Past survives in present memory, future in present speculation. Past and future therefore exist only as products of present imagination; and what one neither remembers nor speculates does not exist.

  Constance Jones did not remember ever having encountered the Lebens-ford Mirror before she brought her guests before it. Nor did she know anything of the one who had built this house, who had designed its upright walls and precise angles, arranged its bedrooms and painted its ceil-ings. It was not Constance who had dictated its beauties and imperfections; it was only Constance who had married its heir. And it was only Constance who had tracked down the Lebens-ford Mirror and brought it to live with her there.

  Constance served them roast lamb and rosemary potato, mint jelly and tiny coffees. Evening sunlight flowed through the many-paned window, divid-ing and diffusing into a general, comforting glow. A vase of fresh snap-dragon buds brightened the centerpiece, and fairies frolicked upon the edges of the china. Since Lawrence ate without hesitation, so did Daisy.

  “That is one of the many negative impacts of superstition upon the human psyche,” Professor Oswald was saying: “the cognitive distortions it produces may themselves be the cause of the disturbance. I once exorcized a house using only science and reason.”

  “You mean the religion of science and reason,” Lawrence said, and Daisy wondered why she bothered to engage him.

  Professor Oswald laughed. “And have the devil delight in my heathen ways? I recognize a conversational trap when I hear one. Women should know their place.”

  You just said that in a room full of women, Daisy thought, and wondered if he got away with saying such things at his college. “I’m sure,” she said, smiling at him, “that my sister only meant to ask whether possessions can be non-demonic. Can they be caused by the cognitive distortions themselves, or do you mean that weak minds invite real demons?”

  Oswald chuckled at her ignorance. Constance quoted something that must have been from his book. Tinsley—an independent video-grapher who had never been a college student—burst out with, “Everything in this house is lovely!”

  They looked at her. She had changed before supper and fresh-ened her makeup, adding white powder and shiny red lips she had to keep touching up in a hand mirror. Dark contour sharpened the bones of her face and purplish eye-shadow gave her eyes a corpse-like hollowness. This was, she had explained to Daisy, part of the costume she put on for her viewers. She wore a midnight-purple velvet dress also but had hidden it under a towel to keep it clean while eating.

  “I mean, it must’ve all cost so much,” Tinsley explained. “And some of it is so old. I’ve never seen real silverware before, not made of real silver, not like this. Back home . . .”

  “You never had nice things?” Lawrence prompted, when Tinsley didn’t continue. Her voice was dry, and, to Daisy’s surprise, mostly free of disap-proval.

  Tinsley crumpled her towel and shook her head. “It’s not like we didn’t have any money. Not like we were poor, not like some people are poor. But Gran always said we couldn’t. She said it was wicked to spoil yourself with fripperies. She said—But I don’t think any place like this could be wicked, not when it’s so lovely and so comfortable!”

  “You left your gran to come here,” Lawrence observed.

  “Oh—no. I don’t live with her anymore. I have a little apartment, a wonderful little apartment of my own. Not all of my own. I have room-mates, I suppose. But my room is all my own, and no one else is allowed to go in there, so I can decorate it however I please. I’m allowed to have my own place, aren’t I?”

  “You abandoned her?” Lawrence asked.

  She’s exposing them, Daisy thought. No, she’s prompting them to expose themselves. She wants the mirror to pay attention to them and not to us.

  “I didn’t!” Tinsley burst out, splintering. “It’s wrong to hate people who love you and take care of you after—after—and you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead and—” Her voice grew shriller and shriller as she went, and her fists shook on the towel. Then she seemed to notice them watching her and broke off, flushing and clasping her hands to her face. “I’ve said too much, haven’t I? Can’t you forget what I said?”

  “You’re safe here,” Daisy assured her, because if the mirror hadn’t noticed her after that, it was dull as tarnish. Lawrence sat back, satisfied, and Daisy felt free to add, “This isn’t a haunted house, after all. No ghosts allowed.”

  “Unless the mirror collects them,” said Oswald. “We must not judge the nature of the event prematurely.”

  “Daley is right,” Constance affirmed. “I promised in my letter that I’d take good care of you, and I meant it. We’re friends here, and none of us is going to judge you. In any case, all of us have experi-enced something of what you have, Tinsley. You know what I mean.”

  Tinsley nodded, still blushing but brave enough to raise her eyes to them. “Do you think it’s watching us now?” she asked. “Do you think it heard what I said?”

