Epilogue

Teresa sat in her bedroom, her eyes gleaming in wicked delight. On the floor before her lay a large sliver of glass and the mirror’s wooden arch, the runes engraved within it. In her hands she held the parchment she’d found in the hidden drawer within the mirror. Jordan didn’t even know it was there! It was evident from her utter look of surprise.

     Jordan didn’t deserve it anyway, and why should she? Teresa knew she was the one who’d risked it all to get this. She had been the one to test the mirror’s efficacy- burning Stacey’s garage, and she had been the one to call in the bomb threat- saving Jordan’s dad’s life! Teresa herself had paid the price and she deserved the mirror and what it could bring her!

Slowly she unrolled the parchment scroll she’d stolen from the hidden drawer that had been in the mirror all this time, and her eyes glittered in the candlelight as she silently read the words. Dare she speak them? She knew she must; the authorities would be onto her by now. It was only a matter of time. She heard her father’s drunken raving from the other room as he staggered from his frayed lazy back chair. She knew he would be coming for her too.

     She rose silently from her room, carrying the lighter fluid in her hand, stick matches in the other. Silently, she began the process, knowing if the words of the parchment were untrue, she’d no longer have to worry either way.

     She returned to her room, no longer hearing her father muttering and breathed a sigh of relief. He had passed out for now. Long enough to do what had to be done- was already being done.

She closed her door firmly and pushed rags up under her door, listening to the crackling and popping of the fire as it spread through the house. Already curls of smoke crept into her room. She sat again before the mirror and its runes and she picked up the scroll. Whispering in a shaky voice, she began to read aloud:   

     “Shades of light that shift and change, uphold this mortal standing here. By thy power and with reverent fear, close my image within thy sphere.”             

Teresa watched as her room was consumed with fire and she watched as all she’d known was destroyed. She watched in grim satisfaction, from within the mirror.