The Looking Glass

by Jessica Arnold

  “Make him stop!” she screamed. “Please, Tony!”

  He gave a funny little jump when she said his name, and—a flicker of hope, quickly lost in the raging fire that consumed her.

  “Did you hear something?”

  “It must be speaking to you!” George said. His beady eyes were open wider than Alice would have guessed that they could go. “Say something! It wants to communicate with you; talk to it!”

  “What—what do I say?” Tony said, looking back and forth between the monitor and his father in a panic.

  “Just say something! And hurry! We don’t know how long it will stay.”

  George pushed his son forward, toward where Alice was frozen to the floor behind the mirror.

  “Help!” she gasped, unable to bear the thought of even one more second. But the seconds came and kept coming, and each one took her breath away but left her more full of fire than before.

  “Um … what’s your name?” Tony said after a moment of hesitation.

  “Turn it off! Turn it off!”

  Tony shrugged. “I can’t hear it anymore. It must have been my imagination.”

  No. I’m here. She tried to lean forward, to break free, but the effort made her vision blur and the pain grow sharper still. She would not last until the hotel manager returned to check on George; she would wither, collapse, burst into flame … the flames, the fire would eat her up. It licked her bones now. It was ravenous and Alice’s eyes stung from tears and she cried out and …

  Tony stepped on the wire. The one that had her trapped.

  He flinched, then buckled in pain as the oddest sensation came over Alice. The pain was still tearing her apart, but there was something else, too—something more. It almost felt as if there were another soul inside of her body, and she thought she could hear someone else’s thoughts. She was still herself, but she was someone else as well. And that someone was hurting too.

  Alice arched her back, trying to lessen the pain shooting down her spine. Her arms and legs were on fire; her head was pounding fit to burst. She screamed at the ceiling the only word that seemed to work.

  “Tony!”

  “Dad, it’s in pain!”

  “What?” George looked startled. “What? It’s dead. How could it be in pain?”

  “Tony!”

  “You need to turn it off!” Tony said, and Alice felt the panic in his voice; she felt it in her own body, felt his soul pulsing next to hers.

  “I can’t! These readings are incredible!”

  “Turn this damn thing off!” It was Tony who shouted it, but Alice could have sworn the words came from her as well. She watched as Tony ran to the outlet, shoved his dad aside, and yanked the plug. The pain disappeared as suddenly as it had come and Alice collapsed to the floor, barely aware of the voices from the mirror. The other presence was gone and somehow Alice felt terribly lonely without it.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” George was shouting. “I’ve been in this profession for fifteen years and I have never once seen readings like those. They were almost as strong as heat readings off a real person! This is enough to prove the reality of spirit existence to the most skeptical scientist in the world. So plug the thing back in!”

  Tony’s voice was shaking. “You were hurting it.”

  “How could you possibly know that? Give me the plug!”

  “I felt it, Dad! It was in pain!”

  “This is the moment I’ve been waiting for my whole life, Tony!”

  “I don’t care!”

  “Give it back!”

  Every bit of Alice’s body felt as if it had been pummeled with a sledgehammer, but she was so frightened of what would happen if George managed to plug his device back in that she pushed herself to her knees and crawled into the bedroom. She pulled her body onto the satin-covered bed and lay motionless on the covers. When she had woken up in this place, her body had ached. The pain now was sharper and pointed—it made the soreness of earlier seem gentle, almost made her wish for it. She could still hear the shouts from the hallway, but she couldn’t understand what they were saying. Alice closed her eyes and wandered the closest to sleep that she had come since she’d woken up here in the first place, only it wasn’t so much sleep as a fevered exhaustion.

  I’m wasting time, she thought hazily. I can’t afford to waste any time …

  It was like floating. She knew that she was lying on the bed, but with her eyes closed she thought she felt herself drifting toward the ceiling, through the ceiling, into a world that was only light. Light and voices—a chorus of them. They whispered and sighed all around her and Alice was spinning, arms outstretched, trying to find them. She thought she saw shadows flitting into the distance, running away from her, as if they were caught up in a strange game of tag and now she was it—now it was her turn to find them and no one had told her.

  Waking up wasn’t exactly the right word for what happened no more than an hour later. It was more of an urge that forced her to open her eyes. A need to do something. Alice couldn’t remember what at first, but the discomfort of not knowing was enough to jar her back to consciousness. She slowly became aware of her body lying on the covers. The pain was gone, but the weakness remained.

  Was that a whisper? She craned her neck to look behind her, but saw nothing and no one. For a moment she thought she was still in the dream—was it a dream? But what else could it have been? The light had been warm as sunshine, and without it everything seemed twice as cold. Without the voices, twice as lonely.

  She felt a tiny, hard square digging into the small of her back and she began to remember what it was that had woken her. The key—I’ve forgotten about the key. Alice pulled the book from under the covers where she’d left it that morning. If the diary said where the key was hidden, she needed to know about it, because the fact that she (and only she) could get into the room was the one thing that kept her from helplessness. What would she find in there? She had no idea. But she couldn’t lie here and wait for someone to save her (or not), doing nothing at all. And what if the door was the way out of here? Could that be the secret? Could it be that simple? If she couldn’t find the key, she would never know.

