Eisoptrophobia
"Our own home!" Laura Priestly exclaimed, gazing up at the three-hundred-year-old Federal style home with pride.
She and Cliff, her husband of seven years, had driven straight to their new house after the closing. The key to the front door was clutched in her hand and had been since the realtor gave it to her once the paperwork was completed and the cashier's check handed over.
"I suppose I'll have to carry you over the threshold now, even though I remember doing that once before," Cliff teased.
"That didn't count since we rented the apartment and didn't own it. This is our official threshold, so pick me up."
After unlocking the front door, Cliff literally swept his wife off her feet, carried her inside and deposited her in the foyer.
"How was that?" he asked, his voice echoing through the empty house.
"It'll do."
"It'll have to. Don't get used to this because I don't intend to carry you over the threshold of our next house."
"There isn't going to be a next house," she firmly insisted. "This is our home. I intend to grow old and eventually die here."
"Ours and the bank's," Cliff reminded her.
"I wonder when the movers our going to get here with our stuff."
"I don't know, but I dread unpacking all those boxes. And we still need to finish furnishing this place."
"What a killjoy you are," Laura laughingly said. "I didn't realize before we got married that you were going to see the glass half-empty."
"Speaking of glasses being half-empty," he said, giving her an affectionate kiss on the top of her head. "Let's go out and celebrate being homeowners. We can go to that restaurant we saw when we were house-hunting. What was it called? Yankee Doodle or something like that."
"You mean the Sons of Liberty Tavern?"
"That's it. What d'ya say? Wanna go?"
"I'd love to, but first I'd like to stop at that antique store on Gloucester Street. As you just said, we need to furnish this place."
"Hoisted by my own petard," Cliff groaned and checked his wallet to see how much cash he was carrying.
* * *
"Thank goodness our new bedroom set will be delivered tomorrow," Laura declared as she tried to make herself comfortable on the air mattress her husband had inflated and placed on the floor in the master bedroom.
Cliff, who had celebrated a little too much at the Sons of Liberty Tavern, was anxious to go to sleep and only grunted in response.
Laura, however, was wide awake; the excitement of spending her first night in her own home prevented her from sleeping. While going over decorating ideas and paint schemes in her mind, she suddenly remembered Jacqueline Astor, the real estate agent, mentioning that there were a few pieces of old furniture in the attic left by some long-gone inhabitant of the house, probably before it was restored sometime in the mid-Nineties.
There might be something I could use up there, she thought.
The following morning, after she and Cliff returned from town where they had gone to The Quill and Dagger for lattes and Danish at the bookstore's coffee bar, Laura urged her husband to go up to the attic and see what he could find.
"Why don't you come with me?" Cliff asked.
"You know I don't like attics."
"Oh, no? Are you afraid of what might be up there?"
He wriggled his fingers, trying to imitate spiders crawling across a floor.
"Knock it off," his wife laughed and lightly punched him in the upper arm. "Just see what's up there, and if you find anything, make sure you clean it off before you bring it down."
There were a number of pieces of furniture, most of which Laura and Cliff would donate to Good Will. There were also a few items that they decided to keep: a mahogany tilt-top table, a Queen Anne candle stand, a quilt rack, a three-legged stool and a full-length cheval mirror, which they placed in a corner of the master bedroom.
"I'll bet you could get a nice penny for this mirror at auction," Cliff said, estimating the age and value of the piece.
Laura would not consider selling it.
"That mirror was probably here in the days when Massachusetts was fighting the British for its independence, and you want to sell it on eBay! I won't hear of it!"
The truth was that Cliff loved the old house and its period furnishings as much as his wife did. His remarks were only harmless jokes aimed at keeping the fun in their marriage. He did not want the two of them to end up like so many couples, living lives of quiet desperation, to quote Thoreau. So far, his philosophy was working; he and Laura could not be happier.
* * *
A week later the furniture was all in place, and the last of the boxes was emptied.
"What a job!" Laura exclaimed after she stored her grandmother's cut-glass punch bowl on the top shelf of her linen closet where it would hopefully be out of harm's way. "Now for sure we'll never leave this house. I don't want to go through all that packing and unpacking again."
"Vacation is over," Cliff announced. "Tomorrow we both go back to work."
"Some vacation," she groaned. "I don't work that hard at my job."
Laura was a professor of Medieval Studies at a college in Boston, and Cliff was in charge of media relations at Fenway Park. With the move from the city to Puritan Falls, the two of them faced the daunting challenge of commuting.
"On our next vacation we're going to go someplace where there's sun and sand," Cliff promised her. "Maybe a nice, relaxing cruise. But we still have tonight, so why don't we go out to dinner? We can try that Green Man Pub that the woman at the bookstore recommended."
"If you give me an hour to take a bath and wash my hair."
