Die Antique

It was Sunday morning when the antique shops opened, the last weekend of every month, Edith looked forward to these days because she had reason to explore in the old antiquities of the past, every item had its own story and every person had their own way of telling them. It was a way of plummeting into history and engaging with a tangible artifact distinguishably more satisfying than through a phone screen.

She felt a certain fulfillment from collecting and exploring old trinkets like a packrat and she loved to succumb to her crippling indecisiveness by simply hoarding everything she liked. Her room was full of old books, watches, paintings, wooden sculptures, artwork and unique articles of clothing among other things. She particularly had a strong interest in foreign items as well.

Edith was a shy woman who never really grew out of her childlike curiosity of the unknown and yearning to soak up as much knowledge. She vicariously lived through the fantasy stories she read like a sponge and daydreamed of living in their worlds. In them she was a protagonist with ambition with a clear aptitude and purpose, not a timid wallflower who grew in the sidelines of everyone's peripheral vision. 

She rode her skateboard kicking back at the concrete pavement to get ahead of the crowd , Edith kept her hair hidden in a ponytail and covered it in a baseball cap. Though she was a timid person, she enjoyed the company of a selective few, often taking part in one-sided conversations.

"Mr. Schultz" Guten Morgen, Edith says smiling and brushing her crooked bangs behind her ears. Mr. Shultz was a nice elderly man who wore his heavy plaid sweaters and greeted his clientele in his thick German accent and a warm smile. He balanced himself gripping his cane as he paces around his collections, organizing the items on top of the blanket he laid out on the tables. Edith took a whiff of the fresh aromas of cinnamon streusel muffins Mr. Schultz placed by his lawn chair with his freshly brewed dark roasted coffee, he always brought extra pastries to share.

"Young lady" he says, his eyes lighting up to see his favorite recurring customer. "Come help me with zis" he shuffles over to the back of his pickup truck and leads Edith to grab a very heavy portrait covered in an old blanket. Edith grabs the other end and they walk over to the front of a table to place it. The blanket slides off as they lean it carefully on the ground.  It divulges a very old painting framed in wood mahogany that integrated aesthetically to the old watercolor artwork. Edith gawks at the unfamiliar work, it's a starry night, a blonde woman wearing a white gown is standing outside at night reaching over to a man who is leaning against the green hills, he is covered in shadows, a contrast to the light glow surrounding the woman.

"Wow, you've been holding out on me Mr. Schultz, what is this one?"

"Oh, zat's.. a very old painting" he says. "It's been in zee family for a very long time" he continues, still organizing the other items in his collection.

"It's my first time seeing it, it's beautiful" Edith says excitedly exploring it, as she runs her fingers through the edges of the wooden frame. "It reminds me of Brothers Grimm stories"

"Oh, I remember when my papa first brought it home from an auction, a gift for mutter, I was a young man back in zees days" Mr. Schultz says sitting back on his chair and sipping from his mug.

"I think I was.. eight or nine, my papa was a hard very bitter man, zis was a different time, he was broken up from zee War, very unfriendly man during zees days" he says displaying the anguish in his tone as he stared blankly, his eyes began to moisten.  

"That's very sad" Edith interrupts.

"But, Mr. Schultz, I thought you had a good relationship with your dad, at least from some of the stories you've shared with me were really nice" Edith hands Mr. Schultz a napkin.

"Danke Dear, Yes, zis is why the painting is so special, something changed in en papa after getting this, he became much kinder to us, maybe thinking of zee War had changed him completely"

"He became fascinated en painting" Mr. Schultz continued. "It is Human nature"

"Is this when you moved to Hungary Mr. Schultz?"

"Yes, dear. Zis is when we had lived a new life away from zee horrible memories, but zis painting followed me for a very long time..."

"How much are you selling it for Mr. Schultz?" Edith asks inquisitively.

"Oh Edith, I've known your mutter for such a long time now, I want zis to go to a good home" Mr. Schultz says turning to Edith and smiling. 

"I am speechless"

Edith rides back home in her skateboard meticulously as she hauled the large painting over her backpack, banded tightly against its straps. After a short ride to her residence, she finds herself in front of her house incapable of reaching the handle. She is afraid of removing her backpack on the sidewalk for fear the weight may give in to the thin binds and tumble over. Her neighbor Henry is luckily outside watering his plants, he was an altruistic man who donated most of his time in an animal sanctuary, he had a few small pets he adopted. Henrys extroverted personality always embarrassed Edith who usually felt unqualified and ill prepared to deal with his prolonged small talks. Henry was not much older than Edith but had a small family including his wife and two young toddlers.

"Hey there, Edith!" he says waving over to her with a big grin on his face, his eyes crinkled at the ends. "Did you order this beautiful weather?" he chuckles.

