Elisha knew what her husband was up to. She knew where he spent his nights, and why he was never home. He was at the inns and bordellos, getting drunk and hanging with loose women and whores leaving his wife at home. Of course she realized she was getting older and her beauty was quickly fading. She would look at herself in the mirror and weep at what she had become. It was said to her by a fortune teller that every aristocrat suffered from at least one great sin. Her greatest sin was pride. All her life she prided her beauty and when that began to fade away she was left with nothing.
She wondered through a cold house. Though filled with servants and fine furniture, great art the massive Gothic structure was dull and meaningless. She pitied herself and fell into the bottom of many wine bottles as months of lonely nights rolled by. It was in fact during intoxication that she sat at her vanity table, slit one wrist and sung this poem to the mirror:
Mirror, gazer of gazes;
Curiosity of the curious,
And the maze of mazes.
Listen to my plead,
Listen to me weep,
Listen to my song,
Long whispered in feverish sleep.
A confession to my tormentor,
The mirror; mask of cruelty,
For I shall sell my soul,
If to regain my beauty.
With her blood she drew a pentagram on the mirror, then watched as it trickled down. The candles that lit the room began to flicker and dim. The house once cold now seemed to warm. A strange presence overcame the room but Elisha thought to mind it not. Instead she had a servant bandage her wrist and clean the mirror. Once everything was in order so that her depression and dark thoughts eluded her husband, she retreated to bed. Quickly she drifted off to sleep, eyes closed from the exhaustion of her turmoil.
Elisha awoke to the sound of a flute being played. Lighting the candles nearest to her bed she searched the room not finding her husband, but a strange creature crouched at the foot of the bed. The creature was five and a half feet tall, with red flesh and wild green hair. His upper torso was that of a man, his jaw line sharp and narrow coming down to a point where his long green goatee hung from. His lower half was that of a goat. The fur of his lower half was rich dark brown, but instead of hooves were feet like a ravens, so that he could perch over Elisha. Indeed, he looked like the little imps seen in terrible paintings depicting night terrors only a much larger specimen. Unlike imps, he displayed quite the intelligence by playing a hypnotic tune on his flute.
The music was soothing and carried Elisha off to another place and time. She closed her eyes letting the soft notes float delicately into her ears as a distinct feeling of weightlessness overcame her. She opened her eyes once the tune was finished and touched at her skin. It felt different; softer, smoother. She removed herself from her bed and went over to the mirror to find herself looking as if she was twenty again. A gasp escaped from her lips and a tear streamed down her eye as her greatest wish had come true.
The satyr hopped off the foot of the bed and walked with a strange gait over to the vanity table that Elisha had sat herself at. His gait was very strange, and quite alien. His knees bent backward, and he could straighten them only so much so that they were always bent a little. He walked with a slight spring at the knees, his upper body often swaying slightly from one side to the other like a dancing flame seducing it's moth. Indeed he was a strange creature with pointed ears and deep dark eyes. He moved behind her and reached over her shoulder to pick up a diamond necklace, then slowly slide over her neck and then latch it in the back.
"Who are you?" Elisha asked, watching the creature in the mirror.