“If the mirror is so dangerous,” Tinsley wondered to Constance over cold lamb and rosemary mashed potato, mint jelly and tiny coffees, “why are you so intent on investigating it?”

  Lawrence ate without hesitation; and Daisy, though she had little appe-tite, found the food to be excellent. The snapdragon centerpiece bloomed tenta-tively, spreading its perfume to mingle with the coffee and mint jelly. How strange, Daisy reflected, that they should be so surrounded by comfort inside a Horror. A last meal, she thought, before we confront the Heart.

  “The supernatural has dogged my entire life,” Constance explained, and gave Tinsley various examples of the strangeness she had encountered. “I have always let external forces control my destiny, and what sort of legacy is that? So now it’s my turn to make my own adventure. I have chosen the target, the setting, and the story.”

  “Have you?” Lawrence asked.

  “As I said.”

  “No, listen, Leslie has a point,” Tinsley said, leaning into the subject of her expertise. She had freshened up for dinner and very much looked the part of a horror expert: deep purple dress with a swooping neckline peri-lously supported by an external corset; matching purple eyeshadow heavily applied and balanced by improb-ably long lashes. “Look at how tropey this whole setup is! A party of strangers in an isolated house—a horror histo-rian—an evil mirror.”

  Constance regarded her with polite lack of comprehension.

  “Tropes,” said Oswald, picking at his food without much interest, “are a function of fiction, not reality.”

  “Do you doubt the mirror’s powers?” Lawrence asked.

  She’s provoking them, Daisy thought. Trying to get them to expose them-selves. Draw its attention to them instead of to us. She blinked and rubbed her forehead. Was this fatigue natural? The brief had warned about psychic attacks . . . but no, she would have noticed. Besides, she had the silver net cap to protect her.

  “Why not just destroy the mirror?” Tinsley asked. “If it’s so evil.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, let’s stop blathering about it,” Oswald com-plained, throwing down his knife. “When are we going to see the mirror for ourselves?”

  “Now, if you like,” said Constance.

  Constance Jones did not remember ever having encountered the Lebensford Mirror before. Tinsley, eating lamb two stories beneath its resting place, did.

  Tinsley Proust, known as Cassandra to her followers, was on camera gregar-ious, voluptuous, and beguiling. Flowing black hair fell across pale shoulders powdered paler and accentuated with daring, retro-Gothic corset dresses. Light-ing made her beautiful and editing made her incisive and sponsors tended to approach her around Halloween. She reviewed horror movies and books, vlogged tours of abandoned asylums, and compiled Top 10 lists of The Most Haunted and The Creepiest and The Most Terrifying Facts You Wish You Hadn’t Learned.

  But the scariest story of all was the one she had never shared with her followers.

  She had been nine years old when redecorators had carried the Lebens-ford Mirror into her home and bolted it to the two-story living room wall with foot-long steel poles. She’d watched the process with fascination, and the mirror had watched her back.

  For the next two years, the Proust family lived an ideal life—or so it seemed to their neighbors. None of them got sick or injured; Mr. Proust’s business ventures met with cascading successes; Tinsley went to a new school and made countless friends; their houseplants bloomed riotously no matter how often Tins-ley’s mother forgot to water them.

  A perfect life, except that contentment of one variety can lead to discon-tent-ment of another; and Tinsley, without understanding it, noticed a change in her parents. Her mother began to talk about past desires and her career and being held back. She seemed to be accusing Tinsley’s father of something. She asked Tinsley how Tinsley would like living in a country without running water or electricity, and Tinsley’s father answered for Tins-ley that no, of course she wouldn’t, what kid would want that?

  “You’re being ridiculous, Brun,” her father went on. “You act like there’s something wrong with taking care of your own family.”

  They stood in the living room, beneath the mirror’s gaze, between the com-forting arms of the sofas, protected by drawn curtains. Tinsley, who had been playing innocently on the floor, cringed back from both her real parents and their reflected madness.

  “I’m not your slave!” her mother screamed at her father, fury doubled in the mirror’s face. “Not everything is about you!”

  “And what about your daughter?” he screamed back, grabbing Tinsley with hard hands and shaking her, as if Tinsley’s mother couldn’t see her. His fingers dug into Tinsley’s flesh. There would be bruises, later. Tears ran down Tins-ley’s face as she struggled, and she wondered that her father could hurt her. But her father hardly seemed to notice she was there, except as something to shake at her mother. “You ever think about her?!”