"Sure. I could use a shower myself."
Forty minutes later, Laura stepped out of the master bathroom, wearing a simple halter sundress. She towel dried her hair and then stood before the full-length mirror to put on her makeup. As she was brushing mascara on her eyelashes, a chilling sensation came over her. There was something different about her reflection, a look in her eyes she had never seen before. She blinked, and the odd sensation passed.
"I think I need a good night's sleep," she said, vowing to make it an early night.
Then she finished putting on her makeup, got dressed and met Cliff outside by the car.
* * *
Over the next two weeks, Laura had similar feelings of discomfort when she looked into the antique cheval mirror. Each time her reflection seemed slightly off: the nose did not seem as long, the teeth seemed a bit straighter, the eyebrows more arched, the breasts a little fuller.
Maybe the problem is with my eyes, she thought. Or perhaps the mirror, because of its age, is warped. It might be like looking at a fun house mirror, only to a lesser extent.
One morning as she and her husband were getting ready to go to work, she noticed Cliff straightening his tie in the mirror.
"Do you notice anything odd about the reflection?" she asked.
"Odd? What a terrible thing to say to your husband," Cliff said with a laugh.
"I'm talking about the mirror, not you. When I look into it, my reflection seems different, off-kilter somehow."
Cliff took a closer look into the glass and stepped back in mock surprise.
"My God, you're right. That doesn't look like me at all. It's the spitting image of Brad Pitt."
"You wish. But, seriously, you didn't notice anything strange?"
"No. When I look into the mirror I see the same gorgeous, sexy face I always have."
Laura, who was not really in the mood for her husband's jokes that morning, dropped the subject but made a mental note to use the mirror above the bathroom vanity in the future.
* * *
Laura and Cliff Priestly enjoyed living in Puritan Falls. They loved the house and quickly made friends with their neighbors. (No doubt the fact that Cliff could get discount tickets to Red Sox home games made him one of the most popular people on the block.) Not even the traffic during their commute gave them cause for regret.
The only cloud to darken Laura's happiness was the apprehension she still felt whenever she caught a glimpse of herself in the antique mirror. She knew she was being silly, that it was nothing more than a piece of glass tinted with a tin-mercury amalgam. Yet she tried to avoid looking into it, not wanting to see a face and figure slightly askew. Perversely, the more she tried to avoid her reflection, the more her eyes were drawn to it.
On the night of their eighth wedding anniversary, Cliff surprised his wife with tickets to see the Boston Pops. It was a perfect evening, one of music, fine food and romance. The romantic mood continued after the couple returned to Puritan Falls. Cliff opened a bottle of champagne while Laura put on her most provocative negligee. When she stepped out of the bathroom, her husband was sitting on the bed with two glasses in his hands.
"To eight wonderful years and many, many more," he said and raised his glass to his wife's.
The smile on Laura's face suddenly vanished when she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror and saw that her long chestnut hair appeared to be blond. An involuntary scream escaped her lips, and she dropped her glass, spilling the champagne on the carpet.
"What's wrong?" Cliff asked.
"The mirror ...."
He turned and saw nothing except the two of them sitting on the bed.
"My reflection had blond hair."
"You know that's impossible. It must be your imagination or a trick of the light."
"It wasn't my imagination," she insisted. "My hair was blond."
"Okay, so maybe the mirror is possessed by Lady Clairol."
"This isn't funny," she snapped angrily. "Not everything in life is a goddamned joke."
Cliff quickly downed his glass of champagne, put the cork back in the bottle and rolled over to go to sleep. The incident with the mirror effectively ended the mood for both of them.
* * *
The following morning was Sunday, the only day of the week neither husband nor wife had to get up early. Cliff took advantage of the day to get a few extra hours of sleep, but Laura rose at six, only half an hour later than she got up on weekdays.
Upon rising, she crossed the bedroom floor, stood in front of the full-length mirror and carefully examined her reflection. The eyes were right, so were the nose and mouth. Everything was in correct proportion and of the right color, but there was still something about the image that disturbed her. What was it?
She walked into the bathroom and looked at the mirror above the vanity. The face staring back at her looked tired, and the hair needed a good brushing, yet only moments before, in the antique mirror, she had looked radiant.
When Cliff woke up an hour later, he walked down to the kitchen and found his wife sitting in the breakfast nook drinking coffee.
"Are you still mad at me?" he asked sheepishly.
"No," she admitted with a weak smile. "But whether it's my imagination at work or not, I'm afraid of that mirror. I'd like you to put it back up in the attic, or better yet, why don't you see if the owner of that antique store on Gloucester Street would sell it on consignment?"
Cliff frowned.
"So you still believe there's some paranormal force at work here."
