Home > Story Samples >

The Third Mirror

One day a young princess set out on a journey. Her mother, the queen, had years before lost a magical mirror and now that her daughter had come of age, she had been sent to search for it.

“Look for a beautiful meadow by a stream in the middle of a forest,” the queen had told her. “I rested there when travelling to this place, and I’m sure that’s where I lost it.”

The princess left happily, eager to be outside in the sun. She walked swiftly too, skipping over fresh grasses with abandon. Don’t go too quickly, came the sound of the queen’s voice. You may miss the meadow. Without turning to acknowledge her mother, the princess slowed down, walking more steadily. Soon she was looking at the countryside around her, noticing everything, but when she stopped to smell the flowers, almost immediately she heard the queen calling, Don’t dawdle; you’ll never get there.

This time the princess spun around, ready to snap a retort. But when she looked back she saw that she had travelled further than she thought, and that her home had long disappeared from view. Curious, she turned back to her journey and walked on.

As night neared on the first day, she found herself in a narrow valley, which led into a forbidding forest. Unsure of what to do, she decided to climb the valley side and see what lay beyond the dark trees before her. Scrambling up the steep stony scree she was able to gain enough height to see that the forest stretched many miles, yet not far inside the embrace of the trees there was a wide clearing which caught the evening sun. It reflected a brilliant light towards her, and she felt sure it was the meadow she sought. The princess slid back down the slope and entered the forest in the direction of the clearing.

It was certainly spooky passing through the dark trees, and her heart jumped several times when the wind whistled the leaves and the brambles caught her skirts, but nothing untoward happened and she reached the opening without mishap. And there, lying by the swaying grasses was a stream. Excited, she rushed forward, certain she was in the right place.

However, it was too dark to look for the mirror that evening, so after a light supper and a drink from the stream she unpacked her bed roll and settled for the night in the embrace of a huge and magnificent oak.

The next morning she began her search, and though it would make her story more exciting to say she search for hours and hours, in truth she discovered a mirror almost right away. In fact, it was almost as if it jumped out at her.

Pulling it with trembling fingers from the tangled grasses that had grown around it, she sat it on her knee and tenderly wiped its face with her sleeve. It was almost a foot and a half high with flowing ornate carvings around its frame. It was very grand. ‘Are you the queen’s mirror?’ she whispered gently. Whether it was magic or not, the mirror made no reply. But the reflection it showed the princess of herself was so beautiful that she felt sure it was truly enchanted. She peered at it: her hair seemed brighter, her eyes larger, her skin smoother. ‘My,’ she said, with an appreciative laugh. ‘You are quite the flatter.’ She was delighted by the mirror’s attentions.

When finally she looked up she saw that the sun had crossed the mid-point. Unsure of how long it would take her to cross the stretch of forest between the clearing and the valley, she decided to climb the oak and view it. It proved not to be far, but on turning the other way she got a shock.

Not more than a short distance away through the trees was a second clearing. She knew she could not leave without checking, so climbing back down she picked up the mirror, and made off through the woods.

Though it was the middle of the day, the forest floor was at once dark and cool. She felt the urge to push and hurry through the undergrowth, but found that the mirror was heavy in her hands, and the loops and hooks in its frame caught easily in the forest vines. For a while her love of it lessened - especially when she caught a glimpse of herself in its face, showing her features dark and heavy in the forest gloom.

But at last she broke out into the new clearing, and fell in a thankful heap against a beech of outstanding grandeur. So tired was she by her struggle through the forest, that she might have slept straight away - had not something particularly painful stuck in her back. Something that turned out to be… another mirror.

The princess was shocked. She had not expected this. Her trip to the new clearing was more from a need to be thorough, than because she truly expected another find. And now, when she looked into this new reflection, she was troubled. This mirror - a smaller, plain, metal banded glass - showed her not as more beautiful, but as wiser. In the reflection she saw a broad forehead, deep knowing eyes, and a wide mouth capable of great speech. Truly, in her experience, such an image of herself could only be one of wonder.

Both mirrors showed her special; both were obviously magical. Which could be the one for which she searched? Tired as much from the mystery as from the journey, she slept. And naturally, she dreamt.

‘Knowledge is much more important than flattery,’ the smaller mirror croaked at her. ‘Don’t be deluded by that puffed-up fellow. A princess needs to know things to conquer her world. Gaze into me, and I will teach you how to be better than others.’

‘Rubbish,’ cried the other, waving its ornate loops in the air. ‘Brainy people are despised. No one will love you for cleverness. And none CAN love you as I do. Look at me, look at me – I am the one to show you what you are.’ And with this the larger mirror curved its loops and folds towards her - in ways that frankly, the princess found disturbing.

Leaving them arguing with each other she turned away, only to find herself trapped. In the dream, her home was a tiny windowless room, shared with only the two mirrors. A home that had little space in its own right, and none that she could call her own.

Days seemed to pass in the altered reality of her dream; then months, even years went by. And throughout it all the two mirrors continued their competitive pursuit of her favours. Moreover, they grew. The princess found herself cramped more and more by their reaching clutches, their whiny voices, and their incessant arguing. She tried to find some space for herself but trapped in the box-like room, there was nowhere for her to go.

Then one day she deliberately turned away from the them, clamped her hands over her ears and stared resolutely at the wall. And as she did, she faintly started to see something she had not noticed before. At first she was dismayed because what appeared - as if from nothing – was yet another mirror. But as she looked at it, she felt a warmth and comfort from it that she did not experienced from the others. Moreover, it reflected nothing, instead giving out a beautiful golden light. The princess leaned closer to examine it – and to her great surprise saw the following words embedded in the frame: ‘In Case Of Emergency, Break Glass’.

The idea that a mirror should itself tell her to break it seemed preposterous. Yet the princess intuitively knew a deeper magic was being offered by this sacrifice. With her heart in her mouth - and to the sound of sudden terrified silence behind her - she picked up her shoe and thumped the glass.

The mirror cracked with a noise like laughing rain. The broken bits crumbled in on themselves until they were no longer visible, and the golden light bulged outwards. Freed from its glass barrier it grew outwards and the princess, sitting transfixed in front of it, was completely immersed by it.

For long blissful moments she saw nothing but gold, felt nothing but joy, and heard noting but her own heart. When at last her eyesight cleared, everything around her had altered. The walls of the room had become translucent, then transparent, and no longer were they a prison to contain her. They were simply the boundaries of her being – her own internal world, her sacred space. A space that moved as she moved, and grew or shrank as she dictated. Moreover, a space that nothing should enter uninvited. She knew this instantly – and the two mirrors, watching her anxiously, knew it too. Without words, with merely the knowing of it, she banished them beyond the walls of the room. Her ‘room’. She was freed within herself. Freed to be herself.

And as so, the princess woke.

The princess sat up. It was early dawn of the next day, the sun just starting to creep into the clearing. The mirrors lay beside her. Silent. Passive. She got up and without a backward glance, walked away through the trees.

When she arrived home that evening, tired but complete, the queen asked her where the mirror was.

‘There is only one mirror,’ the princess said, kissing her mother on the cheek. ‘Me.’

^ To Top