Breaking the Silence

        He had first seen her when he was seventeen. She was only there for a moment, her stark white face staring at him from the hazy depths of the bathroom mirror. The gaze from her cold blue eyes pierced him like an icicle driven through his heart; he shivered, forgetting about the razor in his hand and letting it slip across his cheekbone where a long, deep gash began to form. The pain distracted him, and he was able to tear away from the old woman’s eyes, cursing and grabbing a towel to staunch the blood that dripped down his neck. When he looked back to the mirror, she was gone, and only wisps of white smoke were left in her place. They, too, began to disappear. But Jack still had the scar.

        Months and years flew by and Jack Stanley had nearly forgotten about the encounter. He was a college boy now, strolling across campus on his way to the library. It was a beautiful spring day, perfect by many standards. Birds sang all around, and the sun glistened off the water of the courtyard fountain. Jack stopped and tossed a penny in it, as was his weekly tradition. He gazed into the water as the coin meandered to the bottom. The rhythmic splashing of the fountain provided harmony to the song of spring which played around him. Suddenly a cold wind blew, rippling the water in an odd way and muffling all other sound in Jack’s ears: she had returned. Reflecting in the disturbed water, her features were just as clear as the first time she had appeared. White hair was piled atop her head, secured by a lace net. Her weathered face looked as if it had been very beautiful once, everything in elegant proportion, as if she were some magnificent queen, now well past her prime. Her eyes were the only thing that broke the scheme of white: they were the bright blue of the sky but possessed some haunting quality which froze Jack’s soul in place. He simply stared for what felt like an eternity and then broke the silence: “Who are you?”

        A cloud of smoke floated up, encircling him: mist from the fountain, Jack told himself. Once it cleared, he saw that she had gone.

        She appeared to him more as time went on with increasing frequency. Always as a reflection she came: on darkened television screens and countless mirrors, in the windshield of his car and the windows of the office building where he worked as an accountant, and even in the wine glasses at his wedding reception. She came as she pleased, and she left whenever Jack spoke. He had asked who she was, why she came to him, why she wouldn’t just leave him alone, but she promptly left each time, always to return another day.

        Thirty years from when she had first visited, tragedy stuck. As Jack lay on the operating table, all the instruments around him glinted with her face. Her cold eyes were sad, and she just shook her head. He could say nothing this time, but she faded away as the anesthesia took hold. The doctors were put on edge for a few moments as his heart rate and adrenaline levels shot up, but a collective sigh of relief came as his vitals leveled off to normal, and the procedure began. Physiological fear response, pre-operation jitters, was their medical opinion.

        A few days later, Jack sat alone in his bedroom, staring at the full-length mirror on the closet door. He closed his eyes and sighed in his new way. It hurt, but he would get used to it. When he looked again, she was standing there in the reflection, fully visible for the first time. She wore a flowing, floor-length gown which was as glaringly white as the rest of her. Her face was so familiar now, and for some reason he no longer feared her. He wanted to say something but could not. This time it was she who spoke.

        “I tried to warn you, Jack, but silence gets us nowhere.” Her voice was deep and throaty, as though being coughed up from her stomach. Jack’s eyes widened as she unbuttoned her tight lace collar with one hand, raising in the other a long, black cigarette holder. She held it to the small hole in her throat, which mirrored the one Jack now had, and drew in a long, rickety-sounding breath. She exhaled, and smoke enwreathed her figure. A cough sputtered out, and after recovering she spoke again in that quiet, raspy way. “Jack, you have been silenced, but now you must find your true voice. When you do, let the entire world know the truth.”

        With that, she took the cigarette holder in both her hands and snapped it in half. Her figure was engulfed in flame for an instant, and then she disappeared for a final time, leaving the last of the smoke to dissipate.


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