared in the place of his prudish grandmother’s painted features. Emmery’s tears turned to hyperventilating as it hit her what she had caused. She went to reach out to her father, but he was gone. Covering up the mirror, praying her grief had caused her to hallucinate, Emmery went to mourn with her family.

As the days, weeks and months passed, it had become more and more apparent that Edgar’s soul appeared only to Emmery. She believed it was due to her being responsible.

School work, chores and friends were all sacrificed for countless hours of reading, researching and trying out every suggested solution. All except one: breaking the mirror. Theoretically, Emmery would be breaking what was holding her father’s soul, therefore releasing it. She would also be sacrificing her fortune for her father’s. Seven years of bad luck for the slim chance of freeing him. Combatting the bad with an act of good. She would have tried it, her body fought to, but when she’d thrown a chair and cracked it, the image of her father disintegrated and the mirror became scorching. She couldn’t bear the thought of the book being wrong, of breaking the mirror and something worse happening.

Her father had stopped trying to extend the crack and had returned to beating his fists against the barrier. Before she could think, Emmery was at the mirror, her father’s petrified eyes boring into her. She couldn’t take it anymore. Her fists began banging against the mirror, in time with Edgar’s. Father and daughter’s hands seeming to connect through the reflective glass. Again, and again, they pounded, her hysterical and he terror-stricken. Suddenly, a crack ripped through the mirror and the otherwise empty house. Panicked, Emmery backed away. She looked at her father, checking her was still there, and she saw something in his face that stopped her breath: hope.

Emmery ran at the mirror, pounding her fists on the already weakened spots. Her father’s spirit did the same. Her hands bled, but Emmery didn’t stop until the mirror shattered completely. Breathless and bleeding, she fell to her knees, and, for the first time in four months, despite being haunted since his death, Emmery felt her father’s presence and a feeling of calm settled over her.

It was over. He was free.