The Mirror

“In the many rooms, time came and went. Music played, clocks ticked, floors creaked, as the manor waited for another generation.

As it waited for one who might break the curse.”

The description of the manor establishes its eerie, otherworldly quality. While the manor is described as standing still, time flows through its many rooms, highlighted by the mention of clocks ticking. There is a cyclical, haunting quality about the repeated ticking of clocks and the creaking of floors, as if time has gotten stuck in the house, an early illustration of the theme of The Interplay Between Past and Present. However, the description also introduces a note of hope with the image of the waiting house. Waiting implies anticipation, as if the house and its inhabitants have been waiting for Sonya.

“‘The house was meant for what we’re doing in it, Son.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘Living, working, planning. And in your case,’ Cleo added, ‘having really good sex.’

‘It is really good sex.’

‘And as your friend, I applaud you. But she doesn’t want any of that. She only wants the grief and the fear.’”

This conversation between Sonya and Cleo illustrates the novel’s theme of The Power of Love and Courage. Courage in the text does not mean an absence of fear; rather, it refers to the resolve to keep acting despite feeling afraid. Thus, Sonya and Cleo want to lead productive lives in the house, countering the stasis Dobbs represents.

“‘I found my place. I love this house.’ She turned, looked back at it. ‘Dobbs wants to spoil that. Chase us out. She doesn’t understand who she’s dealing with.’

As she spoke, the window of the Gold Room slapped open. In the glimmer of starlight, something flew out. Something big, something fast, that let out a shrill, inhuman shriek […]

Then, with the stink of sulfur, it vanished.

‘She did that once before.’ Fighting for calm, Sonya bent to pick up Yoda, to soothe. ‘It didn’t work then either.’”

This passage juxtaposes Dobbs’s show of domination against the resistance offered by Sonya and her friends. When Cleo claims the house as her home, Dobbs sends out a horrifying, bird-like creature that disappears in sulfurous smoke. Despite feeling scared, Sonya fights for calm, cradles her dog, and tells Dobbs her scare tactics won’t work, resisting Dobbs by depriving her of fear.

“‘You can’t take back death,’ Sonya repeated, and the truth of that squeezed her heart like a vise. ‘I’m never going to be able to help the brides.’

‘That’s not true. You can’t save their lives because their lives are already gone. But you help them just by being here to start. And we hung three portraits—that’s help.’”

Sonya often feels helpless that she cannot intervene in the brides’ fates. She has to watch them die, knowing death cannot be reversed, which sometimes makes her feel dejected and frustrated. However, Cleo reminds her that Sonya is helping the brides simply by witnessing their pain. The hanging of the portraits is also important since manors usually bore pictures of their lords and ladies. Thus, displaying the portraits of the brides establishes them as ladies of the manor, undermining Dobbs’s control and domination.

“The mermaid sat on the rocks, her tail a glory of jewel colors as it swept the water. And while day broke in a symphony of golds, pinks, blues, and a whale sounded out to sea, she sat, holding a glass sphere.

In the sphere she held sat another, and in that sphere yet another.”

These lines are an example of the author’s use of description to enrich the narrative. Not only does the description vividly evoke Cleo’s painting of the mermaid, but it also highlights the power of art. Because Cleo can create new worlds through her painting, as indicated by the mermaids within the spheres, she, like Sonya, Collin, and Owen, represents truth and strength.

“‘Owen’s meeting us. Apparently, Jones is staying home and watching his favorite movie.’

‘And what might that be?’ Cleo wondered as they walked to Trey’s car. ‘Scooby-Doo? 101 Dalmatians?’

‘King Kong, the original.’”

One of the novel’s features is its juxtaposition of Gothic and tragic elements with contemporary humor and pop culture references. In these lines, Trey humorously claims that Owen’s dog Jones is home to watch a movie. Cleo plays on the charming idea by naming movies featuring dogs, but Trey deadpans that Jones prefers King Kong. These light-hearted moments relieve the tension of the novel’s Gothic plot and serve to establish the growing camaraderie between the central quartet.

“The bed rose six feet off the floor, then dropped like a stone. Under it, the floor cracked in jagged black lines.

