by Lotus Rose
“Den of Mirrors? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Enchanted,” the Cat says quietly.
“Yes, I know,” Malice says. “Just making sure.” She sighs, because even though she doesn’t really support Sleepy B trying to become a jabberwock, she has to convince Sleepy B to embrace that reflection, or the girl will be trapped here.
After all, I can always talk her back out of it later.
Malice says, “But you’ve always dreamed of being a jabberwock, sweety. You even have fangs, and the claws your daddy gave you.”
“Daddy! He’ll be so upset with me if I change into a jabberwock. Why, I won’t be his little girl anymore.” She lifts the hammer. “Thanks for reminding me! I know what I have to do.”
“No wait!” Malice sputters. “Don’t give up on your dream. You can be a jabberwock—your father just wants you to be happy. He’ll support you, I know it. And— And— Jabby will fall in love with you and will be your boyfriend!”
Sleepy B says, “Even though my blond hair will look stupid on my jabberwock head?”
“Even so, my dear, because you have such a wonderful personality, and—”
Sleepy B scowls and crosses her arms, and the reflection crosses its arms too. “And what? I have such a wonderful personality, that Jabby shall be willing to overlook how goofy and stupid my blond hair will look?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“Oh, you meant it, all right. And now you’ve insulted Reflecty B.” She points at her reflection.
Malice feels her heart leap into rapid beats as the barely contained anger surges inside her. So she locks eyes with the reflection, and makes the insulting gesture of flicking at the underside of her chin at the reflection’s direction.
The reflection does the ‘furious shaking of the hammer’ gesture again, which causes Malice to giggle.
The Cat chuckles, and says, “Ah, you’re playing with fire again, little queeny. Look how mad she is.”
Malice shoots him a cheeky grin.
“You shouldn’t taunt her like that,” Sleepy B says. “I can sense how angry she is. And frankly, you’re irritating me, as well. That could be me some day,” she says, referring to her reflection.
Malice feels a coldness spreading in her chest as she smiles cruelly at the reflection and mocks, “Awww, how cute! The wittle reflection is getting its wittle reflected feelings hurt? You’re not even real. Oooh, are you going to cry fake crocodile tears that are even less realer than real crocodile tears? And then shall you play a sad reflection of a violin?”
The reflection raises its hands, leans its head back and unleashes a completely silent scream of outrage.
The impotent scream causes her and the Cat to chuckle.
“You really riled her up now!” the Cat exclaims.
“Please stop,” Sleepy B says.
The reflection lowers its head and stares viciously into Malice’s eyes.
“Ooh, you’re giving me the stink eye now? What are you going to do? Anything? That’s right, you can’t do anything, because you’re just a stupid reflection!”
The reflection draws its arm back and throws the hammer at Malice, who cringes and raises her arms protectively.
But the hammer makes a loud plonk noise as it slams into the inner surface of the mirror before bouncing out of sight.
“Crikey!” the Cat says. “Gave us a fright!”
Malice is glad not to be bashed by a hammer, but she’s more preoccupied by her heart at the moment. It’s pounding in sputtering beats.
She kneels, takes a few moments to catch her breath. “That was weak, blondy. You’re so cute, and adorable.” Malice stands.
The reflection is glaring viciously. If they could hear Reflecty B now, she would probably be growling.
“Quit teasing,” Sleepy B warns.
“Or what? She can’t reach me from her little mirror world, or whatever.” She takes a step toward the glowering reflection, who at some point, recovered its hammer when Malice wasn’t looking.
“Reflecty B is fierce and strong,” Sleepy B says, from behind Malice. “She’ll break through the mirror if you keep goading her.”
“Not bloody likely,” Malice mutters. “In fact, she’s an adorable, little cutey pie, like you! I wish I had a cute little girly bow to put on top of her head.” Malice pats the top of her own head. “Boop!”
“Watch yourself,” Sleepy B says.
Malice presses her hand to her chest—her heart has slowed down, but now it’s beating too slow and weakly. There’s a chance it shall stop altogether, if she isn’t careful. Without turning around, Malice says to Sleepy B, “Why? You shan’t do a thing either. I bet if Reflecty B wiped that scowl off her face, and smiled, she’d have cutey pie dimples, just like you!”