  “Daddy, stop!” Tinsley protested.

  “She’s your daughter too. You ever think about her?” her mother retorted. “You’ve made her cry! And you accuse me of being a bad parent?”

  “I didn’t do anything!” Tinsley’s father protested. He pushed Tinsley away in favor of seizing his wife’s shoulders and shaking her in turn, as if by doing so he could bring back the woman he’d married—or to hurt her as she’d hurt him.

  Tinsley covered her ears, but her eyes remained open, staring unwill-ingly into the mirror as the mirror watched and judged them all, and she couldn’t bear it, she couldn’t bear it.

  Her mother noticed Tinsley duck away and screamed the fact at Tins-ley’s father, but Tinsley was already gone, scurrying up the stairs. She hid in her room, in the back of her closet, curling up tight where she couldn’t see anything, where she wished she couldn’t hear anything.

  Some instinct—perhaps the same instinct that would years later warn her against accepting Constance’s invitation—kept her there for nearly twenty hours. Only then, hungry and exhausted and cramped, did she crawl out and run to a neighbor’s house for help.

  “Is the mirror in there?” Professor Oswald asked, crowding forward as Con-stance planted herself before the handsome door. “Are you going to let us in already?”

  “Whose bright idea was that one?” Tinsley exclaimed, crowding after him. “‘Girls should stay in their rooms’!”

  “What?” Daisy laughed.

  “Haven’t you noticed?” Tinsley stepped back to point at the inscription. It had been carved into the wall, above the door but beneath the ventilation window. “All the rooms have them, but they’re usually not that bad. Mine is, ‘A thing of beauty is a joy forever.’”

  “I hadn’t noticed,” Daisy said. “This was a servant room, right? I guess some of them might have had children. ‘Girls should stay in their rooms’! I’d think ‘Abandon hope, all ye who enter here’ would be more appropri-ate.”

  “It doesn’t mean anything,” Oswald said impatiently. “Open the door, madam.”

  “I’m glad to find you so confident,” Constance said dryly, but she obe-di-ently opened the door, flicking the light on so they could see.

  The room beyond was barren of decoration save for long white curtain sheers, but it certainly wasn’t empty. Cameras had been set up in three of the four corners, along with various pieces of sound and lighting equipment. And there was the mirror, of course. Its glass looked dark from the doorway, and Daisy half expected to see stars in its depths. Then Oswald brushed into the room, briefly obscuring her view. Constance followed immediately, to maintain her precedence, and they began talking together about the origin of the frame.

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  “Are the cameras recording?” Daisy asked.

  “I hope not,” said Tinsley; “the lights were off. It’d have been a waste of memory.”

  “When did you set them up?” Lawrence demanded sharply. “Before or after the mirror arrived?”

  “Before, of course,” said Tinsley. “I got here early.” She paced toward the nearest, then glanced back. “Are you two coming in or what?”

  Daisy opened her mouth to say Of course, then shook herself, looking to Lawrence. Was it such a great idea, exposing themselves fully before the Heart? But Lawrence was already entering, making a beeline for the camera most fully facing the mirror, presumably to examine its footage.

  Daisy was left to step before the mirror and look into it as it looked into her. Its face, she saw, was imperfect; a waver ran down the middle, and the edges of its glass had grown foggy with age. Not bad condition, for an antique. Impres-sive that there was none of the brownish speckling you often saw on these old mirrors. But peer though she might, she couldn’t see the Heart’s threads. We only on the first layer, she reminded herself. A clear view was more than she could have reasonably expected. When the mirror began to act, though—ah, she would have it then.

  In any case, further examination (and Constance’s recitation of the mirror’s history) would have to wait until morning. They had arrived late, eaten late, and seen the mirror at nearly midnight. Which was just the sort of needless drama Daisy would have expected from a repeat offender. Oswald was yawning already, and the first to announce that they should have started earlier, at a saner hour.

  “This isn’t late for me,” Tinsley said, “but I don’t mind continuing in the morning.”

  “You’ll have a good breakfast,” Constance promised.

  “Good night,” everyone said, as they reached the second-floor landing and went their separate ways. “Good night, good night.”

