got home late and didn’t bother to see if Hanrahan was there. They were both busy and often went a day without meeting. But in the morning he decided he’d better checkup.
Hanrahan’s bedroom door was locked. There was no answer to knocking or calls. After ten minutes Seaforth began to feel scared. He got out a hammer and broke the lock.
There was no one in the room.
*
Very late that same Sunday night when Hanrahan had looked in vain for Seaforth and Seaforth for Hanrahan, the kitten’s mother slipped out through a basement window and found her young one wandering down the block. She was a sleek, handsome cat, black as Hades. When she caught up with her offspring she cuffed him expertly.
“You little devil!” she meowed. “Where have you been? I told you not to run away again.”
The fluffy kitten whimpered.
“I haven’t done anything,” he whined.
The old cat growled deep in her throat.
“You been fooling around with any humans?” she asked menacingly.
“No, honest I haven’t!” said the kitten. “I’ve just been walking up and down outside here.”
“You didn’t let a human touch you? Are you sure?”
“Just one, mamma, and all he did was pat me. I remembered what you told me.”
“All he did!” The black cat swelled with rage. “The minute I turn my back! You’re the stupidest kitten I ever had—you make me wonder who your father could have been. Haven’t you any sense at all?”
“He was a nice man, mamma. And I didn’t ask him to. He saw me and came right up to me himself.”
“Oh, Lord! Go on, get into the house with you. What our old lady will do to you I can’t imagine!”
“But why, mamma?” The kitten scuttled away from his mother’s claws. “I see all the other cats in the neighborhood being petted by humans—why can’t I be? It feels good when you rub against them and they stroke your fur.”
“How many times do I have to tell you, you little idiot? You’re not just a kitten, any more than I’m just a cat—we’re a witch’s familiars. What’s more, we’re both specially conditioned familiars. We’re curse-carriers, if you have brains enough to know what that is.
“Do you know what you’ve done to that nice man of yours? From now on, once he’s touched you with the spell on you, he won’t be able to see or hear or feel any living creature, or any inanimate thing that a living being is using, and no living being can ever again see or hear or feel him. Satan only knows what kind of existence he’ll have from now on—and all because you’re a little flibbertigibbet that disobeyed your mother!”
“Oh, mamma, I’m sorry,” mewed the kitten. “Please don’t hurt me—honest, I won’t ever do it again.
“Please, please—I said I was sorry! Ouch! He was such a nice man!”
The Diary of Philip Westerly
By Paul Compton
A strange, brief tale of the terrible fear inspired by a man’s horrendous reflection in a mirror.
It has been ten years since my uncle, Philip Westerly, disappeared. Many theories have been advanced as to why and how he vanished so strangely and so completely. Many have wondered why a man should vanish and leave nothing behind him but a smashed mirror. But none of these theories or wild imaginings are half so fantastic as the story I gathered from the diary which some whim prompted him to keep.
But first a word about Philip Westerly. He was a wealthy man, and also a cruel, selfish man. His wealth was attributed to this same cruelty and selfishness. He also had many whims. One of them was keeping a diary. Another was his love for mirrors. He was handsome in a cruel sort of way and almost effeminate in his liking to stand before them and admire himself. This eccentricity was borne out by the fact that covering one whole side of his room was a mirror of gigantic size—the same mirror that is linked with his disappearance. But read the excerpts from the diary of Philip Westerly.
*
Aug. 3rd. Afternoon: Billings asked for an extension on that note today, but I saw no reason why I should grant him any such thing. When I told him this, he began cursing me in a frightful manner. He said I was cruel and that some day I would be called to account for the way I treated people. I laughed outright at this, but at the same time I felt a vague sense of uneasiness which even yet I have not dispelled.
Night: A remarkable thing has happened. I had gone to my room to dress for dinner and I was standing before the mirror tying my tie. I had begun the usual procedure that one follows, when I noticed that no such action was recorded in the mirror. True, there was my reflection in the glass, but it followed none of the movements that I made. It was immobile!
I extended my hand to touch the reflection and encountered nothing but the polished surface of the mirror. Then I noticed a truly remarkable thing. The reflection in the mirror wore no tie! I stepped back aghast. Was this an illusion? Had my mind and vision been affected by some malady that I was not aware of? Impossible! Then I regarded the reflection with a more careful scrutiny. There were a number of differences between it and myself. For one thing it wore a stubby growth of beard on its face. I was positive that I had visited the barber that very day and passed my hand across my chin to verify this. It encountered nothing but smooth skin. The lips of the man in the mirror drooped in a display of gnarled, yellow fangs, while my own bared nothing but two rows of gleaming, well-cared-for teeth.
I was filled simultaneously with a feeling of disgust and fear, and looked for further discrepancies. I found them. The feet and hands were abnormally large, and the clothing of the thing was old, baggy, and covered with filth.
I dared not stay longer. I tied the tie as best I could and descended hurriedly to dinner.
Aug. 4th. Morning: I awoke feeling jaded and tired. My friend in the mirror is still with me. Ordinarily the reflection of myself, in bed, is caught in the mirror, but not so this morning. Instead, I saw that the dweller within had, like myself, been having a night’s rest. I hope he slept better than I did, for my own night was a series of fitful, restless tossings.
“Good morning,” I said, rising.
When I moved, he moved. As I advanced toward the mirror he drew closer to me. I stopped and surveyed him. He resembled me only remotely—I hope. I smiled, and he responded with a wolfish twist of his mouth. I extended my hand as if I wanted to shake hands with him, but he drew back as if from fire. I can’t understand the terror which he holds for me. I try not to show my fear in front of him, but I feel that, animal-like, he senses it. I refer to the reflection as “he,” “him,” or “it,” for I cannot bring myself to admit that the thing in the mirror is my reflection. But I scarcely dare write what I do believe it to be. I have always been skeptical about such things as “soul,” but when I look into the mirror—God help me!
Night: I am spending much time in my room now. I’ve spent most of the day here. This thing is beginning to hold a morbid fascination for me. I