“Take that back! I can’t help it if I have dimples.”
“Yeah, back off,” the Cat says. Even though the Cat enjoys violence and drama, he often gets skittish if things start to get too serious between his friends.
“You back off, furball. You don’t interfere, remember?” But a sudden unexpected pang of remorse hits Malice. She turns around to face Sleepy B and smiles sweetly. “I’m sorry I called you a cutey pie.”
Sleepy B looks at the ground. “I know it’s not you, it’s your heart...not working right,” she mutters.
Malice nods. And her brow arches, because there are naughty thoughts running through her head—thoughts of anger and cruelty mixed with the kindness from her ticktock heart.
“I call it vicious sweetness,” Malice whispers to herself.
But Sleepy B overhears her and says, “What was that?”
“I’ll make it up to her,” Malice says, and gives Sleepy B a viciously sweet wink.
“What?” Sleepy B says, as Malice turns around. Malice can feel her heart thumping lazily, but it’s still giving her some spurts of kindness, so she smiles sweetly at the reflection, in a mildly vicious way.
“I’m so sorry,” Malice says sugary sweetly. “I never should’ve said you’re an adorable little cutey pie with oh-so-cute long blond locks.”
“You never said that,” Sleepy B says behind her.
“Righto,” Malice says, and continues to the reflection, “I want to make amends. Let us bury the hammer.” She takes a step forward, and smiles vicious sweet at the reflection. “Let’s kiss and make up, you scrumptious little monster—I could eat you up.” She puckers her lips.
Outrage forms on the reflection’s mouth. As Malice gets closer, the reflection tries to back away but seems trapped in its designated area.
“Stop,” Sleepy B whimpers.
“Oh, this shall be grand,” the Cat says delightedly—apparently he’s gotten over his skittishness from earlier.
Malice moves her lips ever closer to the reflection, who has turned its head to the side. Malice teases, viciously, and only-slightly-sweetly, “Aw, can’t I kiss your mouth? Guess I’ll have to make do with your cheek. I suppose you can’t turn completely around so I can kiss your ass—because if you could, you would’ve.”
“Don’t,” Sleepy B says, but Malice ignores.
“Oh, do, please do,” the Cat encourages.
The reflection whips its head forward to face Malice—it bares its fangs, raises its claws and hammer. With a silent roar, it pounces at Malice with vicious ferocity.
Malice draws back and lets out a yelp.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE REFLECTION SLAMS into the inner surface of the mirror with a loud plonk, and the reflection’s head snaps back, blond hair flailing, but still the reflection stays within its small confined area.
Through laughter, the Cat says, “Oh, bugger for you. That’s a headache!”
Malice bursts into laughter as well, feeling exhilarated and wide awake, her heart is pounding rapidly and she presses her hand to her chest. “Oh, what a thrill!” she tries to say, but garbles the words, because she’s laughing so much.
“You’ve gon
e too far!” Sleepy B shrieks.
Malice feels her heartbeats sputtering, going out of rhythm, but she’ll deal with it later—for now she’s having too much fun as she says, “Seems your reflection can’t go very far.” She presses her thumbs to her temples and waggles her fingers at the fuming mad reflection, shouts, “Come at me, trollop! Knock yourself out...literally!”
The reflection snarls and pounces again, and slams into the mirror, she does it again—and Malice laughs, as her heart races from the thrill—she presses her hand to her chest again, out of habit, to see if she can feel any signs of malfunctioning.
“Stop it! Stop it!” Sleepy B shrieks.
The reflection plonks into the mirror again. Beneath her fingertips, Malice feels her heart stop beating.
Oh bother.
Something yanks Malice’s head back by her hair.
Malice flails wildly while screaming in rage—and Sleepy B yells as well, tugging and jerking Malice’s hair and now they spin in a circle, as the Cat floats above them and says, “Oh dear, stop that, you two!”
