Page 120 of Specters & Spotlights

She felt Graham flinch. He’d seen the cane move. Heard it strike the floor.

“Girls, come out!”

There was movement in the mirror.

Elise turned toward it, eyes narrowing.

In the reflection, just behind the frame of the door they had entered through, three small figures slowly peeked around the edge. They wore matching black leotards and short, flowing skirts that moved like they were underwater. Their hair was pulled into perfect, identical ballet buns.

Elise turned toward the physical door to get a better look.

There was no one there.

She frowned and focused, inspecting her senses like checking the weather.

They weren’t at the door. Not really.

They were in the mirror.

She turned back and saw them again—still there, still watching. Their eyes were wide, luminous, a little too still. They didn’t move from the reflection of the doorway, like they weren’t entirely sure they were meant to be seen.

“You’ll only find them in mirrors, the dears,” the old woman said. “They can’t stand it any other way.”

Elise stepped a bit closer, studying them.

She couldn’t tell them apart.

She didn’t know if it was the monochrome way they appeared—glassy, grayscale, edges flickering—or if they had been triplets in life. But they were utterly identical. Three carbon copies of the same dancer, standing with toes pointed inward and hands clasped behind their backs.

She raised a hand in a gentle wave.

After a brief pause, all three of them waved back—hesitantly, and in perfect unison.

The old woman gestured past them, toward the shadowy wall they hadn’t yet turned to face.

“And that,” she said with calm finality, “is our mime.”

Elise turned⁠—

And jumped.

A hulking figure stood less than a foot away, looming in absolute silence.

He wore a classic black-and-white mime outfit: tight striped shirt, black suspenders, trousers that clung too tightly to his frame. White gloves stretched over hands that looked more like catcher’s mitts. His painted smile was wide and cracked at the edges. His eyes, outlined in thick black makeup, never blinked.

And he was grinning. Not happily. Just… grinning.

Elise’s heart clawed at her ribs.

She took a step back.

“We call him Giggles,” the old woman said, completely unfazed. “We don’t know his real name.”

Kevin—who had drifted closer, visibly unsettled—tilted his head as if tuning a ghostly radio.

“I think it’s Frederick⁠—”

“I like Giggles better,” the old woman snapped, her tone brooking no disagreement.