“My, my. I think they’ll learn to live with their eternal winter. I think that’s a small price to pay for Sisterland having an eternal summer with everything beautiful and blooming. I’ve expended a lot of time and energy to make this a kingdom of dreams. I’m not going to allow the snow troubles of some distant world to concern me.”
“If you wanted it to be summer here eternally, then why is your White Palace all ice and snow?” Marissa asked.
For a moment, Queen Lili was silent. A wounded expression flashed across her face.
“That is the price of Sisterland’s miraculous summer. Someone must endure the cold that intrudes from your world. I have chosen my fate.”
Alice and Marissa exchanged a glance. Suddenly the queen looked small and fragile and alone.
“But the people in our world haven’t chosen endless blizzards and freezing cold! You’ve stolen all their warmth, just like you’ve stolen their shadows!” Alice said angrily.
Queen Lili approached the girls. With every step, they felt the icy blast grip them tighter. She motioned toward the large mirror.
“This is the Mirror of Shadows. My greatest creation. It is a magical object that allows the warmth from your world to pass into Sisterland. It took a long time for me to discover how to trap the heat, but then I realized that I could use people’s shadows. The mirror draws the shadows over the boundary between the worlds, and the shadows bring the warmth with them. Who needs a shadow anyway? A shadow isn’t anything.”
As she spoke, Queen Lili seemed to grow larger. Her presence filled the entire hall.
“But why?” Alice asked. “Why wasn’t Sisterland enough for you the way it was?”
“It wasn’t miraculous enough,” the queen said in a quiet voice. “It would have been enough for me, but it wasn’t for Anna. When she left, I decided to make Sisterland such a splendid place that no one would ever want to leave again.”
The Mirror of Shadows began to show the Garden of Secrets and all the magical, beautiful things the girls had seen there. Alice realized that the queen had been watching them through the mirror the whole time they’d been in this world.
Sisterland was a dream come true. Sisterland was everything a person could ever want.
The queen was right. Alice and Marissa had been happier in Sisterland than they had ever been.
“Tell us about Anna,” Alice said, both to distract the queen and because she wanted to know. “Who is she?”
Queen Lili took a breath as sorrow filled her eyes.
“Anna was my best friend, my soul sister. Or so I thought. She came here from another world, from your world.”
The queen wiped her eyes, as if wanting to forget.
“But let us not speak of her. I would rather talk about you and what a wonderful future awaits you here in Sisterland.”
“But we have to return home,” Alice said. “And people need their warmth. And they even need their shadows. People aren’t complete without them. It can’t be winter without summer, and there can’t be light without shadow. And besides, you’ve made this place too perfect and safe for your own residents. They need danger and excitement and adventure—and cold too. No one wants to live in a dream all the time!”
Now Queen Lili was right in front of the girls. Her breath was like a freezing kiss on their foreheads.
“You don’t have to return. You could stay here, and this could become your home. You don’t even really remember what it was like in your world. You’ve almost forgotten your families entirely.”
The queen’s words tangled around the girls like a soft, fluffy dream. It would have been so nice to stay and rest in it.
“The Mirror of Shadows is also a door. If you open it and walk through the mirror, you will remain here eternally. Only your shadows will return to your own world. But no one will remember you there, and no one will miss you. It will be as if you never existed there. Perhaps sometimes on sunny days, your shadows might flit across the snow, but that is all.”
The queen placed her hands on the girls’ heads, as if to bless them. Part of Alice wanted more than anything for the queen to enfold them in her arms. However, Queen Lili stepped away.
“Choose carefully. If you use the door, you will enjoy all the miraculous things Sisterland has to offer. You could become my daughters.”
The queen’s expression turned soft and longing.
“I have been alone for so long…,” she sighed.
Alice wanted to believe her. But then somewhere in the back of her mind flickered memories of her family and home, which refocused her mind.
So instead, she said firmly, “You aren’t our mother. And you killed Ai-La.”
“Ai-La was already old, perhaps older than this world and all its creatures. Her time had come.”
“You lie,” Marissa hissed. “You were holding the dragons prisoner! Your icelisks and snow blowers attacked us! We want to go home!”
Queen Lili’s face turned cold again.
“So you’re just like Anna. She left me too—I imagine because she grew bored with Sisterland and began to hate me.”
“If you tried to force Anna to be your friend like you have with us, then it’s no wonder she left,” Alice said.
The queen’s shoulders slumped as if she’d been struck. It already looked as if she was giving up and admitting defeat. But then she turned her gaze and all her attention on Alice, and Alice felt the power of Queen Lili. It pulled her to the queen like the strongest magnet. Alice couldn’t tear her eyes away from the queen’s icy eyes. And when the queen began to speak to her, Alice felt as though she were the only person in the world.
“Alice, oh, little Alice. You’ve never had a best friend before Marissa? Think what a gift I’ve given you by putting the two of you together here. And what I’ve given I can also take away. You wouldn’t want that, would you? You wouldn’t want to return to your own world without ever finding each other again? You wouldn’t want to give up Marissa?”
