Moonlight 

  
Grandmother always closed the curtains when the moon was full. “The moon is awake.” She’d say with nervous hands. “It will talk to you all night.”  I would laugh as a child and ask her if it were true. And she would get serious with a stern face, “yes.it will even sing if you listen real careful. The moon has power over the waters of the earth and the minds of man. When it’s full…men change …and if you let its light enter your home? It will have the power to manipulate you.” 

She believed this…so much so that while I was staying there one night Carol, our sister, got her period more heavily than usual. So of course it was the moon. 

“Don’t look at it through the mirror,Francis.” She’d say. “It can possess you. The mirror is the gateway to your soul.” 

Of course it was all nonsense. But it all became much worse with her after granddad died. And later shortly after. She died in her sleep. 

Which brought us here. 

Back home. To grandmas.For her funeral. 

I woke up in the middle of the night. To a faint sound coming from the mirror… 

The moonlight shining in through the window…

I walked over looking into it…

There was me..leaning in touching the mirror and the bed off to the side. The rocking chair behind me…the window…and the moon.

A black crow landed in the tree outside. 

And that’s when I saw it. 

The rocker started rocking in the mirror. But not in the room. And it remained empty. 

In the morning. I told Carol. She just shook her head… 

“Francis, you’re an idiot.”

This happened three nights in a row. Finally I stayed in bed. And listened for the rocker…

But I couldn’t hear it…only a tap tap tapping from the inside of the mirror. 

And someone walking upstairs… 

I grabbed the flashlight and ran to the attic…

It was cold 

But not like winter…

A different cold.

That’s when I saw it…

a human Skeleton chained 

To the bed by the window

Teeth bare 

With vampire fangs 
We were always told grandfather died by drowning…

Grandmother said he was shaving and the moon passed over the mirror.

The tapping grew louder on the mirror…

I walked downstairs 

The rocker started banging on the wall.. I leaned forward looking into the mirror And saw grandmother. 

Dressed in white…sitting in the rocker – grandfather beside her…and that’s when I saw it….I had no reflection.