Laura had never entertained the idea that the source of the bizarre reflection was supernatural in nature, but now that her husband had given voice to the possibility, she had to admit it was the most logical conclusion to be drawn.
"I believe there is something unusual about that mirror, and, yes, perhaps it is of supernatural origin."
Cliff shook his head, unable to understand.
"You move into an old home, you're surrounded by centuries-old antiques and right away you begin seeing ghosts."
"Ghosts? Who said anything about seeing ghosts? I never suggested either the mirror or the house is haunted."
"Okay. What is it then? Did one of the witches drive over from Salem and cast a spell on the mirror? Let's face it, honey; if we had put that mirror in our Boston apartment, you wouldn't have dreamt there was anything peculiar about it."
Was Cliff right? Was the age and long history of the house stirring her imagination? It was hard to envision seeing a strange reflection in the modern setting of their previous home.
"I don't know what is making the mirror behave that way or whether or not the paranormal is involved. I only know it gives me the creeps, and I want it out of the bedroom."
"Fine," Cliff said, in a disgusted tone that indicated it was not at all acceptable to him. "I'll put it back in the attic. Then what? Will it be the mirror in the bathroom next? Are you gonna see yourself as a redhead? Or maybe the bed will scare you, or the fireplace."
"Stop it! You make me sound like a raving lunatic."
"No. You're just reacting to a new environment—or rather a very old one. But don't you see that you've got to fight these irrational fears and not give in to them?"
Damn him for his infernal logic! she thought with frustration and then reluctantly consented to leave the mirror in the bedroom.
* * *
The next few days were uneventful ones, due in no small part to the fact that whenever Laura was in the master bedroom she stubbornly kept her eyes off the mirror. Cliff, on the other hand, dressed in front of it every morning. His actions struck Laura as odd since she had never known her husband to be quite so vain about his appearance. In the interest of marital harmony, however, she did not inquire if his reflection ever changed. She preferred to let him believe she had gotten over her foolish notion that the face she saw in the mirror was not her own.
Then one afternoon she came home from work early. It was May, the time for final exams. The Medieval Studies exam was given in the morning, so there was no reason for her to remain in school during the afternoon. Laura decided she would surprise Cliff with a delicious home-cooked dinner, a three-course meal from salad to dessert.
When she entered the house, she put the bags of groceries on the island in the kitchen and went upstairs to change out of her work clothes and into something more comfortable. While she was standing in her walk-in closet deciding between a Manny Ramirez jersey—unlike most Red Sox fans, she still liked the eccentric slugger—and a Dropkick Murphys T-shirt, she heard someone call her name.
"Laura."
It was barely above a whisper. Perhaps she had only imagined it.
"Cliff? Is that you?" she asked, quickly pulling the "Shipping up to Boston" shirt over her head.
There was no reply. She slowly walked out of the closet, her ears alert to any unfamiliar sounds.
"Laura."
"Who's there?"
"It's me," a woman's voice said clearly. "I'm here in the looking glass."
Laura turned to see a face, which looked very much like her own, call to her from the cheval mirror. The young college professor screamed and fainted. Cliff found her on the bedroom floor when he arrived home from work later in the evening.
"Not that again!" Cliff groaned after his wife came to and explained that the reflection in the mirror had frightened her. "I thought you finally realized how foolish this haunted mirror business is."
"Haunted, possessed, bewitched—call it whatever you like, but that mirror spoke to me. It called me by my name."
Cliff closed his eyes and turned his face toward the ceiling as though silently appealing to the heavens for help.
"It's talking to you now? Honey, stop and listen to yourself."
"I don't care what it sounds like to you. I know it happened."
"I think you should talk to someone about this."
"Perhaps you're right," Laura agreed. "There's a New Age shop on Essex Street, the Bell, Book and Candle. I'll bet one of the employees there could recommend a psychic or a paranormal investigator or something."
"Maybe a witch can cast a counter-spell. Hey, I'll ask the Red Sox who they consulted in 2004 to reverse the curse of the Bambino."
"Stop making fun of me!" Laura shouted. "This isn't a laughing matter."
"I know it's not. When I said you should see someone, I meant a doctor. There's a man right here in town, a psychiatrist named Lionel Penn."
"I'm not crazy!"
"I'm not suggesting you are. As I understand it, Dr. Penn is a bit of an expert treating people with phobias. You might be suffering from a fear of mirrors—if there is such a thing. Or maybe the old house triggered some long-submerged traumatic experience you had as a child. Look, why don't you give this Lionel Penn a chance. If he can't help you, then we'll call in the Ghostbusters. Deal?"
Laura reluctantly nodded her head in agreement. Then her eyes momentarily went to the mirror, but she quickly looked away when she saw her reflection grinning back at her.
