A young architect enters a house untouched by time, where memory takes form and refuses to fade.
Rain played favourites with the houses on Buxton street–it only reached Number Eleven. While the rest basked in the sun, Number Eleven stood beneath its shroud of thunderclouds.
Number Eleven had been left unoccupied since 1997. It was a house not haunted by ghosts–but by selective rain and painful memory. Elara Chung’s drafting paper crinkled, as if missing something within that it should capture.
***
She stepped onto the patio, its wood dampened by raindrops, each encased by a misshapen rainbow. She touched one–and heard a familiar voice. One that carved her name too skillfully.
Her mother.
***
Elara entered the home, cloaked by her protective gear. The interior remained unchanged through time–half-eaten meals, ticking clocks, photo frames with missing faces. The rain never came in, but the echoes followed her.
The walls seemed to remember her better than she did. The sound of a lullaby–her favorite from her childhood–ghost notes humming in her ears. Her mother–alive and speaking–moved within the glass shards of a cracked mirror. Elara recalled her, sick and dying in a hospital bed, her five-year-old self drenched in tears. The shade of lipstick the woman in the glass wore was —blood rouge.
Then a figure replaced her mother, formed by grief-soaked residue. It seemed to speak with a dissonant, hurtful echo, reaching forward with an out-of-sync welcome. Not wanting to harm–it wanted to BE her.
***
Then, the echo of her nickname, in a childlike voice, pulling her to the basement. The steps creaked wanly beneath her weight, each foot fall seeming heavier.
Standing in the corner was a full-length mirror, glass encased in an ornate frame, the gold glinting at her as if it had caught her misbehaving. Then, she looked in the glass.
At herself. Blank-eyed. Unmoving. In the glass panels of a cupboard nearby was another, smaller version, its eyes just as vacant. And in a small glass window, yet another, eyes unblinking, wide, its mouth in a thin, straight line.
She looked at love donning loss like a costume.
It spoke, but not in her voice.
Her mother’s resounded across the basement. “Come with me.” The ghostly invitation was a petrifying echo. “Come with me. We can live together, in here, forever.”
The pull towards the glass was strong. And the louder the mimic’s cry, the greater it was. The mimic related things that only she and her mother would know.
“Grandpa bought you that dress in the box when you were only two. And that clock? You remember that. Dad bought it for you because you refused to get up for school.”
Truth flickered in the glass—she was both the daughter and the soul to keep.
***
The young architect backed away from the mirror, her mind tangled in tragic recollections and grief–
Grief that was grabbing her in its choke hold; that she didn’t know how to wrangle free from. Her panicked mind tussled between fear, survival and tears.
It hit her, abruptly and quickly. Purging the distended memories was freedom. Her eyes caught sight of leather bound journals, perched behind the mirrors, their soft voices a disturbing invitation for her to open them.
She grabbed them and threw them hastily in a box. Hauling them to the backyard, she lit a match, fingers trembling.
The books ignited, each disintegrating with a hollow sob. Inside the room, the mimic in the mirror collapsed on herself, becoming a soft puddle of clear water.
The house greeted Elara next April, silent–not petrifying, but poignantly vacant. The only sound she could hear was the echo of the soft breeze blowing through the empty hall.
She never forgot her mother. But she let her mother’s memory stroll beside her instead of dragging it behind. She never redesigned the house—she allowed the truths within to fade.
***
If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights Your kind donation via Paypal would be greatly appreciated!