Imprisoned inside this ancient mirror, once beautiful silver, but, now tarnished, is the spirit of a young human female who possesses great magical powers. She can predict the future, see your past, and, if you wish, change your past and/or present, and grant wishes.
The spirit comes only to the one who owns the mirror. To summon her, the owner must recite an ancient rhyme, which, sadly, puts the curse again on the trapped spirit in the mirror and causes her to remain there without escape.
The one who recites the rhyme, in most cases, calls her for something they want or need, but, probably has no idea, after all these eons, that he or she is keeping the once young girl doomed to continue residing in the mirror and be at the owner’s beck and call.
The young female spirit, entrapped in the mirror, was once a young human girl who lived eons ago with her beloved family. She was of royal blood and had a happy life filled with her parents’ love and great affluence. She wanted for nothing.
One of her favorite things to do was to wander; not in the woods on her family estate, which were immense, but rather in the deep forbidden woods behind her family’s estate. He family estate was very large and had a high thick stone wall encircling, not only their castle and grounds, but also their acres of woods, which belonged to them. She had more than enough woodlands, which were safe and protected, in which to wander, but, she, for some reason, she preferred the strange woods with gnarled trees, thick overgrowth, mysterious paths, and huge rocks that were outside of her protected environment….the woods her parents forbid her to enter!
Those forbidden woods, deep, dense, and dark, seemed to call to her…both in her sleep and during the day. Her dreams were always of her in those woods; never anywhere else. Perhaps, her parents forbid her to go into them and reprimanded her each time she did because they knew something about them which they did not share with her. Maybe if they had, well, things would have turned out differently for her.
But, no matter how hard you try to protect and warn people, they, eventually and usually, will not heed your warnings and do as they please. And, so did she.
It was one of those cold, dreary, and overcast days, when it might rain in spite of the sun using all its strength to force its way through the thick black clouds, when the young girl’s fate was to be sealed. The air was damp and felt as if it was creeping behind the collar of your coat and down on to your back and chilling you to the bone. There was also electricity in the air. Plus, there was some oddity that made the hair on your arms stand on end and gave you a sense of both anxiety and expectation; a day when you kept looking over your shoulder for who knows who or what.
The young girl loved it. It was, she thought to herself, the perfect day to go wandering about, observe, hear what she would hear, and smell what she had never smelled before. So, she made her way to the far end of the SW corner of the estate to the small secret metal door built into the huge stone wall that protected her home. This secret door served a purpose. It was there, hidden, so, in the event, the family had to evacuate their estate, they would not be trapped and could use the door to escape.
She opened the rusty metal door and it creaked and whined as she pushed hard to move it open. Once opened, she stopped and looked in awe at the woods that stood before her…the beautiful forbidden woods. She sighed with longing and her knees almost buckled as she gazed upon it. Instead of seeing the gnarled and dead trees, overgrowth, and darkness, she saw beauty and adventure.
The overcast skies made the woods look even darker and more mysterious than on a sunny day. She ran to the path she had made from the numerous times she had entered the woods and followed it as she always did…deep inside.
But, just as she was entering the woods, sadness came over her and a strange sensation... as if she would never see her beloved family or home again. She stopped running and turned and looked back at her home. All she saw was the tall thick stone wall, but she imagined in her mind’s eye, the castle, the inside of her home, and her loving parents’ faces. She noticed that she had left the rusty old metal door ajar and she felt as if it was beckoning her to return to it and her family.
She felt a tug and almost did, indeed, run back to the gate and shut it behind herself, but her feet seemed riveted to the forest floor and she felt compelled to go on…deeper into the woods. So, she did. Deeper and deeper she went, twisting this way and that on her path and turning to the right, and then the left. She climbed over large boulders and walked up some hills, which were foreign to her at this point in the woods. And, then to her surprise, after another 20 minutes, she found herself, to her surprise; on a bank next to a stream… a stream she had never seen before nor had any idea was even inside of the woods.
A breeze had picked up as she was walking through the woods and became rather strong. Leaves were rustling and the dead things that lay on the forest floor were blown here and there. On the bank next to the stream, she was surprised, when she looked into the water that, despite the breeze, the water was calm like glass. And, it was dark, very dark… almost black. She could not see below the water’s surface. It was as if she were looking at a black mirror.
Curious, the young girl went to the edge of the bank and knelt beside the still black water. As she did, the air around her made her skin tingle and the wind blew her long raven tresses in her face. She had to keep repeatedly brushing her long hair back off her face so she could see. She felt as if she were not alone. She looked to her left and then to her right... no one. Then, she quickly turned to see if someone was behind her. No one was. She was alone. Suddenly she felt very cold.