  Daisy and Lawrence returned to the nursery, locked the hall doors, and swiftly examined the room for traps. There was dust in the corner, a faintly musty smell in the wardrobe, and several dead spiders under one of the beds, but no indication of threads. Which didn’t mean they weren’t there; only that they were too deep to access.

  “Do people not air out beds anymore?” Daisy wondered, sure the mirror could hear everything they said. “Or is it just impossible to get good help these days?”

  “Go to sleep,” Lawrence said.

  “You’re not tired?”

  “I’ll read for a few hours before bed.”

  “And here I was thinking of waking up early to read,” Daisy said, and marveled at the ease of setting watches. She puttered through the bathroom, chose the least lumpy-looking bed, wrapped herself in the navy duvet, and was asleep ten minutes later.

  When she awoke, Lawrence was gone.

  Daisy was halfway across the beige rug before it occurred to her to wonder what had woken her. Not the door opening; Lawrence would have left silently. Not the toilet flushing. Something else. She stood dead still, straining her senses.

  Wind whining beyond the window, unable to pene-trate the tight frame, the firm glass. Unstable whoomphs thrum-ming through the house as part of its ancient heating system. The throaty gurgle and heavy swallows of plumbing. The settling creaks of walls and stairs but not the floor, which stayed firm in its seven clash-ing woods. Other noises, house noises, familiar noises, noises she had learned to stop hearing after so many years visiting houses like this, old and new—leave them be. It was human noises she hunted.

  Nothing. Nothing. Then a distant thump, and footsteps run-stumbling down the back stairs, down the hall. Coming this way. Slowing. Lawrence would not run like that. Nor Oswald. Constance would hurt herself if she tried. And, yes, that was the sound of a fist pounding on the nursery door and Tinsley’s voice, calling for her.

  If it was the real Tinsley. Rather than answering, Daisy padded into the bathroom. She pressed herself against the door to muffle the metal-on-metal scrape of the lock, and opened it.

  It looked like Tinsley, standing fifteen feet away down the hall—Tinsley in pink pajama shorts and a white t-shirt proclaiming, Ignore my proph-ecies, and I’ll ignore your face. The structure of her mind matched the real Tins-ley and no threads clung to her, so Daisy asked, “What’s the matter?”

  Tinsley heaved around with a cry of relief, staggered close, and collapsed on Daisy. She smelled of sweat and vanilla-clove body spray. Daisy caught her and patted her head, because it was harder to wring stories out of hysterics.

  Tinsley didn’t need encouragement. “It’s Leslie!” she gabbled. “Leslie’s gone mad! She’s talking to the mirror!”

  Daisy nearly dropped her.

  Gasping, Tinsley explained. “I just wanted to know where she was going in the middle of the night, and she attacked me!”

  So that was where Lawrence had gone.

  In the middle of the night.

  Leaving Daisy alone.

  This is Lawrence, Daisy reminded herself, to calm the adrenaline canter-ing through her chest. She couldn’t have succumbed to the Heart. We’re on a high level. She must have a reason.

  (And how well do you know her, anyway, trusting her to watch over you in your sleep?)

  I, Daisy told herself, am very angry right now. “Oh, dear,” she said to Tins-ley. “I hope she hasn’t had one of her little episodes. She wouldn’t have meant to attack you, see—she’s a sleepwalker. Most people don’t know what sleep-walking looks like in real life. People can have their eyes open and even talk—although their speech tends to be nonsensical. She’s going to be terribly embar-rassed later.”

  “She didn’t look asleep,” Tinsley said doubtfully.

  “I’d thought she’d gotten over it,” Daisy said. “It’s been years—but I’d bet-ter go help her.” She tried to pry Tinsley away, but Tinsley clung.

  “It’s not safe. She attacked me.”

  Daisy shook her head. “She’d never hurt me,” she said, and began toward the stairs. Tinsley came with her, since it was that or let go, and they walked side by side down the hall, around the corner, and up the rich red velvet of the back stairs.

  Both the door to the little hall and the door to the mirror room beyond hung fully open. The lights were off, but moonlight flooded the space. Even before she arrived at the doorway, Daisy could see the white sheers flutter-ing in the breeze, the white moon glinting in the cameras’ eyes, the white-and-black figure standing before the mirror, facing it silently. It reflected Lawrence in its ghostly glass, the two of them forming a picture before the flowing curtains.