And the walls bled.

‘Do you see her?’ Owen snapped it out while his breath expelled in white vapor.

‘For a second. Not now.’

‘I see her.’

She stood, a foot off the floor, arms outstretched. Her long black dress whirled around her, and her hair streamed like black smoke.

Her dark eyes fixed on Owen, gleaming with glee and madness, while Jones, teeth bared, barked below her.

‘A Poole.’ Her voice came silkily through the wind. ‘You’ve the look of him, rougher, but the look of him who pumped his lust into me one night, then cast me aside for a biddable little whore. Be damned to him, to you, to all Pooles. I rule here.’”

This description of Dobbs in the Gold Room shows the cinematic quality of Roberts’s writing, evoking several powerful images in succession: the rising bed, the hovering witch, and the bleeding walls. Further, the passage uses many tropes of the horror genre to create a sense of “uncanny” horror. These tropes include the bed slamming against the floor so hard the floor breaks as well as Dobbs’s whirling dress. The uncanny works in horror by summoning an image at once familiar and scary. Thus, the bed, which is a familiar symbol of comfort, becomes a site of horror. Dobbs’s expletive-laced, rough language adds to the unpleasantness of the visual imagery.

“When he left and the shadows in the room deepened, the girl in the bed turned her head to Sonya.

‘I’m dying, so that bitch is coming. She’ll take my ring. The ring Charlie gave me. Get it back for me, okay? Get them all back.’

As more blood pooled on the sheets, Sonya tried to rush forward, only to fall back.

She could only watch as Dobbs came into the room.

‘With your death in this hour, your blood feeds my power. I feel it rise, I feel it surge. And your only song becomes a dirge. Onto my hand slides the ring of this Poole bride. All others who come, I will cast aside.

For all time, the manor is mine.’

As Dobbs vanished, Clover’s eyes, almost lifeless, opened. ‘My poor Charlie, my poor babies. I couldn’t stop her. You can. You can.’”

The narrative describes the brides’ deaths for several purposes: to build pathos, to heighten Sonya’s resolve to defeat the evil spirit, and to show the depth of Dobbs’s evil. Even as a young Clover bleeds to death before her eyes, Dobbs displays no empathy, seizing Clover’s ring and strengthening her own magic. Dobbs’s reference to Clover’s song turning into a funereal dirge mocks Clover’s love for music, but Clover resists Dobbs even after death. Dobbs may want Clover’s music to turn into a dirge, but Clover plays everything from AC/DC to Beyonce.

“Sometimes we’d talk all night about how we’d build that world. For each other, for our friends, for everyone […] It was the idea of a baby that had Charlie telling me things he hadn’t before, even when we talked all night. Like he said, he’d put all of that out of his life because his family was mostly everything he stood against.

Hey, mine, too!

It turned out his family was rich, like really rolling. I didn’t care about that. Like Charlie was an artist, and he worked his street art, sold enough for us to get by. And I waited tables at this vegetarian place.

We got by fine, and didn’t need all that material bullshit that screws people up.

But he told me about this house, this great big house, and some land, way over in Maine […]

We could build our life there, and have a place for art, for music, for peace […] Our baby could be born there and grow up by the sea.”

Clover’s first-person perspective establishes her as an idealistic, youthful character and is also a gentle, good-hearted riff on the counter-culture movement of the 1960s. Clover’s use of “like” and her assertion that “material bullshit that screws people up” is a funny homage to the culture of the time. At the same time, the hope, love, and idealism of her perspective only emphasize her tragedy. Clover plans to make a house and a life for her child in the sea-facing house, but all these plans are soon to be cut short.

“‘I’ll repeat.’ Now Cleo raised her glass. ‘And there you have it. The three most important qualities a woman, a smart woman, wants in a partner? In no particular order. That they understand and respect the woman for who and what she is. That they’re sexually compatible. That they’re not an asshole. I can’t speak from personal experience about one of those qualities, but you nail the other two.’”

Cleo is fiercely protective of Sonya, so her seal of approval for Trey cements him as Sonya’s romantic equal. Cleo’s words are arch but contain a nugget of wisdom. A good partner is someone who understands a person as they are, rather than viewing them as a project to be worked on.

