Dead and Devilishly Handsome

She had bought the blasted thing last week and even now, she was unsure what compelled her to spend the money. For now she had a string of bad luck and a witty ghost who won't leave her apartment.

Across the street from her apartment is an antique store. She had been returning from work, parallel parking her car outside the store when it caught her eye. The sun had hit it at just the right spot, blinding her temporarily as soon as she pulled up her handbrake. It was a mirror, just a small handheld thing, something that Ariel the Mermaid would find interesting had she found it at the bottom of the ocean. And normally, that kind of thing wouldn't have interested her, she would have simply walked away, but she found her feet walking her toward the door.

It was nearly closing time as the older woman sitting behind the counter told her when she opened the door, the bell ringing above her head. 

“I won't be long,” she had promised, heading straight to the window and plucking the mirror from its spot. She turned it over in her hand, catching her reflection in the mirror, her hair a frizzy mess and dark shadows under her eyes. She felt a pull, a need to buy it, like some higher power was forcing her hand. 

It was on the counter in front of the cashier within moments.

“How much?” Lily asked.

The woman sucked her teeth, picking up the mirror. “Are you sure you want this one? Been trying to sell it for months now.”

“Is there something wrong with it?”

The woman shrugged. “£12.”

Lily patted her sides, realising she had left her bag in the car. She quickly apologised before racing from the store, as the woman shouted after her that the purchase was cash only. She opened her car and dived in the backseat, desperately grabbing onto her bag and pulling her purse from seat.

Her heels clicked on the floor as she walked back into the store, counting the money as she walked. She had a £5 note, but the rest was made up in odd coins that she would keep from the tips she made at the coffee shop, her second job. Even as the older woman counted the coins in front of her, the cost didn't cross her mind. Usually, everything crossed her mind. Money did not grow on trees, as her mother so often reminded her, as her two jobs and student debt often reminded her. 

When the woman was satisfied, she clicked open the till and put the money away, not bothering to hand her a receipt. Lily thanked her, grabbing the mirror and exiting the store.

The second she stepped out of the store, mirror in hand, the rain started. Hard, heavy pelts of water poured from the sky, drenching her from head to toe in seconds. Lily entered into a jog, crossing the road as quickly as she could and punching in the code to her apartment building as quickly as she could.

One try, nothing.

Two tries, nothing.

Three tries and still nothing. Lily let out a long, frustrated sigh as she punched the ‘1st floor, room 1’ button on the machine. 

“Yes?” came a voice on the other side.

“Sorry, I'm Lily, I live on the 7th floor, the code to enter the building isn't working.”

The door buzzed, signalling that the door had been opened for her. She let out a sigh of relief as she quickly entered, closing the door behind her. A man appeared out of the first floor apartment, who looked at her with unease.

“Unlucky huh?” he said. Lily had only seen him in passing in the few months she'd been living in the apartment block.

“Tell me about it,” she replied, clutching the mirror.

“It's the 1st of the month, the code changed this morning,” he reminded her, and she could have slapped herself on the forehead for forgetting.

“Thank you for the reminder,” she said, smiling kindly as she walked past him to get to the lift. She stood awkwardly, drenched to the bone, her coat dripping on the floor, forming a puddle at her feet. She could barely wait to get home and in the shower, and when she opened the door, she put the mirror on the side, shook off her coat, slipped off her heels, and beelined for the bathroom.

She forgot about the mirror until the next morning, when she was pulling on a different coat, her eyes tired from a disturbed sleep of tossing and turning and weird dreams that left her with an unease. Around 2am, she woke up with a start, the uneasy feeling that someone was watching her. It took her an hour to shake the feeling and fall back into a restless sleep.

She was about to leave her apartment, but the mirror caught her eye and something compelled her to bring it along with her. So she put it in her bag and headed to work.

She didn't get any tips that day and the coffee machine spluttered warm milk back at her and she spent the rest of her shift smelling of milk, some of it stuck in her hair even as she tried to wash it out over the sink in the bathroom.

The next day, her car broke down in the middle of a busy junction, which led to her having to call out an emergency breakdown company, putting a hole in her pocket and making her very late for work.

The next day, her key broke in the lock.

The next, a bird had pooped on her head just as she got out of the car at work.

By Friday, she was exhausted. As she packed her bag for work, she found the mirror, forgetting she had put it in there the day after she brought it. She took it out, leaving it on the kitchen counter and left for work.