The two girls stop spinning and Malice decides to change tactics. She twists her upper body, sending her hand gliding over her own shoulder and slapping Sleepy B across the face.
It’s not the hardest of slaps, but it’s enough to get a squeal out of Sleepy B and cause her to release Malice’s hair in shock.
“That’s enough!” the Cat says. He swoops next to Sleepy B, looking into Malice’s eyes.
“Shut up,” Malice snarls. “I’m gonna kill you!” She rushes at Sleepy B, who shrieks, backs away and shimmies to the side.
“Stop!” the Cat shouts.
Malice rushes Sleepy B again, and again the girl dodges out of the way.
Sleepy B bursts into tears. “Leave me alone!”
“Stay still so I can choke you,” Malice says.
“Don’t hurt her,” the Cat says.
Malice makes a show of taking a dramatic step toward Sleepy B—the girl shrieks and throws the hammer at her in a panic.
The hammer rotates through the air—Malice catches it, clamped between the palms of her hands in front of her right cheek. “Bugger me! I’m rather proud of myself for that one.” She looks around and sees the reflection watching on with its mouth hanging open in shock.
“Piss off!” Sleepy B shouts through sobs.
Malice makes a clicky sound with her mouth. “I’m glad my heart finally stopped working, so I can finally kill you. I’ll be glad to be rid of you—you’re obnoxious! And you pulled out a bunch of my beautiful locks!” She looks at the hammer in her hand. “Thanks for providing me with a weapon.”
Sleepy B lowers her hands to her side and glowers as her claws schrick out.
Malice smirks. “Ooh. Kitty has claws.” She makes a clawing action with her hand. “Mreow.”
“Stop,” the Cat says. “She’s—”
“I’ll cut you up,” Sleepy B says, no longer crying and with her mouth set in a firmer expression.
“Maly, listen,” the Cat says. “She’s no use to you dead.”
“I’m a valuable member of this team,” Sleepy B says. “I have fangs and claws and sass! And my daddy is the Storyteller.”
“Yes,” the Cat says to Malice, in his best soothing voice. “You don’t want to tick off the Jabberwock and the Storyteller. You’ll regret it later, if you try to harm her, whenever your heart starts working again.”
Malice lets forth a frustrated grunt. “Don’t I always? But it’s weird, at the moment I can’t really bring myself to really care. I guess my heart just isn’t in it.”
The Cat says, “Just trust me, My Queen—in a cost/benefit analysis, it’s better to keep Sleepy B alive. And you don’t want to risk injury from her claws, do you?”
Malice thinks about it. She has absolutely no compassion for the girl, and would kill her without a second thought. But those claws do look rather menacing. Of course I shan’t ever admit it.
Malice sniffs. “You’re just a little girl. I would make mincemeat of you with my hammer.”
“Those aren’t used on mincemeat,” Sleepy B says. She crosses her arms.
“My apologies. I’d make a walnut of your head with my hammer. Better?”
Sleepy B doesn’t answer—turns her head slightly to the side.
Malice says, “And since it would reflect badly on me to kill such a pathetic, weak little girl, I shall let you live today.”
“I hate being a little girl,” Sleepy B grumbles.
“Excellent decision,” the Cat says to Malice.
“I can’t blame you,” Malice says to Sleepy B. “Now embrace your reflection as the future you you wish to be, and a tunnel shall open up there. Then go up the stairs. I’ll stay here and help Jabby next.” She drops the hammer.
“Very well.” Sleepy B uncrosses her arms, and her claws slide back into her hands. “But know this: I may not always be a little girl, but for now, I’m the littlest one around here—not you. So set aside any notions you have of charming Jabby, for I shall be the darling of this bunch.” She points a thumb at herself. “You can’t compete with these...” She smiles in an unnatural way that causes her dimples to pop into display—she points one index finger at each of them. “These are why Jabby is absolutely enthralled with me, not you.”
The Cat, seeing Malice’s expression, says, “Now now, Queen, stay calm.”
Through gritted teeth, Malice says, “My, how very...audacious of you. I’ve made it quite clear I’m quite done with being a little girl.” She narrows her eyes at the girl. “Now remind me why I shouldn’t kill you again?”
