Chapter 5: The Keeper's Ledger

Alex waited until Tuesday evening to begin his search. Three days of watching Clara perform her perfect sister act, three days of catching tiny inconsistencies that made his skin crawl, three days of his parents treating an imposter like their beloved daughter. Every shared laugh at dinner, every casual "love you" exchanged in passing, felt like another nail in the real Clara's coffin.

His parents were at their weekly book club meeting, and Clara had left for what she claimed was a study group at the library. Alex had watched her go, noting the way she checked her reflection in the hallway mirror before leaving—a habit the real Clara had never had. The Echo was always monitoring her performance, always making sure the mask was perfectly in place.

Now, with the house empty and quiet, Alex began his investigation in earnest.

He started with Clara's room, though he knew it was a long shot. If she really was an Echo who had crossed over three years ago, she would have had plenty of time to eliminate any evidence that might expose her. Still, he had to try.

The room looked exactly as he remembered—posters of indie bands on the walls, a desk cluttered with textbooks and art supplies, clothes draped over the chair in organized chaos. But as Alex searched more carefully, he began to notice things that didn't quite add up. The journal on her nightstand contained entries, but they were too neat, too consistent. The real Clara's handwriting had been messier, more variable depending on her mood. These entries looked like someone practicing penmanship.

Her laptop yielded nothing useful—just schoolwork and social media accounts that painted the picture of a normal teenager's life. But the browsing history was too clean, too deliberately mundane. No weird late-night Wikipedia rabbit holes, no embarrassing searches, none of the random digital detritus that accumulated in a real person's online life.

It was like looking at a museum exhibit titled "Normal Teenage Girl's Room," complete and perfect but somehow hollow.

Frustrated, Alex moved to his parents' bedroom. If there were family secrets to be uncovered, they would likely be hidden where his parents thought he'd never look. He felt guilty rifling through their private spaces, but the image of his real sister trapped in some mirror dimension drove him forward.

He found the first clue in his mother's jewelry box—an old brass key hidden beneath her rarely-worn pearl necklace. It was ornate, antique-looking, with a pattern of interwoven vines carved into the metal. Alex had never seen it before, but something about its weight in his palm felt significant.

The key led him to the basement, where his father's workbench sat against the far wall. Alex had always assumed the large wooden chest beneath it contained old tools or seasonal decorations, but the brass key fit perfectly into an almost invisible lock hidden among the carved details on the chest's front panel.

Inside, wrapped in yellowed tissue paper, was a leather-bound ledger that looked older than the house itself.

Alex carried it upstairs to his room, his heart pounding with anticipation and dread. The leather cover was cracked with age, and the brass clasp was green with patina. When he opened it, the smell of old paper and something else—something sharp and metallic—filled his nostrils.

The first page was written in faded brown ink, in handwriting he didn't recognize:

Property of Elizabeth Thorne Keeper of the Western Ward May God forgive what I have done

Elizabeth Thorne. His great-grandmother, who had died when he was seven. He remembered her as a stern woman with silver hair and eyes that seemed to see too much, but his parents had rarely talked about her in detail. Now, as he turned the page, he began to understand why.

October 23rd, 1952 Margaret's fifteenth birthday. I covered every mirror in the house, as Mother taught me, as her mother taught her. The tradition continues, though I pray Margaret will never need to know why.

The Echoes grow restless on days of identity—birthdays, anniversaries of great personal change. They sense the moment when a person's sense of self becomes most crystallized, most vulnerable to replacement. On such days, the barriers between our world and the Glass Realm grow thin.

I have seen what happens when the barriers fail. I have seen my own sister's face looking back at me from mirrors, speaking with her voice, moving with her mannerisms, but wrong in ways that chill the soul. The thing that replaced Sarah has lived in our family for thirty years now, playing daughter to our parents, wife to her husband, mother to children who will never know their real mother.

Alex's hands trembled as he read. His great-great-aunt Sarah had been replaced by an Echo? How many people in his family tree were actually supernatural impostors?

He flipped through more pages, his great-grandmother's neat handwriting documenting decades of vigilance against an enemy most people didn't even know existed.

The Wardens were established in the 1600s, when the first crossing occurred in Salem. Not the witch trials, as history records them, but something far more insidious. The Glass Realm exists parallel to our own, separated by the thinnest of membranes. In that place, Echoes watch our world through every reflective surface, learning, copying, waiting for their chance to cross over.

