I have been here a long time, centuries even. When I last saw light of day, a mad King was on the throne, candles lit the room and I was young.

My second owner was named Elle and I was bought for her 16th birthday. She wore her hair up for the first time and I showed her how grown up she looked. She smiled with pleasure at her new dress and pretty necklace.

“I am out in society for the first time tonight,” she whispered in excitement, “perhaps I might meet the man I am to marry.”

I liked Elle, but I worried that she was like a young lamb being sent to slaughter among the young rakes and old lechers. Men like a young pretty thing to mould.

Elle came back from the dance, full of excitement. “I think I met him,” she confided, “but Mama says we must wait and see.”

For the first few dances, she returned full of excitement but then she came in one day with her fire extinguished.

“He does not want me,” she said, “Amelia Hyde has a bigger dowry.”

I waited hopefully. In disappointment my power could come.

“I wish...”

I waited.

“I wish Amelia would develop a big pustule on the end of her nose.”

The next time Elle entered she was puzzled.

“Amelia had a pustule on her nose,” she whispered, “just like I said.”

She shrugged it off. Coincidence. But what if...

“I wish Amelia could fall and hurt her ankle.”

The next day she was scared. “It happened! What have I done?”

Common sense took over again.

“It can’t have been me. A wish cannot make things happen - can it?”

I cannot answer her for I have no mouth, but this is not the first strange thing I have witnessed.

She drew herself up as if summoning courage and said, “I wish Amelia Hyde should lose her dowry,” then she looked around furtively and stepped away.

Her sparkle returned when her rival had gone. Her beau, James, returned to her and all was happiness.

However when my special ability is called upon, balance must be maintained.

Elle was a little worried when a pustule appeared on her nose, just as it had for Amelia Hyde.

The next day she appeared before me, limping. She had slipped and fallen down the last three stairs and twisted her ankle.

“No!” She whispered, “could it be that what I wished on Amelia is happening to me? Say it isn’t so, mirror.”

I can say nothing, but only reflect what is shown.

The next day, I was covered over and carried out to a cart pulled by strong horses along with other possessions. From conversation I understood that I was to be sold to help pay off debts that Elle’s father had racked up. Elle had lost her dowry. I never knew whether her beau stood by her.

In the next house that bought me I faced a very different woman. A supernaturally sensitive woman who had long upswept brown hair, early 30s with witchy green eyes that stared beyond the glass.

“There’s something unusual about you,” she murmured. “A curse, perhaps? A spirit dwelling within?”

She was close. I had been built by a carpenter with a prescient daughter who had been thwarted in love by a witch. Before she took her life, she had cursed me with a spell for 1000 years, that I could grant wishes but that they would return on the person who had made the wish. That would be fine if everyone made a good wish before their mirror.

On recognising me for what I was, she took care of me and ensured that nothing bad was said in my presence. On her death, she instructed that I was to be destroyed. The person tasked to do the destruction took pity on me and hid me in their attic until all was forgotten. I’m sorry to say I repaid their kindness with misery.

And now I await a new mistress. Someone opens the loft hatch and comes into the attic. A moment later, I am uncovered.

“What an old mirror,” says the person who has found me, “that will look great in the hall downstairs.”

From behind them comes another person. He has witchy green eyes and I do not like the way he looks at me.

“No,” he says, “it is only fit for firewood. It is full of woodworm.”

It is my end.