She had not come home.

The husband was in the kitchen, pacing, stone-faced, hands clenched, silent. Every time he turned, his heels squeaked on the tiles, and with every turn he glanced at the son. The son on the living room carpet that made his toys soundless.

She placed her palm against the glass.

She had not come home.

There were steps in the hall and she knew the husband noticed her retreating. But the haze of the metal letterbox did not reveal her coming home, it tore apart the blue of two uniforms, washed out like static on TV and by the time she had untangled herself from badly polished iron they marked a corner of the living room.

The husband was talking, lowly, hushed, his lips tight, and with every swallow, he looked at the son.

She pressed her face to the glass.

The husband glanced up, but shook his head, shook it harder when she banged her fist and then the officers turned and he tensed like a wave rolling in.

"Case of Narcissus?" the tall one asked.

"She was fine," the husband ground his jaw, "She just liked the company, but only here."

"Only here?" the other one came closer with that tilted wariness of a man approaching a lion in a zoo.

"We had an arrangement." She leaned in, he stopped. "What happened?"

"Would you mind-" the husband moved, sharply, hectically, pushed the policeman back with a glance at the son and then he leaned so close she could feel his breath- "Accident. She's not coming home. We will talk about it later."

"Accident?" her voice slipped with the word. "What accident? What happened?"

"We found her downtown in the alley behind the Governor's Inn, looks like she fell from the window," the officer cleared his throat, glanced at the son, "Impact broke her neck."

"No, she- she wouldn't... The Governor's Inn, she would never go to a place like that! What was she even doing there? There is no way she-" she shook her head, swallowed, stopped, "She wanted to be home by five, she-"

"We will talk about it later," the husband interrupted and his hands pulled the curtain down.

She stood, numb, behind the fabric and stared at its creases. Running down, one by one by one, until they were all out of her sight.

Inside, she was screaming. Inside, she was banging her fists against the glass and shaking her body and throwing her legs against the floor. Inside, she was loud. Outside, she was crying. Silent. Thinking of the son. So, the tears chased each other. One by one by one.

The chill came first. A presence felt but not seen, known. It lingered, somewhere just out of reach of being able to breathe down her neck, it lingered until she turned.

It had no colour. No face. Nothing but a stale silver that itched the eyes because it swore it should be reflecting but rubbed dull from every angle. It moved with her, soundless, quiet, slinked closer and tilted its head, up. It had a nose. Eyes, too. In that way that a faceless thing could have such features, torn down under fabric tight above them. Through the fabric, there was breath.

"An accident?" it spoke.

"That is what they said."

She glanced back at the curtain. It was surreal still. In her peripheral vision, its head tilted, further, wider, rolled off its neck that millimetre too far.

"An accident? Did you not love her? Deeply?"

"Naturally."

"But was it not more?" it touched. "Deeper?"

It was cold. She withdrew, and it mirrored. It remained, distant, in the corner of her eye, while she faced the curtain and its down, down creases, until the husband drew it back.

They faced each other. Only one of them with tears on their cheeks. The carpet was empty.

"An accident?" she stepped closer. "Please-"

"They talked to me, they know what they are doing, it was an accident," he cut in. "You know what this means."

"She would never have gone to that hotel, she-"

"She told me she was going."

"Why?" she pressed her palms to the glass. "She did not tell me! You cannot tell me you believe-"

"I do not need to believe, I know. She's not coming home. You know what this means," he leaned in. "Leave."

"We had a binding contract. I can't," she pushed forwards. The glass was cold. "And I won't. Not until I know what happened."

"We know what happened! We know we have our son sitting in his bedroom, staring at the wall again! God!" he raked his hands through his hair. "Do you know what this was like for me? That she barely had a kiss of goodbye for me but spent hours with you in the bathroom, the bedroom, locking the doors? Do you know how confused he is? That is my boy!"

"Is this about him or you? You who works all day and showed for how many of his therapy sessions? One? Where you left early?"

"She told you?"

"Threatened?"

They both stepped back. The husband scoffed.

"Leave," he said. "Tell me which mirror to wipe and leave."

"Or?" she crossed her arms. "You'll make me? You can cover every mirror in this house, I will appear in the cabinet glass as you pass it, the window too dark to see through, I will be in the water when you lean too close, I will stay until you listen! Hey!"

