Harry had been caught behind the mirror before but never this badly. He had no way out!
He was stuck; he was trapped. Always before [he had three minutes] when he crossed over the visible / invisible threshold and emerged on the other side, he had been able to return.
Not this time! Now there were two images side by side of him stuck inside the mirror—and no real him where the room was. His body was gone; he had disappeared!
Harry would cease to exist shortly unless he could figure out a way to get back.
It might help him to deduce what had gone wrong. What was different about this trip across the magic surface of the mirror from last time?
He knew the answer at once. He forgot to take the precaution. He usually muttered an incantation for his safe return but this time he had forgotten. Perhaps it was not too late to say it?
He tried but his mouth didn’t work! As a mere image, his vocal cords had no power of speech.
He could think but he couldn’t talk. What to do, what to do? [He had two minutes].
Perhaps his wife would wander into the bathroom and be of some help to him? She was pretty weird in the mental department herself, if you know what I mean.
What would she think, seeing only an image of him on the surface of the mirror but no real bodily presence? No Corpus Indicatus Itselfus, that is.
His wife, Suzanne “Sunshiny” Porkbottom, did wander into the bathroom. She stopped in front of the mirror and gazed at it for a moment. She showed no sign of surprise, no sign of recognizing him.
He expected her to be shocked by his image. Then a horrible thought occurred to him! Perhaps, with his body gone, she saw no reflection of him at all!
[One minute left]. His wife wet a paper towel at the sink and started to clean the mirror. He felt part of his cheek disappear as her wet towel wiped away at the section of the mirror where his face had been.
He put his fingers to the inside surface of the mirror and tried to scratch it. He tried to shout “Stop!” but then remembered he had no power of speech.
Another circular swipe and half his head was gone! His wife was wiping away the image on the right!
That was okay; he could still cross back with only one image of himself intact. [Thirty seconds left].
His wife knew the secret incantation that could bring him back and restore him to life. But how to get her to say it, that was the problem!
Then a ray of hope came to him. Maybe he could move his image about—dodge around so as to miss the cleaning motion swipe of his wife’s hand.
He couldn’t be entirely invisible to her, could he? [No time left].
His wife finished cleaning the mirror. Now both images had vanished, wiped completely clean by her towel.
She turned to leave the bathroom and as she did so she began to call loudly for her husband: “Harry, where are you?”
She suspected he should be around the house somewhere, but exactly where, she had no idea.
She vaguely remembered seeing him around recently, perhaps the bathroom, but that couldn’t be.
Do you think she ever found him?
(From “Ghost Stories Told Behind Mirrors”)
