Reflections unseen

 

“I don’t like looking in the mirror… because that’s when she looks back…” 

When my four-year-old nephew said these words to me I replied with the standard: “Eric, there’s no such thing as ghosts.”

Though the thought was eerie, never did I imagine there was any truth to it.

As psychiatrists, we are trained to understand the logic behind every fear but something about my nephew's phobia wasn't irrational.

Over the next few days, I went about my business, trying to put this egregious thought to rest. What I noticed was that I grew fearful of my own reflection. For some unexplained reason, I was hesitant to look at car windows, shopping displays or even the notice board outside my office.

I couldn't escape the foretelling of something demonic when approaching a looking glass. The hairs on the back of my neck would stand and I’d get a bone-chilling feeling like something was watching me. I was completely powerless against the fear that a four-year-old had planted in me.

So, that fateful night—despite my intuition advising against it—I decided to comb out my long tresses while looking in my mirror. And then I saw it… I saw her — a bludgeoned naked woman, her knee-length hair unkempt and matted with blood. Her eyes fixed on mine. With one finger she was incessantly tapping on the window—but not as a scare tactic, more as a cry for help. 

I turned around, in the hopes that the apparition would disappear. I hoped I was hallucinating. I hoped… but I was wrong. Shocked and bewildered, I opened my quivering mouth to scream when I heard the phone ring.

“Sarah, I can’t seem to soothe him. He has been screaming your name repeatedly, asking you ‘not to let her in’.”

My sister was talking about my sleep-talking nephew, whose illness was now causing more harm to be ignored. 

Trying to hide the fright in my voice, I talked my sister through the process of putting her son back to bed, all the while staring at my window in complete horror. Suddenly, my nephew awoke and asked to speak to me.

“You see her too, don’t you?”

What we both could see was an older, grimmer version of me.