“‘Stay behind me.’

‘Because you have a penis?’

‘We can go with that. I also have the light, and I’m keeping it.’”

This exchange between Cleo and Owen occurs in the middle of a haunting, and once again, Roberts uses humor to undercut some of the tension of the proceedings. Cleo suggests Owen wants her to follow him because he is a man; Owen deadpans that he happens to have a torchlight. With this exchange, the couple subverts the traditional gender roles often found in the romance genre, both with her comment and his response.

“He didn’t bother to call the cat. In his experience cats came and went as they damn well pleased. And this one was currently very pissed.

Instead, he sang, his voice calm as a lake even as he lifted it over the storm.

‘Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away.’

On a glimmer of understanding, Cleo sang with him.

The cat looked in their direction, and as they walked closer, her back relaxed.”

One of Owen’s special abilities is his gift with animals, highlighting the importance of human/animal relationships throughout the narrative. Here, Owen does not try to directly call the spooked Pye; instead, he shows her he is familiar and calm by breaking into a song. Pye follows Owen’s and Cleo’s voices, relaxes, and comes to them.

“‘You’ll both need that precious thing to face what’s coming. She needs to stop it, my brother’s daughter, but you and Trey and the woman who stands as her sister have to play your parts.’

Owen captured a white pawn with a black. ‘Like pawns?’

‘Not at all. Knights, capable of crafty moves in defense and offense.’”

Friendship and solidarity are important elements in the novel. Collin emphasizes that Sonya may be the woman the manor and the spirits have chosen to break the curse, but she cannot achieve her task without her friends. Critically, he points out that the friends are not pawns in the game, but knights. In chess, the knight is the only piece that does not move in a straight line, and Collin’s analogy implies that Owen, Trey, and Cleo will have to move in important, oblique ways to fulfill Sonya’s mission.

“Bright red tulips circled a small fountain with the spill of water catching the sun in rainbows. Trees showed their April haze of green or the first brave blossoms. It all looked almost bucolic, but Sonya saw a woman with tears on her cheeks crossing to the parking lot.

Such was the cruelty of forgetting.”

Memory and forgetting are important issues in the novel, connecting to the theme of The Importance of Bearing Witness. While forgetting invalidates one’s truth, memory defends it. Here, the description of a woman experiencing a memory disorder connects with the danger of forgetting, and the feeling of helplessness that can accompany it. When a person cannot remember their truth, someone else’s memory matters. In looking at the woman and remembering her, Sonya and Cleo validate her truth, in the same way that they must validate the brides’ truths.

“Mother and I travel to Boston twice a year to shop for the season. Mother has an image to maintain at work, and hosts important dinner parties for important people. One must be appropriately dressed at all times. Mother selects my wardrobe, of course. Mother has excellent taste.

Sonya had an image of a young woman led around on a leash.”

Gretta’s description of her life with Patricia shows how family can fail people. Not only did Patricia harm Gretta with her control, but she also traumatized Collin by separating him from his twin and placing him with a reluctant aunt. As the novel points out, Collin may have grown up a Poole, but his life wasn’t easy. On the other hand, Drew, who was adopted by the MacTavishes, had a far happier childhood, supporting the novel’s assertion that the forces of love and acceptance create true family.

“‘Here.’ Cleo pulled a tray out of the refrigerator. ‘I did a charcuterie.’

‘Fancy word.’ Despite the fancy, he popped a slice of summer sausage. ‘Good.’

Between bites and sips, Owen set the table while Sonya began the process of cooking while having conversations.

She muttered Bree’s recipe’s warning as she sautéed the scallops.

‘Do not overcook, do not overcook.’”

The novel uses everyday life to show how Sonya and her friends resist Dobbs. Making true their resolve to live, work, and plan in the house, the friends make and enjoy meals, have a good laugh, and plan for the future, as illustrated by this passage. These passages also balance the dark and tense action of their fight against Dobbs with moments of respite and lightness.

“‘A Poole built this house. Pooles made this house! It’s our house. A house for the living.’

