The secret room was chilly.
Not only from disuse, but in the sense that made your flesh shiver—such that time itself had frozen within.
Leah shone her flashlight up high as Elena entered the room behind the dated bookcase. The air was scented with wilted roses and dust. The walls were covered in canvas works of art—some well-preserved, others disintegrating at the corners.
And each and every one…
…had her face.
In one, she was in silk and lace, holding a candle and a look of fear in her eyes.
In another, she stood before the same mirror in her bedroom—centuries old—with her hand extended.
The newest painting depicted her dressed in contemporary attire. Standing under the weeping willow behind the Manor. Her hair styled the way she had it last week.
"Okay, nope," Leah whispered, backing into Mark who had just entered the room.
Mark took one look at the paintings and let out a low whistle. "Either someone's got serious Photoshop powers and a time machine… or…"
"Or I've lived this before," Elena finished, voice hollow.
No one laughed. No one argued.
Because deep down, they all knew it too: something was not normal in this house—and Elena was the middle of it.
She moved closer to a painting that had half its canvas ripped.
In it, she was weeping. A man stood behind her in a mirror—his face slashed out. Only the expression of black curls and shadowed eyes remained.
Julian?
She discovered a dusty plaque nailed under the canvas:
"The Bride of the Mirror – 1823"
She froze.
Leah looked over her shoulder. "Bride?"
"That can't be a coincidence," Mark muttered.
Elena turned sharply. "My grandmother wrote about someone before me. The girl who lost herself in the fourth dream. Maybe… maybe that girl was me too."
"You think you're… reincarnated?" Leah asked, wide-eyed.
"I believe I've been bound to this mirror for a long time. Perhaps I return again and again until I learn how to shatter whatever this is."
Abruptly, the mirror at the end of the concealed room became illuminated.
Not from any source of light—but from inside.
And this time, Julian's voice grew stronger. No whisper. A presence.
"Time is folding. You're close."
Elena moved closer, gaze fixed on the mirror. "Why me?"
Julian gazed back at her. Sadness in his eyes was old.
"Because you promised… you'd come back."
Elena couldn't look away from the plaque.
"The Bride of the Mirror – 1823."
She muttered the words quietly over and over again, as though saying them would numb the cold clawing in her chest.
"How—how in the world could this be?" Leah whispered next to her. "That's not a resemblance. It's you, Elena. And these pictures—they weren't painted by memory or imagination. Look—" she indicated at the date written at the corner of another piece of artwork, "—1887. And that attire, that's Victorian age. That's authentic."
Mark knelt next to one of the shredded paintings. "The person who painted these… they didn't just know you. They watched you. Lived with you, perhaps."
Elena's heart beat in her chest. She felt as though she stood at the end of a book already read—but this time, she was alert enough to see the words in between the ink.
"I think somebody's been waiting," she whispered.
"For you?" Leah asked.
"For me to remember.
She moved away from the wall and scanned the room. It wasn't a gallery—it was a shrine. The paintings weren't haphazardly arranged; they were arranged with purpose, in chronological sequence. Each age progressed—her expressions slowly changing from happiness to grief… to fear.
And then, at the far end of the row, there was an empty canvas.
Fresh.
Untouched.
Waiting.
"Elena…" Leah said quietly. "That's for now, isn't it?"
Elena extended, her fingers tracing over the empty space. The instant she did—
A tumult of sound. A breath. A heartbeat.
The air was tenuous.
The mirror in the room began to pulse with light once more, and this time she didn't listen for Julian's words.
She felt it.
Not in her ears. In her veins.
"You were always supposed to come back. The thread never snapped. It only unraveled."
Her eyes went blurry. A memory, not hers, flashed across her mind.
A candlelit ballroom. A red ribbon wrapped around her wrist. A man in black staring at her with broken eyes.
"Promise me—come back to me."
She gasped and backed away from the canvas. Leah caught her.
"Elena?! What did you see?"
"I think… I was someone else. Before. And I loved him. Or he loved me. But something—" she shivered, "—something tore us apart."
The mirror fell silent once more, but the silence it left behind was heavy. Unspoken.
Mark moved toward the doorway. "I don't know what brand of ghost romance time-loop soul-tied nonsense this is, but it's becoming too real. We need answers."
Elena nodded.
For the first time, she was more curious about the son of a gun than she was afraid.
And somehow… she felt the mirror was only just beginning to show her the truth.