The First Whisper

Night had wrapped Kyoto in a hushed silence, punctuated by the sound of rain. Isao was alone in his workshop, bent over a damp plate he was developing with intense concentration. Having taken a short nap earlier in the day, he had been working for hours, obsessed with the mysterious silhouettes appearing in his photographs of the Victorian mirror. In the amber darkness of the room, lit only by the safelight in the open alcove, the contours of objects seemed to dance under the effect of chemical vapors.

Suddenly, he heard it. A voice.

A faint whisper, like a breath, melodic yet indecipherable. Isao froze, the bottle of developer suspended above the bath. The whisper came again, clearer this time.

"Help me… I beg you…"

The words were in French, a language he did not speak but whose melody he recognized from having listened to a few French songs during his university years. The voice was feminine, soft, almost singing, despite the distress it conveyed.

Isao carefully set down his tools and turned towards the mirror leaning against the opposite wall. The silvered surface seemed to ripple slightly, as if it had turned to liquid. He approached it cautiously, his heart pounding beneath his kimono, faded by years of exposure to chemicals.

"Who’s there?" he asked in Japanese, then clumsily in English, hoping to be understood.

The mirror did not respond, but its surface continued to tremble ever so slightly. Isao moved closer until his breath formed a faint mist on the glass. And then he saw her.

A silhouette took shape in the depths of the mirror, as if emerging from a silver mist. A young woman with delicate features, dressed in a period gown adorned with floral patterns. Her oval face was framed by dark curls gathered into a sophisticated chignon. Her eyes, filled with poignant melancholy, seemed to gaze directly at him.

She reached out a hand towards the mirror’s surface. Isao, fascinated, observed how the light caressed the curve of her wrist, leaving a pearly sheen, almost unreal. A perfect work of art… Perhaps too perfect.

Their eyes met through the glass. The young woman’s lips moved again, forming barely audible words that Isao could not understand. He shook his head, frustrated by the language barrier that separated them.

"I don’t understand," he articulated slowly in English.

The young woman — Lucille? He recalled the name from the antique dealer’s information — seemed to grasp his frustration. She placed a hand over her chest, then gestured towards the mirror in an expressive motion. She was imprisoned.

The apparition lasted only a few seconds. The mirror’s surface returned to normal, reflecting nothing but Isao’s stunned face and the clutter of his workshop. He remained still for long moments, wondering if he had fallen victim to a hallucination caused by fatigue or the vapors from his chemicals.

But deep inside, despite his rational mind, he knew. What he had just seen was real.

***

In the following days, Isao spent all his free time trying to communicate with the young captive in the mirror. He started by learning basic French phrases through an app on his smartphone, awkwardly repeating, "Bonjour," "How are you?" and "Can you understand me?" in front of the mirror.

The phenomenon repeated itself randomly. Sometimes, the mirror remained frustratingly inert for hours, even entire days. Other times, especially at dusk or deep in the night, the surface would stir, and Lucille would appear briefly, attempting to communicate through gestures or words, her accent making them difficult to grasp.

Her presence in Isao’s workshop was accompanied by other strange occurrences. Words in French, traced as if by an invisible finger, appeared in the condensation on the mirror when he cleaned his glass plates with steam. Photographs of the mirror, which he had carefully stored in a drawer, would be mysteriously disarranged by morning. The images seemed to shift from one plate to another, blending together like a Van Gogh painting.

A melancholic piano melody, an old tune Isao did not recognize, would sometimes resonate in the empty workshop, as if played on a distant instrument. It would cease the moment he entered the room, leaving only a lingering echo in the still air.

These phenomena, far from frightening him, fueled his curiosity and strengthened his resolve. Every night, he developed new plates, experimenting with different techniques to capture Lucille’s image with greater precision.

One evening, while working late, exhausted yet unable to stop, he felt a shift in the room’s temperature. The air around the mirror grew noticeably colder. Isao looked up from his work to see the mirror’s surface stir.

Lucille appeared, more clearly than ever. She was not wearing the same dress as in their previous meetings. This one was darker, more austere — mourning attire. Her face bore an anxiety that Isao had not noticed before.

"Good evening. Lucille?" he ventured in hesitant French.

She gave him a sad smile, then began to speak. Though he couldn’t understand everything, he caught fragments: "danger," "he is coming," "beware." Her expression betrayed genuine fear.

Suddenly, she turned sharply, as if someone had called her. Her face froze in pure horror. Isao thought he saw a dark figure behind her, a male form with indistinct edges that seemed to be approaching. He squinted to get a better look, but the shape had already vanished.

An illusion caused by exhaustion… or something else?

Lucille turned back to him, her eyes filled with terror. She spoke quickly, but Isao couldn’t hear the words before she vanished into a ripple of silver, leaving him with unanswered questions and an oppressive sense of unease.

***

The following nights, Isao was woken several times by strange noises coming from his workshop. Creaks, as if someone were walking on the old wooden floorboards. The crystalline chime of a glass being lightly tapped by a fingernail. The rustling of fabric.

Each time he went to check, the workshop was empty and silent. Only the mirror seemed to pulse with a life of its own, its surface quivering slightly before going still as he approached.

One night, he awoke to a muffled scream. Rushing into the workshop, he found one of his photographic plates shattered on the floor. It was the one where Lucille’s image had appeared most clearly. The shards of glass formed a strange constellation on the floorboards, as if conveying a message he could not decipher.

Isao began to understand that the mirror was not just a portal to another time but the battleground of a conflict whose echoes he was only beginning to perceive. Something — or someone — did not want Lucille communicating with him.

This realization drove him to intensify his efforts. He spent his days perfecting his French, listening to audio lessons while preparing his emulsions, repeating phrases to the mirror as if speaking directly to Lucille.

One evening, after hours of working on a new series of collodion plates, Isao dozed off in his club chair near the mirror. A movement in the silvered surface startled him awake. Lucille was there, more present than ever, as if the thin barrier between their worlds had weakened.

She placed her hand against the mirror. The pressure of her palm seemed to ripple through the glass like a subtle vibration. Without hesitation, Isao mirrored the gesture, separated only by the cold pane. But instead of the usual chill, a faint warmth spread from his palm up his arm, sending an electric shiver down his spine. His heart pounded, caught between burning curiosity and visceral fear. The desperation in Lucille’s gaze was palpable, a silent plea.

"How can I help you?" he murmured in French, his words clumsy but sincere.

Lucille gave a trembling smile through her tears, nodding as if she understood. Her lips formed a single word Isao could decipher.

"Merci."

Then she cast a frightened glance over her shoulder, a shadow flickering in her eyes. Isao felt a terrible emptiness as her hand slowly slipped against the glass, Lucille vanishing in a ripple of the silvered surface. He remained still, alone, his breath unsteady, his hand resting on the cold mirror, which now reflected only his own face — marked by determination and concern.

His heart was still pounding from the shock of the fleeting contact. "Lucille…," he murmured into the returning silence, a hint of despair in his voice. He had no doubt now — the presence he had glimpsed behind Lucille had not been an illusion. Someone else had been watching them from the other side of the mirror. Someone who wanted to keep Lucille imprisoned.

Someone who, perhaps, had been the one to trap her there in the first place.