Her heart pounded in her ears as she lay, trying to be as lifeless as possible, under the huge bed.  She heard a quiet series of creaks, and could feel a slight breeze as her giant oak door closed slightly.  She stifled a cough.  Slowly, she peeked her head out from under the Victorian-style sheets that hung off the sides of the elegant bed.  Her eyes immediately met the familiar dreariness of her room.  The old, unfinished, rugged two-by-fours that made up her floor, the beautiful cherry door that was engraved with many mysterious shapes, and the mostly faded, rose-patterned drapes that fluttered inwards as the wind seeped through the crack in the glass window all added to the eeriness.  Her room was finally silent.  Still, her heart was beating in such an abnormal manner that anyone who felt her pulse would know that something was wrong.  This house was cursed.

She had always known there was something really messed-up with her family.  Who would name their daughter Mortimer anyway?  Not only did it sound like a guy’s name, but Mortimer? Really? Mortimer often felt like being born into the Buffington family was the worst thing that ever happened to her, little did she know there would be much worse to come.  At the age of eleven, her family (consisting of only her, her mother, and her father) moved into a new house.  However, it was more of a mansion than a house.  Commonly called the Stanley Hotel, Mortimer decided it was even worse than being born into the Buffington family.  This “hotel” was the reason she was hiding under a bed, hoping she wouldn’t die.  She tried to calm herself by thinking about how she got here in the first place.
With its 140 rooms and multiple great dining halls, Mortimer had no idea how her parents ended up with this mansion.  Neither of them worked, or had ever worked for that matter, but they never seemed to lack money.  When Mortimer first moved here, she was terrified of its great arches, luxurious carpeted hallways, glistening chandeliers, and antique mirrors.  Even though the house was extremely dreary, Mortimer gradually started falling in love with its every intriguing detail.  Within the first week, she was already sure which room would be hers. In one of her wanderings through the mansion, she climbed many stairwells and ended up at the topmost turret. 
Her legs were aching as she lifted her right leg up the last hardwood step.  Her breathing was loud and quick as she sprawled herself across the maroon-colored rug at the entrance of the room.  After laying there for a few minutes, she slowly opened her eyes. She could feel the warmth of the sun’s rays seeping through her body.  She moved her head slightly, so as to get a better view of the room.  There were pillar-like structures around the outside of the circular room.  In between each set of pillars was an arch, and then glass was put in all the arches to form tall windows.  Each window had rose-patterned drapes that were very thin and faded, yet added a breezy feeling to the room as they fluttered slightly.  Turning her head upward, she saw one of the most beautiful sights she had ever seen.  Covering the entire ceiling was a painting unlike any other.  Depicted were various angelic beings, all of which were too majestic to even be named, with splendid and glorious figures.  Each was unique and gorgeous in its own way. However, in the center of the mural was a villainous creature, too malicious and too vile to describe.  Just looking at that creature sent chills up Mortimer’s spine.  Its dark, hooded attire and hunched stature added to its vulgarity. Even the other innocent creatures had looks of fright on their flawless faces.   Mortimer quickly looked away from the painting. 
Her eyes fell next on the extravagant, queen-sized bed on the opposite side of the room. It had an off-white canopy that draped around it, which gave it a royal feel. Very interested, Mortimer stood up and walked over to the bed. With her small, pale hand she slowly drew back part of the canopy, revealing a breathtaking arrangement of floral patterned quilts and pillows. Stacked on that bed was every sort of pillow imaginable! Placed in an orderly arrangement were long, flat pillows, stiff, cylinder-shaped ones, circular ones, and the best of all, huge fluffy pillows that looked like you could sink into them and get lost forever. After testing each pillow out, Mortimer found herself face-to-face with the most marvelous headboard. Strange yet beautiful illegible characters were engraved on an arch-like arrangement around the border of the structure.  The rest of the space was covered with many small, intricate drawings that seemed to tell a story. 
If she was older, Mortimer might have been more curious and tried to interpret the story, but being fairly young and with a short attention span, she plopped herself back down on the pile of pillows and started to scan the room again. Besides the bed, the only other piece of furniture in the room was a dresser with a large mirror attached to the top of it.  The bureau was made out of a rich mahogany, with ivory knobs on the drawers.  Around the outer frame of the mirror were engravings much like that of the headboard on the bed.  There were long, sweeping lines, curled lines, and rigidly straight lines all arranged together to form some sort of intriguing language. 
Mortimer walked across the room to stand in front of the mirror as she ran her fingers through her hair.  After tidying her hair up a bit, she noticed something strange.  Her reflection was beginning to look less and less like her.  The longer she looked, the more the face shrunk, cheeks plumped, and hair shortened.  It looked as if she was watching herself go back in time to when she was younger.  All of the sudden, the figure in the mirror let out a petrifying groan.  Mortimer watched in horror as her “reflection” moved its hand up, while Mortimer had not moved at all.  The other girl in the mirror seemed to move even closer than before with her bony, outstretched hand.  The mirror appeared to ripple, and one-by-one fingers were clearly visible coming out of the mirror.
The girl’s hands were almost clear, and Mortimer could see each of the bright blue spiderweb-like veins that coursed through it.  As her arm extended further through the mirror, it seemed she was so thin that merely tapping her would break her.  Mortimer felt drawn to this girl for some reason.  As terrified as Mortimer was, it was as if some spell had been put over her.  She tried to look away, to tear her eyes from this horrifying image, but failed multiple times.  In her third attempt however, she bumped a small brass bell that had been hanging on the side of the dresser. Immediately, the ghost-like being seemed to vanish.  Before anything else could happen, she half ran, half tumbled down the stairs in a state of sheer horror.