  Lawrence really did look almost asleep, like this—or hypnotized. She didn’t react to Daisy and Tinsley approaching, although she must have heard Tinsley’s noisy breathing and whispers of, “You see?” and Daisy’s response of, “I see. You were right to get me, Tinsley”. Right indeed! What had Lawrence been thinking, doing something this incredibly dangerous? Alone? After having aban-doned Daisy her in her sleep?

  “Leslie,” Daisy called softly, from outside the room. “Leslie, what are you doing?”

  Tinsley clung to Daisy’s elbow. “She’s reverted,” she whispered. “Gone feral.”

  Daisy stepped into the room, shuffling Tinsley off. “Leslie!” she sang. “Can you hear me?”

  Lawrence was ignoring her. Lawrence often ignored her, but not inside scenarios, not without reason. Or maybe she’s not ignoring me, Daisy thought because she had no idea what to think and this wasn’t what Lawrence had prom-ised, and hadn’t they agreed to communi-cate? Gritting her teeth, Daisy grabbed her partner’s wrist.

  Lawrence twisted, arm coming up under Daisy’s. Air whipped past and then Daisy was slamming face-first into the floor and being held there. Since this was precisely the maneuver Daisy had expected, she turned her cheek to the side and threw out her free arm, distrib-uting the impact. Not a perfect landing, but she hadn’t broken her neck, which was the important part. She hadn’t even landed that hard. Lawrence must have held back.

  . . . But, watching from the doorway, that wasn’t what Tinsley saw. She saw siblings turn on each other, as her parents had turned on each other. She saw the evil of the mirror come to life once more, and she would not let it kill this woman, her new friend, not when she was there to stop it. Her brain went white as the moonlight as she screamed and ran at the mirror. She slammed her hands down on it and, when that wasn’t enough, kicked it with all her might again and again until the glass cracked and finally shat-tered. Then she could tear out the rest of the glass, throwing shards to the ground and jumping on them, breaking them further until she saw herself only in a broken jigsaw puzzle of glass.

  Tinsley stood panting on the mirror’s remains, laughing. She blinked at her surroundings and was briefly confused. Then she picked up a shard of glass.

  It fit perfectly in her hand.

  . . . But, watching from the bathroom next to the mirror room, that wasn’t what Oswald saw.

  As far as the rest of the world was concerned, Professor Terrance Oswald’s first and only personal connection to the Lebensford Mirror was secondhand information from a nearby event; he had never viewed the mirror himself before Constance’s invitation. He had admitted this in his book, in the chapter dedicated to the mirror.

  In fact, Terrance had met the mirror in his first year of college, at the house of a wealthy schoolmate. Terrance had shown up, clutch-ing a party flyer, when the party was already well underway. He didn’t know anyone there, but no one had stopped him at the door.

  The house was all white walls and distant arches, modern art and glossy nude sculptures on plinths—the wide-open architecture reflected back on itself by an enormous antique mirror. Hard rock thudded bass through his chest, and the thirty-foot ceiling could not adequately diffuse the stench of sweat and alcohol and other substances that Terrance’s arrogance protected him from sampling.

  Unembarrassed by any of it, Terrance took a drink and perched on the stair rail, to observe, preside over, and judge the events beneath him. Lurid—he tried out the word in his mind. Grotesque. First the ordinary mad-ness of drunken revelry; then anger and screaming; then students turning on one another, scratch-ing and tearing and biting. Terrance, on his perch, thought himself above and beyond it all until his host went for him with a bird’s-beak knife. Then, Terrance jumped out a window and ran.

  No one ever knew he had been there. Not the police, investi-gating the next morning; not his classmates; not his eventual wife. Only Terrance and the mirror.

  He pretended that he’d only learned of the events the next morning. He pretended he was as shocked as the rest. He wondered why the mirror hadn’t affected him. He wondered for a long time.

  Hiding in Constance’s mansion, in the third-floor bathroom, spying, Terrance Oswald saw one of the Bronson sisters brutally attack the other. He saw a hysterical Tinsley flee from the violence and heard crashes and screams below. He saw a sliver of silver in the mirror’s face as its horror began anew.

  It made him smile.

  . . . But, in her bedroom, that’s not what Constance Jones saw, because she saw nothing at all. She was in bed, sleeping the best she had in years.