The Mirror

Now, Sonya grips her cousin Owen’s hand as they are transported into the Poole Manor ballroom in 1916. The people at Lisbeth Poole’s wedding reception cannot see Sonya and Owen, and the cousins can pass through them; the experience is unpleasant, like wading through mud. From her research, Sonya knows this is the night Lisbeth will be killed by Hester Dobbs’s vengeful ghost. Dobbs will soon place a poisonous spider inside Lisbeth’s wedding dress, and it will sting her 13 times.

Sonya and Owen look for Lisbeth so they can warn her. However, they hear a shriek, and when they finally spot Lisbeth across the room, she is collapsing in her husband’s arms. Dobbs appears in the ballroom and glides over to Lisbeth so she can collect her wedding ring—in the present day, Dobbs draws her power from having seven rings from the seven Poole brides. Sonya yells at Dobbs and catches her attention for a brief instant. It is unclear if Dobbs can see Sonya, but she senses a presence and grows afraid. Then Sonya is knocked over by an icy wind—an effect of Dobbs’s magic—and a venomous spider scampers toward her. Owen stomps on the spider, grabs Sonya, and enters the mirror with her.

Sonya falls out of the mirror and into the arms of her boyfriend, Trey Doyle. Sonya’s best friend and housemate Cleo comforts her. When Owen tells Cleo he stepped on the spider, Cleo insists on burning his shoes, as they now carry physical traces of Dobbs’s magic.

The group goes downstairs to the main floor to review the night’s events. As always, mysterious sounds, like the heartbreaking weeping from the nursery, filled the manor at 3:00 am. Summoned by the mirror, Sonya sleepwalked toward it. Someone woke up Cleo, urgently saying Sonya’s name. Cleo rushed out of her room, saw Sonya sleepwalking, and called Trey, asking him to come over immediately. She followed Sonya as she went to the ballroom and looked into the mirror placed there (the mirror does not stay in one place, instead appearing in whichever location it wants Sonya to witness).

When Trey and Owen arrived, Owen could see something in the mirror—just like Sonya could—while Trey and Cleo could not. Sonya woke up some time after and fell back into Trey’s arms. Though Sonya and Owen stood in front of the mirror for an hour, they had been in the ballroom for only five minutes, indicating that time moves differently in the mirror.

Sonya is angry she couldn’t prevent Lisbeth’s death and feels it is pointless for the mirror to summon her if she cannot change the course of events. Cleo reminds her that the point is not to save the women but to find the seven rings and break Dobbs’s curse. As the sun rises, Trey and Owen leave for their homes, promising to be back for dinner. Sonya resolves not to let Dobbs intimidate her, because the ghost feeds on grief and fear.

Cleo goes to the market to buy groceries for dinner. Sonya begins her workday at the desk in the library. Clover, another spirit and her “house DJ,” plays music for Sonya as she prepares a mood board for Ryder Sports, an account she is trying to get. Clover is the 19-year-old ghost of Sonya’s grandmother. She died tragically in childbirth in 1965, after delivering Sonya’s father Drew and his twin Collin. Patricia Poole, Clover’s mother, separated the twins, giving up Drew for adoption. Drew was adopted by the MacTavish family and had a happy childhood, while Collin grew up as the supposed son of Gretta Poole, Patricia’s daughter.

Sonya never knew that she was a Poole until, in Inheritance, her father’s twin, Collin, left Poole Manor to her in his will. Sonya left her graphic designer job in Boston and moved to Poole Manor in Maine, falling in love with the house. Since then, she has set up her freelance designing business and grown close to Trey, the son of the Pooles’ family lawyer. She has also formed a friendship with Owen, a Poole cousin and Trey’s best friend.

When Cleo returns with the groceries, the young women prepare pot roast and apple pie, with Clover playing music on their phones. Molly, the ghost of a woman from Cobh, Ireland, who is now the resident housekeeper, sends up beautiful serving dishes through the dumbwaiter. The ghost of little Jack, who died before he was 10, is playing ball with Sonya’s dog Yoda.

Cleo tells Sonya that the night before, Sonya stopped in front of what was formerly Molly’s room and apologized that she couldn’t help her, but could only “bear witness” (In Inheritance, it was revealed Molly died of the Spanish flu). According to Cleo, the reason that the ghosts look after her and Sonya is because they want Sonya to bear witness to their memories and expel Dobbs from the house.

At the mention of Dobbs’s name, doors start banging angrily around the house, indicating that Dobbs is furious. Cleo makes fun of Dobbs, and the banging stops. They take this as a sign that Dobbs is intimidated by joy and laughter and decide to throw an open house party for the entire village on the second Saturday of June, to show Dobbs that the house is theirs, not hers. Later, Sonya and Cleo find dresses on their beds for the evening, courtesy of Molly.

When Owen and Trey enter the house with Owen’s dog Jones and Trey’s dog Mookie, the doors upstairs start banging again. Dobbs is angry that the house is filled with people. The friends ignore her and sit down for dinner, and Sonya and Cleo tell the men about the party.

