Annabelle knew that something lived in her mirror, but no one would believe her, all because of Susie, her stupid stories and the stupid television shows she stole them from.

Whatever it was, it watched her, all the time; from the second she stepped into her room, until the second she ran back out, heart thumping and skin tingling with panic.

That was the way she always left her room these days.

She’d done what she’d thought was sensible, and had told Mummy straight away, that something was in her room which shouldn’t be, lurking between the thin layers of glass and different metals needed to make you able to see yourself, and Mummy was soothing at first, letting her sleep in her bed, something she hadn’t done for almost two years now, giving her soft-voiced pep talks on how she was perfectly safe, and that anything nasty there would be chased away, if she just went in there and told it that it wasn’t welcome.

Annabelle had spent almost fifteen minutes shouting and poking the mirror, though nothing had happened. Mummy had smiled then, and had gone back downstairs, happy that her mission was accomplished, leaving Annabelle to stand and stare at her own reflection, knowing that it was still not quite right.

When the complaints continued into a second week, Mummy began to lose patience.

‘Enough, Annie,’ she’d said when Annabelle had told her, for the third time in one night, that the mirror was making tapping noises. ‘This is getting silly now. We’ve looked in the mirror, and there’s nothing there but you and me.’

Annabelle had given up trying to explain herself after that. Mummy just didn’t understand. Instead, she found every excuse possible to avoid going into her room, from reading books out in the landing to making trips for glasses of water last for as long as forty-five minutes, depending on quickly Mummy would catch Annabelle loitering in the kitchen.

One night, Mummy really shouted when she caught her, and ordered Annabelle to go back up to bed and stay there, before she could even open her mouth, which was, in Annabelle’s opinion, most unfair. She had trudged glumly up the stairs, truly intending to go back into her room, as she had been told, but had stopped when she reached her door, slightly ajar as she’d left it.

What bothered Annabelle was that the room was dark, which was not how it should have been. Annabelle’s room, once the sun went down, was never without the soft, golden light of her beside lamp, not even on her bravest of nights.

That said, Annabelle did not like to think of herself as being particularly afraid of the dark. She didn’t shy and scream at being plunged into a little bit of darkness like some girls (and boys) at school did, but she did always like to know how to make it go away with the flick of a switch.

She knew she always made sure to turn off lights when she left any of the rooms downstairs, and sometimes even the ones upstairs, when she was going out for a long time with Mummy, but she never turned off the lamp once she’d been sent to bed. Something told her that whatever it was that had made the lamp go out, the mere flick of a switch was not going to bring its warm, reassuring glow back again.

Tentatively, Annabelle pushed at the door with her finger, edging it back into the shadowy blackness. She could just see, gleaming bone white on her wall in the sparse light let in from the landing, the switch for the main light in her room. Something told her, that if she could reach this switch without setting a single toe onto the carpet of her room, everything would be okay.

Even though she shuffled right up to the edge of the landing carpet, so close that her toes were edged right into the darkened doorway, the light switch stayed just out of her reach.

She stretched as far as she could, spilling water from her glass down her front as she did so.

Squeaking as the cold water hit the cotton front of her nightie, she stumbled forward into the shadows of her room.

A light flickered on.

Confused, Annabelle looked around. Once more, her room looked as it should, bathed in a warm, yellow light. For a moment, she wondered if the light had ever gone off at all. Perhaps she had even gone off into a doze where she had been stood outside of her door. It was very late after all, and Mummy was always saying that Annabelle had a very silly imagination when she was tired.

However, Annabelle still lingered by the doorway. Something just didn’t look quite right.

The light blinked, as though someone had flicked the switch on and off within the same second, and Annabelle glanced quickly to the lamp, only to see that the one beside her bed was a cold grey and completely dead. The one reflected in her mirror – the mirror, that ran along a decent stretch of her northern wall – however, was bright and twinkling.

By the time Annabelle had properly realised this, her feet had carried her swiftly back down the stairs again, panic brimming in her chest as she rushed purposefully towards the lounge door, until she heard Mummy say something that made her slowly dwindle to a halt in the corridor outside.

‘It’s not like her to lie...’ she heard her say. The door was open a small fraction, enough so that if Annabelle pressed her eye to the long, narrow gap left in the doorway, she could just see the tops of two heads rising up above the back of the sofa. One blonde and shiny– Mummy’s – and one dark and fluffy– Auntie Gloria’s.

Gloria wasn’t Mummy’s sister, but came over all the time. She always kept Mummy up watching television and mostly talking about stuff Annabelle didn’t really understand, and

didn’t really care to. However, right now, this was not the case at all, as Annabelle listened as carefully as she could to each murmur and rasp of their conversation.

‘But that’s all she seems to do these days,’ Mummy said. ‘Is it because I’m not giving her enough attention, or is she turning into one of those horrible little girls who like to tell tall-tales for kicks? I don’t know. I feel that the way I handle this phase of hers is going to be crucial, and I can’t help thinking that I’m doing everything wrong.’

‘Claire, you always think you’re doing everything wrong, and more often than not, everything turns out fine.’ said Auntie Gloria, her voice so much lower, and croakier than Mummy’s.

‘I played along, and she only got worse,’ Mummy said, sounding angry. ‘Every night, it’s a new story about that stupid mirror. She even tried telling me that it’s started to make tapping noises whenever she tries to sleep. What am I supposed to say to that?’

Annabelle felt her chin wobble, and tried biting her lip to make it stop. She knew Mummy didn’t believe her, and she’d known right from the beginning that Mummy didn’t seem to be able to understand, but to hear her sound so angry about it, and to hear her call Annabelle a liar brought the hot, prickly sensation of oncoming tears to Annabelle’s eyes.

