June 24, 2026

The Glass Hotel
By Ria Cabral

A woman checking into a famously haunted hotel discovers that
​some reflections refuse to let go.

​Click here to listen to this story on the Kaidankai Podcast.



It was the kind of building you passed without seeing: weather-worn stone walls mottled with damp, a sagging iron balcony like a ribcage, windows black as blind eyes. The Glass Hotel, they called it, though its panes had long since cracked or clouded. Once it had been a seaside retreat, famous for its mirrored ballroom overlooking the cliffs. Now it stood abandoned, isolated at the end of a road that the town stopped paving fifty years ago.

When Julia’s car rolled to a stop before it, she thought the GPS must have glitched. The hotel loomed out of the fog like a mausoleum.

“This can’t be it,” she muttered.

But the email had been clear: The Glass Hotel. Room 6. Midnight check-in. Payment in cash. No phones.

She gripped the wheel tighter. A month ago, Julia had laughed at the ad in the back of a magazine: Spend one night in the most haunted hotel in England. £500 if you last until dawn. But her curiosity had been stronger than her skepticism—and the cash reward sealed it.

She told herself it was a stunt. A marketing gimmick. A thrill for the gullible. Still, when she dragged her suitcase up the creaking steps and found the lobby door already ajar, the night seemed to lean closer.

The lobby was lit by a single chandelier, its crystals yellowed like teeth. Behind the cracked reception desk stood a man in an old-fashioned bellhop’s jacket, red with tarnished brass buttons.

“You’re Julia,” he said, his voice deep as gravel. “Room 6.”

She nodded.

“You’ve brought cash?”

She handed over the envelope. He didn’t count it. Just slipped it into a drawer and pushed a tarnished brass key across the counter.

“No phones. No lights but the candles in the rooms. And no mirrors.”

“No mirrors?”

His mouth bent into something like a smile. “Rules are rules.”

Julia tried to laugh. “I thought the place was called the Glass Hotel.”

“It was,” the bellhop said. “Once.”

Room 6 smelled of mildew and sea brine. The wallpaper peeled in vertical stripes, exposing plaster like old bone. A single four-poster bed dominated the room, draped with moth-eaten curtains.

And on the dresser sat a candle in a brass holder, already lit.

Julia frowned. She hadn’t lit it.

The flame guttered as though in answer.

She unpacked slowly, every creak of the floorboards making her pulse quicken. The town’s stories echoed in her head: guests waking to whispers, seeing pale figures at the foot of their beds, scratching in the walls that spelled their names.

It’s a performance, she told herself. Hidden speakers. Actors in costume. That’s all.
She blew out the candle, slid under the brittle-smelling sheets, and closed her eyes.
But she couldn’t sleep.

The silence wasn’t silent. It shifted. Breathed. She felt the weight of it pressing on her chest. And just as she began to drift, she heard it--

Three slow knocks on her door.

Julia sat upright, heart hammering.

The corridor beyond was empty when she opened the door. Empty, but colder than the room, as though someone had left a window open to the sea.

The only light came from the candle flames guttering along the hall. Their wax ran like pale tears down the brass sconces.

Something caught her eye: a smear on the wall. At first she thought it was damp. Then she saw the shape.

A handprint. Wet. Too large to be hers.

She stepped back into her room and slammed the door. But the candle on her dresser was burning again.

She hadn’t relit it.

At some point she must have slept, because she woke to music.

A waltz, faint and distorted, drifting up from below.

Her phone was locked in the car, but her watch told her it was 3:17 a.m.—the hour ghost hunters liked to call the Devil’s Hour.

Julia wrapped her coat around her shoulders and followed the sound. The staircase groaned under her weight, each step like a warning.

The ballroom stretched wide and empty, its mirrored walls dulled with dust. Candles burned in iron holders, their flames reflected a hundredfold. The music came from a gramophone in the corner, spinning without a hand to wind it.

And in the mirrors--

She froze.