Sleepy B clasps her hands behind her back and twists cutely from side to side. “Because I’m just a harmless wittle girl?”
Malice scoffs. “Just hug the mirror and get out of my sight. I’ve had about as much cuteness as I can stand.”
“You’re the best Queen ever!” Sleepy B exclaims overly-sweetly. “Pssst, kitty.” She does a crinkly-finger “come hither” gesture with her finger. Sleepy B whispers something in the Cat’s ear.
“Hey, no private conversation!” Malice stomps her foot. Nonetheless, Sleepy B continues whispering a few more moments, which irks Malice, but she takes the opportunity to feel the coldness of her chest and to fantasize about throwing the hammer between Sleepy B’s eyes.
The two stop talking. Sleepy B gives Malice a curt nod, before approaching the reflection, who is standing patiently.
And Sleepy B embraces the mirror, bringing the flash of light, the disappearance of the reflection.
Sleepy B calmly walks toward the tunnel. Without turning around she says, “Smell ya later.”
“You better hope my heart is working by then.”
Sleepy B makes a dismissive flick of her hand as she walks.
Malice glares at Sleepy B’s back.
Something seems to be on the Cat’s mind, but he doesn’t speak.
“Look at you,” Malice says to him. “Just floating and grinning like a blooming idiot. Why don’t you go make yourself a nuisance to the little brat there?”
“I’ve a message to relay.”
“Well, out with it, then.”
“Not yet.” He turns to watch Sleepy B—she’s almost at the entrance to the tunnel.
“Then why don’t you tell me what you two were whispering about.”
“She was telling me the message. Are you daft?”
Malice growls. “I should wring your neck, but you never have one.”
The Cat merely continues watching Sleepy B, who’s entered the tunnel—the sound of her footsteps are soft and distant echoes. “Empty threats,” he says.
After a few more moments, he says, “Ah, at last, she is far enough along,” he says when Sleepy B is almost to the stairs. “She asked me to deliver a personal message, which is thus: ‘I embrace my reflection, knowing that some day, I shall no longer have such a small, disadvantaged body. I embrace the future jabberwock version of me, so that I shall one day be big and stron
g enough to kick your ass, you little bitch.’”
“Confound you, little tramp!” Malice shouts. She flings the hammer with all her might at Sleepy B’s back, but it only reaches halfway through the tunnel and clatters on the ground as Sleepy B disappears from sight.
As the slab of stone descends, the Cat says, “Fell a little short.”
Malice shouts as she lunges at the Cat. She drives her hand down viciously. As she’d intended, she catches him by surprise, but not completely. The Cat attempts to dodge out of the way, but she manages to deliver a glancing blow that makes the Cat hiss.
“Ha!” Malice says. “Got ya!”
The sound of the rising stone issues forth behind her.
“Don’t strike the messenger,” he says sulkily.
She chuckles at him. “You’re a little non-interfering just-a-messenger, is that right? Well feel free to take your noninterfering puss elsewhere!”
“Oh, that I shan’t do, My Queen. I shall stay right there, to spite you.”
Malice huffs, turns around. “Come on in, Jabby!”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE JABBERWOCK ENTERS into the room.
“Hiya, Jabby,” Malice says with a wickedly crooked grin. “Before we begin, I should warn you not to tick me off, because my heart isn’t working right now.”
“I see.”
“Don’t worry, I didn’t kill Sleepy B.”
“Not for lack of trying,” the Cat says.
“She’s safe, Jabby,” Malice says, making it clear she’s ignoring the Cat. “I know how sweet you are on her.”
“I’m not sweet on her!” the Jabberwock snaps. “I’m just polite—”
“Very, very polite,” Malice says with a smirk.
“No. I have been assigned to guard her. So I treat my darling respectfully. I mean, I treat my mistress courteously.”
The Cat says, “Ooh, I do believe he’s blushing.”
The Horseman body touches the Jabberwock’s cheek uncertainly.
“Just kidding,” the Cat says, and sticks his tongue out. “Can jabberwocks even do that? Blush, I mean.”
