Haunted Mirror

Once upon a time, there was an old queen. She had once been beautiful, with her big hazel eyes and curly auburn hair. But now her hair was thin and gray, and her face was wrinkled. She had always been a very fair and honest ruler. The queen lived in a gigantic castle, and her bedroom was on the third story. You had to walk up a huge winding staircase to get there. The room was enormous. She had her bed in the middle of the room and tons of paintings and portraits of kings and queens long gone on the walls. There were lots of beautiful Victorian-style chairs and sofas and loveseats all around. But the thing that seemed the centerpiece of the room was a lively mirror.

Her husband had committed suicide, and she was still grieving over his death. He had given her the mirror on Valentine’s Day the last year before he had passed. It was extremely ornate. It was circular and had hearts and roses hand-carved into the polished oak frame. She really treasured it . . . until it became haunted.

During the night, while the queen was sleeping, the mirror fogged up and a face appeared. It was grimacing and had curved horns. She never woke up, though, and soon it disappeared. The next night, the devil-like face showed up again, but now, some of its neck was showing. It continued like this for about a month, and each night, more of the monster appeared, until it stepped out of the mirror holding a rusty iron axe. It woke the queen, but didn’t kill her; it only gave her a message.

The devil-monster pointed to the axe, saying in a raspy tone, “The next time you kill someone and try to pass it off as suicide, I’ll actually use this.”

Then it disappeared into thin air. A week later, during the night, there was a loud, shrill scream heard, and the queen was later found dead with an iron axe in her chest. No one ever knew who had killed her.