We took my grandmother’s old mirror from the village. And only at home did I notice something in it that I still try not to speak about out loud…

When grandmother passed away, we came to sort through her house — old, wooden, smelling of herbs and time. My husband walked through the rooms, evaluating what we could take and what to leave behind. I stood by her mirror, unable to look away.

It hung in her bedroom for as long as I can remember. Large, in a heavy wooden frame, darkened by time. Every day, my grandmother used to wipe it with a soft cloth, as if it weren’t an object but something alive that needed care. As a child, I asked her why she fussed over it so much. She looked at me strangely and said, “The mirror remembers. It remembers everything.”

I didn’t understand then. I thought it was just old age.

My husband suggested leaving the mirror behind. He said it was too bulky, too old-fashioned, that we didn’t have space for it in our home. But I insisted. I don’t know why. I just felt — we couldn’t leave it behind.

We hung the mirror in our bedroom. It immediately changed the room — as if it added something heavy, dense. My husband grimaced, saying it reeked of dampness and antiquity. I stood before it, looking at my reflection. And it seemed… different.

Initially, I thought it was just a play of light. Old glass distorts, casts strange glares. But with each day, the feeling grew stronger. When I looked in the mirror in the morning, it seemed like my reflection looked at me a moment longer than it should have. As if it hesitated for a second before mimicking my movements.

I started avoiding it. I’d turn away when passing by. I dressed in the bathroom. But one night, I woke up with a strange feeling — as if someone was watching me. I turned my head. The mirror hung across the bed, and in the dim light of the nightlight, I saw my reflection.

It was smiling.

I wasn’t smiling. I lay still, my heart pounding. The reflection looked at me with a slight, almost tender smile. Then it slowly nodded. As if reassuring me. As if saying: “It’s okay.”

I closed my eyes and did not open them until morning. I told myself it was a dream, a half-dream, a product of my imagination. But I knew — it was real.

In the morning, I asked my husband to take the mirror down. He was surprised and asked why. I couldn’t find the words. What could I say? That my reflection has a life of its own? That my grandmother was right when she said the mirror remembers?

My husband laughed, said I was too impressionable. That it was just an old thing that induces strange thoughts. The mirror stayed up.

And now I live with it in the house. I try not to look. I pass by, eyes down. But sometimes, out of the corner of my eye, I catch movement. As if someone, behind the glass, is watching. Waiting for something.

I started noticing the little things. Items out of place. A faint smell of grandmother’s perfume, although I never bought any. The feeling of presence when I’m alone.

Sometimes I wonder: was grandmother trying to warn me? Did she know that it shouldn’t be taken? Or did she want me to take it — to pass on something she didn’t get the chance to say in her lifetime?

I’m afraid to ask out loud. Afraid to look into the mirror at night and see not my own reflection, but someone else’s. Or to see myself — but as I will become later.

Be honest: would you keep this mirror in the house? Or should I have listened to my husband and left it there, in the village, where it hung for so many years? What would you have done in my place?

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When my grandmother passed away, we came to sort out her house. Out of all the things, for some reason I wanted to take the mirror – the very one that had hung in her bedroom her entire life. My husband was against it, saying it was too dark and bulky. But I insisted and brought it home. On the very first night, I woke up with a strange feeling and looked at the mirror. What I saw in the reflection made me freeze in terror…
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