We are the guardians against that crossing. Each Warden family is responsible for a geographical region, monitoring for signs of Echo activity, maintaining the barriers, and when necessary... eliminating threats.

Alex paused at that last phrase. Eliminating threats. What exactly did that mean?

The compact mirror has been passed down through six generations of Thorne women. Forged from glass taken from the first confirmed crossing site and blessed by those who understood the true nature of the threat, it is both weapon and shield against the creatures from the Glass Realm. The loop trap is its primary function—creating an infinite reflection that confuses and binds an Echo's consciousness, allowing for their safe disposal.

Safe disposal. Alex's stomach churned as he realized what his great-grandmother was describing. She wasn't just trapping these creatures—she was destroying them.

But there are rules, as there always are with such things. An Echo that successfully integrates into the living world, that maintains its deception for more than a year and a day, becomes increasingly difficult to eliminate. It begins to develop what might charitably be called a soul—not human, but a kind of spiritual weight that anchors it to our reality. After three years, removal becomes nearly impossible without risking tears in the fabric between worlds.

Three years. Alex's blood turned to ice as he calculated the timeline. Clara—the Echo wearing Clara's face—had crossed over three years and two months ago. She was past the point of safe removal.

I failed with Sarah. I let sentiment cloud my judgment, allowed the creature to establish itself so completely that removing it would have destroyed not just the Echo but potentially dozens of innocent lives. The guilt of that failure has haunted me for thirty years, and I pray that Margaret will not face such an impossible choice.

But I fear she will. The Echoes are becoming bolder, more sophisticated. They no longer simply replace their targets—they study them, learn to improve upon the original. The creature that replaced Sarah was merely adequate. The next generation may be perfect.

Alex's hands were shaking so badly he could barely turn the pages. His great-grandmother's warnings seemed like prophecy now, describing exactly what had happened to his family.

If you are reading this, descendant of mine, then the barriers have failed again. Know this: the compact mirror alone may not be enough. There is another way, a more dangerous path, but it requires someone willing to cross over into the Glass Realm itself.

In the deepest part of the basement, behind the old coal furnace, there is a mirror I removed from the scene of Sarah's replacement. It is not covered, cannot be covered, for it serves as a permanent gateway between worlds. I have warded it as best I can, but it remains a door that opens both ways.

To save someone trapped in the Glass Realm, you must enter their prison. But know that the living were never meant to walk in that place. The longer you remain, the more of yourself you lose, until you become nothing more than another reflection searching for a way home.

Alex slammed the ledger shut, his heart racing. There was a way to save Clara—the real Clara. But it would mean venturing into the hellish mirror dimension where she was trapped, and there was no guarantee he'd survive the experience.

He reopened the book, looking for more details about the gateway mirror, and found a rough sketch on the last written page. It showed the basement layout with an X marked behind the old furnace, along with a list of symbols that looked like some kind of protective ward.

Below the sketch, in handwriting that looked more recent than the rest, was a single line in his great-grandmother's distinctive script:

The choice between family and truth will come to you, as it came to me. Choose wisely, for the consequences of either path will echo through generations.

Alex stared at those words for a long time, feeling the weight of his family's secret history settling on his shoulders. He thought of Clara—both versions of her—and of his parents who had unknowingly been living with an imposter for three years. He thought of all the other families who might be facing the same impossible situation, never knowing that the people they loved had been replaced by supernatural duplicates.

The Echo upstairs wasn't evil, exactly. She genuinely seemed to care about protecting his parents' happiness, even if her motives were ultimately selfish. She was trying to maintain a balance, to keep everyone safe within the lie she'd constructed.

But his real sister was trapped somewhere, alone and possibly suffering, while her replacement lived her life.

Alex made his decision.

Tomorrow, when his parents were at work and the Echo was at school, he would go into the basement and find the gateway mirror. He would enter the Glass Realm and bring Clara home, no matter what it cost him.

The ledger had warned him that the living weren't meant to walk in that place, that he might lose pieces of himself with every moment he spent there. But Clara had already lost everything—her life, her family, her very existence in the real world.

He couldn't abandon her to save everyone's comfortable illusions.

Not anymore.

As he hid the ledger beneath his mattress, Alex caught sight of his reflection in his bedroom window and froze. For just a moment, he could have sworn the figure looking back at him was perfectly still while he continued to move.

But when he looked more carefully, his reflection moved normally, matching his every gesture.

Still, the moment left him with a chill that had nothing to do with the October night.

The Echoes were watching. They were always watching.

And tomorrow, he was going to walk right into their domain.