Glass
On every wall she found a mirror.
It must be human to insist on seeing everything. To see what was behind and what was inverted and what was too close by to see.
For four hundred years, a mirror had been nothing but a painting enlivened by fitful movement. Now the face of the person who had lived those years floated to its surface like an oil restored to clarity at last.
There was an iron candlestick on the chest; good smith's work, as they might have (had they?) said in Virginia. It barely shuddered when it hit the glass.