In the mirrors, the room was not empty. Couples danced in gowns and tuxedos, swirling gracefully across the cracked floor. Their faces were pale blurs, features blurred as if smeared by fingers on wet glass.

Julia’s breath caught. She spun toward the dancers--

But the floor was bare.

Only in the mirrors did they exist.

Her reflection stared back at her, wide-eyed and trembling. And behind her reflection, in the mirror, a figure stood.

A woman in a long black dress. Face hidden by a lace veil. Hands white as bone, resting on Julia’s shoulders.

But when Julia whipped around, the space behind her was empty.

The gramophone needle hissed. The music warped and slowed. And the woman in black raised her veiled head toward the glass.

Julia didn’t wait. She bolted, the music chasing her down the hall like laughter.

She fled to the lobby. The bellhop was gone, the desk abandoned. Only a thick leather guestbook sat open, its pages yellowed.

Julia leaned over it, desperate for proof this was all theater.

Names filled the pages. Hundreds of them, written in ink that faded as it aged. Dates beside them. Notes in cramped handwriting.

Stayed the night. Heard voices.

Saw a child in the corridor. She asked me to follow.

Don’t blow out the candle. Don’t--

The ink trailed off in a jagged line.

Julia turned the page. The newest entry stopped her breath.

It was written in fresh black ink.

Julia Marlowe. Room 6. September 18, 2025.
Her hand trembled as she touched the paper. The ink smudged under her finger—still wet.

She hadn’t written it.

Something shifted in the air, as though the hotel itself had taken a breath.

Julia’s eyes went to the key in her pocket. Room 6.

Her room.

But the corridor didn’t end where she remembered. A new door waited at the far end, painted black, the brass number “6” gleaming as though freshly polished.

Her throat tightened. The hotel was changing. Rewriting itself.

Drawn by a force she couldn’t name, she walked toward it. The key slid into the lock like it had been waiting.

The door swung inward.

And she saw herself.

Her body lay on the four-poster bed, eyes closed, lips parted as if in sleep. The sheets rose and fell with her breath.

Julia staggered back. “What—”

The candle on the dresser flared.

Her body sat up. Eyes still closed.

And smiled.

She ran. Through corridors that bent in impossible directions. Past mirrors where her reflection lingered a half-beat too long. Past walls streaked with handprints that dripped saltwater.

Voices whispered as she fled, layered and overlapping. Some laughed. Some wept. One whispered her name, over and over, soft as the tide.

When she burst into the lobby again, the bellhop was waiting.

“You shouldn’t have gone looking,” he said. His eyes gleamed like wet stones.

“What’s happening to me?” she gasped.

He tilted his head. “The Glass Hotel keeps what it’s shown. And you’ve shown it yourself.”

Her reflection in the lobby’s cracked mirror stepped closer than she had. Smiling. Lifting pale hands.

The woman in the black veil emerged from behind the glass, faceless, faceless but familiar. She lowered the veil, and Julia saw her own face staring back—older, hollow-eyed, lips black with rot.

The thing that wore her face reached out.

And Julia understood the final rule, the one no one wrote down:
No one leaves the Glass Hotel.
Not really.

At sunrise, the hotel stood quiet.

The bellhop polished the desk. A new guest would come soon enough—someone who thought the stories were just that.

The guestbook lay open to the latest entry. The ink had dried.

Julia Marlowe. Room 6. Checked in. Never checked out.
​
And upstairs, the candle on the dresser burned steadily in the empty room, its flame never dying.

                                                                           💀💀💀

Originally from the UK and living in the USA for nearly 20 years, Ria is an author and artist with a background in journalism and communication. Blending creativity with storytelling, Ria published their debut book, Elara’s Tea Leaves, a whimsical journey through magic and meaning. Their next book, a richly illustrated tale about gnomes, is set for release in 2026. With a love for folklore, nature, and visual storytelling, Ria combines words and art to craft immersive experiences. Their work reflects a lifelong passion for narrative in all forms, shaped by both European roots and American life.