I own nothing of PotO, but the original characters are mine. Story idea came from an "assignment" a group of us who are writers and lovers of PotO had going on an email loop- writing exercises strictly for fun. Our leader gave us a few opening paragraphs every few weeks and we were to make a short story from that. This was one of those assignments. I chose to use PotO, and my "short" story became a ghostly novella sized tale! I revised the opening paragraphs to fit my voice and my story, but that is how this whole idea came into being. (So you can blame her. lol) - And now...

I

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The moving men carried the antique dressing table with its attached mirror to Christine's bedroom, set it in the corner directed, gave her a dozen papers to sign, and left without evidence of having been there.

At last.

She took in an awed breath, inspecting her new acquisition with approval. Ancient carvings detailed the curved legs, scrolled edges, and small drawers of the nineteenth-century mahogany table and matching bench. The mirror's rim sported similar carvings, which looked more like hieroglyphics than actual designs, and for a moment she had the most absurd fancy that it was a form of ancient graffiti that told a story.

Her reflection gave a whimsical smile at her overactive imagination. She'd heard vague tales about this dressing table. When Gran's estate went up for auction, she called the lawyers and insisted they allow her to keep this piece. They could sell everything else, including the land, to cover Gran's debts. But not this one memento.

"You'd be wise to leave it to whoever wants it after I'm gone," Gran had said mysteriously, but Christine could not let it go, and the lawyers finally acceded to her request of withdrawing it from the catalogue.

Now, it stood in her bedroom, her last memory of Gran.

As she studied the top, she noticed a hairline crack in the glass. Broken! Had the movers done that? At least it was so small as to be undetectable at a glance. Looking at the edges more closely, she noticed something else. The mirror appeared newer than it should be, recently replaced, perhaps in the last several decades. Certainly not an antique of more than a century like the wood. Frowning, she further inspected the glass. No discoloration, no graying at the sides, which would be noticeable in a piece this old. How very strange ...

Gran had hidden the dressing table away in an attic corner, cast aside, beneath a white sheet. The glass must have been replaced before Gran came by it, and now Christine wondered who the previous owners might be. Possessing a deep appreciation for all things antique, she wondered if the original mirror contained the same etchings. It must have; otherwise why go to all the trouble to have a glass made that exactly reflected the carvings in the wood? And why go to that trouble at all? Merely for show?

Shaking her head at the little mystery she had conjured, she placed her toiletries on the tabletop, arranging and rearranging until all her things were neatly as she wished. She needed such routine and order since her life always felt so disoriented.

Weary from a long day, she decided to turn in early and took a seat on the padded bench. She drew a brush through her dark hair for its hundred strokes, watching her reflection do the same. Further memories of Gran scattered through her mind and she lost herself to bittersweet thoughts, until something jarred her from her trance.

She stopped brushing and leaned forward, looking deep into the mirror. Had she seen that? But seen ... what? She scoffed at the first idea that came to mind. It must have been a trick of the light, she decided firmly and resumed brushing her hair.

Something inside the glass moved.

Christine inhaled a startled breath, no longer ridiculing her initial thought, and peered at the top corner near a row of etchings along the inside rim. She sat in moonlight that doused half the dresser in an ethereal white glow. Could that have caused the illusion? Or did golden light truly waver within the glass?

Turning to look over her shoulder, she took note of the table lamp she'd left on. Its shade emitted a green luminescence. But perhaps in the mirror, with the moonlight streaming across it, the dim light could blend and appear yellow ...

The moon drifted beyond a heavy cloud bank, dimming the room and dousing her in shadow; a glance toward the window proved what she suspected. It looked like rain. She sighed. But then, it always seemed to rain in England.

Still uneasy, she glanced back at that portion of the mirror, watching it closely as she continued her bedtime ritual. No more strange occurrences transpired, and she felt certain her vivid imagination had run away with her once again. A trick of the lamplight coupled with her revisitation to dismal memories.

That was all it had been. Nothing more.

After dressing in her long flannel bed gown she crawled between the soft, welcoming sheets and soon lost consciousness to the outside world...

And soon, she felt long slender fingers smooth down her arms, slide along her waist, slip beneath the folds that crossed her breasts, until skin touched skin and she writhed with pleasure from his heated caresses.

A song filled her mind, tender, persuasive, increasing in volume until it brought her to full awareness.

