The mirror (1)

"Be careful when you clean the mirror in the front room."  These were the first words Mrs Aspeth said to me.

"Why, is it valuable?" One of my other clients had a vase he claimed was worth more than the whole of England. Mind you, he was Welsh.

"No dear, it's a portal to another world."

"I see." I had my fair share of mad clients as well. Eccentric old spinsters who'd lived their entire life alone in a ginormous old house, who talked to their imagined ghosts and pet cats (real and imagined) but ignored me.

"So should I clean it?" 

"Just dust the sides dear, but don't touch the surface whatever you do, there's no way of knowing what's on the other side. Someone could grab you and drag you into an unknown realm if you so much as flick a duster through it. You might never be seen again."

"I'll be careful," I said. I made clear notes in my instruction sheet, not for myself, for I would never forget this conversation, but for the holiday cover and rota staff.  

I usually leave it at that, my job is to clean not to question. I take down the instructions and then I'm ready to go to work. I've had some quirky requests in my time, to clean a specified ornament twice per visit, at seventeen minute intervals, to rotate the rug in the lounge 180 degrees every third visit, always in an anticlockwise direction. To clean the grandfather clock every day except the 17th August. Mine is not to reason why, mine is to clean the house as per instructions and invoice for the service provided.

But this time I was intrigued.

"If it's so dangerous why do you have it here, in the middle of the lounge?"

She sighed, a weary-of-life sight. "I'm waiting for someone, dear. They could arrive at any moment."