She gazes at her reflection in the mirror, and in a sudden moment of whimsy, plays a game she hasn't played in years, one that her long-dead younger sister had played. She keeps gazing, allowing her eyes to go slightly out of focus, and wonders if she'll see anything, the way Lucy used to say she did. And Lucy was no liar; perhaps she'd just had an over-active imagination, but Susan had no doubt she'd believed in all those things she'd seen, the games she'd played. She'd almost convinced Susan of the reality of them, once or twice.
For a while, she sees nothing out of the ordinary, and is about to give up and go to bed, when she notices something strange. Her hair – though it's falling in waves down her back, having been unpinned, loosened and brushed, ready for bed – is, in the mirror, drawn across her shoulders in two long, sleek plaits. Her bare head now bears a crown; or, perhaps more accurately, a delicate circlet of flowers in gold. The plain curtains and simple bed are replaced by sumptuous hangings and a grand four-poster. The gas fire is no more; instead there is a cheerfully blazing fire of apple wood and pine cones. She can almost smell the smoke of it, and the scent of the flowers adorning the dressing table. Lucy has left them there for her, she knows, because they're fire flowers, the flowers that adorn both her crown and Lucy's.
She draws in a shaking breath; how does she know all of this, recognise this? Unable to draw her gaze away from the mirror, she bites her lip until she tastes blood, and startled by it, gasps in pain. Then her eyes widen as a figure comes into view in the mirror, and she lets out a little cry, because it's Lucy, Lucy, with her little bottle of cordial, coming forwards in consternation. "Are you hurt?" she hears her sister asking. "Susan? Shall I mend it for you?"
Tears tumble down her cheeks as she watches the scene in the mirror, Lucy as she had been in those golden times, tall and willowy, with her long fair hair falling far past her waist in a glorious plait, dabbing a single drop of cordial on the spot she'd bitten. "It shouldn't be for me," she whispers, not knowing whether it's the cordial or the scene she means.
Lucy just smiles at her. "Of course it should, Su. For you, for anyone. It's always been for you."
She breaks down in tears, sobbing uncontrollably, dropping her head onto her arms as she crosses them on her dressing table. She sobs out years of pain and grief and denial, feeling as though her heart is rending itself into a thousand pieces. She shudders into silence when a warm, perfumed breeze seems to flow over her, and a voice whispers be at peace, dear heart; be at peace, and know that you are forgiven and loved.
When she lifts her head to look at the mirror again, no matter how she tries to unfocus her gaze and recapture the scene, it's stubbornly her own self that stares ashenly back at her, the flowers, the fire, Lucy… all gone. Just herself, staring back at her in the mirror, alone. She re-focuses her gaze, and looks critically at her reflection again.
She doesn't fail to notice that her lip, bitten to the point of bleeding in anguish, bears no mark.