"Turn the television towards the wall," whispered Mallory.
Mitchell sighed. "There's no light in the room at all, Mal. There's no way the screen can cast a reflection."
"Turn it towards the wall."
Mitchell rose from the bed and shuffled through his bedroom's thick darkness. It had been nearly a week since they had returned from their fool's vacation, nearly a week since they had fled out of that crowded, northern forest. Rather than mend what remained of their marriage, the trip and cast whatever pieces remained of the Howards' love into the wind.
Mallory refused to move from bed. She refused to suffer anything other than darkness. She could permit no sliver of light, no crack of a sunbeam, to penetrate her window. Mitchell worried what decisions he would be forced to make should Mallory not soon recover from her terrible fright. Would Mallory ever find the courage to leave the room she filled with black, or would strangers have to be summoned to drag his wife away to a colder, clinical type of treatment?
Mitchell grunted as his toe stubbed against the bed frame. Power cords and video cables knotted and twisted as he turned the television towards the wall. Returning to bed, Mitchell reached towards his wife, who only buried herself deeper into her blankets.
"Maybe tomorrow we'll walk downtown to that antique store you're so fond of, Mal. Maybe we'll get out of this gloomy house."
Mallory's voice was hardly audible. "It's not safe. All she needs is a reflection and she'll take my place.”
"We were exhausted," Mitchell replied. "We just put too much pressure on the trip. We wanted too much. Give yourself more credit. You're a strong woman, Mal. You're still that woman I fell in love with so many years ago. It was only a trick of the light."
Mallory remained silent. Mitchell closed his eyes and waited for sleep, trying his hardest to ignore his fear that he had lost his Mallory, that he had lost what he had hoped to hold with her, that he had also lost so much of himself.
Mitchell Howard felt more like a stranger than he did a husband when sleep finally fell upon him.