Shelly could not remember who had initially taught her the ritual or where she had first learned of it, and she could not recall ever having seen a picture of Mary Worth or ever having the hag described to her. All she’d known was that Mary Worth was ancient and utterly terrifying.

But she realized now that the face in the mirror was exactly how she’d pictured Mary Worth in her mind.

Shelly stared into the mirror, blinked.

Where was her reflection?

She had not realized it until this second, but although everything else in the bedroom was reflected exactly, she herself was not in the mirror.

Mary Worth had taken her place.

If before she had been frightened, now she was utterly terrified, and she watched with growing horror as the old crone withdrew from her robe a long silver knife, wrinkled bony fingers clutching the blackened hilt. Shelly quickly looked around the room to make sure there was no real Mary Worth present, then glanced down at her own body to make sure there was no superimposition upon her frame, to make sure she was not wearing a black robe and withdrawing a knife of which she was unaware.

No.

But in the mirror she was still not visible and Mary Worth, her twisted smile growing broader, turned around, gripping the knife tightly, and walked over toward where Sam lay on the bed reading.

Shelly was staring into the mirror as the old crone began to stab, and she whirled around when Sam started screaming behind her.

There was still no Mary Worth, but Sam was thrashing around on the bed, sudden slices opening up the skin of his chest and thigh, blood both welling and spurting, depending on the location of the slash, covering his skin and his fallen magazine, the pink sheets and pillowcases, the headboard and the nightstand and the Indian rug on the hardwood floor.

There was no noise save for Sam’s ear-piercing screams, and that was perhaps the most frightening thing of all. In the mirror, Mary Worth was laughing, cackling, but there was no accompanying sound. Her voice, if she had one, was trapped behind the glass, audible only in that world, and while her actions were manifest in the real bedroom, her form and voice were not.

How had Mary Worth come? No one had invoked her name.

There was a missing piece here. Shelly could buy the concept of summoning up an evil spirit, but she did not quite believe that Mary Worth was able to show up on her own, without being called. That wasn’t the way it was supposed to work, and while the story she’d been told might be part of a children’s game, there was a kernel of truth to all legends.

Sam had stopped screaming. He was dead, but Mary Worth continued to stab, and his lifeless body jerked on the mattress with the force of her knife blows.