Antique Mirror

When my cousin was around twelve years old, her grandmother, on her father's side, died leaving a house full of antique furniture, which had belonged to her mother, to be divided between her children.

Well my cousin and her family took an old, antique dresser for their part because my cousin didn't have one in her bedroom at the time.

Several nights after putting the dresser in her room, she was awakened by a bright, blinding glow. Thinking it was a car from across the street shining their lights at her house, she got up and looked out the window. Seeing no car, she became more awake and realized the glow was coming from inside her room. She turned and looked behind her at the antique dresser on the opposite wall. It shon with an ethereal light, almost blinding her.

Too afraid to scream or call out to her parents, she stood frozen, staring at the dresser, her heart pounding.

Suddenly, the light surrounding the dresser began to fade until it only glowed with a soft light. My cousin could now see into the mirrored part of the dresser, and what she saw scared her to death.

There in the mirror was the image of a wedding dress, floating in a circle. She was finally able to scream and as she did, the image faded and the dresser no longer glowed. So by the time her parents reached the room after hearing her scream, everything was back to normal. They convinced her that she'd only had a nightmare and that everything was fine then they left the room and my cousin crawled back into bed. She did not sleep at all though, for the rest of the night.

The next night rolled around and my cousin, remembering the events of the previous night, begged her parents to let her sleep on the sofa or with them. They of course refused and sent her to bed. She lay awake until the wee hours of the morning, watching the dresser, praying it would not happen again; and it didn't. At least not that night.

Several nights passed without anything strange taking place and she began to relax and laugh at herself. After several nights of restful slumber, she was again awakened, only this time not by the bright glow as before but by a frantic tapping sound. Upon awakening, she immediately looked toward the dresser, somehow sensing that was where the tapping was coming from. A soft glow surrounded it and she again could see into the mirror. As before, there in the mirror was the image of the wedding dress, but this time there was also the image of a very pretty young woman wearing the dress and smiling. The woman looked like herself except for the hair which was a few shades darker than her own. The woman crooked her finger as if telling my cousin to come over to the mirror. Although the woman looked like herself, my cousin did not go to the mirror, she just stood frozen, staring at the image. The expression on the woman's face slowly became one of great sadness and then the image faded all together. Once again, everything was back to normal. My cousin did not wake her parents that night. She just went on back to bed.

The next day, she told them about the events of the night before and begged them to get rid of the dresser. Realizing the stress that having the dresser in her room was causing my cousin, her parents moved the dresser to the old farmstead they owned, which was way down in the country. The farmstead had belonged to my cousin's great-grandmother, the original owner of the antique dresser. The dresser stayed in the old house for years before it was ransacked and everything in it, including the dresser, was stolen by parties unknown to this day.

Incidentally, my cousin, though she'd been afraid of the dresser when she was a child, is an avid antique collector to this day and, if memory serves me correctly, the dresser was found after several months of investigations into the theft, and sits in my cousin's own home today......

THE FOG