At midnight the mirror stops being glass and becomes a door that swings both ways. Whatever ill has been aimed at you can be met there at the threshold and turned, without malice, to face the hand that sent it.
This working reaches toward the oldest law of reflection — that what is given returns, and a surface that gives back nothing keeps nothing. You raise no curse of your own; you simply refuse the harm and let it find its own way home, wearing the cold face it had meant for you.
The Working
- At the stroke of midnight, stand a mirror upright so its face turns outward, toward the quarter the trouble comes from — a doorway, a road, a name.
- Set a black candle before it so the flame doubles in the glass, and light incense to cloud the air between you and the dark.
- Draw a ring of salt around the mirror’s foot to hold the working steady and keep the reflection from spilling back on you.
- Look into the doubled dark and name aloud what has been sent against you, refusing it word by word.
- Speak the incantation, watching your own reflection harden into a shield of cold silver.
- Turn the mirror’s face fully outward and cap the candle, letting the incense smoke carry the returned intent away down its own road.
- Leave the salt ring until dawn, then sweep it out through the door in the direction the mirror faced.
The Incantation
Glass at midnight, silver-cold,
give back the harm that hand would hold.
What was sent, I send anew —
not mine to keep, but theirs to rue.
Turn on the threshold, turn and go,
home to the sender, swift and slow.
By the doubled flame and the ring of white,
wear your own dark face tonight.
When the candle is capped and the salt is swept out, the working is sealed; the mirror keeps nothing, and neither, now, do you.