Startled, she quickly sat up, her eyes flying wide open.

She was alone, in bed, just as she'd been alone when she first slid inside it, just as she was always alone. But the song continued to trickle inside her mind. No, not inside her mind ...

Across the room.

From the mirror.

But that was ... impossible.

Christine stared at the dressing table that stood against the opposite wall. Her reflection appeared ghostly, wreathed in silver moonbeams, again coming from the window and painting her huge eyes as dark splashes against an ivory face. Indeed, she appeared to be the only ghoul in the room. She hugged herself and closed her eyes, blocking out her pale image as the song slowly faded to nothing.

The music must have come from a radio outside, an auto in passing. Yes, that made perfect sense. But even as she tried to find sleep in the heavy silence, she could not dispel the memory, nor the haunting beauty of the man's tender voice, which oddly made her want to cry...

and her heart race as if he'd serenaded her alone.

xXx

The next morning Christine breakfasted on an apple-raisin muffin and a cup of hot lemon tea, intent on dealing with matters long neglected. She'd taken a week off from work for just such a purpose. As she ate, she mulled over her life, or what little she knew of it.

Before finding her current position as clerk at an antique shop, Christine taught music at the local orphanage for six months, but received complaints, mainly from those who rebelliously chose not to exert themselves, and frustrated, she quit. Through that incident she learned that she possessed a low tolerance for lazy children who did not wish to excel and guessed her own teacher must have been very strict with her training, instilling within her a rigid discipline regarding her expectations of others. Some told her this was a fault, others considered it a virtue. But she found her true strength resided in her voice, which Gran told her rivaled that of an angel, and Christine was often asked to perform solos in the choir. After first hearing her sing, Gran told her that to possess such quality and tone she had to have been trained and trained very well. Even the carriage her body automatically assumed before a performance must have been learned through instruction.

Christine remembered nothing of her life before coming to Gran's home. She simply ... began.

One overcast morning, a year and a half earlier, Gran found her near the orphanage, wandering in the park without knowledge of who she was or where she lived. She'd taken special interest in Christine, often commenting on the extreme manners Christine exhibited, peculiar to the youth of her own generation. When an extensive search produced no family or friends, Gran adopted Christine, calling her "her old fashioned girl."

As a director at the children's home and her new guardian, Gran had Christine checked by a flock of professionals that swooped upon her the week she found her. A dentist assumed Christine to be approximately sixteen years of age due to the appearance of her teeth. She'd been amazed that teeth could tell a person's age. If the dentist was to be believed, she was now seventeen, perhaps eighteen. And if the home's psychologist was to be believed, she was sane, though at times she doubted his findings...

In her darkest dreams, a man lay with her and made passionate love to her. She seldom saw his face, and when she did, it remained in shadow. Shortly after Gran found Christine, she told her she was too young to have been married by the country's statutes. But the heated feelings that surged up inside were those familiar with the act of intimacy between a man and a woman. After the many dreams her ghost lover visited, she awoke in an agitated state, her breathing rapid, her body afire and ultra sensitive to touch, aching for his arms to hold her again, for his hands to caress her skin, for the feel of him truly with her, inside her.

A doctor confirmed she was not a virgin and the police questioned if she'd been raped and lost her memory during such a violent attack. When she first encountered Gran in the park, Christine wore nothing but a satin bed wrapper. Bruises covered her body, and she looked as if she had rolled downhill, her hands and feet bare and bleeding, her hair and robe covered in burrs. But the emotions she experienced went beyond mere physical knowledge of a sexual act. Whether with a husband or merely a lover, she felt certain the deep attachment was genuine.

Every part of her yearned for the touch of this shadowed man from her dreams, as if she belonged to him. Yet no wedding band circled her finger when Gran found her, and no one came forward to claim her. Surely, if such a man did exist, he would move heaven and earth to be reunited. And so, with her reality a continual disappointment, Christine dwelled within sporadic dreams that at times seemed more solid and true than the world in which she lived.

Often she anticipated the nights, so she could lie with her fantasy lover, and she dreaded their arrival as well, for the nights could not go on forever. She awoke dissatisfied from dreams when he did visit ... only to discover he was never truly there. And, as always, she was left alone.

Lately, she had begun to question the psychologist's initial evaluation of her sanity and wondered if mental instability could contribute to memory loss. Still, it did no good to dwell on a past Gran often told her was better left forgotten, since it could not be remembered.

