The Mirror of Mrs. Calloway
6 min read
The Calloway mansion was demolished in 1996 to make room for a parking lot, but many of its contents were sold at auction before the wrecking ball arrived. The mirror — an enormous gilt thing with a frame of curling acanthus leaves — went to a young couple from the city who thought it would look dramatic in their loft.
It looked dramatic, certainly. It also looked back.
For the first few weeks, nothing happened. Then the wife, Lena, began noticing small discrepancies. In the mirror, the window behind her would be open when she knew she had closed it. The lamp on the table would be lit when the room was dark. Once, she caught a glimpse of a woman in a green dress standing where she herself had been standing a moment before.
Lena's husband, Mark, did not believe in ghosts. He suggested stress, poor lighting, an overactive imagination. Then one evening he walked past the mirror and saw, reflected behind him, the figure of an old woman sitting in his favorite chair. The chair was empty. The figure in the glass was knitting.
They sold the mirror the next day to an antique dealer who specialized, he said, in "difficult" pieces. It has changed hands six times since then. Every owner reports the same things: movement at the edge of the reflection, a sense of being studied, and occasionally the old woman herself, sitting in whatever chair is closest to the glass, looking out with pale, patient eyes. She never speaks. She only watches. And somehow, that is worse.
"She liked to be looked at. She still does."
