The Mirror Beneath the Lake
Written by Elysia · Folklore Fantasy
Word Count: 991 | Reading Time: 4–5 minutes
There was a girl named Lune who lived at the edge of a forest no one spoke much about. It wasn’t forbidden, exactly — just forgotten. The kind of place where trails vanished and the trees leaned in like they were listening for something you hadn’t yet said.
Like the woods, Lune was quiet too, in her way. She lived in a cottage with a mossy roof and a garden that grew wild no matter how often she trimmed it. Her mother had once called her “star-born,” though she’d never explained why. That name had stayed with her like a thread tied around her wrist.
In the second summer after her mother disappeared — when the house grew too still and the evenings stretched too long — Lune wandered deeper into the forest than she ever had before. She wasn’t searching for anything. She just followed a trail of fallen petals that seemed to arrange themselves ahead of her.
✦ The Lake Beyond Noon
Eventually, that was when she found the lake.
It rested in a hollow like a forgotten sigh, ringed with silver-barked trees whose branches never touched the water. And the strangest thing: the lake reflected stars — not the sky, not the sun or trees, but stars. Even at noon, when the light poured through the forest, the water shimmered with constellations that had no name.
Yet it felt like standing on the edge of another world, one that hadn’t been dreamed of in a long, long time.
From then on, Lune returned the next day, and the day after, until the lake became a quiet part of her life. She sat for hours, tracing the constellations on the surface. Whispering secrets she didn’t know she remembered. The lake never answered. It only listened.
One afternoon in late autumn, she leaned close to the water — and her reflection did not.
It blinked too slowly.
It tilted its head when she didn’t.
And deep in its dark eyes, stars shifted — not the ones above, but stranger ones, like memories she never lived.
Lune didn’t run. She only whispered, “Are you me?”
Then, her reflection smiled — a sad sort of thing. Then it stood, though Lune remained kneeling. Its hand pressed against the other side of the water. And for the briefest moment, the lake felt like glass beneath her fingers.
✦ Between the Mirror and the Mist
However, when she returned home, the world felt subtly changed. Afterward, mirrors no longer caught her movements just right. Her shadow sometimes pointed the wrong way. And in dreams, she wandered beneath stars that pulsed with slow, aching light.
Eventually, one morning after the first frost, the townsfolk said they saw her walking into the woods barefoot, her nightdress trailing behind her like mist. They called her name. She didn’t turn.
Since then, she was never seen again.
✦ Epilogue
But sometimes, if you stumble far enough into the forgotten trees, you might find a lake that reflects only stars. Even now, if you lean too close, your reflection might hesitate — just for a second — before smiling back with your face and someone else’s eyes.
And you might feel something stir beneath the surface.
Something waiting.
Something that remembers you, even if you’ve long since forgotten it.
Keepsake: The Star-Stitched Ribbon
On the shore of the lake, half-buried beneath frost-tipped leaves, there is a ribbon. Faded blue, soft as sleep, its edges fray like something once cherished. If you pick it up, you might notice the tiniest silver threads woven through it — constellations embroidered by hand, stars stitched into silk by someone who must have known the night by heart.
They say it was Lune’s. She wore it every day after her mother disappeared — tied in her hair like a promise to remember.
And if you hold it up to the starlit lake, you may see something shimmer — not on the surface, but in the air, like memory turned to light. You may hear a whisper too, not words, but a feeling — soft, unplaceable, like standing beneath the sky and suddenly knowing you are not alone.
But be gentle with it. Ribbons, like memories, were never meant to be pulled too tightly.