The husband left. Not for the son's room, not the bedroom, not the kitchen. The front door.

"There is no mirror in the boy's room," it spoke and she flinched.

"Leave him!" she turned. "Whatever you want, leave him!"

"No glass, no metal, film on the window, plastic all rubbed down," it slinked closer again. "It does not reflect."

"It overwhelms him. Leave him alone! Leave me alone," she hit the glass. "I just lost... I lost her."

"And you want to know how, don't you? That is all I am here for," it clasped its arms behind its back, in the way that it could without hands. "I could wipe the blood off the mirror."

She froze. It came a step closer.

"You could leave. See where she fell. Come back here, he would not know, you could stay. Hold out on him on which mirror," it paused. She would have sworn it smiled. "Tell me which one."

Halfway turned between glass and figure, she scanned its shapeless frame, but there was nowhere for her gaze to linger. How disgusting, she thought, that something so unreal she did not even have a name for it was closer in her mind, accessible, present, accepted, than a reality boldly presented by the blue of the law itself.

She had not come home. She was not coming home.

She was gone.

It was there. Slinking closer, tip-toes, rolling joints, stiff with splaying limbs, she stepped back. It stopped, motionless, and then one fingerless arm came up to point into the room behind the glass.

"One mirror to wipe, nothing more, and the contract is void. You leave," it turned, sighed. "Why are you caged here?"

"It was mutual agreement, she wanted it that way, I respected it! I will respect it," she wiped her cheeks, energetically. "She came home every night by five and see the boy and then she spoke to me. Told me everything about her day."

"If she told you everything, why cage you here? If she went to see the boy every evening, would she not have wanted you to be able to tell him what happened to his mother? Or is his father going to do that?"

It shrugged, forcefully, offensive, and she turned her back. Not far enough to see it anymore, but far enough to make that point. The thought burned, cold, deep. Lingering.

"What do you want then?" she heard herself ask. "What do you know then? You come here, right after them, pushing me, asking for the son- What did you see?"

"I do not see, I have no eyes," it cocked its head. "I am here to offer for you to go and see."

She bit her lips. Touched them, wondered, thought that it would never be natural again to move because she was moving.

"I want you to step through," it said and she dropped her arms.

"No!"

"Easy, it's easy," it slinked towards the glass, touching, tapping, "Who would know?"

"Everybody! Every time I pass a polished surface! It's wrong!"

"Then tell me to leave."

Her lips parted to yell at it, turn, shout, watch it leave, cry, but the son's door opened. No face, no sound, a little hand pushed out an empty cereal bowl, and then it closed again. Wood. Blunt, no polish. Milk too white to mirror.

The husband was still gone. No steps in the hall.

"If I solve it. If I know what happened and I come back here and I tell the son and the husband and... Once I know. I'll do it. But only once I know."

It spiked its shoulder out of its frame, high, and held out its arm. She felt a shiver. There was the glass, a window for her because there was a room behind it, the bowl on the floor. The husband not there to lift it. Because she had not come home. And when she took its hand, it was biting cold. Somehow, sharp. Like it was shards under the fabric.

With a lump in her throat and her hands in tight fists, she led it to the bathroom. Where, in the upper corner, she had traced a deliberately cut fingertip along the frame again and again until the blood had been so deep in the creases that no cleaning would lure it out again.

It had long dried. Visible, from her side only, as blackish dust crammed between frame and glass.

From behind her, it reached out. It pulled its shapeless body up to the glass, its face against it further than the human eye could comprehend, and its breath fogged somewhere that was not quite either side. In that space, it reached up. Its hand breached, the world shook, quietly, for a few fleeting seconds, a mere shiver down the spine for those too close, and then it withdrew.

And the world around her widened.

"Where do we go?"

"You're asking me that?" it scoffed. "The morgue? The police? The hotel?"

"Morgue," she glanced at the son's closed door. "I want to see her."

It followed. Confidently. It did not glance back like her, it did not hesitate, and it did not flinch at the vast multitudes of input that passed behind each newly open window. At that time, she thought it a shadow, and by the time she placed her palm against the seamlessly polished glass that looked straight down at sterile clean metal, it was gone.

But she was there. She was lying, covered, face free, neck deformed.

She choked on the sight. As her own flesh swelled and bruised, she clutched her neck, rasping for air, and two latex gloves drew the shroud up.

