When I was fifteen, I woke up one day and found a mirror had been placed in my room. It was not large, and it had a black frame. When I looked into it, I did not see my own reflection. Instead, I saw the face of a girl as lovely as the dawn.

She, like me, was coming out of childhood, and she, like me had a mirror. I couldn’t see what she was seeing, only that we were seeing one another.

Who was she? Where was she? I longed to find her.

The Prince with a Mirror in The Green Frog, Yellow Fairy Book. Illustration by H.J. Ford.