Alice couldn’t reply. It was as if the queen’s voice had frozen her in place and made her mute. Of course she didn’t want to give up Marissa.
“You can play the hero, but isn’t it too high a price to never see your best friend again?”
Fear grew in Alice. The queen had so much power and authority. What if she did something to Marissa?
“Step to the mirror. Open it with your key. Only then can you be together forever.”
Alice was cold. Her teeth chattered. There was no feeling in her fingers. She knew what she should do. She knew what was right. But at the same time, she felt herself walking toward the Mirror of Shadows, intending to do just as the queen demanded.
“Alice!” Marissa shouted. “Don’t listen to her!”
Alice saw as Marissa tried to run to her, but her friend’s shoes were frozen to the palace floor, and she fell to her knees.
As if in a dream, Alice lifted the key and watched as her hand moved it ever closer to the keyhole. Queen Lili’s power was so strong that she couldn’t fight back.
Just as the key was reaching the keyhole, Alice felt a warm touch on her wrist. Marissa had taken off her shoes and run barefoot.
“Don’t believe her,” Marissa whispered. “No matter what happens, I will be your best friend and your soul sister. Nothing and no one can keep us apart.”
Alice looked into Marissa’s eyes. They could do this. They had promised each other that together they could be heroes.
Marissa grabbed Alice’s hand that held the key. Alice saw a triumphant smile flash across the queen’s lips. She thought they were opening the door after all.
“Down with tyrants!” Alice and Marissa shouted together, and smashed the key with all their might into the center of the mirror, which shattered. The shards reflected Queen Lili’s expression of despair as she cried out in horror. Fr
om her cry came a wind that grew and grew in force. Alice and Marissa clutched each other by the hand. The gale howled and wailed around them. It grew into a swirling hurricane that swept them up off the floor, into the air and through the destroyed ceiling of the White Palace. They rose higher and higher.
Shards of mirror swirled around the girls as Alice and Marissa continued rising into the air. They held tightly to each other’s hands, surrounded by whirlwinds and reflections. Sometimes the thousands of mirror pieces would show Alice, sometimes Marissa, sometimes both. Suddenly Alice felt the hurricane splitting in two. One half pulled her along, the other half Marissa. They tried to hold on to each other, but the whirlwinds were stronger. Finally, only the very tips of their fingers interlocked. But they knew that the wind would soon tear them apart.
“I’ll find you!” Alice cried to Marissa.
“Not if I find you first!” she replied.
Then their fingers parted, and the two halves of the hurricane carried them each in a different direction.
Alice spun so fast she began to lose consciousness.
Before she blacked out entirely, she thought of searching for Marissa as soon as she arrived home. Or Marissa would search for her. They would search for each other.
“Alice! Alice!”
Someone called her name.
“Marissa…,” Alice murmured.
It was dark. It was cold. Alice slowly opened her eyes and found herself lying in snow. One of her legs was buried up to her thigh. She tried to pull it out but failed. Voices approached. Now Alice recognized her mother’s and father’s voices, both equally concerned.
“Here!” she shouted as loudly as she could.
Her mother and father rushed to her side. Her mom immediately crouched to hug her, and her dad began to dig out the snow around her leg.
“What day is it?” Alice asked.
“Tuesday,” her mom replied.
“What day of the month?”
“The twentieth of December, silly,” her mother said with a smile. “How did you end up here?”
The twentieth of December. The same day Alice had disappeared. No time had passed at all.
“I followed the tracks,” she mumbled.
Her mom and dad looked at each other in confusion. Alice could tell from their expressions that they saw what she’d just noticed: There were no tracks. The shapeshifter’s paw prints had disappeared.
“Luckily you didn’t go any farther than this,” her mom said as her dad finally got Alice’s legs free. “Who knows what could have happened. Did you even have your phone with you? I tried to call you over and over, but I could never reach you.”
“I did have it with me, but I forgot to charge it last night. I’m sorry.”
Alice’s mother hugged her again.
“It doesn’t matter now. The most important thing is that we found you so quickly. Now, get inside so you don’t catch cold. Has your body temperature started to drop? We need to make sure you don’t have hypothermia.”
She pressed her hand to Alice’s forehead and fussed over her. For the whole short ride home, her mother kept an arm tight around Alice. Once home, they sent her straight into a warm shower, and then her mother gave her fresh clothes, hot cocoa, and cheese sandwiches made in the oven.
When she had been found, Alice was wearing the same clothing as when she left home. The dress from the amusement park was gone, and her hand had turned back to normal again. Nothing hinted that she’d ever gone anywhere. But only one thing burned in her mind. As soon as she could, she grabbed a scrap of paper and a pen from the kitchen counter to write down Marissa’s telephone number.
But even though she’d memorized it so well, she couldn’t remember it. What was worse, Alice also couldn’t remember Marissa’s last name or her address or the city where she lived, or anything that could have helped her track down her friend. Alice remembered everything else about Marissa, down to the tiniest detail, but it was as though a giant eraser had wiped away any possibility of contacting her. Alice sat and stared blankly at the wall. How was she supposed to find Marissa now? She just had to hope that Marissa hadn’t experienced the same memory loss. However, that began to seem more likely the longer Alice’s cell phone remained mute. Only an hour had passed since Alice returned to her own world, but she was sure that Marissa would have contacted her immediately. If Marissa had remembered Alice’s number, she would have at least sent a text.
