Simon moves into a decaying tenement on Emerald Street and finds a strange red-framed mirror that seems to know his name.
The moment Simon crossed the threshold of the tenement on Emerald Street, a cold shiver moved through him, though the hallway was still and the windows were shut tight. He paused with one hand on his suitcase and let himself smile. For the first time in years, he had chosen something that felt uncertain. No more tidy weeks, no more predictable routines, no more life arranged in careful rows. This building, with its soot-dark brick and tired windows, felt like a beginning.
The stairwell smelled of dust, damp plaster, and old paper. Light from the street lamps slipped through the cracked panes and turned the landings into bands of amber and shadow. Somewhere behind a door, a neighbour shifted, a floorboard answered with a dry creak, and Simon climbed to flat thirteen with the uneasy sense that the house was listening.
His new rooms were narrow, dim, and stubbornly silent. The walls held the chill of years, the floor complained under every step, and in the bedroom stood the thing that had drawn his eye the second he entered: a mirror propped against the wall, as if it had been waiting for him. Its frame was carved from dark red wood, the patterns curling through it like vines or flames. The glass was too smooth, too cold, and when Simon touched the edge, a faint tremor ran through his fingers.
He spent the afternoon unpacking books, stacking boxes, and pretending not to glance toward the bedroom every few minutes. The mirror caught the lamp light in a way that made the room feel subtly wrong, as if the surface were deeper than glass should be. By midnight, with only a thin wash of moonlight cutting across the floorboards, he gave up and sat down in front of it.
At first he saw only his own face, pale and tired in the silver-dark reflection. Then the outline of his features softened. A red haze gathered behind him. He blinked, and the image snapped back. He laughed under his breath, though the sound came out strained.
"I’m overtired," he said to the empty room.
The whisper answered from right behind his shoulder.
Simon went still. The mirror gave a faint, shuddering pulse, and letters began to surface across the glass as though traced by an invisible fingertip:
If you want the truth, touch my heart.
His gaze dropped to the frame. Set into the wood, exactly where the message seemed to point, was a tiny carved heart. From somewhere in the corridor came footsteps, slow and measured, then stopped outside his door. Simon did not move. The silence that followed felt deliberate, waiting.
His hand rose before he could think better of it. The moment his fingers touched the carved heart, warmth spread through the wood, quick and living. The mirror darkened, and in its depths a figure took shape behind his reflection - a woman, or something almost like one - standing very still and looking straight at him as if she had been there all along.