My grandmother had a sister, Lida, and this sister did not have a single mirror in her apartment. She never even looked in them, as my grandmother herself said, and I noticed that when Bab Lida passed by the mirror, she turned away and almost ran at a run.
To be honest, I thought that my grandmother’s sister simply did not have everything at home. She lived alone, was unsociable, communicated only with her grandmother. I’ve only been to her house a couple of times with my grandmother. And she herself came to her grandmother only when there were no other people. Even on her birthday, she congratulated me a day later, but she never went to general gatherings.
Once I asked my mother to visit a friend for the night, and my mother was once morest it. All these standard phrases “you have your own house”, “there is nothing like a homeless person to climb into other people’s apartments” and everything in this direction. And I really wanted to go, because we were going to guess. I was then twelve or thirteen years old.
My grandmother heard regarding fortune-telling, scolded me, said that I didn’t even think to do such nonsense.
“Otherwise you’ll be like Baba Lida all your life later,” the grandmother threw in her hearts then and broke off.
I was very interested in what happened to Bab Lida and what fortune-telling had to do with it, but my grandmother said then that I was still too small to talk regarding such things. No more was said on this subject. And then it flew out of my head.
Bab Lida died last year. I helped my grandmother clean the apartment, and then she threw a bitter phrase that at least there was no need to curtain the mirrors. Then I decided to ask why the women of Lida did not have mirrors in the apartment at all. For a woman, this is strange, and uncomfortable. Then my grandmother decided to tell me.
They lived then in the village. They were both sixteen years old, and the girlfriends were also regarding the same age. And what is it especially for young people in the village to have fun? One of these entertainments was divination. Girls usually guessed at their betrothed, the most important question for them was.
They had one fortune-telling, which had to be carried out on the eve of the holiday in the bathhouse. The girls there were supposed to be only in shirts, their hair loose. Everything was given by candlelight and mirrors. A conspiracy was pronounced, then the fortuneteller looked over her shoulder in the mirror, there the image of the betrothed should have been reflected. As she saw it, she said protective words and put the mirror down with a reflection. You can’t turn around, no matter what you see, otherwise there will be trouble.
An old woman, who was considered a witch in the village, taught her grandmother and her girlfriends this fortune-telling. She didn’t seem to pee, but she didn’t deny it either. She treated her with herbs, did conspiracies, but did not harm people, therefore no one touched her.
Girlfriends gathered, went to guess. Everything went smoothly for the first two, they even saw something, as they say, and then the turn came to Lida’s women. She took a mirror, looked, and saw something there that she turned around, and then screamed.
We have suffered such fear! Lidka fell, trembled as if in a fit, we mightn’t get the mirror out of her hands, she grabbed it tightly, and yet she had to be put on the table in order to finish the divination. Girlfriends yell, and I tear her mirror out of her hands. Maybe it seemed to me then, but in the mirror I saw flashed someone’s eyes. She closed her eyes immediately, the mirror jerked, the handle broke. I quickly put the mirror on the table, and then Lidka stopped shaking.
Then no one else guessed, that was enough. And the next day, that old woman came to her grandmother’s house, who told regarding fortune-telling. She looked at Lida, read something over her, and then said that she ruined her own fate, did not obey her, looked back.
– The grandmother told us that the unclean showed us the betrothed, but he might not do anything to us, because he did not see our faces. And Lidka turned around, and now he will not leave her behind. Lidka roared, it got me too. They asked the old woman what to do. She said that now for her every mirror is another step towards it.
According to the old woman, at first there will be a small figure, but it will constantly grow, getting closer, becoming clearer. When it becomes completely distinguishable, then it’s all over, you can’t be saved.
Bab Lida stopped looking in the mirrors, her grandmother was also afraid, but following a couple of months everything that happened no longer seemed so real. Nothing happened, the girls began to forget regarding the incident and the words of the old woman. Until one day Baba Lida peered into the mirror and saw the silhouette of a man there.
– And I saw him, because I looked over her shoulder. Lidka, as if dead, stands and looks. Trust me, I mightn’t move her a hair’s breadth. And the mirror on the wall was screwed on, you can’t remove it either. I then seated him in a chair. As fragments splashed, so Lidka screamed and died.
Grandmother said that their mother then cursed, the only more mirror was shattered. Of course, no one told her the truth. And from then until her death Lida did not look in the mirror and shied away from the man. Grandmother did not know what her sister saw in the mirror, but looking into the face of each man, she shuddered.
– How many times we reproached ourselves that then we went to guess. And for those girls who managed to look in the mirror, everything came true, they then boasted themselves.
And as for me, it’s better not to know anything than to go through such a nightmare as Bab Lida.
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