  Yes, thought Daisy.

  “It can’t,” Constance said. “I have taken precautions.”

  Evening had reddened the sinking sun, and the open window at the end of the dining room let in a cutting cold. The silver net sat weightily upon Daisy’s brow, and her hands itched inside their silver gloves. She had not removed them since entering the scenario and wouldn’t remove them until she and Lawrence were safely back in the decon-tamination room of the Agency.

  Constance turned on the electric lights and closed the window, Oswald wiped his mouth, and Tinsley pulled off her towel to start recording. “We have reached the ‘horror historian’ stage,” she informed her future viewers. Under the camera’s gaze, she was vibrant and confident, her makeup master-ful and her heavy false lashes alluring. “Our host, Constance Jones, will now tell us about the infamous Lebensford Mirror.”

  She turned her camera to Constance and motioned for her to speak. Con-stance looked amused but obeyed. “Before I begin,” she said, watched by her guests and Tinsley’s camera alike, “I will give you a choice: either I will take you before the mirror immediately, without telling you anything that will give you further preconceptions—or I will relate its history and allow you the chance to leave without confronting it and thereby risking yourself.”

  “Leave?” Oswald scoffed, keeping his good angle toward the camera. “My good woman, none of us would dream of leaving.”

  “I don’t know about you two,” said Daisy, “but our letter specified that we were being invited because of our connection to the mirror; because it was in our child-hood home. So it already knows about us, one way or another.”

  “It was in my home, too,” said Tinsley—and, with a sudden viciousness that made her camera hand shake, added: “It murdered my parents.”

  “The Lebensford Mirror,” Oswald informed them, “has a long history of blood.”

  “Wait, wait!” Constance cried, holding up her hands. “Please do not get ahead of me. This is my mirror, and I insist on introducing it to you in my own way. The only choice I am giving you is whether you want me to wait before I tell you its history. If you do, that’s fine—but I shall be the one to relate it. And I will tell you the precautions I have taken before we view the mirror.”

  “Madam,” said Oswald, “I hope you do not think any of us is afraid.”

  “I’m afraid,” Tinsley volunteered, though her camera voice made the line sound half-manufactured; “but I’m not leaving.”

  Lawrence said nothing, and Daisy looked around for her. Now that she wasn’t exposing victims, Lawrence had begun sinking into the background. Not erasing her presence as such but becoming harder to notice. Daisy had observed it before, Lawrence’s ability to be unobtrusive. Probably an essen-tial ability for soloing Horror, and one Daisy would have liked in Romance—but not here.

  The greatest advantage of working with victims instead of inno-cents is that you can get them on your side, she thought. Maybe the Heart will ignore you if you conceal yourself, but if it doesn’t, what’s your backup plan? Who will sacrifice him-self on your behalf? “We will be brave,” she announced, gathering the light of their attention upon herself.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Constance relaxed, warmly regarding Daisy. “I know you two would never run away,” she told the agents. “Very well. You’ve been patient enough. Come with me.” She stood, stiff-spry, and Daisy saw the echoes of Romance in her stance, in the set of her chin, in the way the chandelier light played on her collar. Yes, this woman had sat across this table from her Mysterious Suitor. She would have been pale and confused and pure, not knowing where to look or what to think or the proper table manners, and that innocence would have been her greatest charm.

  Daisy couldn’t blame her for being in past scenarios; in those, she had been an innocent, puppeted by one Heart after another. If she had any self-awareness at all, she had probably suffered under their control. She certainly hadn’t sought out her those scenarios, hadn’t invited them into her home.

  Constance led them out of the dining room and around the right corner to a second set of stairs. This one was slightly narrower but otherwise every bit as luxurious as the first: red velvet carpet, smooth wood railing on engraved supports. “Each step represents a different fairy tale,” Constance told them, pointing out the engravings. “We’ve figured out several of them: a riding cloak, a ballroom slipper, a dress emerging from a walnut. A few are more obscure. Perhaps they even represent original fairy tales written by my husband’s ances-tor.”

  “You’re wandering,” said Oswald, not like he meant the words to be unkind, but like he thought Constance had a touch of dementia.

  The mad old lady in the attic, Daisy thought. There was some-times room in Romance for those.

