Chapter 2: The Ghost in the Mirror

And as for me, with my wrinkled face—I wasn’t the young lord’s mother. I was his wife.

Sometimes, I’d catch a glimpse of myself in the hallway mirror and barely recognize the woman staring back. I’d grown invisible in my own home. A ghost with a wedding band. I’d wonder when I started haunting my own life.

When the young lord came to find me, I was sitting at my vanity, plucking out gray hairs. The light was harsh, unforgiving.

The old oak vanity creaked as I leaned in, the overhead bulb throwing every wrinkle and shadow into sharp relief. My fingers trembled, tweezers poised, as if I could pluck out time itself, strand by stubborn strand.

In the mirror, I saw my aged, withered self next to his handsome, ageless face. The contrast stung.

He looked like he’d stepped out of a magazine ad—sharp jaw, eyes clear as spring water, not a line on his face. Next to him, I looked like I’d lived three lifetimes. Sometimes it felt like I had.

I pulled out a white hair and placed it in his palm. The gesture felt more intimate than it should have.

It rested there, small and weightless, but somehow heavier than a stone. I watched his fingers close around it, waiting for some sign he understood what it meant. My breath caught in my throat.

"Ethan, do you also think I’m not worthy of you?" The words came out before I could stop them.

The question hung in the air, brittle and cold, like a note played on an old violin. I tried to keep my voice steady, but it quivered at the end. The silence that followed felt like it could shatter.

More than ten years married.

Ten years of shared meals, silent evenings, and the slow erosion of dreams. It all added up, every day leaving its mark.

He still looked as young as he had in his twenties, while I had grown so old. Sometimes, I wondered if he even noticed the difference.

Sometimes I wondered if I’d been aging for both of us, carrying the years so he didn’t have to.

In the mirror, I watched as the young lord stroked my shoulders, his hand warm but his eyes far away. He leaned close to my sunken cheek, but the distance between us was a canyon.

His touch was gentle, almost reverent, but there was a distance in his eyes—a longing for something he couldn’t name. I felt it like a chill down my spine.

He gave a soft, almost playful smile. "Savannah, are you jealous?" His voice was low, teasing, but I heard the dare in it.

He said it like it was a joke, but there was an edge there, a dare. Like he wanted me to say yes, to fight for him, but knew I never would. The moment hung, sharp as a knife.

He seemed to have forgotten. It had been five years since we last shared a bed.

Five years of cold sheets and separate dreams. The space between us had become a canyon, too wide to cross.

I was so old now, even I was disgusted by my own reflection. I felt it deep in my bones.

Some nights, I’d trace the lines on my face and wonder when I’d stopped being beautiful. When I’d started fading away. When he’d stopped seeing me at all.

The young lord sighed, raising his hand in a solemn vow: "You’ve got it wrong. I swear I never touched Cassie. From day one, you’re the only one in my heart. I just had her get on her knees to help with a man’s needs, that’s all. Who could’ve guessed she’d dare… Guess the rumors are true—transmigrator women are nothing but trouble. When you brought her in out of kindness, I should’ve kicked her out."

His voice was full of righteous indignation, but underneath it, I heard the hunger. The same hunger that had always been there, gnawing at the edges of our marriage.

He sounded so indignant. I almost laughed.

He paced the room, running a hand through his perfect hair. As if that could smooth over the mess he’d made. It only made him look more desperate.

But the anticipation in his eyes gave away his true feelings. He couldn’t hide it, not for a second.

He couldn’t hide it from me. Not after all these years. His eyes always betrayed him, shining with a greedy light whenever he thought he might get what he wanted.

After so many years as husband and wife, no one knew better than I how cold the heart could get behind that impossibly handsome face.

I’d seen him turn away from tears, from laughter, from every messy emotion. He wore charm like a mask, but underneath, he was ice. I’d learned that the hard way.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to—it was that he didn’t dare.

He was a man haunted by consequences. Always calculating, always afraid of what the world might take from him if he let go. That fear ruled him.

He was afraid of karmic consequences. It was almost funny, if it wasn’t so sad.

He believed in them, in his own strange way. Not the kind of faith you find in church on Sundays, but the old superstitions passed down in Southern families: what goes around comes around, and every debt gets paid, one way or another.

If he took Cassie to bed and ruined her, he’d be the one sowing the seed, setting the whole mess in motion. He knew the blowback would come for him, sooner or later.

He’d seen too many stories—cousins who’d lost fortunes, uncles struck down by bad luck. He wasn’t about to tempt fate. Not for anyone.

But if all he did was make Cassie kneel and open her mouth, then if she got pregnant trying to climb the social ladder, that was her own mess to clean up.

It was a loophole, a way to keep his hands clean while letting someone else take the fall. Only a man like him could twist logic into a shield and sleep at night.

The young lord dabbed the latest peach blush everyone in the city was using on my cheekbones, hands steady as a surgeon.

He’d picked it up on a business trip to Atlanta, still in its fancy Sephora bag. His hands were gentle, almost clinical, as he brushed the color onto my cheeks, careful not to meet my eyes.

In the mirror, the old woman’s face was caked with powder, the rouge on her cheeks and the blood-red lipstick making her look like a clown—put on display for everyone’s amusement, not her own.

I tried to smile. The corners of my mouth cracked, the makeup settling into every line. I looked like a memory painted over in garish colors, a ghost in party clothes.

The young lord crouched down, his model-smooth face pressed to my gnarled, tree-branch hand. It was a gesture out of some old movie, practiced and empty.

He pressed his lips to my knuckles, eyes shining with a false tenderness. The moment was hollow, like a scene we’d both forgotten how to play.

He looked up at me, eyes shining like stars, and said, "This time, it should last nine months, right? Savannah, please help me again. I promise, this is the last time… After this, we can live out our days in peace together." The words hung between us, heavy and sweet as syrup, but I tasted the lie in every syllable.

His voice was pleading, but I heard the lie in it. There was always one more favor, one more promise, one more bite of the apple. Always just one more.