At midnight a mirror stops being glass and becomes a door, silvered on the far side by everyone who ever looked away lonely. Hold a light to it now, and something looks back.
This working reaches across the silver for the beloved not yet met — the face already walking somewhere toward your door. To scry it is to trade your own reflection, for a breath, for theirs, and to leave a thread of longing strung between the two.
The Working
- Wait for the hinge of the night, when one day has died and the next has not yet drawn breath.
- Stand a mirror upright in a darkened room and light a single candle behind your shoulder — never before your face.
- Kindle incense until the smoke drifts between you and the glass, softening the border of things.
- Fix your gaze not on your own eyes but on the dark just behind them, and let your reflection blur and go strange.
- Speak the incantation low, once for each time the smoke crosses the mirror’s face.
- When a feature swims up that is not your own — a mouth, an eye, a turn of jaw — do not name it aloud; hold it, then look down.
- Cover the mirror with cloth before the candle gutters, sealing inside whatever came through.
The Incantation
Silver, keep no face of mine,
drink it down and show me theirs;
by midnight smoke and single flame,
part the veil that no one shares.
Whom the turning years bring near,
let them rise where no one stares —
one long look to learn the face,
one bright thread to bind the pair.
Leave the mirror shrouded until dawn, and the face sealed within it will carry your longing out into the world to find its owner. Uncover the glass by daylight, and let the thread you strung draw them the rest of the way home.