As always, if you write to this prompt, please put a link to the results in the comments below, so I can marvel at your genius.
What happens when a soul gets lost inside a mirror and can’t find its way out?
Thérèse
I pretended I was still asleep and watched Thérèse in the mirror. She moved with a system along my chamber’s wall, pressing each with her flat hands and then tracing around its edge with two fingers before moving on to the next panel.
She was searching for a secret compartment.
So much for love at first sight. She had obviously latched on to me last night just to get into this room.
But what was she looking for? Why would anyone put a secret compartment in a guest’s bedchamber? Why hide anything where an outsider might find it?
Perhaps it wasn’t something hidden. Perhaps it was a passage, a secret way from one part of the palace to another.
Perhaps it was meant for spying on guests. My stomach turned. What had they seen last night, when Alain was here? What had they heard?
Enough of this. I sprang up, blanket covering my vulnerable nakedness as if the traitorous Thérèse hadn’t already seen everything, and turned to face her.
She wasn’t there.
I looked at the mirror, in which Thérèse continued her probing of the reflected wall. At the real wall, however, at the exactly corresponding position, was… nothing. But in the mirror….
“Thérèse?”
There was no response, neither from the mirror nor the real chamber. I lurched forward, dropping the blanket, and waved my arms where Thérèse should be standing. I felt nothing. Back to the mirror. I called out again and knocked on its surface, but got no response.
Thérèse was in the mirror. Somehow she had been caught….
Or… was I the one who was caught? Had Thérèse wakened to an empty bed, and was she now searching for me?
I rushed to the chamber door, and reached to open it.
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