In a Dark Mirror

by Kat Davis

It was the sort of smile a child gives an adult to win them over, and it was incongruous coming from a girl covered in blood.

“Do you know why we stopped you?” Lana looked him straight in the eye. “I think so. Because we killed a girl.”

There was only ever one correct answer: I am guilty, guilty, guilty.

The anger was still there, but when she felt it, she was able to step outside herself, as if she could see what she was about to do and choose differently. It wasn’t that she felt bad for any of the times she had acted out; she just didn’t want to be punished again.

“I was mentally ill. I believed that a supernatural power was stalking me.”

But it’s easier for people to believe that she is just evil than to extend her compassion.

Lana told her once that she had become afraid of mirrors, that that was where she often saw Him.

She searches the whole kitchen but can’t find anything sharper than a butter knife.

This site was different from the typical press articles, a kind of shrine to Him. They call themselves His Followers, the fans of hers and Lana’s crime.

She was tricky, so her bullying never seemed like bullying but a kind of fake niceness.

“You have to act like it doesn’t bother you at all. Delete your profile. If they try to talk to you at school, act like you can’t hear them. When they see they can’t hurt you, they’ll lose interest.”

In their friendship, Lana was the one who called the shots, and Maddie was the one who did what she was told.

Lana was special; she was the one who understood more, who saw further. Sometimes Maddie worried that Lana wouldn’t want to be friends anymore because she so often disappointed her.

they liked to play Mirror Universe, where they could take any fictional world they wanted and imagine they were in the Mirror Universe.

Maddie had suggested that their Mirror Universe names could be their own names spelled backward, but Lana had quickly nixed that idea (and no wonder, since her name would be “Anal,” which had made Maddie laugh and laugh when she realized).

LOL how unfortunate

Lana had always had a connection to things that other people couldn’t see.

He came later, maybe when she was five or six. He appeared behind her one day in the mirror, a tall thin man dressed in black, his face pale and white, his deep-set eyes lost in darkness.

“Don’t give me that,” Gran said. “I see you there, Lana Prescott. I see you.”

Gran must've seen that darkness

To everyone else, she looked like the same person, but recently she’d felt, sometimes, that her skin was a sort of mask that she wore.

The person Lana loved most was her little brother.

The only other person in the world that Lana could stand was Maddie, and sometimes just barely.

But tonight when she glanced out she saw a thin, tall figure, standing silent and unmoving in the backyard, near the tree line. It was Him.

It was Lana who told her about Him, Lana with the plan, Lana with the knife. Lana’s sickness casting a spell over her that she couldn’t help but fall under.

She knew she was in trouble but could not conceive of the depth of that trouble and, at first, could only see it in glimpses,

Really? Hadn't she ever watched tv? If she was already old enough to begin puberty. surely she was old enough to realize murder is a serious offense!

What was her mother thinking, allowing that? Why leave two young girls completely on their own, to get into any trouble they could think of?

Well most parents wouldn't imagine their kids getting up to a freaken stabbing of someone.

The woman squints at Maddie. “I would look in the corner over there. Where the plus sizes are.” Seeing something on Maddie’s face, she adds, “No offense, hon. That’s where I shop myself.”

Um, offense taken lol geeze

She shouldn’t enjoy this, the other girl’s fear—but she does.

“avoiding engaging with any content online or elsewhere that pertains to the crime. This includes but is not limited to specific information relative to HIM and to sources dedicated to the occult more broadly.

Lana Prescott stated that HE is a supernatural being created through the force of HIS followers’ belief,

HE informed the Founders that HE could cross into corporeal existence only through an act of human sacrifice—

You are worshipping a false god. HE is the LORD and HE welcomes all

I’m confused. I thought this whole site was for people who are fans of murder. And now you’re saying murder is bad?

Lmao

For a brief time, the summer that she was twelve, she believed that she and Lana were haunted by a spirit, a faceless man who lacked a corporeal body. She believed this partially because of the force of Lana’s belief, which by then was so strong that it overcame Maddie’s own doubts, the rational voices in her head. This was delusion.

There was one real victim here, a twelve year-old girl who was stabbed eleven times. We need to remember that whenever we start to have too much fun on this site

You’re absolutely right, Exotic_Other175. As a white person I need to do a better job owning my bias. I see your point and will try to do better

It wasn't biased to bring up the issue that regardless of race, the CHILD victim should be remembered and it's insensitive to glorify her death.

Maddie’s belief in Him survived for only a few days after her arrest.

she is hopeful but not delusional; she is grounded in reality and not at all in danger of relapse; she is guilty and unloved but maybe not completely beyond redemption.

“Quick!” she said. “Don’t just stand there. Get a rag!”

Seriously!? This woman gonna make her clean it right that second? Why not have her go change clothes and put on a pad first? I'm sure Gran could manage to clean the cough herself. Like give the poor girl a break.

dad finally said I could paint it,” Lana said, motioning to the light-pink walls. “Wow. What color you going with?” “Black.”

I knew it. Black... like her soul mwaa

it was also starting to get a little creepy. It was almost like Lana was forgetting that she had made the whole thing up.

Lana and Maddie hadn’t decided what to do with her yet.

Ohh they'll decide alright

“You okay?” her father had asked, glancing up from his magazine.

Eww not her diddling herself in the same room with her dad . Edit: Reread this passage again when I was less tired and realized I probably misunderstood it. It seems she first got "stirrings in her nether regions" while reading a naughty book in the living room where her dad just happened to be. I assumed she was touching herself at the time, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Good ...cuz that would've been awkard and weird. lol

‘Your deepest friendship is likely to be with Taurus, but exercise caution. These two types can ascend together to the highest reaches or descend to the lowest depths.’ That’s weird.”

Weird but very accurate in this case

“Well, it’s just so unusual, to find a place where you don’t have to worry about crime,”

Oh you just wait

A single knife was balanced against the edge of Mr. Prescott’s plate, twinkling in the light from the overhead chandelier.

Is this foreshadowing? I forgot where they got the knife to kill Sage.

Mom only shrugged and said, “We’ll see,” which Maddie knows means that it’s really up to Steve. She doesn’t remember her mother ever being so deferential to her father, even when they were still married.

Is this guy even married to her mom? Steve seems oddly controlling over Maddie's life when that isn't even his daughter.

The way Maddie has dealt with Lana for many years now is by not thinking about her at all. She puts her in a room of her mind and shuts the door. Lana was the problem, the bad influence that ruined her life.

sometimes people who don’t have a strong sense of themselves find it easier to follow other people. Those other people give them something they think they are missing.

In juvie, she’d been no one in particular, but in the state hospital she was considered one of the dangerous ones.

She moves to turn off the light in the blue room, and just for a moment, out of the corner of her eye, she sees something, a shadow moving toward her.