Thrifted

[00:00:00] Foreign. [00:00:06] I'm Ben and welcome to the show where you and I gather around this campfire to hear some of our fellow campers scariest experiences. Whether you're a new or returning one, I'm glad you're here. [00:00:17] Tonight we'll hear a story submitted by a camper named Avery about the time he and his girlfriend bought home in antique mirror from the thrift store. [00:00:26] Now, without further ado, do you want to hear a ghost story? [00:00:32] When my girlfriend and I moved into our first apartment together, we didn't have a lot. [00:00:37] Just two futons, a mismatched set of plates and this weird kind of optimism. The kind you only get when you are naive and starting something new for the first time. [00:00:50] We spent the whole first weekend bouncing between yard sales, thrift stores trying to make our place feel like home. [00:00:59] That's where we found the mirror. [00:01:01] It was leaning against a wall in the corner of a secondhand shop near downtown. It was tall, maybe 6ft, with a heavy oak frame carved with ivory vines. [00:01:14] The price Tag said only $20. [00:01:17] Even at the time, that was a total steal. [00:01:20] The guy working there didn't even want to help me load it. [00:01:23] He said it gave him bad vibes. [00:01:25] We laughed about that all the way home. [00:01:29] We hung it up in the hallway across from the bedroom. It was the first thing you saw when you stepped out of bed. [00:01:35] At first it was just a mirror, nothing else. [00:01:40] But after a couple weeks, I don't know, things started to feel different. [00:01:47] My girlfriend and I would catch each other standing in front of it, not fixing our hair, not popping a pimple or even checking an outfit. [00:01:56] Just standing there, staring. [00:02:00] Long enough that it felt weird. [00:02:02] Long enough that I started to keep track. [00:02:05] The first time I noticed, it was Emily. [00:02:08] She stood there barefoot in her sleeping shirt, just looking in the mirror, her eyes almost glassy and her arms limp at her side. [00:02:17] I called her name and she didn't move. [00:02:20] Not until I physically touched her. [00:02:23] She blinked and turned towards me, saying what? Like I was the one being weird? [00:02:28] She didn't remember that she was just standing there staring into the mirror. [00:02:33] And then a couple days later, she caught me doing it. [00:02:37] One morning I was brushing my teeth and caught my reflection out of the corner of my eye. [00:02:41] I looked over and I couldn't look away. [00:02:44] My face looked all wrong, like the expression didn't match the one I had. [00:02:49] I tried to blink, but I don't think my reflection did. [00:02:53] It just watched me, smiling. [00:02:55] Thought I was dreaming. I turned the lights off and walked back to bed. Told Myself that maybe it was just sleep deprivation. [00:03:02] When suddenly I came to just standing in front of the mirror. Emily asking me why I was there. [00:03:09] Things sort of spiraled from there. Emily and I began fighting. [00:03:14] And we kept fighting over and over again. Over nothing. [00:03:20] Over who left the stove on, over where to hang pictures, over the sound the fridge made at night. [00:03:27] All of our fights eventually got sharp and cold. [00:03:31] There was one night, probably three months after we got the mirror, where we both ended up sleeping on in separate rooms. [00:03:39] Where we both ended up sleeping in separate rooms. [00:03:42] I don't remember what even started it, but I remember waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of Emily whispering. [00:03:49] I thought she was on the phone talking to somebody. [00:03:52] But when I stepped out into the hallway, she was just standing there in front of the mirror, whispering to it. [00:04:01] I couldn't hear exactly what she was saying. [00:04:04] It was almost like she was crying. [00:04:06] I touched her shoulder and she jerked away, wild eyed, her voice then going flat. It's not ready yet. [00:04:14] I asked her what she meant, but she just shook her head and walked back to bed. [00:04:18] The following days, neither one of us really talked. [00:04:22] We didn't bring up the mirror. We didn't bring up Emily whispering in the hallway. [00:04:27] That's when I called my