Chapter II — The Poet in the Mirror
The city woke slowly, as if mourning its own silence. Dawn slid across the
rooftops of Edinburgh, catching the pale mist that coiled like breath between
the narrow streets. The rain from last night still lingered, making the
cobblestones shimmer with a dull sheen, as though the city itself were made of
tears.
In a small attic room, high above a half-forgotten café, Hiraeth Verlain sat
before her desk. Her fingers were ink-stained, her eyes pale and sleepless. The
candle beside her had melted unevenly, bending toward her as if curious about
what she wrote — though the page before her remained mostly blank.
She had written only one line.
“He comes again in the fog, with eyes that remember me.”
Then she stopped, just as she always did.
Every night, the same vision — a face she could not name, a voice she could not
silence. It was not a dream nor a nightmare, but something in between. The figure
would appear in a sea of white mist, calling her name in a tone that carried both
tenderness and ruin. And when she reached out — the vision broke, like paint
cracking on glass.
She was afraid to write about him.
Afraid that putting his name into words would make him real.
The room was quiet except for the scratching of rain on the window. Beyond the
glass, the city stretched in uneven rows — gas lamps flickering, horse carriages
moving through fog. The church bell tolled somewhere in the distance, and she
counted the echoes like heartbeats.
Her poems had once been her only faith — a fragile thread between herself and
meaning. But lately, her words felt like ash. The publishers who once admired
her melancholic verses now called them too personal, too obscure. Yet she
couldn’t change what she wrote; her poetry wasn’t an act of creation anymore
— it was an act of survival.
A draft slipped through the cracked window, scattering loose papers across the
floor. She knelt to gather them, her reflection catching briefly in a fragment of
the mirror leaning against the wall. The silver had begun to corrode, making her
reflection appear ghostly — two faces overlapping. For a heartbeat, she thought
she saw him again — standing behind her in the mirror’s blur.
Her breath caught.
But when she turned, the room was empty.
She laughed softly, though her voice trembled. “Foolish,” she whispered to
herself, pressing a hand over her chest. “It’s only the dream again.”
Still, when she looked back at the mirror, she noticed something faintly new — a
smudge on the glass that hadn’t been there before. A handprint, pale and wet,
as if someone had touched it from the other side.
The candle flickered. The rain began to fall harder.
Hiraeth closed her notebook, but her eyes lingered on the line she had written
— the one she dared not erase.
He comes again in the fog, with eyes that remember me.
And somewhere, beyond the labyrinth of streets, beyond the quiet hum of a
bookshop and the faint sound of a man sketching by candlelight, the painter
dreamed of her too.
Outside, the rain began to fall over the city — thick, breathing, alive.
And miles away, where the cobblestones met the quiet hum of an old alley, a
little bookshop stood between two forgotten buildings. Its sign, “Valithea &
Sons — Books & Curiosities,” swung gently in the wind. The wood was chipped,
the paint worn pale by years, but its soul was alive — rows of aged tomes,
dust-swept shelves, the faint smell of parchment and candlewax, like memory
preserved in scent.
Malien sat behind the counter, the dim morning light filtering through the
stained-glass window and spilling across his sketchbook. He wasn’t drawing
the customers — there were none — but the eyes he had seen in his sleep. They
haunted him each night and yet soothed him, like a prayer whispered in reverse.
His brush paused mid-stroke. The ink bled into the paper, forming a faint
shadow beneath the eyes he had drawn — eyes filled with sorrow, recognition,
and something else he couldn’t name.
He exhaled slowly.
“Strange,” he murmured. “It feels like I’ve known her all along.”
Setting the sketch aside, he leaned back in the wooden chair that had once
belonged to his grandfather. The place was more than a bookshop; it was a
mausoleum of words, every shelf an altar to forgotten minds. His grandfather
had believed that books breathed — that each one carried the soul of its writer,
and when opened, it whispered their lingering dreams.
Since his grandparents’ passing, Malien had taken care of the shop — more out
of duty than passion. His true devotion was painting, though he often found
himself here long after the lamps went out, surrounded by the murmurs of
books he never bothered to read.
Today, however, something felt different. Perhaps it was the rain’s rhythm
against the window, or the faint unease that had followed him from his dreams.
His eyes wandered to a small stack of newer poetry books he hadn’t yet
catalogued — elegant bindings, dark ink, no more than a few years old.
One title caught his attention.
“The Anatomy of Longing” — by Hiraeth Verlain.
He frowned slightly. “Verlain...” The name felt familiar, though he couldn’t recall
from where.
He brushed a thin layer of dust off the cover and opened the first page. Her
handwriting was delicate, deliberate — each curve of the letter seemed to
ache. The first poem began without a title:
I wrote of silence until silence spoke back.
Of love that bloomed after burial.
Of eyes that watched me through mirrors I never owned.
Malien’s hand stilled on the paper. He could almost hear the voice behind the
words — low, trembling, defiant.
“How have I never noticed this before...” he whispered, leaning closer. The book wasn’t
old; the pages were still crisp, the scent of ink faintly fresh. Perhaps it had arrived in one of
the recent bundles from the publisher his grandfather once dealt with.
He flipped through another page.
Some dreams refuse to end — they only change their face.
And if you find me in yours, do not wake.
A chill slid through his spine. He stared at the words as if they were meant for
him — as if she had written them, knowing he would one day find them.
The candle by his side flickered. A droplet of wax slid down like a tear.
He closed the book softly, resting his hand over its cover. His heartbeat had
quickened without reason, and he found himself staring at the door — as
though expecting someone to walk in from the mist outside.
“Strange,” he muttered again. “It’s as if the ink remembers me.”
The rain deepened, and the city whispered between the drops.
Somewhere far away, Hiraeth shivered — without knowing why.
The candlelight trembled as he turned the final page of The Anatomy of
Longing.
The name—Hiraeth Verlain—was written in a script as deliberate as her rhythm.
Something in the phrasing pricked an old memory.
He reached for the worn volume that had gathered dust on the upper
shelf—Songs of the Hollowed Light.
The same one he had found recently while clearing his grandfather’s shelves.
From between its pages, he drew out the fragile sheet that had slipped loose
that morning—the poem without an author, the one that had refused to leave
his thoughts.
He laid them side by side on the counter.
The words did not repeat each other, yet they spoke in the same breath—the
same ache between beauty and surrender, the same quiet defiance of reason.
It was as though the two voices belonged to one soul separated by time.
He whispered into the half-dark,
“Were you always writing to me?”
The flame bent sideways in the draft, and the city wind sighed against the
windowpanes—an answer, or perhaps only the night breathing.
Malien did not move.
He simply watched the two pages glow faintly in the candlelight until the wax
ran dry, and the room sank into silence.
© 2025 Mahadin Ahsan Malvin
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means — electronic, mechanical,
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