Sonya tells everyone that the party is intended not to provoke Dobbs, but to establish the way she and Cleo want to live. They want the manor to become part of the surrounding community. After dinner, they walk the dogs, enjoying the crescent moon and the cool air. The window of the Gold Room—where Dobbs lives—slams open, and a black creature flies out. As the dogs lunge at the creature, it disappears, leaving behind the smell of sulfur.

Sonya recognizes this as a scare tactic by Dobbs and is not bothered. Owen and Trey decided to stay the night to provide support to Sonya and Cleo. Sonya sleeps soundly, but Trey is awoken by the noises at 3:00 am. He walks out onto the terrace and sees Dobbs on the house’s seawall, her back to the house. She raises her arms at the full moon and jumps off the wall. The moon switches back from full to the crescent moon of the present timeline. Shaken up by the bizarre sight, Trey goes back into the house.

The next morning, Trey tells Owen and Sonya what he saw. Sonya thinks Trey witnessed Dobbs’s death by suicide. In her timeline, Dobbs, who was under arrest for Astrid Poole’s murder, escaped to Poole Manor to die there in order to bind it with her curse. Trey asks Sonya to recall the spell she heard Dobbs chant after killing the fourth bride, Agatha Poole. Sonya remembers that the spell said the brides would die because they sought to take what belonged to Dobbs. Dobbs was not referring to a man but to Poole Manor itself. The conversation turns to Gretta Poole, Sonya’s great-aunt, who raised Collin. Sonya knows she must visit Gretta in her nursing home for information on how to get rid of Dobbs.

When Cleo joins Sonya for a mid-morning coffee break, Sonya updates her about what Trey saw last night. They wonder if Patricia Poole, Sonya’s great-grandmother, sensed Dobbs’s plans from the very beginning, unlike the other brides. Patricia never lived in the Poole Manor as a bride, instead boarding up the house for 20 years. The manor opened only when her rebellious son Charlie—Sonya’s grandfather—moved in with his wife Lilian (Clover) Crest. Clover died giving birth to Drew and Collin, and after Charlie died by suicide, Patricia split up the twins for unknown reasons. Cleo thinks Patricia was a formidable woman who ruled with an “iron fist.”

Later that afternoon, Trey’s father, Oliver (Deuce) Doyle II, visits Sonya. Deuce is the lawyer who changed Sonya’s life last winter when he told her she’d inherited Poole Manor. Sonya introduces Deuce to Cleo, and they ask him about Patricia. Deuce tells them that because he came from a wealthy, respectable family, he was one of the few companions Patricia approved for her children. However, Deuce’s grandmothers disliked Patricia because she was a bully. She bullied Gretta into raising Colin, and Deuce only discovered Gretta was not Colin’s biological mother when he researched the Poole genealogy. According to Deuce, Patricia visited Poole Manor often and even had her engagement party to Michael there. However, she did not set foot in the manor after the night of the engagement, and no one knows why.

Sonya asks Deuce why Patricia separated Clover and Charlie’s twin sons, instead of giving them both up for adoption. Deuce thinks Patricia kept one grandchild to continue her bloodline because her children weren’t interested in marrying and raising families. When Collin, like his father, grew up to move into Poole Manor, Patricia was bitterly disappointed. She broke ties with him, not attending his wedding to Johanna—the seventh bride—or Johanna’s subsequent funeral.

After Deuce leaves, Cleo discovers a portrait of one of the brides, and Sonya recognizes her as Lisbeth Poole Whitmore, the fifth bride. The painting is signed by Collin. Cleo and Sonya carry it to the parlor; this is the third portrait they have found. The paintings are by either Drew or Collin, which shows that both men were summoned by the mirror and witnessed the memories of the brides. They painted the women to pay homage to them.

Sonya goes back to work on her pitch to Ryder Sports, which would be a huge addition to her freelance portfolio. In addition, she wants the account because her ex-fiancé, Brandon Wise, is also trying for the account. She had worked with Brandon at By Design, a graphic design firm in Boston, but broke off their engagement when she found Brandon in bed with her cousin. After Sonya left the firm, he badmouthed her to clients.

When Sonya finishes work, she and Cleo hang Lisbeth’s portrait alongside the other brides’. Though Collin and Charlie never met—except perhaps through the mirror—their paintings are very similar. Sonya’s heart breaks once again at the cruelty of Patricia’s actions.

At 3:00 am, Sonya’s balcony doors open to let in an icy wind. Clover plays “Bad Moon Rising” on Sonya’s phone, as if in warning. Sonya goes out to the terrace and sees Dobbs on the seawall, this time facing the house. Dobbs turns and jumps. Cleo comes in, and they discuss that Dobbs didn’t seem to see Sonya, even when she faced the house. This suggests that what they saw is a memory loop—Dobbs showing them her death to frighten them. The figure they saw is not Dobbs in the present, but the memory of Dobbs.