sister Ray. She's always been into that weird stuff. Ghost hunting, crystals, seances. [00:04:35] Honestly, I've teased her about it for years, but I didn't know who else to call. [00:04:41] She showed up with an assortment of things. Sage, a pendulum and a few candles. She. She didn't even let Emily or I say hi, just where's the mirror? [00:04:51] We brought her into the hallway. She looked at it, then at us, then back at the mirror, then back at us. [00:04:59] Before she just said, you invited this thing into your house? [00:05:05] Emily and I just looked at each other. [00:05:07] I felt this cold pit open in my stomach. [00:05:10] Ray wasn't smiling. She wasn't joking. [00:05:14] She just nodded and said, okay, we gotta talk to it. [00:05:18] I didn't want to. If I'm being honest, I was scared out of my mind. But Emily stepped forward and sat cross legged in front of the mirror like she already knew what to do. [00:05:28] When Ray turned the lights off and lit the two candles, she placed them flickering in front of us, one on each side of the mirror. [00:05:38] Then she held out her hands and said, don't break the circle unless I tell you to. [00:05:43] The second we all joined hands, the air changed. I can't explain it, like pressure in an airplane, but inside of your chest and in your ears. [00:05:55] Ray closed her eyes and started to speak in this slow, rhythmic chant. [00:06:00] And I swear to you, the flames on the candles got a little taller. [00:06:04] Ray began speaking out loud. [00:06:07] Who are you? [00:06:09] But nothing happened. [00:06:11] What do you want? [00:06:14] This time there was movement, perhaps a response, but not with words. [00:06:20] We looked up at the mirror. [00:06:23] Our reflections began changing, not all at once. [00:06:27] First it was Emily's. [00:06:29] Her reflection turned its head even though she didn't move. [00:06:33] Then mine. My reflection smiled, that same one I remember looking at before. [00:06:39] Then Rey's reflection, who oddly enough wasn't even looking at the mirror, opened its mouth and spoke. [00:06:47] But Ray wasn't speaking. Her lips were closed. [00:06:50] But here's the weirdest thing. [00:06:53] Her voice came from the mirror. [00:06:55] You let me in. [00:06:57] I just want to stay. [00:06:59] Ray gasped and blew the candles out. Well, at least that's what I tell myself. [00:07:06] I don't know how else they would have blown out. [00:07:08] At this point the hallway was pitch black and I felt hands wrap around mine. [00:07:15] Not Emily's, not Ray's. They were ice cold fingers squeezing onto my hand tight, like they didn't want to let go. [00:07:26] I panicked and broke the circle. [00:07:29] Everything snapped. The hallway light began to flicker on and off. [00:07:34] I even heard the mere crack from top to left like a jagged scar. [00:07:40] Emily was crying and Ray looked like she'd finally seen a ghost. That scared her. [00:07:45] I just sat there, staring back into the mirror at our now broken reflections. [00:07:51] We took the mirror to the dumpster the next morning and watched as the sanitation truck took it. [00:07:56] That weekend, Ray performed a full cleansing of our apartment. [00:08:01] I'm not quite sure what that entailed, other than her burning a bunch of sage in my house. [00:08:06] I don't know. She didn't let me or Emily stay for that. [00:08:10] But it's been almost 10 years now and the apartment's been calm. [00:08:14] No more fighting. No no more whispering. [00:08:18] And neither of us has ever caught the other one staring blankly into any other mirror since. [00:08:23] Thank you Avery for allowing me to share your story. [00:08:27] It's stories like these that are the reason that I don't really thrift too many things. [00:08:32] I can never be sure what energies are attached to any items I bring home. [00:08:36] I have no show announcements this week, but if you'd like a shout out to the end of an episode, head over to patreon.com do you want to hear Ghost Story? [00:08:44] As always, I'm just glad to have you all as campers on this journey. Please keep sharing the show with anyone you think might like these stories. Or someone you're just trying to scare. [00:08:53] If you are enjoying it, go ahead and leave a review. I would love to hear from you. Until next time.