Chapter 316: Reflections in the Mirror

“Miss Wendy, the last streetcar’s almost here. Shall we go together?”

Wendy nodded. Side by side, they walked toward the nearby streetcar stop.

A few minutes later, the final streetcar of the night clattered up, its bell ringing, and the doors slid open.

They boarded, finding seats by the window.

With a lurch and a groan, the streetcar pulled away, leaving the old district behind.

Through the foggy window glass, Milo cast one last glance toward the Black Crow Mansion.

The old house was already swallowed by the deepening twilight, nothing left but a vague, dark spire.

And the figure of Elsa, dragging that bulging trunk, had long since vanished around a corner, as though she’d never been there at all.

The streetcar rumbled toward the city center, where lights were beginning to flicker on one by one.

The rhythmic clatter of wheels against the tracks became a kind of lullaby.

Wendy and Milo leaned back in their seats and slowly closed their eyes.

………………

A crimson moon hung over the Black Crow Mansion, draping it in a gentle, almost tender haze.

Without its core anomaly, the once-infamous haunted house seemed to have shed its ominous soul.

Under the moonlight, it now looked unnervingly serene.

The withered vines crawling up its brick walls, the rusted iron window frames—all of it exuded a kind of forlorn decay.

Just another old house, abandoned and forgotten, no different from any other at the city’s edge.

But then…

A night breeze stirred, from nowhere.

In the great hall, one corner of a heavy black drape fluttered, lifted by the wind.

The cloth rose, and then fell.

In that brief interlude, the veiled surface of a mirror was laid bare to the moonlight.

The glass, worn by time and caked with dust, was no longer clear, filmed over with a grayish cataract. Yet beneath that cataract…

Four human silhouettes stood silently, motionless.

One was broad-shouldered, straight-backed—the shadow of the veteran, Milo.

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One was thinner, posture rigid, hands seeming to clutch something that was no longer there—perhaps the reporter Elliot’s lost camera.

One stood with a careless slouch, even a hint of arrogance—the vanished young man, Daniel.

And the last was slender, slightly hunched, still trembling with the echo of terror—the tarot-reading girl, Wendy.

And among these four relatively clear shapes, something else swirled: a blur of gray-white mist, constantly shifting, boiling in an endless, silent flux.

The mist had no fixed form.

One moment, it stretched and sharpened, sketching the grim, pale profile of Milo.

The next, it softened and curved, taking on the tear-streaked, pitiful countenance of Wendy.

Then, it swelled and tore apart, forming the grotesque, swollen head of that girl with the gaping maw.

And at the end of all its transformations, the mist contracted inward, condensing into a single, sharp, unreadable smile.

The arc of that smile was calm, detached, carrying a faint, superior air.

It was an expression much like the one worn by the “asset appraiser” in the deep-crimson dress—whenever she happened to record a particularly interesting piece of data.

Then the breeze returned. The lifted corner of the black drape fell. Heavy darkness once again sealed the mirror shut.

The hall returned to emptiness and silence. Everything that had flickered in the mirror’s depths was now gone—as though it had never been anything more than a silent dream woven from dust and shadow at a certain slant of light.

………………

Inside the anomaly laboratory, the incandescent filaments burned steadily, flooding the clean workbench with warm yellow light, banishing every ambiguous shadow.

On the workbench lay an open dark-brown leather carrying case.

It was a medium-sized travel bag, now sitting empty.

Beside it, curled up, was a gray cat.

Its fur was scruffy and unkempt, flecked with dust and bits of grass—the picture of a feral alley cat that could survive anywhere, from abandoned manors to garbage heaps.

At the moment, it was lazily grooming its front paw with a barbed pink tongue, entirely relaxed.

Every now and then, it would lift its head, and its round, lamplight-bright eyes would wander over its surroundings with a detached curiosity—neither the wariness of a stray nor the affection of a house cat.

Elsa stood beside the workbench.

She had straightened up from the half-kneeling posture she’d previously held before Pandora.

Raising a hand, she lightly wiped the corner of her mouth.

With that small gesture, the faint, feverish flush on her face—the sort that lingered after a meal—and the remnants of a deep, almost ecstatic satisfaction in her eyes, rapidly receded like a tide.

Her dark gaze soon returned to its usual quiet rationality.

She turned to Pandora and began her detailed report, her voice crisp and measured:

“When I first captured this anomaly within the Black Crow Mansion, its form was exactly as I described in my earlier report: a creature crudely stitched together from countless human limbs, with a grotesquely swollen girl’s head at its center.

“However, shortly after we left the mansion, the anomaly underwent a significant change. Its volume collapsed dramatically, and its mass seemed to alter. The limb-like characteristics vanished entirely, and eventually it stabilized into its current form—an apparently harmless gray cat.”

“During the journey, I attempted to return to the mansion’s vicinity and even lingered around its perimeter for some time, to see if changes in environment might trigger a reversion.

But it remained in this form. No further changes. No aggressive behavior. No abnormal activity.”

…

“So, it’s unlikely to be simply a matter of territory or location,” Pandora said.

She didn’t offer a conclusion immediately. Instead, she picked up a pen and made a brief note in her logbook about the phenomenon. She paused, tilting her head slightly, her gaze drifting toward the gray cat with a thoughtful look.

“Then the deciding factor…” she murmured, mostly to herself, organizing her thoughts.

“Perhaps time? A certain threshold after capture? Or… a state transformation triggered when some condition is met? For example… completion of feeding? Energy expenditure reaching a critical point? Or maybe the supply of external fear or recognition was cut off?”