The Phenomenals: A Game of Ghouls by F E Higgins

eyes.
    Above the fire was a large painting. At first glance it looked like a still life, complete with fruit and flowers, but as Vincent stared he saw that it was not a representation of life, more of
decline and death. The fruit was rotting and crawling with flies, the flowers wilting, the candles burned down and the snuffer lying on the table. Half hidden under a dead leaf was a broken
timepiece, and staring out from behind the vase was a leering skull on a plate. This was a vanitas painting, a reminder to the viewer of the transience of life.
    Grimacing, Vincent turned away and his smitelight’s beam fell upon a dark archway in the other wall.
    ‘Aha!’ he exclaimed. ‘The dressing room.’ He passed beneath the arch through a short hallway into an ante-room where the air was so heavy he felt it pressing down on his
chest. His practised burglar’s eye took in a large dressing table with a central mirror between two smaller ones. The black cloth across the mirrors had rotted away.
    Laid out on the dresser top was a set of ivory-handled hairbrushes and an array of perfume bottles and pots. At the edge a pair of slim china hands for holding jewellery stood side by side, but
the fingers were ringless and no chains hung from the necklace tree.
    He picked up, examined and discarded most of the objects. The perfume bottles were empty, their contents having evaporated over the years, except for one, a brown bottle in the shape of a pear,
which still had liquid in it so he took it. He also took an oval silver compact. It could be worth something. He flicked open the lid, releasing a cloud of powder, and a soft sponge fell out and
disintegrated. He was surprised to find that the interior of the compact glowed, as if it had its own source of light. He saw his reflection in the mirrored lid, just his eyes and the bridge of his
nose, but it was blurry so he snapped the lid shut and dropped it into a pocket.
    He took, for the Kryptos, a hand-held mirror to replace the one which had broken. Despite Folly’s apparent disdain for such things, he had seen her glance in the mirror more than once and
he knew Citrine liked to adjust her hair. Jonah, with his livid scars, was the only one who was not interested in seeing his reflection
    Next Vincent started on the drawers, which one by one crumbled away in his hand. He came across some rectangular velvet-lidded boxes and was delighted to find inside pearls and brooches. In
another he found a set of earrings and a matching necklace, and in the third he scooped up a selection of rings.
    Satisfied with his haul, though it was relatively meagre for a place such as this, Vincent made ready to go. The disturbed air was becoming unpleasantly gritty in his throat.
    With one final sweep of the smitelight he caught sight of an embroidered three-panelled screen. He peeked behind it and was faced with a black cloth on the wall.
    ‘Another mirror,’ he mused, and pulled away the fragile cloth. The looking glass behind it was large with candle-holders incorporated into either side of the gilded frame. Where he
might have expected to see fat-cheeked cherubs (he had come across plenty of ornate mirrors in his career) there were instead more of the impish creatures he had glimpsed on the stairs.
    His smitelight was shining directly on the glass, but there was something odd about his reflection. It was as if he wasn’t properly there. He went closer, and tapped across the mirror from
one edge to the other.
    ‘Domne!’ he breathed. ‘I think there is something on the other side.’ He fumbled around the frame for a latch or a button – snapping one of the candle-holders in
the process – anything that might prove his theory correct, but it was only when he pressed on one of the hands of a beckoning imp that there was an almost imperceptible click and the mirror
opened outwards like a door. Making sure to wedge it open – Vincent knew better than to take the chance that it might close