Edith stands trying to reach backwards to her portrait as the straps begin to loosen.

"Looks like you've got your hands tied there"

"Yeah..." Edith smiles, touching the palm of her hand to her cheek.

"Let me give you a hand" she says, "That frame is looking like the Leaning Tower of Pisa from this angle" he chuckles again. 

"Thanks Henry, if you can just get the handle please" she says.

"You got it!" Henry reaches over to the door handle and suddenly a minivan pulls towards the driveway, Edith parents, Abby and Eric extending their heads out.

"Henry!" Eric yells, "Were your dogs barking around 3 am last night?"

"Hey buddy, yeah as a matter of fact, they were. You know some of our other neighbors have mentioned something about seeing possums and wolves walking around late at night"

"Oh Edith, another picture frame? " Abby interrupts, shaking her head at Edith who is now over the gate trying to balance her backpack, leaning her back forward.

"You have no room to put the darn thing" she scolds.

Henry and Eric notice Edith who is turning red with embarrassment.

"You're turning into a little hoarder, Edith" Eric continues.

"We're going to have to start donating these" he says.

"You guys are terrible" Henry says, "When I was her age, my room was filled with dozens of instruments" he laughs. "How old is she anyways, nineteen?"

Edith at this point has already walked away towards her bedroom but can still hear the conversation clearly.

"She's twenty-five" Abby says shaking her head.

Edith hastily makes her way to her bedroom avoiding being in an unwanted party in the awkward conversation. She sets her backpack down carefully onto her mattress and the portrait falls down towards it. She removes the protective blanket around it and stares at it again smiling affectionately, it was a charming memory now tied to her favorite antique merchant.

"It's so freaking cool" she says, snapping photos to share them with her friends.

Edith removes a few of her other frames to make space for her newly acquired painting. She props it besides her Fantasy movie posters and her favorite authors' promotional material.

Later that night, Edith begins to start having difficulty sleeping, and begins tossing and turning helplessly. This continues for the next few days until she begins to experience an overwhelming discomfort to the quietness of her room. She is awaken by hearing faint voices in the middle of the night, some of them oddly familiar to her.

"This stupid sleep paralysis" she whispers to herself, her forehead covered in sweat. "Why can't I sleep" she says. "Stupid....Stupid..." she says her hands forming fists hammering down on her bed in the odd hours of the morning.

She begins to hear them more clearly faint voices echoing through from the muzzled white noise commonly heard during her insomnia episodes. 

"I'm scared" it whispers faintly. Edith jerks up terrified.

"Oh, god I think that's all in my head, please be in my head"

Edith gets up and turns on the lights in her room, she catches a glimpse of the old painting on her wall and notices its hung up crookedly. She unhooks it from the nail and is caught off guard from the density of the painting. It tumbles down cracking its glass case, unraveling the painting from it's wooden frame divulging a mysterious mirror behind.

"Damnit!" she curses.

Edith removes the painting from its base and is startled by how easy it detaches. She grabs it with both hands and carries it onto her mattress for a closer look. There she sees her reflection staring back at her. Her eyes squinting to explore the reflection which though identical still appears to be slightly darker in contrast, possible signs of wear and tear. She continues staring at her mirroring self mimicking her subtle movements. Then she sees herself blink.

"Oh, my god!" she screams, her heartbeat increasing in an instant, she tosses the old vintage mirror back against the mattress.

Her action followed by faint giggling.

"What the hell!" she screams, backing away to her door yanking the knob and running out to the hallway. At this point the house is still quiet while her parents slept in another room. After a moment of hesitance Edith finds herself contemplating returning to her room or waking her parents up.

"This is stupid, it's all in my head, I shouldn't go back, but I need to know if it was all in my head" her whispery words stumbling out as she argues with her stubborn self. She finally decides to enter her room again carefully before catching her breath, clutching tightly on the door knob in case of a last minute escape. 

"It was an auditory hallucination" she whispers trying to come to a logical conclusion.

Edith finally inches closer to the mirror and pulls the edge of the old vintage frame to lean it upwards. She glances into her reflection once again and it appears to look normal at first. Then suddenly in an instant her reflective image reaches over and tugs her from her shirt, Edith stumbles into the vortex of her uncanny mirrored world and onto a mattress. She finds herself facing an identical apparition of herself staring intensely wide eyed and her unsettling smile of perfect white teeth. 

"Oh, sister" her twinned reflection says in her uncomfortably similar voice only Edith hears it in a higher pitch. "It's been too long" she says, her hands reaching over to clamp onto hers. The twin pushes Edith to the mattress and escapes from the same portal in the mirror. Still perplexed and frightened, Edith lays there and hears the sounds of broken glass coming from the frame with the mirror now vanished.