Pause & Reflect

My fiancee` lives in a huge old farm house that is on the edge of noplace. It is all made of wood and as I recall it is pegged together so it creaks and shakes shudders when the night winds blow. The house looks much like it did in 1900, with the old-fashioned fireplaces in all the downstairs rooms.
The fireplaces all have ornate wood mantels with columns and mirrors and shelves over them, and the one in the dining room always makes me uneasy. While all the other mirrors are clear as crystal the dining room mirror is clouded at the sides, like the silver is peeling. I have been clearing the table or sweeping the rug and seen reflections in that mirror from the corner of my eye. Also, the neighbor woman said she saw a crow reflected in the mirror and she turned to see where it was sitting and saw nothing. Then she looked back in the mirror and saw the crow again! She needless to say made a swift exit and as yet hasn't been back. I looked in the mirror one night while winding the mantel clock and saw the reflection of the same room but it looked different. The rug was different. The light was dimmer and one of those old oil burning numbers with prisms and a red glass shade, and the wallpaper and drapes were different. I turned around and the room was as reflected, red light, drapes and all! I was too scared to move an inch! It hit me that this was probably how the dining room looked in some earlier day. I recall that I heard the everyday noises, but they sounded far and away like I was at the end of a long hall. I know I was there for the briefest of moments, but it seemed an eternity before I turned and looked in the mirror again and saw the reflection of the room I recognized. I turned around and saw the room I had left bare moments ago. Chaz was leaning in the pantry doorway with his mouth hanging open, rubbing his eyes...it seems he was coming out with a load of table-cloths from the dryer and saw me "come from the air" (Those are his own words). That was the most unusual thing that ever happened in there, but I always saw light flicker off the mirror's beveled edges when no light was shining on it, and Chaz and I both saw the tree just outside the window reflected in autumn colors when it was the dead of winter.

Neither of us drink or use any dope.