Why You Shouldn't Leave Your Kids Alone Around Mirrors

My mom had expensive taste so as soon as I was too old for a crib my parents outfitted my room with grand and ornate furniture. It might seem out of place for a kid at that age to have mahogany dressers and a king-sized bed, but it's really not strange at all if you knew my parents. They always treated me like an adult. Even my name, Allanah, had seemed too big for me at that age.

Part of my new and exquisite bedroom set was a massive vanity mirror. It was one of those things that were so decadent it bordered on gross. My parents hung the mirror on a wall opposite my bed, and it gave me the creeps. I hated it, but no matter how much I complained my parents refused to take it down. Lest it ruins the decorum of the room.

I couldn't even sleep with this mirror staring at me. The night terrors came so frequently my dad eventually found a compromise and hung a sheet over it every night with thumbtacks.

This helped me fall asleep, but I still felt uneasy in my own room. Especially since the thumbtacks seemed unable to hold up the sheet for the whole night. Sometime after I would fall asleep the curtain fell to the floor, leaving the mirror to stare at me while I slept.

One night when I laid awake, too scared to fall asleep, I saw the curtain move.

A ripple formed under the curtain-like it was being disturbed by some invisible wind. I pulled my covers up over my eyes and tried counting back from ten. 10..9..8..7...6...

Suddenly I realized how silly I was being. I was 12 years old by now. I was too grown up to be afraid of a silly mirror. So I pulled back the covers and took a peek.

I'll never forget what I saw that night. My breath caught in my throat. A craggy hand with long pale fingers reached out from beneath the curtain and was pulling on the thumbtack. I threw the covers back over my head and waited for the bad thing to go away. Seconds passed like hours.

I began to believe that the monster had left me alone, but the sound of the sheet hitting the floor echoed across the room. There was a lull, and then I heard the breathing.

It sounded like it was above me, on the other side of my blanket. I stayed awake listening to the heavy breaths until dawn started to filter through the windows and the breathing stopped.

My head peeked out from beneath my covers again and the monster was nowhere to be found.

I never had a close call like that again. My parents found me smashing the mirror with my bare hands while screaming something about the man in the mirror.

---

I'm way older now so I should have outgrown this ridiculous fear, but I still got nervous when my husband hung a mirror up in our daughter's room. This one was a lot smaller and less gaudy than the one I had when I was her age.

My daughter didn't seem to be afraid of the mirror at all. On the contrary, she'd lay the mirror on the floor and play pretend with her dolls, Penny and Sally.

It was Saturday night, the end of the laundry day. While I was headed to the dryer I walked past her room and overheard something that stopped me in my tracks. "... Can mommy and daddy come in the mirror too?" my daughter whispered.

My heart was pounding in my chest as I leaned into her room trying to get a glimpse at what she was doing. All the nightmares and memories of my childhood came back to me in a flood.

Penny and Sally were lying discarded in the mirror, and my daughter's hands were placed face down on top of it. Her beautiful tawny hair dangled below her just barely touching the glossy surface. I thought I saw something reaching up from the mirror, hidden behind her hair.

"Who are you talking to sweety?" I called out.

My daughter jerked her hands up off the mirror-like she had been caught doing something she wasn't supposed to, "Nobody mom! I was just playing with my friends."

"Okay.. well I think it's probably time for bed. Let's put the mirror up and get you in your pajamas."

She fussed like usual, but we got the mirror back up and I tucked her into bed. I tried to shake off the whole experience. It was probably just my stupid overactive imagination.

Later that night I woke up in a cold sweat. There was this feeling that something in the house was just wrong. I slipped on my house shoes and made my way to my daughter's room as quickly and quietly as I could, trying not to wake anyone up so I didn't have to explain what I was doing.

When I reached my daughter's door, my panic was nearly overwhelming. I could practically hear that awful, heavy breathing like I was hiding underneath my covers once again.

My hands pushed the door open and I let loose a horrible scream.

My daughter was lying in bed, fast asleep. But a pale white hand was wrapped around her throat. The thing was looking up at me after my scream. I wish I had never seen its face.

Two maggot-ridden holes peered back at me where its eyes should be. Toothy jaws split all the way up its elongated face. Filthy wrappings, like bandages, loosely wrapped around its crooked back, tried to cover its rotted body.

The thing smiled wickedly. I think it remembered me.

Then it gripped my daughter's throat so hard she woke up. Her eyes bulged and she clawed at the hand, but it was no use.

My legs scrambled to bring me to my daughter, but before I could reach her the beast leaped through the mirror. My daughter went with him. The force of them passing through knocked the mirror off the wall and it shattered into a million pieces on the floor.

By now my husband had gotten out of bed and came into the room. "What is it? What happened?!" He cried.

I didn't respond. I was hunched over the mirror trying to piece it together again in some futile attempt to go in after my daughter. My hands were cut and bleeding, but I worked furiously to piece it together. Something was moving behind the glass, but the image was all scattered and disjointed.

I could have sworn my daughter's light auburn hair flickered across the glass. Then the image was gone.

My husband pulled me away from the fragmented glass.

Things between us were never the same after that. We eventually had to separate. The loss of our daughter was too painful for either of us to even look at each other anymore.

Now I sit alone in my house, surrounded by mirrors. Every night I lie awake, hoping the monster in the mirror will come back and take me too so that I could see my daughter even just one last time.