After what feels like an eternity of waiting, I hear that familiar knock on my door once again, and that excitement I’ve been feeling threatens to swallow me whole. Instead of calling him in again, this time I instead leap to open the door myself. This startles him a bit, and he staggers half a step backwards.

“…I understand you’re eager, but at least give me a warning before jumping at me like that,” he hisses, trying to hide the fact I’d scared him.

“Eek, sorry,” I reply sheepishly, “I didn’t mean to startle you! I can’t help being so excited!”

“Right, suppose that’s my own fault. Come now, everything is ready.”

I follow him silently down the pitch-black hallway to the kitchen, and nearly stumble in the darkness. Anton spends most of his time in the darkness of his room, so obviously he has no problem navigating the space and has probably developed highly-advanced night vision or some shit like that as a result. However, to me, it’s a bit spooky and unfamiliar, and the space feels longer than usual somehow, like it’s morphed into a neverending tunnel. We reach the kitchen, and the lighting situation is only slightly better. The table in the center is decked with a few candles that form a half-circle around a round mirror propped up by books, and the air smells like lavender and cloves (because of the candles). I’m not really sure what to make of the sight; it’s a lot more ‘occult’ than I was expecting, but then again this is Anton’s doing and that kind of thing is his bread and butter.

“Go on,” Anton says, putting a hand on my shoulder, “Take a seat.”

“Wait, but what even is all this?” I ask, brushing his hand off of me and looking up at him, “Can’t you tell me what the lesson’s gonna be now?”

“Today’s lesson is going to be one on catoptromancy– a method of scrying, or divination using mirrors. It is incredibly useful, and applicable to many daily situations that may befall you. I am speaking from personal experience here, this is a type of magic I use quite frequently.”

I groan, loudly, and Anton frowns.

“Whatever is the matter?”

“Divination is so lame,” I slouch forward, exhaling loudly, “I don’t feel like playing with a dumb old mirror right now, and I don’t even wanna know the future anyway! There are way better ways I can spend my time.”

“Listen, Hong, once you give it a chance you’ll certainly change your tune. Divination is nowhere close to ‘lame’, and one doesn’t necessarily need to use it to see into the future. That is only one use. Many use it to see into the hearts and minds of others, among other things… Not like I personally intrude on others’ privacy via divination, but…” His voice trails off and his tone is unconvincing, “Er, anyway, there are many uses, hence why it is imperative you learn it. This is something I’d long meant to teach you, but just never had the time to.”

I ruminate over his words, deciding that, perhaps, it really would be worthwhile for me to learn catoptromancy. I mean, it may not be the most exciting thing in the world ever, but I might as well give it a try, right? And what Anton said earlier, about learning all sorts of magic to become a real wizard… That’s important to me. What I want more than anything is to be a wizard like him– that’s why I’m even in magic school, anyway.

“I’ll try it out,” I say finally, taking a seat before the mirror, “Maybe I really will get some use out of learning cato… Catastro…?”

“Catoptromancy.”

“Yeah, that’s totally what I was gonna say. Even if I don’t get any use or enjoyment out of learning it, it’ll still bring me one step closer to being a wizard!”

“That is the spirit,” Anton replies, taking a seat across from me, “I knew you’d change your tune.”

I examine the mirror, picking it up. It looks old, and even in the low lighting I can tell he didn’t even bother to wipe the dust off it. I polish the glass a bit with my sweater sleeve, blowing on it a few times for good measure to ensure it’s fully clean.

“Can’t believe it slipped my mind to clean the thing,” he mutters.

“Eh, no big deal. It’s not like it was that dusty,” I reply, staring at my reflection and fussing with my hair a bit. When I am done, I smile, and the mirror-Hong smiles back cutely in dim candlelight. I set it back in its original place, and look to Anton for further instruction.

“Now that you are done playing beauty-shop, I will explain the basics of catoptromancy,” he begins, “You must first choose what hidden knowledge you would like to bring to light. Clear your mind of any outside thoughts– it is imperative you not think of anything else. If your mind is clouded by irrelevancy, the mirror’s image will be clouded as well. Keep the mirror perfectly still and upright as so, and gaze upon your reflection until it begins to distort. Do not look away. Gaze upon it until distortion, and then the truth you are seeking will slowly reveal itself.”

I stare at him intently as his words sink in, his ‘beauty-shop’ comment going right over my head.

“So basically what you’re telling me to do is just stare into this mirror until the thing I’m thinking of shows up? How long’s that gonna take?”

“Since this is your first time having ever done such a thing, I cannot say precisely. It will likely take a decent amount of time, though I am not sure how much.”

“A ‘decent amount’?” I groan, burying my face in my hands disappointedly, “Ugh, I dunno how much longer I can sit still for… This’d BETTER be worth it!”

“It certainly will be, if you truly do wish to become a wizard,” Anton rises from his seat and walks towards me, leaning to whisper in my ear, “Which you will be, in due time, under my guidance. You’ve conquered things far more frightening than sitting at the kitchen table, so this really should be of no trouble to you at all.”

My face is still buried in my hands, and I can feel his warm breath on my ear. My heart is pounding so hard— I wonder if he can hear it? I peek briefly through my fingers at the mirror before us, and I can see the reflection of his face and hair momentarily before he stands back up. I know he is staring at me even though I cannot see him, and it is so quiet now you could hear a pin drop.