  She could hardly hold her arms up. Propping herself up against the pillows, she pressed the book open on her legs. She flipped to the end, then started flicking through pages, looking for anything about a key. But while the handwriting at the beginning of the book had been difficult, the handwriting at the end was nearly impossible to read. Skimming the mess of words was hardly a possibility and, worried that she would miss something important if she skipped, Alice hunted down the page she had left off on.

  ***

  April 30, 1883

  A week I have waited and still he has not come. I do not know what to think. I do not want to think. What if he has deserted me? What if he has found another woman? But no one—no one could be more beautiful than I am. William told me so himself. And yet I wonder and I am afraid, because I have always had this feeling that there is something dreadfully wrong with me.

  For the past eight years I have spent as little time in this room as possible and now I will not leave it. Father believes that I am sick; I cannot tell him that I watch for William. Monsieur Létourneau has been convinced to paint my portrait here so that I will not tire myself with too much moving about. He made a terrible fuss at first, for he says the light in this room is dreadful and the scenery even worse, but, as I told him, he is a painter of exceptional skill and he can paint whatever background he likes. Now he paints quietly but quickly. I believe that the room wears on him. He will be happy to finish.

  I stand by the window for many hours every day, with nothing to do but look at my face in the mirror. At first I tried to avoid looking at it, for I do not like what the glass does to my reflection, but now I watch very carefully indeed.

  You see, I have figured out the secret of the mirror at last. The witch didn’t ever truly escape this room. She died here and locked her spirit
inside the glass so that she would never have to leave. It took me many hours to discover this, but after staring for an entire portrait session, I saw her at last. She was at the very bottom, in the right triangle. First I saw her forehead and then her brown eyes, but I believe that I frightened her, for I gasped and she ducked back out of sight. I think that I startled Monsieur Létourneau as well. He asked me what I was looking at, but I refused to tell him. Sometimes I see him staring at the mirror in a most curious way. What if I told him the truth, and he took the mirror away? I will not allow it. Surely the world would not be so cruel as to take away the one thing that keeps me alive.

  It is my first thought in the morning, my last in the night.

  The mirror’s secret is not the only one that I have uncovered, either. There is one floorboard that creaks when I step on it. I have always borne it with patience, but it creaks louder now—like a scream—and sets my heart pounding. One night, nearly driven mad by the noise, I decided to take it out. There was a crack on one side, almost large enough for me to stick my hand into. I tore at it until it was big enough, then I stuck my hand in and pulled until the board came flying out. It scraped the skin off my palm when it came free, and oh I am so afraid that it will scar. Father says my hands are perfect as little white doves. I wrap it tightly each night and pray it will heal. But would you believe what I found in the floor? I hardly dare to write it for fear that Lillian will read this journal and take my new treasures for herself. But I must tell someone. You must promise never to tell. Promise.

  Very well, I will tell you.

  I have found the old witch’s spell books.

  Isn’t it marvelous? The books are so old that they almost fall apart in my hands, but the ink is still readable. The larger one is full of curses and the other of spells. I read them all night while I watch for William.

  They have the oddest smell.

  Sometimes while I am reading I see the witch watching me from the mirror. She pops out all over the place now! One moment she will be in one triangle and then—poof!—she will appear in another, always wearing the most alarming grin on her face. I even heard her whisper something to me once.

  “Elizabeth”—that is what she said.

  Now isn’t it odd that she knows my name? But I suppose that if she has been up here the whole time I have, she has surely heard someone say my name one time or another. She is a clever witch—I see it in her eyes. Sometimes I am frightened of her. Sometimes I see the rope she hanged herself with still lying around her neck like a necklace. I told her that she should take it off, but of course she doesn’t listen to me.

  I think that I am going to try one of the curses.

  ***

  Alice’s head flew up. The rope lying around her neck like a necklace. Her eyes went to the mirror above the dresser, where she had seen the girl last. But the room in the real hotel was empty. Sitting stick-straight, Alice stared into space, trying to remember every detail of the girl’s appearance. There were those triangle bracelets she wore around her wrist. There was the necklace that looked so much like rope …

  She clutched the diary so tightly that her fingernails dug into the soft leather cover. The whole time she had been reading the diary, she had imagined the witch wizened and ugly and old, with sagging eyelids and hands like talons. Now the only face she could see was the girl’s—those golden-brown eyes.

  Brown eyes … Alice flipped back through the pages, running her finger across line after line of loopy handwriting until she found where Elizabeth had written it. The witch had brown eyes.

