The Looking Glass

by Jessica Arnold

  The water was cold and black and pressed so hard against her she thought her skull would surely burst under the pressure of it. She was suspended in motion, her arms still stretched out toward a nightstand that was no longer there, her feet on a smooth, cool surface. At first she didn’t realize where she was—all she knew was that everything seemed dark and murky and her eyes stung. But then she saw the white tile she was standing on; she saw the side of the pool in the distance. As she tried to breathe, her lungs filled with water. Her head was spinning.

  Air.

  Alice pushed off the bottom of the pool as hard as she could, but she floated to the surface slowly, barely making it all the way up. Gasping, she threw her head free, and for a split second she saw the garden and the trees and the dark hotel in the moonlight. She was coughing so hard that she hardly registered that she was outside—she saw, but did not comprehend, though a tiny voice in the back of her mind whispered that something had happened and something was wrong. But breathing and coughing were all she could think about, and in the entire world there was not enough air to satisfy her. She had only managed to take in a few short breaths, though, when the water started to suck her back in. Her flailing arms seemed to make no difference and her legs, which she kicked with every bit of strength she had, might as well have been thrashing in midair. She pulled harder, but the water was so heavy around her; it felt solid and yet it seemed to go right through her hands. Alice realized that her mouth was open—that she was screaming. She was sinking.

  “Oh my God!” a familiar voice yelled just before the water completely engulfed her head. She heard a muffled splash behind her and then an arm wrapped around her waist. Someone pulled her up and toward the surface, and Alice flailed uselessly, weakly now. Her vision was blurry and all she could think about was how it would feel to breathe. Her head broke the surface of the water again.

  “Calm down!” the same voice yelled. “You’re going to be okay! Just calm down, will you?”

  Air filled her lungs and Alice stopped fighting. Her head felt tight, as if it had been stuck in a vice, and the blood pounded so hard in her ears that she thought her eardrums might burst. She started to cough and felt herself being dragged onto the pool deck. Coughing. Why couldn’t she stop coughing? The second she gulped down air, it exploded out of her. She couldn’t get enough and she started to panic again, hunching over and stretching out her arms as if reaching for something—she didn’t know what.

  “No, just stay calm. Breathe slow. There you go. The coughing’s okay—you’ve got to get the water out. Here, I’m gonna go get you a towel.”

  Alice was too weak to respond. She coughed more water up and knelt down on the pavement, breathing heavily. Her head was spinning and she doubled over and pressed her forehead against her knees. He laid a heavy, fluffy towel over her, then took a few quick steps away and stood waiting to the side.

  “You okay? Did you fall in?”

  Alice managed to lift her head and turn it just enough to see the person’s face.

  “My name’s Tony,” he said.

  Her jaw had gone slack and she knew she was gaping at him like a total idiot, but no matter how much she stared, she just couldn’t wrap her head around it. She started hacking again, her whole back shaking. Was this even possible? How could she be back in the real world?

  “What … ” she moaned, wanting to bury her face in her knees again—she was so dizzy. Tony was watching her with unmistakable worry in his eyes and, whether this was the real world or a dream or something even stranger, there was a very real rush of embarrassment making her cheeks burn. He must be thinking … She stopped herself mid-thought. Seriously? No—she needed to focus. She needed to figure out what was going on. When was her head going to straighten out? Everything was such a blur.

  “Just give yourself a minute.” Tony was talking as if they had just met over dinner at a nice restaurant and there she was, dripping onto the pool deck and shivering under her towel, wearing only a … oh no. Alice peeked under the towel and winced as her suspicions were confirmed. She was still wearing the little red lingerie dress. Through some miracle it had stayed on through the whole drowning experience, but still . . .

  “I … I would have been fine … on my own,” she said, pulling the towel more tightly around her, moving a little farther away from him.

  “I’m sure. Um … how did you end up in the pool?” asked Tony.