“I will leave you be,” he says quietly, breaking the silence, “I know it may not be the most exciting thing in the world at the moment, but this will be worth every second of your time. I will be in my room if you need me for any reason.”

I’m left feeling strange. I’m not sure what he was trying to achieve there, because I certainly don’t feel any more motivated than I did before. And of all the things I could’ve done today, and all the things he could’ve taught me… Jeez. I have come to the conclusion that today is just a weird day. I take my face out of my hands and stick my tongue out at the mirror. My reflection does the same. I still don’t know what it is I want to see within the mirror, either. I tell myself that if I can’t think of anything, going with seeing the future is fine. It’s cliché, sure, but at least it’s something.

I stare at my reflection for a few more minutes, replaying the last few minutes in my head over and over again as I squirm restlessly in my chair. Then, an idea comes to me. If Anton’s (allegedly) using catoptromancy to peer into peoples’ hearts and minds or whatever it was that he was saying he TOTALLY doesn’t do, maybe it’d be nice to give him a taste of his own medicine and see into the nature of his heart and mind? After all, I feel like it’d be interesting to see what makes this guy tick since he’s so weird. Maybe I’ll come to some sort of revelation about him as a person that makes me understand him better? I think that’d save me from a lot of future heartache.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath in, finally getting comfortable in my seat. I open my eyes and scoot my chair a tiny bit forward, leaning into the mirror so much so that the tip of my nose is almost touching the cold glass. I stare intensely, and begin to rid myself of irrelevant thoughts. It’s easier than I expected– normally my brain’s like a TV on max volume that rapidly switches through channels and never switches off– but now I’m finally able to focus on something completely for once. And everything is quiet. The mirror-Hong is beginning to slowly fade away, and they look so strange and not like me at all.

“It’s working,” I whisper aloud, feeling genuinely pretty proud of myself. This is actually easier than I thought!

As I continue to stare, I mentally prepare myself to see something insane in place of my reflection, knowing the kind of person that Anton is. On second thought, is this really something I’d like to do? What if I find something out about him that’s just downright awful? Something that changes everything? Ugh! I can’t be getting second thoughts now, not as my reflection’s melted away completely!!

Within a few seconds, my reflection is replaced with a blurry vision of a bedroom not too much unlike mine, except it’s in great disarray with clothes and various objects strewn about carelessly on the floor and posters ripped off walls haphazardly. I hear a door open up out of sight and a sickly-looking boy with spiky blond hair and round glasses much too large for his face enters the room, collapsing on the unmade bed in the center of the room. He’s battered and bruised, and as he removes his glasses I can’t help but notice his face is red and his nose is bleeding heavily. It is Anton as a boy, and he is crying, something I’d never in a million years imagine him doing. Is this… a vision from his childhood? An event that made him into the person he is now? A hint to his true nature?

I find myself uttering his name quietly, and I swear the mirror-Anton looks up in my direction. We make eye contact, and he stops crying for a second, smiling weakly.

However, before anything else can happen, the mirror’s image soon grows blurry and fades quickly to black as the glass in the frame begins to crack and hiss. Uh oh, I think to myself, this cannot be good… I sit back up and scoot away, and just in time! The glass in the mirror explodes with a loud BANG, shattered glass flying everywhere! I shriek in fright, scooting my chair back as much as possible until I hit the wall behind me.

I can hear Anton’s footsteps approach quickly down the hallway and to the kitchen.

“Hong, what on earth…?!” He exclaims in shock, seeing the shattered glass all over and my ghastly expression, “How the hell could you have done something like this?!”

“I-I don’t know,” I reply shakily, my hands trembling and heart pounding. I try to explain what happened to him but the words just won’t come out right.

“I cannot believe you managed to fuck up this spectacularly; I feel like this sort of failure is impressive in its own right,” he walks over to me and examines the mirror, “What could you have possibly tried to divine for this to happen? Oh, not like it matters. I suppose your lessons end here for today.”

“I don’t… I don’t feel very well,” I finally manage to spit out, frowning meekly, “I’m trembling all over, and my heart’s pounding, and I feel like I’m gonna pass out and– and–”

“Chrissakes, there’s no need for all that,” Anton replies, beginning to panic a bit, “H-Here, go lie down. I will clean up the broken glass.”

He helps me up and lets me lean on him for support as I walk to the couch in the living room. I collapse on it in a way similar to the vision of boy-Anton I’d seen in the mirror, and a sick, dizzying feeling comes on from deep inside. I clutch the couch cushions white-knuckle tightly, feeling like I’ve been flung from the dorm into the wild winds outside.

“The glass can wait, I suppose,” he mutters under his breath as he watches over me, crouching before the couch and brushing the hair away from my face, “Just what has gotten into you?”

“In the mirror…” I begin, each word feeling like it’s clawed its way out of my throat into existence, “I s-saw…”

“Go on,” his tone is impatient, sure, but I cannot tell if he is genuinely upset with me.

Hesitantly, I tell him, to the best of my ability, of the vision I’d seen before me. And in all honesty, I cannot tell you what he says next, and what I say after that, and so on and so forth. All I can hear is the wind outside, and it’s picking up again. If you’d told me I’d been thrown outside and swallowed whole by the storm and transported to a land far away full of bright color and noise, I’d believe you.

As for Anton, I don’t think I will be able to see him the same way again for some time, but maybe that is for the best. The vision in the mirror is the revelation that will help me to understand him better.