Nothing bad happened that day.

“I don't appreciate being left behind, you know.” A disembodied voice came as she entered her apartment. Lily let out a scream, closing the door behind her and shutting her out of her own apartment. Her heart pounded, fear growing in her chest. She must be hearing things, it was the only explanation. She looked around the hallway, hoping that it was someone else talking to someone else, but the hallway was empty.

She took a deep breath, and opened the door again.

Standing there in her apartment was a boy. A man, rather, because he looked around her age. She kept one hand on the door, ready to run if she needed to, but the man was not threatening in any way.

“Who are you?” She asked, wondering if she was going crazy. She must be tired, that's the only explanation. She rubbed at her eyes and opened them again, but he was still standing there. 

“I'm Jacob, this is my first time haunting something so I'm a little nervous but I feel like I've been doing well. Though, today I've been stuck here all day and it's no fun when there's no one to play with.”

At this stage, Lily was just irritated. “You're the reason I've been having so much bad luck?”

“Is it called bad luck if it's not happening by coincidence?” He mused, walking through her dining table to greet her. “What's your name? We haven't had a chance to officially meet.” He held out his hand, but Lily didn't dare shake it.

“Lily. And you're a ghost.”

“Dead and devilishly handsome, at your service.”

“Leave!” She demanded, moving to the side and pointing out into the hallway.

He awkwardly shrugged. “I can't, if I knew how, do you think I'd still be here?”

She looked past him to the mirror on the kitchen counter. She closed the door, walking over there with a purpose and picking it up. “You're attached to this stupid thing, aren't you?”

“Hey, that stupid thing is technically my home. Or a prison, I suppose.”

Lily put the mirror down, walking back past Jacob, the ghost who had somehow become a living - or dead - thing in her apartment. She muttered that she needed a shower, demanding he stay in the living room and left him behind.

She had hoped that by the time she had showered, woken up a little bit, the whole interaction with Jacob would have been a dream. An illusion. An hallucination. Or anything, anything other than real. But when she returned to the kitchen, Jacob was still there, sitting on the floor, watching the television that she definitely did not turn on.

She barely slept that night, though Jacob listened to her wish of staying out of the bedroom. 

He stayed the whole weekend and when she returned from work on Monday, Lily snapped.

“You have to leave!” She said as she entered to see him standing there, waiting for her like a puppy awaiting its owner.

“What? I was just getting comfortable,” he protested.

“You can't be comfortable here, this is my home.”

Jacob deflated, folding his arms. “Have you considered that maybe it could be our home?” 

She rolled her eyes. Clearly the ghost had absolutely no manners. He would sit next to her - on the floor because he hadn’t quite figured out how to sit on the sofa without falling through it - and watch TV with her. She had to admit that The Great British Bake Off was more entertaining with a ghost who insisted he could make everything better than them - a ghost that couldn’t even turn on the oven, that is.

He would be there when she woke up, offering to make her a coffee with a machine he couldn’t - and didn’t know how - to use. He would be there when she returned home from work, with offers to cook her dinner, talking about how he used to make the best chicken nuggets like he was some gourmet chef and not that he just threw them in the airfryer. 

The following Friday, before work, Lily packed the mirror in her bag before Jacob noticed and said goodbye to the ghost in the hallway. She crossed the street, being extra careful to not get herself run over. She entered the antique shop, and the older woman greeted her with a half smile.

“I need it gone,” she said, placing the mirror onto the counter in front of her.

The woman tutted. “We don’t offer refunds.”

Lily shrugged and turned, leaving the antique store with no intention of ever going back in. She went to work, she poured coffees, she drank tea, she got yelled at by a customer because she accidentally gave her soy milk instead of oat milk, she drove home and let herself into her apartment.

“Jacob?” she called. 

She was met with silence. 

Lily checked the kitchen, the living room, the bathroom, her bedroom. The apartment was empty aside from herself and her thoughts. She let out a little sigh of relief as she made her dinner and sat on the sofa, turning on Bake Off.

A melancholy washed over her as she looked at where Jacob would have sat. He may have been annoying, intruding and lacked manners, but she realised she had grown used to his presence in her life. She was on her own, once again, because that was how things always turned out. She’d meet someone, then push them away. 

The next day, she walked into the antique shop. The lady on the counter informed her that she had sold the mirror.