Every day for about the next week Mortimer thought about that room, with its alluring design yet alarming bewitchment.  At first she resolved to never return to that room, but as the days passed, she found herself wanting to return there more than ever.  Finally she decided to move into the turret room.  She grabbed a thin, dusty sheet off the laundry room’s stocked shelf, placed everything she had on it, and lifted up the corners, forming a sack-like bag.  She used one of her hair ribbons to tie the corners together, then tossed it over her shoulder as she began the long journey upward once again. 
Although it took her nearly twice as long as the first time, she finally reached the room.  Careful to avoid looking into or touching the mirror, she timidly unpacked her belongings.  After she had finished, she flopped onto the bed with a satisfied sigh.  For a few minutes she just laid there, soaking in the sun’s rays and sinking into the ocean of pillows that surrounded her. After a while however, she became restless again, and all she could seem to think about was the mirror.  Even though it had caused her so much fright before, she had an irresistible fascination with it. She lay there wondering what would happen if she gazed into the mirror once again.  Slowly, she let her feet slide off the bed, making a loud thump on the unfinished, hardwood floor.  The sound echoed through the room and Mortimer found herself already feeling chills go up her spine.  She could hardly breathe as she inched her way towards it, careful not to look directly at it.  With each small step she took, her heart beat faster.
When she finally reached the mirror, she raised her eyes to its glass-like surface and examined her reflection.  As before, at first it looked the same.  But, then her reflection started warping, looking younger and younger, and then suddenly she looked terrifyingly devilish.  Its appearance reminded her of the creature in the painting that was on the ceiling.  It started to groan and bared its small, spotless, white teeth at her, pushing air out to create a hissing sound.  Mortimer’s eyes widened in panic as she saw its malnourished arm start to reach out. Unable to take her eyes off of the deformed human however, she reached out the fingers of her left hand just enough to locate the brass bell.  As the glass began to ripple, and the evil being’s fingers came forth, she flicked her hand, causing the bell to ring true throughout the room.  Then, just as the previous time, the ghost-like figure disappeared.
Over the next few years, the bell became her best friend.  She continued to test the boundaries of the mirror, each time letting the devilish creature get farther out of the mirror.  She did it about once a month for the next three years.  By the time she was 14, she had done it about 35 times. Now-a-days her parents were always gone, out partying or socializing, but Mortimer was used to it.  She liked having the house to herself, and for some reason she didn’t want to share the secret of her room with anyone else. 
On her 14th birthday, when her parents were out of town, she decided to celebrate by making herself a miniature feast, and then looking into the mirror again.  After eating her fill of the many different foods she had scavenged from the kitchen, she planned to look into the mirror.  This time though, she was going to keep looking at it for the longest time yet.  She told herself that she was going to wait as long as she possibly could.  When she had finished tidying up her mess from eating, she stood up with her fists clenched at her sides, eyes sparkling with determination, ready to face her fear once more.
She began walking toward the mirror with a slow but purposeful stride.  As she stepped on one of the loose floorboards, an eerie creaking noise bounced off the walls.  Mortimer was now face to face with her fear.  She dug a navy blue comb out of her pocket and began running it through her hair as her reflection morphed.  However this time, the hand did not raise slowly. Suddenly, the being’s hand shot up and out, and was soon sticking out of the mirror. Then came her left shoulder, followed closely by her right shoulder.  Mortimer decided this was enough. She reached out her fingertips for the tarnished surface of the bell, but she couldn’t feel it.  Her heart beat even faster as the creature’s head emerged from the mirror.  Mortimer panicked.  She had no idea what to do, so she ran.  She ran to the bed and slid under it just as she heard the creature fully crawl out of the mirror.  There she lay, trying to calm herself by recalling how this had all come to be, but there was nothing else to recall now.  She had already peeked out from under the bed and seen no one, but she was still scared to go out. 
Slowly she groped around under the bed looking for something to entertain herself while she waited.  Her hand passed over a thin packet of paper.  Carefully, so she wouldn’t crinkle it too loudly, she pulled it closer to her.  Holding the papers together was a small pen-like light.  She warily switched it on, afraid it might give away her hiding place.  Fortunately, it was only bright enough to light up just the right area for her to read. 
The papers looked like some sort of contract, and Mortimer read through it, glad to have something to distract her from the trouble she was in.  However, as she read further down the page everything started to make sense.  The contract was from an evil sorceress, and was written when Mortimer was about seven.  It said that her parents, Melinda and Mike Buffington, would have access to an unlimited amount of money if they would be willing to lose their child.  Mortimer had always known she had had an older sister, but was told that the death was simply an accident.  Disgusted with her parent’s greed, yet intrigued, she read the next page which was just a note.  It was from the evil sorceress.  It said that because of the greed and self-centeredness of her parents, their daughter would not just “vanish” but would turn into a hideous creature trapped in a mirror.  When Mortimer’s parents bought their mansion, the witch designed the turret room herself, complete with the ceiling mural and cursed mirror.  Her eyes scanned further down the dusty paper, falling on the last line that was boldly written at the bottom.  It said, “If anyone is to release the girl from her mirror, they are in deathly danger.”
This statement scared Mortimer even more, and she gasped.  She didn’t realize how loud it had been until it was too late.  She watched in horror as the sheet hanging off the bed was lifted up.  There, in the dim light, she could see her sister’s distorted face.  She saw her long, bony arms stretch towards her, and felt her sharp, overgrown nails around her neck.  Her parents’ greed and self-centeredness had killed both of their children.  However, they never even noticed.