  He seemed real. She blinked a few times and squinted up at his face; there was a solidness to his chin and his mouth, how it moved when he talked. Tony exhaled heavily and then forced an awkward half-smile in her direction. Surely she couldn’t be imagining this, but she had to know for sure.

  “Do you believe in ghosts?” Alice blurted out. Not that she was a ghost. She wasn’t. But how else could she explain that she wasn’t in her body somehow and she’d been trapped in this house that wasn’t the hotel and … She was breathing heavily.

  Tony laughed; it was clipped, half-hearted. He stared at her with an empty grin frozen on his face. “Did a ghost push you in?” He asked it as if it were a legitimate question—or at least as if he expected her to say yes.

  “What?”

  “You know … ” He shrugged and glanced at the back door of the hotel. “You were walking and suddenly you fell in and … maybe it was a ghost that pushed you. Really, who knows? But I think you need help and … I’ll just be a minute, let me go and—”

  He was edging away from her—inch by inch.

  “Please,” Alice gasped out.

  Tony stopped. “Do you need me to call an ambulance or something? I will—I mean, I can do that.”

  “Yes, I need help. I need your help.” How could she make him understand? Coma, mirrors, diary … it sounded crazy even in her head. “Look,” she said, “I didn’t die, okay? At least I don’t think I died—”

  “Okay I think you’re in shock and so I’m going to go get my dad and—”

  “No!”

  Her entire body seized up at the thought of George. The wires, the pain like fire … in all her life she had not felt anything like it. She remembered it perfectly—how sharply it had cut through every inch of her—and her skin prickled.

  “Can I just ask you some questions? Please?”

  “Um … ”

  She recognized the look on his face—the way he was grimacing, the pity in his eyes. It was the expression people got when they saw a crazy person and had no idea what to do. It was the look she’d had on her face when they visited her dying aunt in the hospital and she hadn’t known what to say, because, really, what was there to say?

  “I promise I’m not crazy,” she said, and realized a second too late how desperate that sounded. Nicely done, Alice. She squinted at the hotel, then up at the stars. The sky was a deep blue-black and seeing it stretched out above her—no fogged windows, no old ceilings—made her heart pound faster.

  Tony still had not answered; she looked back up at him and saw that same helpless, frightened grin.

  “Of course you’re not crazy. I didn’t say you were crazy.” He started to laugh, but then coughed into his hand instead. “Look, I’m just going to be gone for a minute. I’ll call the hotel manager—get my dad—if you don’t want an ambulance, then you should at least come inside, get warm … ”

  He was going to tell everyone and there would be panicking and then the questions and … There wasn’t time for this. She needed him to help her figure out where her family was and where she was—not she herself but she her body. (Or was this her body? Was that possible? Maybe this was a bizarre case of coma-walking. Maybe she’d been dreaming. Maybe she was still dreaming. Maybe … ) She needed his help.

  “No … really—”

  “Please just wait here. Stay calm please.” Tony put a hand out, as if she were a dog he could order to sit and stay. Then he turned around and started to hurry toward the hotel.

  Alice tried to clamber to her feet, but the towel slipped from her back and got t
angled around her ankles. In the time it took her to reach down and free herself (the towel was unusually heavy, or maybe she was just tired), Tony got halfway across the lawn. Alice threw the towel to the pool deck and started to run after him.

  “No—Tony!”

  He stopped so suddenly that, if she’d been a faster runner, she might have crashed right into him. Turning around, he stared at her face as if he were seeing it for the first time. Her stomach tingled—tickled—and a shiver shot down her spine. Something … she couldn’t explain it … but it was as if something had passed between them, as if the air had gone hot.

  “Do I know you?” Tony said at last. His eyebrows bunched together in the middle and his lips thinned, a slight frown. “Your voice sounds … I don’t know … ”

  But Alice knew. She remembered the pain most of all, but then there had been that moment when she had heard his voice—not just heard it, felt it echoing inside of her own mind. And those seconds when they had been stuck together, like two birds in one cage. It hadn’t occurred to her before, but if she had been able to hear him, then it only made sense that he would have heard her, too.

