The iron gates of Saint Ernestine didn't just creak; they groaned with the weight of forty years of rust. Father O’Mallary stepped through first, his leather boots crunching on the gravel that had long ago been choked by weeds. Beside him, Sister Helen adjusted her habit, her face a mask of professional detachment, though her eyes darted toward the high, narrow windows of the east wing.
"The Diocese wants a full accounting by Friday, Father," she said, her voice echoing in the dead air of the courtyard. "Vestments, altar silver, and any furniture worth salvaging before the demolition crews arrive."
Father O’Mallary nodded, flipping open his notebook. "And the chapel?"
"Stripped of the Eucharist months ago," she replied. "It’s just a building now."
But as they stepped into the foyer, Father O’Mallary didn’t feel like he was in ‘just a building.’ He felt like he was walking into a lung that was holding its breath. The air was unnervingly still, smelling of floor wax and old, cold stone. And then there were the mirrors. They were everywhere. Tall, narrow, and encased in frames that looked like gilded briars.
As Father O’Mallary walked past the first one, he paused. He thought he saw a flicker of movement—a flash of a navy blue pleat—just at the edge of his vision. He turned, but there was only Sister Helen, ten paces behind him, checking the hinges on a heavy oak door.
"Sister Helen," Father O’Mallary called out, his voice sounding thin. "Did you see that?"
"See what, Father?"
"A girl. In the corridor."
Sister Helen didn't look up from her clipboard. "The school has been empty for years, Father. It’s likely just the glass. These mirrors are warped. Low-quality silvering from the turn of the century. They play tricks on the light."
Father O’Mallary wanted to believe her. He moved deeper into the school, his pen scratching rhythmically against the paper. Item 104: Oak Refectory Table. Item 105: Wrought Iron Candelabra. But as he reached the east dormitory bathroom, the rhythm of his heart overtook the rhythm of his pen.
The bathroom was a ruin of cracked porcelain, but the mirror above the sink was pristine. Father O’Mallary approached it, intending to note the frame, but he stopped dead. In the reflection, the bathroom was not a ruin. The tiles were white and gleaming. The radiator wasn't rusted; it was hissing with steam. And standing directly behind his shoulder was a woman.
She didn't look like a student. She was older, her skin the color of parchment, her eyes filled with a terrifying, ancient lucidity. It was Maggie. She stood with a quiet, heavy authority that the younger girls lacked. Deep in the silvered background, Father O’Mallary could see the faint, blurry silhouettes of students watching her, waiting for her command. Maggie didn't look at him; she looked at the notebook in his hand. Then, with a slow, deliberate motion, she raised a finger and pointed at the floor.
Father O’Mallary looked down. At his feet, the floorboards were rotting, but in the reflection, he saw a dark, viscous liquid spreading toward his boots. Not water. Blood.
"Father? You’ve been in there quite a while." Sister Helen’s voice drifted in from the hall, but it sounded miles away.
Father O’Mallary backed out of the room, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He began to notice the others. In every mirror he passed, the "Stationed" girls were there, and always, in the darkest corners of the glass, Maggie Bell was watching them. She was the shepherd of this silent flock. The girls weren't haunting Father O’Mallary; they were guiding him. One pointed toward a staircase that looked stable but groaned with a hollow, deceptive rot. Another pointed toward a ceiling joist that was buckled and ready to fail.
But it was in the Chapel where the logic finally broke. The great mirror behind the altar had been uncovered. Father O’Mallary stood before it and saw not his own face, but a sea of them. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of girls in starched collars, their hands pressed against the glass.
Among them was Sister Beatrice, her reflection twisted into something predatory, her hands clawing at the spirits of the girls who had replaced her. But Maggie was there too, standing tall at the very back of the reflection. Her presence seemed to hold the others together, her eyes never leaving Beatrice, as if she were the jailer of the school’s lingering malice.
"They aren't tricks of the light," Father O’Mallary whispered. He realized then that the mirrors weren't just reflecting the past; they were holding the wickedness at bay. The girls, under Maggie’s watchful eye, were the only thing stopping the "attention" Sister Beatrice had once spoken of from spilling into the world.
"Father Mallary, we really must move to the basement," Helen said, appearing in the doorway. Father O’Mallary looked at her. In the mirror, Helen’s reflection was screaming, her hands over her ears.
"No," Father O’Mallary said, his voice cracking. "We aren't salvaging anything. This place is a canker. It needs to be purged."
He didn't wait for her permission. He grabbed the heavy velvet curtains from the chapel windows and tore them down. He found a canister of kerosene in the janitor's closet and doused the wood, the paper files, and the ancient, dust-choked rugs.
"Father, stop! This is Church property!" Helen cried, but she backed away when she saw the look in his eyes. He wasn't a priest anymore; he was a man trying to drown a nightmare in fire.
He struck a match. The flame took hold instantly, climbing the dry oak and the silk vestments. As the smoke filled the halls, Father O’Mallary ran for the exit, dragging a coughing Sister Helen with him. They burst through the gates just as the windows of the upper floors shattered from the heat. Father O’Mallary stood in the gravel, watching the orange glow consume the stone. He felt a grim sense of victory. Fire was the great purifier. If the school was gone, the mirrors would be gone. The girls would be free.
He didn't see what happened inside the heat. As the wooden frames charred and fell away, the glass didn't melt. The fire roared around the mirrors, but the silvered surfaces remained cool, untouched by the soot or the flame. The girls inside didn't burn. They simply stepped back into the shadows of the glass, Maggie moving them deeper than the fire could reach, her hand pressed to the surface as the world outside turned to ash.
When the fire department finally extinguished the embers two days later, the stone shell of Saint Ernestine remained. And among the ash and the blackened timber, the mirrors stood upright. Some had fallen into the rubble, face-up toward the sky, reflecting the grey clouds. Others remained bolted to the scorched walls, their gilt frames gone, their edges raw and sharp as razors.
They were no longer "Stationed." They were loose.
And as the first salvager stepped into the ruins a week later, he saw a woman in the reflection of a cracked shard on the ground. She was pointing toward the basement. Behind her, a hundred pale faces watched and waited.