Once she cleaned and put away her few dishes, Christine returned to her bedroom. Her attention immediately fastened to the dressing table. Rays of bold sunlight blazed a path through the window but did nothing to dispel the mystique of the piece's ancient, unique beauty.

On a whim, Christine grabbed her digital camera and took pictures of the carved ledges built into corners like miniature grottos, the shallow, smaller drawers over the deeper ones, and the strange symbols carved into dark wood and etched along the glass. Those were no ordinary symbols, and she could not shake the feeling that the dresser contained a hidden message. Each scribble was unique, a few repeated, as if strung together they would spell out words. She'd become good friends with a local librarian during Gran's confinement, Gran's constant need for books a form of pleasure while she valiantly fought the terminal cancer.

Maybe Antonia could help solve this mystery, if indeed there was a mystery to be solved...

Compelled and unable to prevent her hand's movement, Christine pressed against the top corner of the mirror, where she'd seen the wavering light. The glass did not give, feeling cold and solid beneath her fingertips.

Feeling a bit silly now for such fantastical thoughts, she continued her morning ritual and wove her long riotous curls into a braid over one shoulder, not wanting to deal with the flyaway mess today. Needing order ... any order ...

An hour later at the library, Antonia greeted her with a smile, adjusting her chic blue glasses that flattered her fair, slender beauty. Though ten years apart in age, she and Christine shared a bond often found among dear friends.

"Christine! How wonderful to see you again. You look smashing."

"Hardly that," she laughed, "but I am feeling better." She pulled her camera from her purse. "Actually, I was hoping you could help me. I took these shots of a dresser that was Gran's." She turned the camera on. "I wondered if you might help me figure out where to start looking for answers to these carvings."

Behind the glasses, Antonia's blue eyes grew wide as she surveyed the digital screen. "Oh, my. Nothing European, that's for certain. They look like letters ... Egyptian? Or perhaps ... Arabic? I'm not sure. We have a few books on hieroglyphics and other languages at the back."

Antonia took Christine down long, carpeted aisles flanked by two-story high shelves of books. "Hmm, here's one that might be helpful." She bent to pull a thick tome from a low shelf. "That dresser ... by chance, it wouldn't happen to be the same dressing table with the old mystery surrounding it, would it?"

She spoke in excited but hushed library tones, and Christine answered with the same barely suppressed eagerness.

"Gran said it was shrouded in mystery but never told me much about the dresser itself. Her explanations were ambiguous ... almost, I don't know; fearful? Hinting at ideas and stories she never allowed herself to finish."

"Well, that's strange. I always thought her so level-headed."

Her every action fluid, her stance graceful, Antonia tilted her head and wrapped one arm around her waist, surveying Christine while tapping an index finger against her cheek. She once mentioned that she descended from a long line of dancers, one of her ancestors having been a protégé at the famous Paris Opera House and going on to achieve great fame. A few other men and women in her family tree enjoyed similar successes. Antonia often joked that her own identical destiny must have been switched at birth.

"Did she tell you of the mystery? And the curse?"

"Curse?" Christine's eyes widened. "No, but I should like to hear it."

"It's quite the tragic story." Antonia's expression sobered. "It involved a newly married couple. The dressing table came to them as a wedding gift, but a curse was involved - can you imagine?" She laughed, rolling her eyes. "In this day and age it seems ludicrous that people would believe such fairy tales, but in the nineteenth century such stories were given credence. I personally think whoever wanted to sell the dressing table in past decades attached a ghost story to give it a higher value and a price tag that reflects the ghoulish tale. Antique collectors - tourists especially - love eerie stories that come with their pieces. But I hardly need to tell you that, do I?" She chuckled.

Christine smiled in agreement. "Do you know any more of this 'ghost story'?"