  “The thing is … ” She had sidetracked him, but only barely, only for a second. And though she wanted to blurt out the truth, the chance that he would turn around and walk away was just too much. He already thought she was nuts. Alice paused, then started over. “My family was staying at the hotel. Maybe we passed each other in the hall.”

  “Was staying? They left? Why are you still here? Wait—no, I need to get you help—wait a minute—”

  He tried to turn around again, but she grabbed his hand and held on tight.

  “I’m fine. I promise you that I’m fine. I don’t need a doctor or anything. And my family …” When she spoke, she tried to sound casual and normal—sane. “Is staying … are staying. We’re here. All of us. Now.”

  “I see.” He looked down at her hand, wrapped around his. But he didn’t try to pull away. “Strong grip.” He frowned at her. “You do seem okay. But I still think …” Tony’s frown deepened. He brushed his hair off his forehead, then stared into her eyes for a long time, squinting slightly. “It’s strange—I was sure I recognized … maybe you just remind me of someone.”

  But he sounded uncertain.

  “Right … maybe.” What could she say to keep him there? She had to figure out if he knew anything about the Alice in a coma, and if the truth was going to make him think she was crazy or in shock and go running for help, then she needed a new tactic, a different truth …

  “The truth is that I tripped,” she said, nodding toward the pool. “I couldn’t sleep and so I came out here. I didn’t mean to go swimming.” She dared to let go of his hand now; continuing to hold onto him for dear life wasn’t going to make her look particularly lucid.

  “Yeah, I didn’t think so. You aren’t dressed for it.” Tony stuck his hands in his pockets; his shoulders were tight. But he gave her a genuine smile for once.

  She looked down at her skimpy, soaked nightgown and realized that the waterlogged fabric was nearly see-through. Humiliated, she quickly crossed her arms over her chest. At least it was dark outside; he couldn’t have seen that much, could he? “I didn’t think anyone would be out here.”

  “Neither did I.”

  “Well I guess it was lucky I was wrong; I mean, I could have drowned … or worse. You know, a girl hit her head on the bottom of that pool the other day. I heard she’s in a coma.” Maybe a labored transition, but it worked.

  “Believe me, I know.”

  Tony rolled his eyes, and the fact that he didn’t seem to care stung her. It was hard to keep her voice level as she asked, “I guess it doesn’t matter to you, then?”

  “Of course it matters. It’s just that my dad … ” He brushed his hair away from his face again; water was dripping down his forehead. “My dad—he’s into ghosts—and he’s all excited about it—thinks it’s proof that the hotel is haunted. And it just seems kind of morbid to me. I mean, a girl might die and all he cares about is a good story for his next book.”

  “Did your dad say anything else about that girl? Which hospital she’s in? Where her family is staying?” Maybe, if this was—if it could possibly be—real, she could get to her parents and tell them what was going on and … but how could they possibly believe her? And what would she do if she finally got to her “real” body in the hospital? Would she somehow climb inside?

  “Not exactly. I mean, I know her family checked out right after the accident so they could get a hotel closer to the hospital. Me and my dad are in their room. It’s kind of creepy, actually. Sometimes I wonder if I’m sleeping where she was sleeping before she … well … ”

  “You’re not.” Alice said. Tony looked at her, one eyebrow raised.

  “How would you know?”

  “I mean, well, what I meant is that it’s highly unlikely … to be sleeping in exactly the same spot. You may be a couple of inches off … ” Alice let her voice trail off.

  Now both of his eyebrows were up. A drop of water went bumping down his wrinkled forehead and he wiped it off with his sleeve. Alice’s face was hot again. She was a pro at lying to her mom—why was she fumbling this up?

  “You don’t think … ” she began again.

  “Don’t think what?”