* * *
Laura took an immediate liking to Dr. Penn. He was charming, friendly and extremely handsome in a rugged, Clive Owen sort of way. It was only while she was telling the good-looking psychiatrist about her experiences with the full-length mirror that she realized just how insane she sounded.
"I guess I shouldn't have read Lewis Carroll as a child," she joked, making a literary reference to the classic children's story, Through the Looking Glass.
"Eisoptrophobia, also known as catoptrophobia, isn't all that uncommon," Lionel said with a smile that made Laura's heart beat a little faster and wish she wasn't happily married.
"Throughout history there have been many superstitions associated with mirrors. Some people believed mirrors could predict the future, especially someone's death. Others felt they brought bad luck, particularly when broken. It was also feared that mirrors captured the soul, a belief that made people cover mirrors with cloth when a person died and also gave rise to the idea that vampires didn't cast a reflection because they had no souls."
"How can I tell if what I've experienced is a symptom of this phobia and that I'm not actually seeing some soul imprisoned in the glass?"
Lionel chuckled, and his deep, masculine laughter produced the same if-I-were-only-single reaction in his patient.
"For now, let's not consider wandering spirits, trapped souls or Bloody Mary. Instead, let's concentrate on what's going on in your mind. You say you never experienced anything of this nature before you moved to Puritan Falls?"
"That's right. When we lived in Boston, I was a nice, normal, well-adjusted college professor."
"These episodes might be tied to the house. I'm not referring to any occult forces, but to how you really feel about the place."
"I love that house. Cliff and I couldn't wait to get a place of our own."
"Maybe it's what the house represents. Usually when a young couple marries, they buy a house and then make plans to start a family. Have you and your husband talked about children?"
"Cliff and I both love kids. Becoming parents is something we eventually want to do."
"Eventually?" Lionel asked. "What's stopping you from having children now?"
Laura looked uncertain.
"Nothing, I suppose. I guess we've just been so preoccupied with buying the house and then moving in that we haven't discussed starting a family."
"It strikes me as odd that you see the reflection as being somewhat more voluptuous, more radiant—I believe that was the word you used—than you are. Could it be you're feeling inadequate in some way or that you're afraid of the next phase of your life: motherhood?"
"I never thought about it. So you think I'm seeing a stranger in my mirror because I'm afraid to have a child?"
"That's just one possible explanation we can explore. I'm sure if that's not the case, we will, with time, discover the cause of your phobia."
Lionel looked at the clock on his desk. The hour was almost up.
"Professor Priestly, I have a little homework assignment for you. I want you to go home and think about what kind of mother you would be and what kind of father your husband would make. And think about the changes having a child would bring to your life. Then come back and see me next week, and we'll talk about your feelings on the subject."
* * *
On the drive home from the psychiatrist's office, Laura thought about the answers to Dr. Penn's questions. The more she considered his explanation, the more convinced she became that he was on the right track.
When she got home, Cliff wasn't there. A note on the kitchen table explained that he had to handle a problem at Fenway and would be back around eight o'clock. Laura sat in the Chippendale wing chair in her living room and stared up at her wedding portrait above the fireplace mantel.
"I'm a good professor," she told herself. "I'm a good wife, and I'll make a good mother. No, change that: I'll make an excellent mother."
Her self-esteem bursting at the seams, she stood up, walked across the room and up the stairs to the master bedroom where she boldly stood in front of the antique cheval mirror.
"I'm not afraid of you," she announced self-confidently. "You're nothing but a piece of glass coated with a mixture of tin and mercury."
The reflection suddenly changed before her startled eyes.
"That's what you think," it said before the mirror shattered, and hundreds of shards of glass rained down on the defenseless college professor.
* * *
"Laura, I'm home," Cliff called when he opened the front door after driving from the train station. "Where are you, honey?"
"I'm up here," his wife's voice called from the bedroom.
"How did it go with Dr. Penn?" he asked as he climbed the stairs.
"The man's a genius. He said I wasn't really afraid of the mirror; I was actually feeling insecure about the prospect of having a baby."
Cliff crossed the threshold of the bedroom.
"And what treatment does he suggest?"
Laura stepped out of the bathroom, wearing a terrycloth robe and brushing her damp blond hair.
"That we should start thinking about that baby as soon as possible," she said, giving him an open invitation with her eyes.
"You dyed your hair?" Cliff asked with surprise.
"Do you like it?"
"What's not to like? You look fantastic!"
As the voluptuous blonde embraced the unsuspecting husband, she glanced triumphantly at the full-length mirror. Meanwhile, Laura Priestly, who would forever be an unseen prisoner in the three-hundred-year-old looking glass, was forced to watch the evil succubus steal her identity, her husband and her life.
The cat photograph below © Ninjaprints photographic services. Used with permission of the photographer.
What's worse than a possessed mirror? A mirror possessed by a troublesome black cat named Salem!
