It’s lost it’s magic, the tiny old thing.

The magic died in the mirror on the same day it died in me.

This was nothing more than a memento now. The last piece of him left.

We were so young... our love was certainly an entertaining sort. Our children, who are now grown and shamble about making supper downstairs, and their children, who I can hear running up and down the hallways, never fully knew the tale.

How could I tell them the whole thing? It would terrify them to know the story of how i fell in love, and with whom, and what had led to our meeting.

It was a dreadful story, far from romantic.

Yet still... I long for those days to be here again; Reading and walking freely about the town and about the castle. I miss the fresh air and hikes in the woods with him.

With him... I see his faces, both the one I first feared then grew to love, and the face that had grown old along side me in this very bed.

It’s strange... 50 years I’ve lived with his ladder appearance, and yet it was the old one I remember so fondly.

This was yet another thing that I could never show our family. They grew up not knowing what their father had been at the start, and they never needed to know.

But I look in the mirror and can see it clear as day. His eyes always captured me. I can see them in the mirror, as I look through the reflection of my own face.

I ignore the wrinkles and graying hair and look past to the memories inside my reflection’s mind. I remember The ballroom dances, the dinners, and the friends in the castle.

They had all passed long ago. It had been only me and my prince who remembered everything once they were gone. Now, he was too. So, I’m all that’s left.

I’m tired. And I miss him. I feel my brain dulling. My life is slipping away as the grip loosens on the intricate hand mirror. I dont fight it. I don’t need to.

My family will live without me, and my time, my story, has come and gone. Now it is time for the next chapter in my life. The final chapter.

“Show me...” my voice is a cracked breath.

I ask only one thing of the object in my hand. So As my family happily goes about their lives downstairs, I look into the mirror, one last time, and ask it to return me to mine.

“Show me the beast.”