From the tablet in the library came Simple Minds and ‘Don’t You (Forget About Me).’

‘Not now, not ever. This house is ours,’ Sonya repeated, fury under every word. ‘And anyone who lived here and loved it. I don’t care if a thousand ghosts make their home here now, then, or goddamn whenever. There’s only one who’s not welcome.’”

This passage illustrates the symbol of Clover’s playlist and the theme of the interplay between past and present. When Sonya proclaims to Dobbs that the manor belongs to the living, Clover reminds her—via song—that the word “living” is not inclusive. Sonya modifies her statement to include the ghosts who have made the manor home. Including the ghosts highlights the fluid connection between past and present in the book. While people live in the present, they carry the past with them, and it must be honored and accepted.

“Bells rang, windows rattled, the doorbell bonged now and then when no one was there. Sonya brushed those off as she did the occasional slamming door or cold wash of wind.

She had more important things to deal with than the tantrums of a dead witch.”

An important feature of the narrative is its demystification of the paranormal, especially when the paranormal entity is hostile. By refusing to give such an entity their fear, characters diminish its power. Thus, spooky events like mysteriously ringing bells, cold blasts of wind, and bonging doorbells are described as the tantrums of a ghost. The word “tantrum” is associated with childhood and evokes the image of a toddler having a meltdown.

“The sight of the manor, rising up when she rounded the last turn, made Sonya’s heart clutch in a way she hoped never got old.

‘Cleo, the tree.’

‘I see. Oh, when all those flowers open, it’ll be spectacular.’

A few had, giving a hint of beauty to come. Delicate pink dripping from those curved and twisted branches whispered Spring, spring, spring.”

Though Poole Manor may be haunted, Sonya and Cleo have found a home there. When they return to the manor from Boston, they immediately feel a sense of homecoming, the sight of the manor filling them with joy and excitement. The image of the manor intertwined with spring flowers is in contrast with the lonely manor of the prologue and suggests a rebirth for the house.

“‘I took a pair of his boxer shorts when we packed up his crap. I buried them with a curse. I really hope it worked at least some.’

‘What kind of curse?’

‘Jock itch.’

Owen winced, shifted. ‘Remind me to stay on your good side.’”

This light-hearted, funny exchange between Owen and Cleo showcases their building camaraderie, as well as Cleo’s fierce nature. The humor and the evolving romance provide a note of relief from the supernatural horror of the novel.

“‘Do you snore?’

‘Nobody’s complained. Why?’

‘I like my sleep, so I need to know if I’ll let you stay after we have sex or boot you out.’”

The romance between Cleo and Owen has been building up throughout the novel, culminating in sex toward the end. Thus, Roberts uses the romance trope of the slow burn to build anticipation around the Owen-Cleo pairing. Further, Cleo’s oblique way of asking Owen to bed shows her irreverent humor and how it is an important component of their relationship as well.

“Still holding Yoda, she rose, walked back to where Arthur Poole’s body had fallen.

‘They found you here. Worried, had to be worried, when your horse came back without you. So they looked for you, and found you here. And thought it was an accident. They never knew what she’d done. But I know now. It matters I know now.’”

Sonya repeats “I know now” to Arthur’s body to establish her testimony, the repetition adding deliberate emphasis. The truth about Arthur’s death had been forgotten, but Sonya now commits it to knowledge and memory. By knowing and remembering, she infuses new life into Arthur’s truth.

“There was one thing. […] A man wearing a tux, sitting in a big leather chair, smoking a cigar. I passed by, and stopped. He said he’d missed parties at the manor, and was glad my daughter and her friend knew how to throw one. I said I’d bet it wouldn’t be the last time they did.

Somebody passed by, asked me if I knew where to find the powder room. I told them, then turned back. And the man wasn’t there. I swear I could still smell the cigar smoke, just a hint of it, but he wasn’t there.”

Winter’s encounter with a spirit of the manor signifies a commingling of past and present, dead and living, individual and community. The fact that the spirit says he missed parties at the manor shows how the past is not static. Rather, the past is alive and adaptable and deserves a place alongside the now.