  “I’ll direct your attention to this landing pad placed conspicuously at the base of the stairs,” Tinsley told her camera, moving it to the four-inch-thick pad and then up to Constance. “Are we expected to tumble down?”

  “As I said,” Constance explained, proceeding upward, hand brushing fairy-tale engravings, “I have taken a number of precautions. First, I have released my servants with one month’s pay. They shall never return to this house even if the mirror departs—you shall learn why once I relate the mirror’s history.”

  “Because the house will burn down,” Oswald said. “Whenever the mirror is moved—”

  Constance turned such a severely old-fashioned look on him that he imme-diately flushed and muttered something defensive.

  “Second,” Constance continued with conscious dignity, “I did not have the mirror delivered until this morning, not long before you arrived. The porters were left with strict instructions to leave the mirror fully wrapped in its protective foam and cardboard. I hope this will limit the mirror’s power until we are ready for it—though it does mean we will have to unwrap it before proceeding.” They had paused on the second-floor landing, in a small and brightly lit place enlivened with a cheery landscape and the steady heartbeat of a glossy old grand-mother clock.

  “Once it is unwrapped,” Tinsley asked, “how will we know when it starts affecting us?”

  You know enough to be afraid, and yet you came, thought Daisy.

  “The strong-minded among us will know,” said Oswald.

  And yet you came, thought Daisy, observing the fringes of his will.

  “I have had all obvious weapons and sharp objects removed from the house,” Constance went on. “We shall have to make do with table knives, I’m afraid, and I have precut meat for our suppers. Nevertheless, there will be some danger in confronting the mirror. That is why the most important rule is this: if ever you feel yourself at risk, leave immediately and walk—do not drive—to the nearby village. It is less than three miles from here, the road is well-marked, and the villagers are friendly. No one will force you to stay in this house.”

  “You couldn’t if you wanted to,” said Oswald.

  Constance gave him a papery smile. “I’m glad to find you so confident.”

  They had reached the top, and red velvet stairs gave way to a broad landing. Constance led them down a brief hallway and stopped outside a handsome door. This hallway had no outside walls, but the lights above them were bright, and the ventilation windows above every door were cracked to allow fresh air to circu-late. Daisy could smell flowers again and wondered if they were over the front entrance. There was something disorient-ing in the layout of this house.

  “The ballroom is here on the third floor,” Constance said; “we already passed it. Most of the other rooms, including the one we’re about to enter, were designed as servants’ quarters. To my husband’s ancestor’s credit, most of the rooms are large and airy enough I wouldn’t be ashamed to have any-one stay in them. Not that we have live-in servants nowadays anyway. They all come from the village.”

  “Is this relevant?” Oswald murmured. He kept the words too quiet for Constance, but the camera would have picked them up.

  “I had thought I might collect dolls or stuffed animals up here, for my grand-children to play with, but that came to nothing,” Constance explained. “My poor boys . . .”

  “Is the mirror in that room?” Tinsley asked anxiously. “It is, isn’t it? This is our last chance to turn back. Not that any of us will.”

  Daisy grinned at her. “Shall we say, ‘Abandon hope, all ye who enter here’?”

  Tinsley grinned back. “I thought it was, ‘All hope abandon, ye who enter here.’”

  “It isn’t either,” Oswald said impatiently; “it’s Italian. Open the door, madam.”

  “Brace yourselves,” said Constance. Without pausing for a response, she turned the knob and pushed so that the door swung open on its own.

  The room beyond was barren of decoration. There were only the drawn white curtain sheers fluttering softly against the window frame—and the Lebens-ford Mirror.

  Sunlight dazzled off the mirror’s face, blazing away ordinary reflection. Then they stepped over the threshold and saw themselves as faces and clothes in front of a wood-and-plaster wall.

  The mirror’s glass was lovely and clear, its golden frame ornate with proud centaurs and peering gnomes, leafy griffins and human-faced flow-ers. It looked marvelous. It did not look creepy, except that it approached too near the ten-foot ceiling. It fascinated. They stared at it.

  Tinsley said, “I thought you left it in its cardboard.”

  Constance had no memory of ever having met the Lebensford Mirror before. The real Bronson twins, safely many miles distant, did.

  The Bronson family had purchased a historical manse for a very low sum, only for it to reveal itself to be an endless money sink. Determined to keep it anyway, the Bronson parents got it declared a Building of Historical Value and converted it into a bed-and-breakfast with daily tours and a gift shop. When even that wasn’t enough to support the endless upkeep bills, they decided to raise the building’s value (and therefore what they could charge per night) by restoring it to its original glory and period splendor.