“Don’t you like your cocoa?” Alice’s mother asked as she came into the kitchen.
“It’s just how I like it. Plenty of cocoa powder.”
“Oh, my sweet girl,” her mother said gently, and stroked Alice’s hair. “You’ll always be my little child.”
Alice didn’t respond to that, since she felt much less like a child than a few hours ago. But that would be impossible to explain to her mother.
* * *
—
Over the next few days, Alice tried to find Marissa using every tool at her disposal. She sat for hours at the computer inventing search term combinations. She browsed school websites and searched for the names of any fifth graders, but none of the Marissas she found had last names that sounded familiar. Marissa Johnson, Marissa Woods, Marissa Nordstrom, Marissa Pool, and Marissa Stone all sounded just as strange—or just as familiar. Alice found some pictures of girls named Marissa who were about the right age, but none was Marissa.
The task was hopeless. There were simply too many eleven-year-old Marissas. Alice had no way to search through all of them, even if there were a list of them in a secret database somewhere. She now gloomily realized that Marissa must be in the same situation.
There were also too many eleven-year-old Alices.
Alice searched for the combination “Alice + Marissa” in case Marissa had somehow left her a message. No luck. She left a cryptic note on message boards that young people used: “Marissa, Alice is looking for you! Because I can’t fly to you on the wings of a wolf, send me an email.” She provided an email address she had created just for this. Alice knew that the right Marissa would understand from the message that she was the one it was meant for. Alice also placed it on a few websites adults used, so that if Marissa thought to search for “Alice + Marissa,” she was sure to run into it.
Alice only received one response, from a forty-year-old woman who thought she might be the Marissa Alice was looking for—even though her name was really Maria—because she had a wolf tattooed on her back. Alice didn’t respond. She was so disappointed.
Christmas vacation passed in a fog. Literally.
A dense fog descended the day after Alice returned. The weather turned significantly warmer, and the snowdrifts quickly shrank. It was as if the fog were eating the snow. At least the fog was just as white. No one complained about not having a snowy Christmas. Everyone was just so thankful. The amount of snow had probably scared people more than anyone was willing to admit. The sound of the melting was like a sigh of relief. People on the street looked each other in the eye and smiled. Let there be slush. Let there be mud. Let there be snow forts lying in ruins and snowmen missing half their heads.
People were happier and brighter again. Light shone in their eyes. Sometimes they smiled their own secret smiles to themselves. They weren’t so mean to each other. Everyone noticed the change or at least subconsciously recognized it, but only Alice knew the cause. They had their warmth back. When the sun finally emerged after days of fog, Alice saw her shadow on the ground. So those had returned as well. People weren’t half of themselves anymore.
Alice and Marissa had won. They had successfully completed their mission. They were heroes, even if secret ones. That should have made Alice happy, but she was only sad.
Other people had regained their joy, but Alice had lost her best friend. At least that was how she felt as the days flowed by and she didn’t hear
anything from Marissa. Alice sadly looked at Shadow Alice. Would that again be the only friend who understood her?
Two weeks had passed since Alice’s return, and it was the first day of school after Christmas break. Everyone else in the school, including the teachers, seemed happier and more relaxed than in the autumn. Only Alice still lived in a fog, wishing she could spend all her time curled up in a ball. She stared at the drizzle outside and wondered whether listening to Queen Lili and staying in Sisterland would have been better. Why did she have to return when returning meant giving up so much?
Right now, she could have been listening to singing roses and watching the dream weavers do their work. She could have sailed the Ocular Sea with Marissa. She could have flown with dragons.
The normal world was so…normal. Everything was boring and small and gray. And Alice didn’t believe she’d ever find Marissa. She gave a deep sigh, wishing she could just rest her head on her desk and sleep, maybe to dream of something more exciting.
Then a knock came at the classroom door. The teacher stopped writing a math problem on the board.
“That’s probably our new student.”
Everyone looked at each other and began to whisper. Alice sat up straighter too, feeling more awake. A new student was always exciting.
The teacher opened the door, and in walked…
“Marissa!” Alice said before she could think.
She was just so terribly happy and surprised to see Marissa again. Everyone looked at Alice.
“Do you know each other?” the teacher asked, looking from Alice to Marissa and from Marissa to Alice.
“Well—not really—but in a way,” Alice stammered.
Marissa looked her right in the eye. She looked at Alice as if she were a complete stranger.
“No, we don’t,” she said calmly.
Thoughts raced through Alice’s head. Marissa clearly didn’t want to reveal their secret to anyone else. That was probably wise. They could talk once they were alone. So apparently Marissa’s family had moved to Alice’s city. But where did they live? If only Marissa lived close to Alice, they could walk to school together every day and spend every day together after school and be together forever and ever and ever, Alice thought.
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