"Lindsay, be careful! I don't want you to break anything!" said Lindsay's mother sternly. Lindsay sighed. Lindsay was ten, and was helping her mother and grandfather pack up the old house. Her grandmother had passed away seven months previously, and her grandfather could no longer afford to keep the house on one pension. Lindsay's grandparents had collected a lot of antique things over the years, and they had to be carefully packed and moved.

"Especially that old mirror.

There," said Grandpa, coming out of nowhere. Lindsay and her mother jumped; he had always had the habit of doing that. "Why?" asked Lindsay curiously, "Because, breaking a mirror means seven years of bad luck. And that mirror has a curse, if somebody broke that blessed glass, they would have naught but the worst experiences hell could produce," he warned. "Lindsay, don't listen to your grandpa, you know superstition is nonsense," said Lindsay's mother, "I'd rather you didn't break it anyway, it'd be a horrible mess," she added.

Lindsay's mother and grandfather continued to pack the house while Lindsay ran about and played. No matter where in the house she played, or how far away from the sitting room she was, Lindsay couldn't keep her mind away from that mirror. Then, when she couldn't stand it any longer, and her mother and grandfather went to bring a big load of boxes to the far off drive way (the house was quite Victorian style, it was a little bit of a walk to get to the drive), Lindsay grabbed an antique silver candle holder and smashed the mirror to bits. She watched in excitement as the glass poured from the frame, like a crystal waterfall, then she was hit with panic; what if they found it?

Lindsay grabbed a broom and dust pan and swept up the broken glass. She dumped the clutter onto the frame and carried it like a tray upstairs. The spiraling staircase stopped on the second floor, then continued to the attic. Once in the already packed away and empty attic, Lindsay found the edge of the thick rug. She lifted the rug and easily slid the broken mirror beneath it. When she put the rug down, she couldn't tell the difference, as the rug was so thick, and she hoped and prayed that her mother and grandfather couldn't either.

She went back downstairs and continued to play as if nothing had happened. When her mother had finished the house, she remembered something. "Dad? Where did the mirror go?" she asked her father, puzzled. "It was right there, what could have happened to it?" Grandpa said, scratching his silver hair.

"Lindsay? Do you know what happened?"

"No, I was playing in the other room. It's news to me that it's missing," Lindsay lied. Lindsay was a very good liar, and was never caught when she did.

Her mother and grandfather were so tired that they really didn't look further into the matter. After all, it was an ugly old mirror no one was fond of at all, and it was just one less thing to pack, why worry?

About a year later, Grandpa had found a new home, and the old mirror incident lay forgotten. Lindsay was about to turn eleven. Admittedly, a few odd things had happened since. Lindsay's dog ran away. Lindsay's mother had woken up to a lost chunk of hair, only to be told that lack of iron was causing hair loss, more to come. Lindsay got a gerbil, which Lindsay had woken up to find dead the day after she got him. But these were really just coincidences. The dog liked to roam, maybe that day he had forgotten how to get home. The doctors said that Lindsay's mom had had anemia for awhile, it was only just starting to show itself. Perhaps it was just an unhealthy gerbil.

Lindsay's birthday finally arrived, and while her mother was cutting the cake, the telephone rang. "Only the first of seven," an ominous and unknown voice had said. Her mother hung up the phone, believing it to be either a prank call or a misdialed number.

Then the phone rang again. "Mrs. Elizabeth Seiver? We're sorry to say, but your father has just died in a car accident. Paramedics were too late; he was dead at the scene."

This wasn't the last. Throughout that year, grim things also occurred, only to be followed by Lindsay's twelfth birthday. "The second of seven has arrived," said the ominous voice on the phone again. Seconds after Lindsay's mother had slammed the phone onto the hook, it rang again. Lindsay's Uncle Jacob, who had been fighting in the war, was dead.

The next year, another number of things, even grimmer, occurred. Lindsay's older sister had developed cancer. Lindsay's pregnant cousin had lost her baby in a drive-by shooting. On Lindsay's thirteenth birthday, the ominous voice from no one said, "The third of seven is here."

Then, news that Lindsay's Aunt Claire had been hit by a bus, not to survive. On and on these calls and the news of death came with every birthday Lindsay had. By the time Lindsay turned sixteen, she had lost her entire family. Her grandfather, uncle, aunt, sister, cousin, and mother had all died in mysterious accidents. Now Lindsay was an orphaned, unstable foster child, with nothing to live for. The day Lindsay turned seventeen, the exact moment the clock struck midnight, Lindsay's eyes fluttered open uneasily in her bed, and she heard a raspy, ominous voice blow around her like it traveled on the air in her bedroom say, "The last of seven has finally arrived. Good bye Lindsay. You know, you really never should have broken that mirror.