  The Bronson parents began purchasing antiques wherever they found them; and, once they’d gotten momentum, they kept buying. The house’s upper rooms became so cluttered, they had to begin storing antiques in the basement until there was barely room to move down there. A fire fighter’s nightmare—but tourists were never meant to see that part of the manse.

  Then, when they were six years old, Leslie and Daley Bronson disap-peared.

  Their parents initially denied that the boys were missing, claim-ing that they were out playing. When pressed, they eventually admit-ted that the boys were in time-out for stealing candy and would be back shortly. That might have been that, had not a particularly nosy guest overhead them. She was of the opinion that the boys had already been gone too long for that explanation to fly, that the parents were being shifty, and that a child (or even two) might easily be crushed by an antique wardrobe or locked in an antique chest.

  The guest went to her room and called the police. The police showed up half an hour later, only for the Bronsons to refuse them entry without a warrant.

  The nosy guest was watching, of course. She retreated thought-fully, more concerned and suspicious than ever. She collected her fellow lodgers, explained the situation, and suggested they search. Her proposal was met with overwhelm-ing support, and the guests mobbed forward. Several times, they met with locked doors; but fortunately, the souvenir shop sold skeleton keys, and the locks were originals. After an hour of indulging their curiosity and worry by breaking into antique chests, discovering the rumored secret bolt hole, and digging through mounds of moldy clothing, the guests finally flooded into the basement.

  Until then, the Bronson parents had only made weak, ineffectual attempts to prevent the search. Now, they pleaded with the police to inter-vene—and the officers, who had become more than a little suspi-cious them-selves, took this as permission to enter without a warrant. They stormed down after the guests and made a great fuss of gathering them up and acci-dentally misplacing them and generally buying enough time for the guests to sniff out their goal: the boys, shut in a room with nothing except a tower-ing antique mirror . . . and the murdered and looted remains of three dozen guests.

  The experience left the boys strange and feral, though it wasn’t like they had gone hungry. The mirror, not full, had watched it all.

  “The porters must have missed your instructions not to unwrap it—or you forgot to tell them,” Oswald said. “Doesn’t this skew the results?”

  “It’s been watching us this whole time,” Tinsley whispered, half-con-cealed by her camera even as she stepped closer.

  “Or maybe you unwrapped it before we arrived,” Oswald suggested to Tinsley. Slyly, he added, “Why’d you really break my bathroom mirror?”

  Constance swayed and then recovered herself. This wasn’t the strangest thing that had ever happened to her. Perhaps she had even expected some-thing of the sort. “I suppose,” she said, “the porters thought they were doing an old lady a favor.”

  Motes of dust glinted in the sunlight, in the beam spotlighting the mirror. More sunlight swirled on the plaster whorls of the wall, further reflected vibrantly in clear, clean glass. There was no waver, no imperfec-tion, no hint of dirt in the frame. No smell but dust and wood and the sweet flowering vines climbing the outside wall. No feeling but the complacent depth of the mirror.

  “You were here, weren’t you?” Oswald demanded of Constance. “You saw the porters leave, and I assume you tipped them. Could they have passed you carrying out arm-loads of cardboard and foam without you noticing?”

  “Maybe it unwrapped itself,” said Tinsley, “so it could watch us.”

  “Then where’s the cardboard?” Oswald insisted. “Did the mirror eat it?”

  “Why not?” Tinsley shrugged and turned the camera on herself to ask her viewers, “What do you think?”

  The mirror reflected Daisy, standing before it in a halo of light, a rain-bow of pink and green and white. She could have reached out a finger and smudged its perfect, unwavering glass. She could have leaned forward until her nose brushed its surface. She was as close to the Heart as she’d ever approached one, and yet she could not detect a single thread within it.

  Environmental layers, Daisy thought. I’m not actually this close, not until we get deeper. She turned, looking for Lawrence to confirm this—and saw her still in the hallway, not even looking at them.

  Sudden fear quivered in Daisy’s chest, cold and white as mist. Why hadn’t Lawrence entered the room? Weren’t they supposed to? Had Daisy made a terrible mistake, stepping in front of the mirror like this? Or was there some-thing else—something her partner was looking at—some essen-tial clue?

  What had she missed?