She wanted to get to her feet and run away, but, yet, she wanted to stay. How curious. She chose to stay as the leaves continued to rustle and the young trees swayed in the wind.
Taking a deep breath and calming herself, composed, she bent down closer to the water and looked at the black surface, trying to see if she could see beyond the surface water. She could not, so, she put her delicate hand into the ice cold water and swished it back and forth, trying to clear some of the blackness away. There was not change; it remained black.
Suddenly, everything in the woods became silent. No trees swayed, no leaves rustled, no wind blew dead things on the forest’s floor anywhere. All was still and silent. When the ripples her had had made relaxed and the surface was smooth once again, she looked back into the water. This time, to her horror, shock, and surprise, a face appeared. She gasped and nearly lost her balance and fell in. She tried to look away from the face looking up at her from under the water, but its eyes held fast to hers. She could not look away no matter how hard she tried and she could not even close her eye lids.
With her eyes open as wide as possible, she stared in terror at the face looking up at her. It was the face of a young girl, about her age, but it was ravaged, pitted, stark white, and there were deep circles under its eyes…eyes that screamed hopelessness and despair.
Without words being spoken, the face under the water in the stream, telepathically told her that thanks to her she was now free. Her curse was finally removed. The young girl did not understand. She was confused by the thoughts being projected into her mind. What? Free?
But, before she had even a minute to try to comprehend what was being said to her mind, the bank on which she was kneeling started to get slippery and seemed to erode, causing her to tumble into the stream. Once in the cold icy water, down, down, down she went. She felt her spirit leave her body, which floated to the water’s surface.
Once on the surface, her body now had a new occupant. It contained the spirit of the one who was trapped in the black water. That freed spirit, now in her body, swam to the edge of the bank and crawled out...leaving the young girl’s spirit in the stream. Kneeling beside the bank, as the young girl had done, the freed spirit bent over the water and chanted a rhyme in a tongue the newly trapped young girl's spirit had never heard.
As she chanted the young girl’s spirit rose upwards just under the water’s surface and her face looked up and out at the freed spirit inhabiting her body. She looked out of her prison in terror and horror. She was now the one trapped beneath the black water of the stream.
Then, the freed spirit spoke. “You have freed me from the curse that kept me imprisoned for so many years in the water and I have, now, passed it on to you. I have waited for so long for someone to come and take my place…and, finally, you came. You have taken my place and I have taken yours. I am free, but, you will remain, as I did, trapped until another young girl comes to take your place. “
“But, you now posses the ability to see the future and past, as well as the ability to change the events of both. But, that power is worthless to you under the water where no one will see your face or hear your words. So, I will do you a favor since you freed me.”
"Your spirit will remain in this stream under the water waiting for someone to come and take your place. But, I shall take your face and place it in a large mirror. The possessor of that mirror will be the only one who will be able to summon your countenance and the only one for whom you can foretell the future or change events. You will not be able to tell the tale of your current situation. You will only be able to respond to the questions of the owner of the mirror about his or her future or past or events that they wish altered.”
"Without their even realizing that they have not always known it, the one who owns the mirror will summon you with an ancient rhyme, long forgotten. The mere possessing of the mirror will give the owner the knowledge of that rhyme. “
“Once they summon you and ask you to alter past or future events, how you alter these events is up to you.” You must listen to their intent and determine if it is clearly stated. If it is, then do as they ask. If not, you will have to determine what it is they are asking for. You may or may not give them what they want if they are unclear.”
“So, be mind full, they own you because they own the mirror. If you misjudge their intent and cause them harm or loss, they may destroy the mirror and along with it, your spirit here in the stream will die. You will die alone in that cold icy stream without ever being freed from the curse. So, chose your words carefully when you fulfill what they ask of you. Your life depends on it.”
“Tomorrow, I shall return with the mirror and then bring it back to your family home and hide it. I will give it to the first person who catches my fancy. Now, I must go. Night is falling and your family will be anxious wondering where their little girl is. They will be expecting you or rather me for dinner.”
And off she went, leaving the terrified young girl’s spirit all alone in the icy cold black water beneath the surface of the stream to wait for someone to come along and free her.”
~ Marsha J. West (C), Author
(This story © is my personal creative possession. It may not be copied, reproduced, republished, edited, downloaded, displayed, modified, transmitted, licensed, transferred, sold, distributed or uploaded in any way without my prior written permission. My work does not belong to the public domain.)
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