The Gallery of Unfinished Reflections

The gallery was not on the map.

I found it while looking for the eastern staircase of a building whose western staircase had led me to a room I had already visited twice. A narrow passage opened behind a tapestry. At its end stood a pair of black doors, each fitted with a silver handle.

I entered.

The gallery was long and high-ceilinged. Mirrors covered its walls, floor and ceiling, though not in any arrangement I could recognise. Some were framed in dark wood, others in polished brass, and a few had no frames at all. Their surfaces were clear, but none reflected the gallery as I saw it.

The first mirror showed a room full of windows.

The second showed a staircase descending into a lake.

The third showed a garden beneath a sky in which two moons were rising.

I moved closer to the first.

The room in the mirror was empty. Its windows opened onto a landscape of mountains, and beyond the mountains I could see a second room, its windows opening onto the same landscape.

I raised my hand.

The figure in the mirror did not move.

Instead, it turned towards one of the windows and walked away.

I watched it disappear into the reflected room.

Then I noticed a door at the far end of the gallery.

It was not there when I entered.

I crossed the room and opened it. Beyond lay another gallery, smaller than the first, with mirrors arranged along its walls. Each showed the room in which I was standing, but from a different position. In one I was beside the door. In another I was approaching it. In a third I was standing with my back turned, looking at something beyond the mirror.

I searched for the mirror that showed the room as it was.

There was none.

At the end of the second gallery stood a tall oval mirror in a frame of tarnished silver. Its surface was dark, almost black. When I approached, a faint light appeared within it.

I could see a room.

It was the first gallery.

I could see myself entering through the black doors, though I was standing in the second gallery. The reflected figure paused, looked towards the mirrors, and then turned towards the passage.

I stepped aside.

The figure did not.

It continued walking towards the oval mirror.

I watched it approach.

When it reached the mirror, it raised its hand.

I raised mine.

For a moment our hands met upon the glass.

Then the figure stepped through.

I turned.

The gallery was empty.

I looked back into the mirror. The room beyond it was now the second gallery, and in it stood a figure watching me.

I did not recognise the figure.

It looked towards the door, then turned and walked away.

I followed its movement with my eyes.

The reflected gallery had begun to change. The mirrors were moving, not across the walls but within their own reflections. Each showed a different arrangement of the room, and within each arrangement another gallery was visible.

I found a small mirror near the floor. It showed a room in which there were no mirrors, only a table and a chair. On the table lay a silver key.

I looked down.

There was no table.

I reached towards the mirror.

My fingers passed through the surface.

For an instant I felt the coolness of a metal object. Then the mirror became opaque.

I stepped back.

The gallery had changed again.

A thousand small mirrors now covered the walls, each reflecting a fragment of the room. An eye, a hand, a door, a patch of ceiling, a piece of floor. None showed the whole. Yet as I moved, the fragments rearranged themselves. A door appeared in one mirror, a staircase in another, a window in a third. Together they seemed to form a room, but whenever I tried to see it clearly, the arrangement changed.

I began to walk.

The mirrors followed me.

Or perhaps I was following them.

At the far end I found a large circular mirror set into the floor. It reflected the ceiling, but the ceiling contained another circular mirror, which reflected the floor, and within that reflection another ceiling, another floor, another mirror.

I knelt.

The reflections continued downwards, becoming smaller and smaller, until they disappeared into a darkness that seemed to have no bottom.

Then, from somewhere within that darkness, a light appeared.

It grew brighter.

I saw a gallery.

I saw a figure kneeling beside a circular mirror.

I recognised the room.

I recognised the figure.

But the figure was looking at something I could not see.

I leaned closer.

The figure lifted its head.

For a moment, it seemed to be looking directly at me.

Then it smiled.

I stood up.

The gallery was silent.

I returned to the black doors, but they had disappeared. In their place stood a tall mirror with no frame. Its surface reflected a room I had never seen: a small chamber with a single window, a chair, and a table upon which lay a silver key.

I knew the key.

I had seen it before.

I reached towards the mirror.

The glass gave way.

On the other side, the chamber was empty. The key lay on the table. I picked it up and turned towards the window.

Beyond it was a long gallery.

Mirrors covered its walls, floor and ceiling.

At the far end stood a pair of black doors, each fitted with a silver handle.

I placed the key in my pocket.

Then I noticed that the chamber had no door.