The Trap

The Trap by Henry S. Whitehead

Canevin, staying as a guest and tutor at Browne’s Connecticut school, installs an antique Copenhagen mirror he found in an abandoned estate-house on Santa Cruz. Its dim surface contains a peculiar whorl-center visible only from certain angles, where its markings seem to converge and turn inward with a palpable suggestion of suction. Robert Grandison, one of Canevin’s pupils, is fascinated by it and feels the glass pulling at his finger. Later that day Robert disappears completely from the school, leaving all his belongings behind. Searches fail, and after several days his parents return home while the school begins Christmas vacation. Canevin, haunted by Robert’s expression and his own observations of the mirror, dreams that the boy is alive and desperately attempting telepathic communication. In these dreams Robert appears distorted: his colors are complementary to their natural ones, his perspective is reversed, and his speech is thick and difficult. Canevin realizes that the mirror is not merely reflective but a malignant gate into a fourth-dimensional prison. Robert had returned alone to investigate the whorl-center, felt compelled to touch it, and was painfully drawn through the glass. Inside, he finds a strange realm made of intangible projections of places that the mirror has reflected over long periods. Its landscapes, rooms, and exteriors merge like dream-scenes; their colors are reversed, and ordinary physical laws no longer apply. Food, sleep, and aging are unnecessary, while the only apparent exit is permanently sealed from within. Robert is not alone. He encounters several prisoners in antique dress, including two mute Negro slaves, a little girl, other men and women, and Herr Thiele, a Dane who befriends him. The central figure is Axel Holm, an elderly Danish glass-worker and magician. Holm had fused a small, ancient enchanted object, “Loki’s Glass,” into a magnificent mirror, intending to gain an immortal existence beyond ordinary space. After testing the trap on his slaves, he entered it himself in 1687 with selected companions and supplies. Over time he learned to use telepathy to influence people near the mirror, luring further victims inside; Robert was his first captive in a century, after the mirror had spent years facing a shed wall. Through repeated dreams, Canevin learns that the prisoners retain their personalities but endure a stagnant existence among unreal scenes and a few undying material objects Holm brought with him. Though Holm seems outwardly cordial, Robert wisely avoids telepathic communication whenever he is near. Canevin concludes that rescue must be attempted from outside, but fears releasing Holm and the ancient captives into the modern world—or destroying them if they cannot survive after so long beyond normal time. On the eleventh day after Robert’s disappearance, Canevin traces what he believes to be the boundary of the original magical oval within the larger mirror. At two-thirty in the morning, he cuts the section out with a glass-cutter. When it falls free, a powerful dusty odor pours out, and Canevin collapses. Regaining consciousness, he finds Robert restored to normal coloring and standing beside him. Robert explains that, when the exit opened, Holm, the other prisoners, and the entire inner realm faded into nothingness. Robert himself had been in the projected area of Canevin’s bedroom and emerged there before finding Canevin unconscious. Canevin and Robert conceal the truth by inventing a story that Robert had been kidnapped in a motor ride, struck by a car, and kept unconscious for ten days. Browne accepts the account, and Robert is allowed to recover quietly. Yet both remain convinced of the horror by their memories, the inexplicable odor, and later confirmation from Danish records that Axel Holm was a notorious sorcerer who vanished after acquiring an ancient enchanted mirror. The strongest proof lies in Robert himself. Although he entered the glass right-handed, he emerges left-handed, with his heart beating on the right side and the details of his clothing reversed. Canevin concludes that smashing the trap freed Robert before the dimensional reversal could be completely corrected. The harmless patched mirror remains, while the small oval Loki’s Glass, separated from it, becomes Canevin’s secret paper-weight.

By Henry S. Whitehead · First published 1931 · Genre: Supernatural Horror, Weird Fiction, Cosmic Horror · 11,604 words

First lines

A subtle evil lurks in Canevin's / antique Copenhagen mirror.

It was on a certain Thursday morning in December that the whole thing / began with that unaccountable motion I thought I saw in my antique / Copenhagen mirror. Something, it seemed to me, stirred -- something / reflected in the glass, though I was alone in my quarters. I paused / and looked intently, then, deciding that the effect must be a pure / illusion, resumed the interrupted brushing of my hair.

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The Trap is listed on Textopian as a short story by Henry S. Whitehead, dated 1931 CE.

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weird fiction · supernatural horror · short story · American literature · 1920s fiction · dark fantasy · occult · mystery · suspense · macabre · haunting · psychological horror

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