The package arrived from Great Uncle Archibald: thick brown paper covered in stamps from several different countries and wrapped in taut grubby string. It was as tall as Emily's little brother John and as wide as the narrow green armchair in the sitting room. They spent all day running their hands over the smooth paper, trying to feel what was within, hopping around the large parcel like little birds. Emily's mother said they must wait for their father to return from work, all the while staring at the package from the corner of her eye, warily, as though it might explode.

Emily’s father arrived punctually as usual, at 6.10pm. After some furtive whispering, the adults decided that the package could be opened; Emily and John ripped the paper away as though they were wolves at a rabbit. Each layer peeled away to eventually reveal a house much like their own, with furniture and dolls hidden and wrapped up inside, moving doors and windows- and panels which could be lifted entirely away. It even had an attic with windows and curtains behind a hinged roof covered in red tiled paper. While Emily thought she may burst with happiness, John had been hoping for a wooden shotgun; he did not hide his disdain well and was sent to his bedroom with no supper.

Emily spent every moment of the next week playing with the dolls house, arranging its little people and little furniture. Her favourite room was the attic with its hinged roof, which could be opened to reveal little wrought iron bed frames and white laced quilts, a damask chaise longue and a tiny golden birdcage with a Jackdaw inside it. John would kick the house as he walked past, but she would catch him moving the dolls inside when he thought no one would see. It was a Thursday, ten days after the arrival of the house when Emily properly noticed the mirror. It hung in the attic, behind the maids bed. Silver and oval with a filigree edge, she saw the frame before she saw her reflection, it was undeniably her, but there was something wrong with the mirror…it took her a moment to realise that her eyes were the wrong colour and her yellow dress with the little burgundy stripes was pink . She ran to the mirror in her mothers room, her panic rising, and checked her eyes, confirming that they were still green and her dress still yellow. Relief washed through her. She returned to the dolls house, sure she had imagined it, and yet pale blue eyes were staring back at her, above a pink and navy striped collar and a smile that she was sure she wasn’t wearing.

She avoided the house then, for at least two days. And as is common with the human mind, she convinced herself that it was simply a trick of the light. She had missed her play thing and made the decision to close the roof and not play with that part of the house. But she saw the other Emily again in the parlour, reflected in the bronze fireplace, smirking at her, and she saw her in the kitchen's brass pans where she would stick out her tongue . She sometimes heard the other Emily whispering, asking her to come and play, telling her to nip her brother and tease the cat.

She dreamt one night that the other Emily told her to fly from the roof and just before she stepped off and fell, she woke in a sweating fear. A melancholy vexation settled upon their home; John had become sullen and petulant, Mother refused to enter the room if the house was open, father threatened to chop the thing up into firewood. The family decided unanimously to move the house down into the basement after Emily had rescued the moving pieces and transferred them to a different house, a smaller one she already had which was nothing more than a box, leaving the mirrors and paintings upon the walls of the grander house. The dolls house remained in the basement thereafter, soon forgotten as the family aged and time marched ever onwards.

Many years passed, and with their parents both recently dead. Emily and John returned to the house to attend to the legalities and to carry out the arduous task of sorting through their parents’ belongings and family keepsakes. After a day of taking inventory and instructing the staff, Emily found the dolls house while taking stock of their wine cellar- it sat behind wooden crates and broken dining chairs, mouldering. Emily remembered her mothers reaction to the house and now with the wisdom of age, she felt the presence of the house as if it were a person staring at her with ill intent, Good sense told her to ignore the house and go back upstairs, but contrary to her brains’ instruction her body inexplicably began to move towards it as if pulled by a string. She lowered her face to the attic roof and slowly lifted the lid, finding the other Emily reflected there, older, angrier, greyer somehow. Her rage grasped Emily by the heart she stumbled back in shock . She slammed the attic lid shut and hurried back up the stairs, announcing to the staff that the doll's house had rot and should be burned in the morning along with everything else down there save the wine.

Emily and John retired to their old childhood bedrooms that night, ready to finish their duties in the morning but they were never to wake, as a fire ripped through the old house with everyone in it. Afterwards, rumour had it that a mirror in the attic had caught a ray of early morning sun and caused a spark in some old dry boxes - the whole building was reduced to ash within hours. Miraculously, the doll's house survived in the damp basement. Its residents flitting through the reflections therein waiting for a companion once more.