Leslie Rule - Ghost in the Mirror: Real Cases of Spirit Encounters

B Y ANN R ULE

I ve always felt it must be extremely difficult for ghosts, spirits, the departed, or whatever the proper term is for those who have passed over, to make contact with us in our world. They come to us in dreams, I think, or in that half-asleep state when we are open to things unexplainable.

And they come to us in mirrors.

A broken mirror offers as many images as there are shards of glass, and it is, of course, unlucky. Seven years of bad luck. Why is that? A shattered cup or plate isnt unlucky, but the sight of a mirror in pieces haunts us all, and we dont know why.

Lewis Carroll captured our curiosity about what really lies behind mirrors in Alices Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. Oddly, Lewis Carroll and Alice always frightened me; his books and characters seemed to be somehow schizophrenic. You couldnt count on anything staying the same. The Cheshire Cat appeared and disappeared at will. The queens croquet mallet turned into a flamingo. The world behind the mirror was confusing and unstable.

When I was a child, I believed that although the immediate image in the glass was identical to the room I was in, there was another house, a different house, if I could only see around the corners and through the walls in the mirror image. And sometimes I still do.

Like my daughter, I am a writer. And we both have vivid imaginations. It seems natural for me to wonder about the other voices and other rooms that are so close, and yet so hidden.

Wouldnt a mirror be an effortless point of entry for a ghost? Surely, gliding through that other world hidden behind the glass would be a path allowing a ghost to both appear and vanish within the blink of an eye. Although I write true crime, I often use the device of an intended victims terror at the sight of an enemys reflection approaching from behind.

Its always more frightening than facing an attack head-on.

Or in a movie, perhaps a killer is hiding in a closet or behind a door, and the victim fails to detect that someone else is in the room. Then the camera pans to a dressing table mirror, and a face, or a hand with a knife, appears.

And the audience gasps as one.

I have talked to hundreds of people who knew murder victims, and some of them have been aware of a presence or an image standing close beside them in their mirrors. A ghost come to say good-bye? Or wishful thinking?

When I lived in New York State, I was unfortunate enough to have neighbors who seemed to be either the epitome of evil or the meanest humans I ever met. They complained about everything, ambushed my guests, and reported my dogs as vicious (when they were as docile as bunny rabbits). Any encounter with them was guaranteed to ruin the sunniest day. I did my best to avoid them, and tried to visualize them as inanimate objects such as trees or telephone poles when I found myself within shouting distance. But nothing worked.

Finally, a friend who believed in things both seen and unseen told me what to do. Buy a mirror, she said. And place it against the nearest outside wall that faces their house.

After Id purchased a thrift store mirror and carried it into my living room, I asked, What good will this do?

It wont do any good, she said, the way you have it now. Its facing out into your room.

So? Thats what mirrors do.

Not for this purpose. Turn it so it faces the wall. Anything they send to younegative thoughts, lies, gossipwill go right back to them.

Isnt that kind of spooky?

No. Its only spooky if they choose to send dark thoughts to you. All youve done is lean a mirror against a wall.

Still doubting, I left it there, the tattered brown paper on the back showing. But it worked. Whatever was going on in their house wasnt happening in mine, and I rarely saw them after that.

Probably just a coincidence.

Sometimes, when the light is just right or when there is no light at all, windows become mirrors. I wasnt happy at all back in the 70s when my eldest daughter wanted to move into a place of her own. She was seventeen, just out of high school, and sick of the teasing she endured from her little brothers. Finally, I capitulated after she found a tiny house not that far from where we lived. It was part of the meager estate of an elderly woman who had died a few months earlier.

My daughter worked nights as a waitress and I insisted on picking her up and delivering her safely home after dark. I watched until she was inside and the lights were turned on.

At first, her rented house had seemed welcoming, but within a few weeks a pall seemed to settle over it. The windows let in more shadows than sunlight, and there were cold spots where there was no reason for them to be there. I found some human teeth hidden far back in the bathroom cabinet and shuddered when I saw that the roots were still attached.

Even the food in her refrigerator seemed to spoil far sooner than it normally should have.

She had neighbors who reminded me of the older couple in Rosemarys Baby. Their daughter had gone away years before, and they were sitting a kind of vigil until she came home again. Sometimes, I worried that they were trying to adopt my daughter.

I was relieved when she moved back home with us after a few months. But there was an afternoon when Leslie and I went back to check the mailbox to see if any bills or letters had arrived after her sister left. It was late in the fall and the sun set early in Seattle, casting shadows. The house was supposed to be empty, but someoneor somethingwas inside as we pulled up and parked. I caught movement in the front window. Looking back, I know it couldnt have been a reflection from across the street or from a car passing by. It was a face peering out at us. The person wasnt standing or sitting, but seemed to be crouched at the window and his (or herI couldnt tell which) expression was one of fury.