A Year of Stories

Liar's Mirror

"I don't trust this thing..."

"It's not your job to trust it."

The mirror stands five feet tall, emblazoned in gold with a cartoon caricature of an Owl. The room it sits in is a parody of a fairy tale tower, stitched together from nightmares by one of the madder branches of the Grimm tree.

"I didn't do it..."

"I'm not the one you have to convince Marco..."

The gun Eliza holds is entirely for show, and she doesn't even make the pretense of locking the door after she leaves. Why bother? If I try to escape before playing out their insane little psychodrama, I'll be dead before I cross the threshold.

"Fine." I say to no one in particular, "How are we gonna to do this? Is there supposed to be someone in there? Someone I should be talking too?"

No voices. No flashing lights. No smoke or fog or dripping blood. No nothing. And before you ask, the only things reflected in the mirror's silky, glass surface are my own eyes.

Still, I can make believe with the best of them, so I press on, "Mirror, I've been brought here today to confess a crime, but what you have to understand is that I didn't do it."

What kind of trial was this? What kind of cult did I join? They told me I was going to learn magic. The only thing magical about this place, is how many people they've managed to dupe into playing along with their charade.

"OK. I don't know how this is supposed work, so I'm just going to start from the beginning and see where things end up. They think I killed a girl, a woman named Emelie Anderson. They think that because I was in the room when she did it."

The "it" was offing herself, a single bullet to the brain. I should have probably been more descriptive, but who really knows how much detail a magical mirror needs to cast judgement.

"It was suicide. God only knows why she called me in to watch, but I had nothing to do with it."

I observe my lips mouthing the words, the lines on my face and under my eyes twitching. This is the longest time I've spent looking at a mirror in years. It's surprising how rarely people really see themselves.

"I guess I know why she called. Emelie and I came to this place at the same time. We were both looking for answers. We were dumb, young and wanted power – the kind of power that would, I don't know, change us."

Into what, I still don't know. That's what cults are there to teach you, I guess. This one convinced us that there were shining, magical objects scattered across the world, Relics, and that it was our sacred duty to bring them back into the fold.

"She was depressed for a while before it happened. I tried to help her, but there is only so much you can do – you know? I didn't want this to happen. I would never wish this on anyone. You should have seen her face. It's all I can see when I close my eyes."

Emelie always had less of the cynic in her than me. She read the books they told us to read. She practiced the rituals the taught us to perform. I just wanted to see something to prove that any of it was real.

The leaders though, the ones with access to these so called Relics, they weren't having any of it – they said that I wasn't prepared – said that I should just keep studying. It was like buying front row tickets to a concert, only to have the bassist tell you that you weren't ready to hear the music.

"Well, I was ready..."

I mean...Did I say that?

"All we wanted was to see a Relic, to touch one, to know that there was something more to this world for us. Emelie did everything they told her too, but still, they wouldn't give up their secrets. If anyone is responsible for her death, it's them, they drove her to it."

And they did, they drove us to that crazy idea. We knew that if the Relics existed at all, they were hidden so deep in this place, that we would never find them before they found us and kicked us back out onto the streets. There was one Relic, though, one that everyone knew how to get access to.

"One of us had to make the choice. I wanted it to be me. I begged her to let it be me, but she knew that I was too much of a coward to do it, and that she was too much of a coward to accept the consequences. So now she's dead, and I'm here..."

The Mirror. The Relic they use to pass judgement. Emelie did what she did so that I could see it for myself. Now, I realize what I waste that was.

"Maybe I could have stopped her, but if I did, I wouldn't be here – confessing my sins to my reflection."

Confessing my sins to my reflection...

Confessing my sins...

Con...fessing?

The door opens and Eliza steps back inside. She isn't carrying her gun, she doesn't need it, I've already told them everything they wanted to hear.

I turn towards her, but my reflection doesn't turn with me. Instead, it smiles a hollow smile, and fades into the Mirror's silky, glass nothingness.