"I work in a library and spend every free moment reading whatever I can get my hands on. What do you think?" Antonia laughed, instantly lowering her pitch as she darted a quick look around, then continued. "The husband was tragically disfigured - I don't know how that came about or why. But he had many enemies. The dresser was given to them by a Persian, I think, someone of high rank. Maybe a shah, but I could be wrong about that. A month after they married the man's wife disappeared. Just vanished from their bedroom one night into thin air - poof!-" she snapped her fingers, "- or so the story goes. Her husband searched high and low, but they never found a trace of her, only her hairbrush lying on the floor near the dressing table. Some say it's haunted, you know, the table and its mirror, and her ghost is trapped inside - that led to tales of the curse. It's rumored that for her to escape and her spirit to at last find rest with her husband, whose spirit also is said to wander ever near, always looking for her - she must find another to take her place." She shivered delicately, her eyes wide, clearly entranced with the tale. "When I first read of the mystery, I wondered if perhaps the husband murdered her and concocted the story of her disappearance, but apparently she hadn't a penny to her name - he was the wealthy one. And rumor had it they were very much in love. Losing her destroyed him."

"How absolutely horrible!" Sorrow wrenched Christine's heart at the tragically poignant tale, whether real or contrived. She felt almost consumed by Antonia's words...

The rumor of a ghost intrigued her, though it had not been a woman's voice she heard. "Do you know, was there anything, um ... strange about the dressing table told by those who bought it? Before Gran owned it, of course."

"Strange?"

Christine felt awkward for airing the question. "Any, oh ... odd occurrences? A voice heard within perhaps?" Her face grew warm with how intently Antonia stared. "You did mention a ghost inhabits the mirror."

Antonia smiled in disbelief. "Only in the public's vivid imaginations, I'm sure!"

"Of course. That's what I meant. There's certainly no such thing as haunted dressing tables, is there?" Christine agreed quickly, eager to move on to less shaky terrain of the same subject. "Have you clippings of the incident? I should like to read about it."

"We might have something on microfiche. The crime, if that's what it was, took place in the early 1870s - and you might also find useful a recent magazine article I saw on local mysteries that Scotland Yard was never able to solve. I remember mention of this story. I can locate it for you if you'd like."

"Please."

While Antonia searched, Christine claimed an empty table and flipped through pages of the tome on hieroglyphics. She quickly became frustrated with the college text and professorial words but located a few pages with illustrations of symbols. Unfortunately, none matched the symbols on her dressing table.

"Here you go." Antonia set a magazine on the table. "You really are interested in solving this hundred-year-plus mystery, aren't you?"

"I'm not sure exactly what I'm trying to do," Christine admitted. "There's some sort of... pull I feel toward the dresser, likely because it last belonged to Gran, even if she did want nothing to do with it. At this point, I would just like to discover all I can. Before Gran, do you know who owned it?"

"As far as I know it came with the house."

"So, it was passed down through the family?"

"I would assume. Your Gran inherited the estate from her husband, General Chagny, after he died in the Second World War. The dresser was in the house when he inherited it. Your Gran stowed it away in the attic a few months after she married. I know, because my mum was good friends with your Gran, since their mothers both came over on the same ship from France. When we spoke of the recent auction, Mum said the dresser agitated your Gran when she was a young woman and she preferred to be rid of it altogether, but didn't feel right about asking her new husband to dispose of a family heirloom."

"She never told me." Christine drew her brows together in curiosity. "Why did it disturb her so much that she wanted it out of the manor?" She wondered if Gran had also heard the haunting melody and Christine had not imagined its source.

"Mum never said. I can ring her on the telly if you like."

"Miss Giry," a stern voice broke in a short distance away. "If you've quite finished with your visit, I need you to cover for Shannon in research."

"Yes, Mrs. Fairaday. Of course." Antonia winked at Christine. "The old dragon lady," she whispered.

Christine smiled. "Thanks for your help, Antonia. I don't know what I'd do without you."

"Any time. What are friends for? Actually ..." She grew pensive. "I know a professor of languages from the local university. He's always open to questions, and not just from his students. I can give you his email, and you can contact him if you don't find what you're looking for. It's worth a try."

"That would be marvelous. Again, thanks."

Once Antonia scribbled the email address on a scrap of paper, then hurried back to work, Christine located and read the magazine article. The incident was given three short paragraphs, no names included. But in those three tragic paragraphs, Christine deeply felt the husband's sorrow. A promising composer, he searched for his new bride for over a year - until, distraught, he retreated from the world and his music. No more was heard from him again.

Tears fell from her eyes and hit the page. She wiped the moisture away before it could blend with the ink and damage the print. The mystery composer must have loved his wife dearly. She wished a picture had been included with the article. She would have loved to see the face of such a man, and the woman he so adored.

xXx