Chapter 6: The Mirror Mansion

Ingrid Mary-Ann Albrecht practically exploded through the hedge that was in front of her moments ago. Next to her was her husband, Douglas Albrecht, who bumbled along. 

“Here we are,” Ingrid sighed. “Guess that the sign we saw about a mile out led us here.”

“Are you sure about this?” 

Usually, one would not think twice when they saw a mansion. However, a mansion right smack in the middle of a forest would obviously ring alarm bells. The two weary hikers stood before the iron-wrought gates, deliberating. The lights of the mansion were off. Ingrid placed a hand on the cool iron and gave it a shove. It did not budge. “Doug, I wish I could say otherwise, but we’re lost. We should knock.”

“W-Wait!” Douglas seized her hand. “How about we try to set up camp elsewhere? I don’t think anyone’s home! Look! It's too dark!” 

“Mmm… Alright, then. To be fair, this place really gives me the heebie-jeebies. Let’s use it as a landmark,” Ingrid shuddered. She took out her phone and tried to get a signal but to no avail. Grumbling to herself, she fished out a physical copy of the map and tried to pinpoint their exact location.

“I told you not to go off the trail,” Douglas grumbled.

“Shush! Is your whining going to bring us back home?” Ingrid snapped, her focus on the map shattered.

Douglas pursed his lips and sulked while Ingrid returned to her map. There was absolutely no mention of a mansion anywhere. They would’ve known if there were a bloody mansion here, she thought. 

“Let’s just head north and set up camp somewhere.” Just as Ingrid and Douglas were about to leave, the gates swung open with a tremendous groan. The lights above flickered to life, casting a warm, golden glow around them. 

The two took a step back. Douglas clung onto Ingrid’s arm, his fingernails digging into her skin painfully. “G-Ghost!” Douglas squeaked.

The mansion was all but haunted. There were no dark tendrils springing out to snatch them into its jaws. They could pick up a set of footsteps approaching them. The couple held their breaths as they watched the shadows peel away to reveal a young man. The soft golden glow illuminated the man’s youthful features, sans his eyes. He had lustrous brown hair with golden tips that stopped short at his shoulders.

“Greetings, travellers. Our master extends his warm welcome to you.” The young man bowed deeply. “He saw you lingering outside our gates and told us to offer this humble abode for you to spend the rest of the night. My name is N, and I will be at your service.”

N stood with his back erect. His hazel, downturned eyes glittered with earnestness. He stretched out an arm, beckoning them to step through the gates. “Come, our master is eager to meet you and does not like to be kept waiting,” he said. “I can help you carry your belongings. You must be very tired.”

“I guess it wouldn’t hurt to stay here for the night, right?” Douglas said.

Ingrid nodded, her unease somewhat alleviated. They handed the butler their bags and headed into the house. The butler’s lithe figure moved with grace, seemingly unbothered by the weight.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” Ingrid started as the trio strode down the foyer. “Where are we? I mean, this place isn’t on the map.”

“Brocéliande is what our master calls this part of the forest. The Mirror Mansion is what he named his home,” N replied. “He purchased it a long time ago and decreed that no one may enter the area. Perhaps that is why it does not appear on the map. Our master appreciates the serenity of the forest.”

N ushered Ingrid and Douglas into the dining hall. Both were made to sit at opposite ends of a long, oak table while N served up dishes that he had prepared for them. Dishes piled atop dishes, and Douglas loudly marvelled at the sheer diversity of the food in front of them. Ingrid angled her body away from the edge of the table slightly and put her hand up to her throat.

To her, it felt as though N had anticipated their arrival.

“Tchaikovsky or Mozart, or perhaps would you prefer Bach?” N asked.

“We aren’t into classical music, sorry,” Douglas said. “You can help us choose.”

“Tchaikovsky it shall be,” N slipped a record into the player, and soft music filled the space.

“Do people come by here often?” Ingrid found herself asking, still unsure of what to make of the situation she and Douglas were in. “This is a huge spread for your master.”

There was a beat before N answered. “This is how our master eats on a daily basis. He will be joining us shortly, but he said that we could start first.”

“Oh, okay.” Ingrid swallowed a mouthful of spit, which somewhat extinguished the growing ball of suspicion. 

“For appetisers, we will be having Pintxos from Bilbao. For the main course, we will be having Bouillabaisse from Marseille. And finally, for dessert, it would be strudel from Vienna,” N said, filling their glasses with wine. “French Cheval-Blanc, 1947.”

“Wow! We should’ve knocked earlier.” Douglas rubbed his hands and dug into the food. Ingrid took a generous sip of the wine to prepare her stomach. 

“I am glad you enjoy the food.” N beamed and reached out to offer Ingrid a refill. 

As Ingrid lifted her eyes to thank N, the room started to spin. The muscles in her body went slack and she fell face forward onto the table.

The butler lifted her head with a finger under her chin. His now golden eyes stared intently into hers. His small smile had become a twisted grin. “You must be thinking about how you should have trusted your instincts,” he sneered and his tongue flicked out, tracing the corner of her right eye. 

Ingrid opened her mouth to scream as she felt something warm at the back of that eye. It was not because of her tears. Rather, it felt like a pair of tiny hands creeping across the back of her eyeball. Then, she felt a gentle but horrifying pressure as the nature of the touch changed, gaining tendrils of impatience. They started squeezing harder around the delicate orb, rubbing and grinding. The gnashing reached a fever pitch, and darkness exploded, drowning half of her field of vision in pitch-black ink.

Ingrid broke the shackles of her paralysis and let out shrieks of pain. “Come, my child, sing with me!” N sang in a childish sing-song voice, matching the pitch and amplitude of her scream with despairing perfection. “Welcome, welcome to the Mirror Mansion, where the madness never ends!"

N broke out in a little dance. Ingrid watched helplessly with a teary eye as he twirled to where Douglas was. “I can see the shadows that dance in his headspace,” N drawled as he produced a handheld mirror and dragged it across the velvet tablecloth. He stared into her soul as he held the reflective surface above Douglas’s face. It turned into a deep pool of black, and N tutted at what he saw in the darkness. “You, my little darling, barely know him. It seems like you never paid attention.”

N strolled towards Ingrid and yanked her up by her hair. For someone with such a wiry frame, the strength he possessed made Ingrid’s stomach lurch. Ingrid found herself facing a gold-coated, body-length mirror that appeared out of nowhere. “Aren’t you pretty?” N whispered in her ear.

Ingrid noticed that N was wearing a sleek blindfold and let out a grunt as an epiphany struck her. N seemed to read her mind as he smiled. “It seems that I have not broken you in yet,” he said. “That’s alright, we will take as long as you need.”

With that, N shoved Ingrid into the mirror. Ingrid’s world instantly ceased to spin, and her feet found no ground. Gone was the paralysis that had seized her body. She could also see perfectly as though her eye had not exploded mere moments ago. Her eyes perceived the presence of another figure. It looked exactly like her, but there was something about her doppelganger that was so alive yet dead; so perfect yet so repulsive; so pure yet so corrupt.

“I wonder, oh how I wonder,” a voice, the last thing Ingrid would ever hear, came from all around her, from within her womb and shook her to her core, “how much do your sins love you?”