I’m Jess, twenty-three, studying graphic design and eating instant noodles like they’re going outta fashion. So when I spot the ad—‘Tiny attic, £250 a month, no questions’—I’m already halfway up the crooked stairs before the landlord finishes his sentence. Mr. Patel, a tiny guy who smells of cloves, mumbles something about ‘previous tenant left sudden’ and shoves a key into my hand. The place is on Blackthorn Lane, the kinda street Google Maps forgot; even the pigeons look depressed.
The attic’s got one window, one plug, and one massive mirror nailed to the wall like it grew there. The glass is smoky round the edges, and the frame’s carved with dragons biting their own tails. I ask Mr. Patel if he can take it down—gives me the creeps. He goes dead pale and says, ‘Mirror stays, rent stays cheap. Feng-shui, very old, very balance.’ Then he practically sprints downstairs. Whatever, I think, I’ll just chuck a scarf over it and binge Netflix.
First night, I wake up at 3:07 a.m. sharp. The mirror’s uncovered—scarf’s on the floor in a perfect coil, like someone folded it. My reflection’s there, but the room behind it isn’t mine: red walls, lanterns, the whole Chinese-opera vibe. I blink, the image snaps back to normal. Must’ve been a dream, I tell myself, but I still shove my dresser in front of the glass and go back to sleep with the lights on.
Next morning my course mate Lily comes round. She’s half Malaysian and her grandma reads fortunes in tea leaves, so she knows her stuff. Soon as she steps in she freezes, sniffs the air like a dog that’s caught barbecue. ‘Jess, this place is tilted wrong,’ she says, pulling out her phone compass. ‘Door faces north, bed faces west, mirror sucks the chi straight outta your face while you sleep. That’s classic sha qi—killing energy.’ I laugh, but part of me feels the air’s heavy, like wet wool.
That week everything slides downhill on a greasy slope. My grant money vanishes from the bank—turns out someone cloned my card at the corner ATM. My final project file corrupts the night before submission. Even the stray cat that usually sneaks in for food stops at the threshold, yowls once, and bolts. Lily brings me a little bag of rock salt and tells me to sprinkle it across the mirror; ‘Barrier,’ she says, ‘cheap and cheerful.’ I do it, but the grains roll upwards, sticking to the glass like iron filings round a magnet. Okay, now I’m officially freaking out.
I corner Mr. Patel in the charity shop he owns downstairs. He’s pricing second-hand saris and avoiding my eyes. ‘Look, just tell me what’s with the mirror,’ I beg. He sighs, locks the door, flips the sign to ‘Closed.’ Turns out the house used to be a Chinese boarding hostel back in the seventies. A student called Lin Yao, a feng-shui geek, painted the dragons to ‘balance the flow’ after another tenant hanged himself in the stairwell. Thing is, Lin Yao disappeared too—same week, same moon-phase. Cops found the mirror covered in black candle wax and chicken feathers. They wrote it off as ‘cultural stuff’ and nailed it back up, ‘cause removing it cracked the plaster. Every renter since has left early, usually after some rotten luck: fires, divorces, one guy even won the lottery then got hit by a bus. The mirror stays, the rent stays cheap, the cycle spins.
I’m proper shaking by now, but I’m also skint; I can’t afford to move. So I do what any broke millennial does—I Google ‘DIY exorcism.’ Most sites are garbage, but one forum run by Hong Kong grandmas says: ‘Mirror ghost hates its own reflection reversed; bounce it back, lock the loop.’ You need two things: a second mirror and a bagua octagon drawn in genuine vermillion. Vermillion costs actual money, so I nick a lipstick from the discount bin—close enough, right?
Friday night, full moon, because of course it is. Lily and I haul a cracked bathroom mirror up the stairs. We prop it opposite the dragon one, draw the bagua on the floor in Maybelline ‘Crimson Fury.’ We light incense nicked from the Buddhist temple, crank up chanting tracks from YouTube, and wait. At 3:07 the glass ripples like water. My reflection steps forward—except it’s wearing Lin Yao’s seventies bell-bottoms, face pale as printer paper. It smiles, waves, then slams its palms against the inside of the glass. Cracks spider out, but instead of falling, the shards float into the second mirror, sucked into endless reflections like a tunnel of glitter. The dragons on the frame snap their own tails, carving wood-dust that smells of burnt cloves. There’s a pop, the lights blow, and everything goes black.
I wake up on the floor at sunrise. Both mirrors are gone—just clean circles on the wall where dust outlines used to be. The attic feels… light, like someone opened a window I never noticed. My phone buzzes: bank reversal, grant money restored. Laptop boots, final project opens intact. Even the cat struts in, tail high, and curls on my pillow like nothing happened. Downstairs, Mr. Patel’s sticking a new ad on the door: ‘Room to let, £600 a month, mirror included.’ He sees me, winks, and says, ‘Balance restored, prices too.’ Cheeky sod.
I pack my bags that afternoon. As I leave, I spot a tiny shard of glass glinting under the stairs—just big enough to catch my eye. In it I see myself waving goodbye, but my hand’s not moving. I stomp on the shard, grind it to powder, and walk out whistling. Some doors you just don’t reopen, no matter how cheap the rent.