  “Maybe we could try to find out more about that girl—how she’s doing. It’s just so sad. I wonder if she’s woken up and … I would run up to my room and get my laptop, but I don’t want to wake up my family. They kind of don’t know I’m out here … ” There was, of course, a free-for-all desktop in the hotel lobby, but there was no way she was walking back into that place. What if she couldn’t get back out? What if she looked behind her and the doors were locked and the windows were fogged and … No, she couldn’t go inside.

  “Oh. That’s too bad,” he said.

  She should have known that he wouldn’t pick up on her not-so-subtle hint. Her mom always told her this about guys (usually while complaining about how her dad didn’t do this or that or wasn’t romantic or spontaneous enough). She would look Alice in the eye then and say, “Remember that: men don’t think like women. You’ve got to tell them what you want or they’ll never figure it out.” And though Alice didn’t exactly treasure her mother’s pearls of wisdom, she had to admit—on this her mom had been spot-on.

  “Do you have a laptop?” Alice asked pointedly.

  “Yeah, but—”

  “And you know the WiFi password?”

  “Yeah—”

  “Then why don’t we use yours?”

  He exhaled heavily and made a show of twisting the bottom of his shirt to wring the water out.

  “Look,” he said. “I’m soaked and you’re soaked and it’s late and maybe it would be better if you just waited until—”

  “My family’s leaving tomorrow—early in the morning.”

  Tony was biting his lip now; his eyes kept darting from her to the hotel. “Well,” he said, “It’s just that—”

  “You know what? Never mind.” Alice shook her head and laughed, but watched his face as closely as she dared. This was a dangerous move, but the chance that she might lose him was just too much. She had to risk it. Alice quickly thought back to the conversation she had seen him have with his dad right before he went outside, and she realized that this was the only advantage she had. “You should just go. It was nice to meet you, anyway. I’ll probably just stay out here for a while—the longer I can stay away from my parents the better. Sometimes I just get so frustrated, you know? Like they don’t even listen and they think they want me to explain things to them, but what’s the point? They don’t hear me. I might as well be talking to the TV.”

  It worked. His eyes widened and he gaped at her for a second, then shook his head in disbelief. “You have no idea—I mean, just now, with my dad, I was thinking that exact same … ” He trailed off for a second, staring at her. “You know, if you’re gonna be out here anyway—if you’
re leaving tomorrow—we might as well keep each other company for a bit. Just let me run upstairs and change and … I’ll grab my computer. We can look up that girl.”

  “No, I couldn’t ask you to—”

  “Really—it’s fine. I probably wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway. You’ll just wait here? You sure you don’t want to go change your clothes?”

  Alice grinned. “I’ll be here,” she assured him.

  “But you must be freezing!”

  Her arms were covered with goose bumps and she clasped her hands behind her back to hide them. “I’m not cold—don’t worry about me.”

  “Okay. Well, I’ll be right back.” He was watching her with the strangest look in his eyes and at first Alice wasn’t sure what to make of it.

  Curious, she decided at last. He was curious about her. And, more importantly, he was going to help her.

  She was out of breath—as if she’d been running for her life, away from her prison, toward some empty place in the distance without walls and closed doors. She could smell the open air. It filled her mouth and it tasted like freedom.

  “I’m Alice, by the way.” Without thinking, she had given him her real name. She wasn’t sure exactly what had made her shout it out like that. He smiled and turned away, walking toward the hotel with his towel draped around his shoulders like a cape; the minute his back was turned, she winced and pressed a palm to her forehead. Hers wasn’t a super common name these days and what would happen if he put it all together? Then again, he seemed so bound and determined not to believe in ghosts that it would probably take a lot more than her happening to have the same name as coma girl to even make him suspect.

  She breathed a little easier then, and, as soon as he was inside the hotel, she hurried back to the pool deck and grabbed the towel. It was damp and cold, but she wrapped it tightly around her anyway. It didn’t help much; her teeth were at that trembling stage right before they started to chatter. There was a book lying on the ground (Tony must have left it) and Alice looked at the title—Engineering Engines: What Wins the Race. It was brightly colored, with a racecar on the front cover.