‘She probably doesn’t think she is lying,’ Gloria said. Her dark, curly head bobbed up and then down as she moved around on the sofa. ‘She has such a strong imagination, that she probably really believes she’s seeing and hearing something there. Houses always make strange noises at night, and they can get misread so easily by little ones.’

‘She’s nearly eight years old. She’s hardly a little one.’ Mummy said. She sounded sad.

‘She is as far as I’m concerned.’ Auntie Gloria chuckled. Annabelle could hear the clink of glass hitting glass, and liquid gurgling around, as Gloria’s head briefly dipped out of sight. ‘You wait until she’s as old as my one, and still telling stories to anything that will listen,’ Gloria said, as the top of her head bobbed back up into sight, ‘that’s when it’s time to start panicking and pulling your hair out.’

Annabelle knew the short silence that followed was not a good one. It made everything inside her tummy clench and squirm.

‘Stories?’ Mummy asked in the light, quiet tone she tended to use before shouting. ‘What stories are those?’

There was a creaking as Auntie Gloria shifted on the sofa.

‘Oh you know, silly ones...she tries to tell them to me all the time, but I don’t really listen. It’s all things she’s seen off telly, I reckon. Silly moose always tries to pass them off as her own, just because she’s changed the names of the characters.’

‘I don’t suppose she would have been telling any of these stories to Annabelle, when she’s watching her for me, would she?’ Mummy said.

‘Would that be a problem?’ Auntie Gloria said. It sounded to Annabelle like Auntie Gloria recognised that tone of voice as well.

‘I don’t let Annabelle watch telly.’ Mummy sniffed disapprovingly. ‘I only let her watch videos. Then I know exactly what she’s seeing.’

‘So you’re still keeping the kid on a diet of Disney and lies then?’ Auntie Gloria scoffed.

‘Hardly. She can watch anything she likes, so long as there’s no horror or violence.’ Mummy said, still in her dangerous voice.

Auntie Gloria made a nasty sound, somewhere between a cackle and a cough.

‘I know your idea of violence! Morgan wouldn’t approve...’

It was said jokingly, but apparently, Mummy didn’t find it funny.

‘Morgan’s not here.’ She snapped, sounding so, strange, that Annabelle wasn’t sure for a moment that it had been Mummy that had spoken.

‘I know. Sorry sweetheart, I didn’t think.’

They went silent, for a very long time, both heads turned to look at the television screen. Whatever it was they were watching, it was in black and white, with people all dressed in suits and tight dresses – something Annabelle had no interest in, but she strained her ears anyway to try and make the blurry murmurs the black and white people were making into recognisable words.

She didn’t do very well.

Auntie Gloria suddenly spoke.

‘Have you ever spoken to Annabelle about-?’

‘No.’ Mummy said quickly.

Annabelle sat in puzzlement for a moment as that short burst of conversation sank into her skull. What hadn’t Mummy spoken to her about?

‘Why not?’

‘Does it have anything to do with you?’

‘Yes it does. Sort of...’

‘She’s never asked.’ Mummy said, after a short pause.

‘She’s never asked why she doesn’t have a Dad?’ Auntie Gloria sounded a little disbelieving, and she had a right to. Annabelle pushed against the gap in the door until the hard wooden edge started to press a neat, straight groove down the side of her face; she had asked Mummy about where her Daddy was, several times, and had never gotten a straight answer, not ever.

The issue of the mirror and the lamp temporarily forgotten, she waited for Mummy to say more, holding her own breath so that its growing volume did nothing to distort what she heard.

‘No.’ Mummy said bluntly. ‘Do you think I could speak to Susie about these stories of hers tomorrow? I want to check on what rubbish she’s been telling my daughter.’

There was a weighty pause.

‘I’ll send her over before she goes to school.’ Gloria said, her voice flat and glum. There was another clink of glass.

‘Damn, this bottle’s empty. Do you want me to go and get another?’

The top of Mummy’s head jiggled as she nodded, and Gloria was up on her feet all too soon, and making her way to the door. Had Annabelle not been pressed quite so hard into the gap, she would have been able to pull away, and slip, unnoticed into the dining room (strangely enough, the dark in there did not bother her nearly as much) until Gloria had got whatever it was she wanted from the kitchen, but as it was, she was leaning too far forward, and the instinctive jump her body made simply caused her to slip on the flat pile of the carpet while she tried to propel herself backwards, and she found herself splayed guiltily on the floor, in front of a stunned Auntie Gloria.

She looked odd. Surprised and angry all at the same time, with her heavy eyebrows shot up in arches and her mouth pursed in sour restraint. Annabelle half expected her to tell on her, but instead, the woman just pointed harshly at her, and then repeated the same stabbing gesture towards the stairs.

The message was simple:

You. Bed. Now.

Annabelle tried to speak, but had barely begun to form the word, ‘But – ’, when Auntie Gloria pulled a very nasty face and repeated the gesture with double the force.

This time Annabelle obeyed, scampering the stairs and along the landing with her well-practiced silent steps up. When she got to her door, she stopped.

The lamp was on again, on both sides of the mirror this time, as it should be, and without letting herself pause to think about it, she rushed into her room and dove straight beneath the covers.

She then lay there, eyes screwed up tight, resolutely refusing to turn and look to the source of the occasional, but ever so deliberate little tap, knocking on the wrong side of a sheet of glass, until her head could take being awake no more and she drifted off to sleep.