"I was wondering if I would get to see you," the doctor turned the mirror. He was old. "But since she is marked for a binding contract, you are useless as a witness, I take it?"

"We solve them, if we cooperate," his other stepped up next to her. "Most do. We are, without fail, there."

"I wasn't," she clawed at her neck. "What happened?"

"They found her, fell from a window, railing broke," the doctor picked up a chart. "Looks like she tried to hold on. Lost grip. Confusing, I tell you, when they pulled her information. Did you ever meet her twin?"

"Her twin?"

"Yes. Died five years ago in a car crash. The poor boy," his other exchanged a look with the doctor. "I shall find an officer for you to talk to."

She nodded, followed, the bones in her neck shifting and burning, and as he stepped up to knock at another plane of glass, she sought the shadows to ease her mind.

It was waiting there, in a corner, merging with the nothingness that framed that spot. It did not speak. It merely, slowly, tilted its head.

It was still there when the officer had left. She sat in front of it, touched her neck, clasped her hands, back curved.

"You're starting to feel it," it slinked closer, bowed down, cocked its head. "Nothing left to tether you. You're fading at the seams. How long until it is too late to step through?"

"Not until I know!" she grabbed her own shoulders. "I don't mind if I fade - why don't I remember? Why is the last thing I know the son's fifth birthday four years ago? I have always been hers, why do I not know?"

"Was she married then?"

"Yes."

"Then I am not the one to ask."

She looked for the husband, but she did not find him. She found a barstool just cooled down, a note, and the blue of the law.

It's too late, I can't

Sirens turning round and round and round.

His other confirmed, without a look at her, that he had done it himself. He bore the marks. Redder than her neck. Warmer.

It waited. It did not speak, but it was there when she could not tell them why the son's grandparents were not answering, it was there when she realised she did not know them, and it was there when the state came to take the son out of his room. The cereal bowl was still there, too. Wood, no polish. With milk too white to mirror.

"It's open now," it said. "One of them will wear something that allows you in."

It was the glass atop a silver wristwatch. Left the room all blurry, painful, less so than hearing the son scream and fight. In the torn outlook it left, the room was hard to comprehend, washed out shapes and moving lines, constant motion, until hands stopped to linger.

They twitched and rustled with an envelope unfolding. And then, for a moment, they were calm enough to read. A note. With letters like seen through water.

I know we had our differences, but I love our son. I am ending it for him. Once this reaches you, take him, don't look, leave

She withdrew. Knowledge was heavy in her hands, but distant from the punch of realisation down her shoulders.

"She told him she would leave," she told it.

"He let her," it leaned in. "Now you know. You can tell the son it was an accident."

An accident. Yes. That she fell and tried to hold on. Tight. So tight he would not know she was lying, because he was screaming and it was so much louder than his toys soundless on the carpet. She nodded.

"Pay me," it said. "Pay me. Now."

She nodded. She led it to the bedroom, slowly, distant, and stepped up to the glass.

Wrong. They would end it. She would walk into the living room with the mirror in her back, they would see, end it, act. It would be over. Right again. Nothing left to do, because she had not come home.

She pressed her palm to the glass. Tighter, further, into that space she had never been made to touch, braced for a surge or a pull, a drop, something to tear at her substance, but none came. It was easy. It was a step forwards, into gravity, into the shiver of washing down into corporal form, tingling legs, heartbeat, fingertips. Warmth.

She touched her neck. With skin and bone in place, swallowed, down and down, one by one by one.

It was in the mirror when she turned. A perfectly shapeless face, right there, and as they stared at each other, it grew eyes. It tore out of the grey of fabric as shards splintering free, glass to flesh and back again, a shiver and cracking that moulded itself to features distinct from a mere day ago. A nose, hair, a neck of fading bruises, a hand placed right there, musculature fake enough to perfect a mouth agape in shock.

There, on its lips, it held its index finger and she felt the shiver of seeing herself move in the mirror without having lifted that hand on her own.

It did not speak. It just remained.

It was there when she passed the curtain with its down, down creases and it stood, its side to her, when she faced the officers in the living room. And the son stopped screaming.

"Ma'am?" the officer frowned.

She hardly saw him. She saw it by her side, behind the mirror. She saw that, as the son moving closer, the space behind it remained empty. And she stopped the boy, drew the curtain. Down.

"You sent for a relative," she said. "I am his aunt."