  Alice’s heart was pounding out a frantic rhythm against her chest. Eyes, necklace, odd grin … the girl. The witch. It explained at least why no one in the hotel paid the least attention to her—only Elizabeth could see the witch in her mirror and only Alice could see her now. But if the witch was still in the hotel, wandering the mirrors like some lost spirit, then why hadn’t she approached Alice? Could she get free of the glass? Could she come into Alice’s side of the house? As much as the thought of the witch hiding in the mirrors frightened her, the thought of the witch in this version of the house—walking the halls, sitting in dark corners—terrified her even more.

  Alice leaned over the diary again. If the girl really was the witch, then Alice needed to know more about her—what she wanted and whether she could get free.

  ***

  May 5, 1883

  I think that Lillian suspects my discovery. She is always popping in, trying to catch me with the books, trying to see the witch in the mirror. Each time she so much as glances at the mirror, I ask her what she is looking for. But the little devil won’t admit it. She shakes her head at me and says I am losing my mind, as if she were fooling anyone. I know what she is up to and I am too clever for her. I have a spot under my bed where I put the books when I hear her coming. The witch can take care of herself, of course. She ducks out of sight just as soon as Lillian walks into the room. The witch trusts no one but me with her secrets. I am the only one worthy—the only one clever enough to understand them. My sister is young and silly and empty-headed. I am full to brimming with life. I shine with it.

  Once I locked my door so that Lillian would not disturb us, but Lillian threw an absolute fit when she could not get in. Lillian has always been one for throwing fits—by the time she was three she could yell so loudly that the whole neighborhood would hear. I heard her talking to Father outside my door and do you know what she said? She said that it is dangerous for me to be up here by myself with no one to look after me. That’s when I knew. She wants access to the room so that she can take the books for herself.

  When I finally let her and Father inside, she took the key right out of my hand and threw it out the window. I went down to look for it, but I couldn’t find it in the bushes. I sleep with the books under my pillow now.

  ***

  Alice stopped reading. Outside? If the key was outside the house, there was no chance that she would be able to find it. None of the doors would open and, quite frankly, she wasn’t even certain that there was anything outside of these walls. She had a funny feeling that this place existed outside of reality.

  The windows were almost dark now. On the other side of the mirror, George and Tony were watching television. Alice wasn’t exactly sure what had happened out in the hallway, but neither of them looked happy. They were sitting as far apart from each other as possible on the bed and a coil of wire lay limply in the corner of the room. A video camera was sitting on the nightstand, forgotten.

  She thought of her parents, how she had often seen them sitting like that at night, on opposite sides of the bed, television making the wall into a flickering rainbow of color. They watched comedies—the kind with laugh tracks and jokes that got stale after a while. But they were always so quiet, as if TV were a sport that required the utmost concentration. It was strange. The TV audience would laugh and laugh and her mom and dad would lie there with stiff half-grins on their faces and occasional real smiles that were gone faster than a blink. But they never laughed. Not once. Alice could see them so clearly in her head that it made her stomach clench. Though the picture wasn’t a happy one, it made her miss them so terribly that she forced it away as best she could. She focused instead on the father and son in the mirror. They were real. This was real and memories were only shadows.

  As Alice watched, Tony got up and grabbed a book from his suitcase. He muttered something about needing fresh air.

  “Of course, of course. Whatever makes you happy,” said George, in a voice so hearty that it was obviously forced. Tony frowned and walked out. His father flipped the channel.

  A second later, Tony popped his head back through the door.

  George looked up, then muted the television and said heavily, “Tony, is there something you want to talk about?”

  Tony took a deep breath and opened his mouth, then shut it again. His eyes wandered from his dad’s face to the TV screen, then back again, and finally he said, “Never mind. You woul
dn’t listen anyway.”

  “Why don’t you give me a chance?” George said, but Tony had already turned around and shut the door behind him. George leaned back against the headboard and frowned at the remote for a minute. Then he whispered, “Space. He needs some space,” and he turned the sound back on.

  Alice got up to follow Tony into the hallway. She wanted to see if her ability to communicate with him was a freak of his father’s wiring or something that could happen again. If she could tell him about the key, maybe he could look around outside for her. Maybe it was still buried somewhere in the yard. If he brought it into the house, would it appear in her version as well? There was only one way to find out. She tucked the diary safely under the covers and walked toward the door.

  But she didn’t even make it to the doorknob.

  At that very moment, a grandfather clock in the hall began to strike midnight.

  Dong.

  It was as if she had stepped into an elevator going down. The room grew taller around her—was she shrinking? She looked down at her feet. Her feet … her feet were gone. Her legs sprouted straight out of the floor.

  She flailed, cried out, reached for the doorknob, but it was just beyond her fingertips. She clutched frantically at the floor, but her hands sank right through it and she, drowning in the quicksand the floor had become, thrashed and pulled at her legs. It was no use. Pulling her hands out, she tried to grab onto the bottom of the nightstand. For a moment she touched it, brushed it with her fingertips, but they slid off as her hips disappeared, then her stomach, her chest, her arms, her neck. She took a huge breath of air, strained upward one last time.

  And then there was only water.