Looking Glass Girl

by Cathy Cassidy

  Luke cannot let himself think that way.

  He remembers the girl he kissed on the tyre swing on Saturday; the two of them holding on tight, swinging softly, balanced on the edge of something like wonder.

  It’s not possible for that to be wiped away so easily, surely?

  He works on the playlist into the early hours, as if keeping himself busy can somehow drag Alice back from the nightmare she has fallen into. By morning he is satisfied; the playlist covers past, present and future. The music says what he cannot, uses imagery and symbolism and sound to cast a net into the abyss Alice has fallen into.

  Perhaps, somehow, it can save her.

  By 9 a.m., Luke is back at Ardenley General.

  He knows it is too early for visiting, but he holds his head high and walks with confidence past reception and down to the lifts, up to the third floor. The corridors are still damp from the morning cleaning and smell strongly of disinfectant. Walking into the ICU is like stepping into a different world; calm, quiet, gentle, removed from the chaos of the outside world.

  Luke sees Alice’s mum dozing in a chair beside the bed, a discarded paperback novel on her lap. Her hair is mussed and her clothes are crumpled, as if she’s been sitting there all night. She probably has. Functioning on just a few hours’ sleep, Luke knows he probably doesn’t look a whole lot better.

  ‘Luke?’ Laura Beech says. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Hello, Mrs Beech,’ he says. ‘I hope you don’t mind – I made a playlist for Alice. You said that perhaps she can hear us, so I thought she might like some music to listen to. I don’t know. I thought that music might reach her even if words can’t.’

  Luke’s eyes slide towards the bed, where Alice is still, silent. A tide of anger rushes through his body; he wants to pull out the tubes and wires attached to her, rip away the bandages that swathe her head. He doesn’t, of course. Those things are not what have made Alice sick; they are trying to make her better. Still, Luke can’t bear to look at them.

  ‘That’s a lovely thought,’ Mrs Beech says. ‘We brought Alice’s iPod in, hoping her favourite music would get through to her, but perhaps your playlist would be better? Different songs, different tracks; perhaps they could jolt her out of her sleep? Something has to, Luke. Something will …’

  ‘Can I stay for a bit?’ he asks. ‘Talk to her?’

  ‘Of course you can. I might pop down to the cafeteria and grab some breakfast; give you a few minutes on your own.’ Laura Beech looks uncertain for a moment. ‘The nurses are right here if anything happens; you just have to call …’

  Luke smiles. ‘If anything happens, I’ll yell so loudly for the nurses that you’ll hear me all the way from the cafeteria,’ he promises.

  30

  Alice

  ‘Hey; it’s me, Luke. I promised I’d come back, right? Well, I made you a playlist; just some songs from way back, and some stuff I thought might make you smile. I think you’ll like some of it, but if there’s stuff you’re not so keen on, just shout. I can always change it around. We could work on it together, maybe. Once you’re better.’

  I can hear his voice through the mist, and I jump up, brushing twigs and dirt from my dress. I walk towards the voice, slowly at first, then faster and faster. If I can just find the Hatter, I will be safe; I know I will.

  ‘Why is a raven like a writing desk?’ the voice asks, taunting, and I’m crying now, running blindly, stumbling around in the fog of my own mind. The faster I run and the harder I try, the further away the voice seems to get.

  Sleepover

  I’d spent years dreaming about my first kiss; the dreams had been based on teen books and American movies, shadowed with anxieties about clashing teeth and noses. As for the boy, he’d always seemed sketchy and vague; part rock-star-cool, part boy-next-door. It seemed astonishing to me now that I had never realized that the boy I wanted all along was Luke.

  As for the kiss itself, there were no clashing teeth or noses. There were just Luke’s lips, soft as velvet, his breath as light as a butterfly’s wing, my heart hammering so hard it felt like the whole world could hear it; even I knew this was some kind of magic.

  I didn’t want it to stop, not ever. Luke’s lips tasted of fruit punch and one hand burrowed through my hair while the other lay against my cheek, palm burning against my skin. I rested my head against the gnarled and creaking rope of the tyre swing and the two of us leaned into each other, perfectly balanced, swinging softly in the darkness.

  Then Luke’s top hat fell off on to the grass and we pulled apart, laughing, staring wide-eyed in the moonlight as if we’d never really seen each other before. Well, maybe we hadn’t.

  ‘Alice,’ he said. ‘This is not a party game, OK?’

  ‘No,’ I whispered. ‘I know.’

  ‘So … can we get out of here? Go for a walk? Talk? Please?’

  I let myself step back, down from the tyre swing. Luke jumped down too, catching my hand, and it felt like we were connected in all kinds of other ways. Like each knew what the other was thinking, feeling, dreaming.

  ‘We can’t just leave,’ I told Luke, though the idea was the best I’d ever heard in my life. ‘It’s Savvy’s sleepover! She’d go mad!’

  ‘We can do whatever we want to do,’ he said. ‘Come on, Alice. Take a risk!’

  I wanted to go. I wanted to be that girl who would take a risk, do something daring, but I hesitated. What would Lainey and Yaz think? What if Savvy was cross and started rumours at school? What if Mum and Dad found out?

  You don’t just head off into the night with a boy you haven’t seen in almost two years, not when you’re supposed to be at a girly sleepover.

  ‘I just … just wish we were somewhere else, that’s all,’ Luke whispered. ‘Away from everybody. You know?’

  I knew. I looked back at the house, wondering if I had the courage to run away, and then I heard footsteps coming along the path. Lainey loomed out of the darkness.

  ‘Luke?’ she called. ‘Alice? Where are you? Oh! What are you doing? You were supposed to take seven minutes and you’ve been gone for twenty! We thought something was wrong!’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong,’ I said. ‘We were just … talking.’

  Luke said nothing, but his hand held mine tightly. I saw a flicker of hurt flash across Lainey’s face, and the faintest stirring of guilt unfurled inside me. I pushed it away. It was pretty clear that Lainey had a crush on Luke, and equally clear that he didn’t feel the same.

  He liked me.

  My lips were still tingling from his touch; my cheek was warm from where his palm had pressed against my skin. Maybe Lainey felt hurt, but so what? I’d felt hurt, too, when she and Yaz had dropped me, cut me dead every day in the school corridors. I’d cried myself to sleep for weeks, until there were no more tears left to cry.

  I refused to feel guilty for kissing Luke. I’d waited long enough for a little bit of happiness; Lainey couldn’t begrudge me this.

  ‘Looks like you two were getting on well,’ she said, pulling our hands apart, coming between us, hooking one arm through mine and one through Luke’s. ‘But no time for slushy stuff now; Savvy wants to start her new game. You’ll love it, and there’s some hot chocolate on the go.’

  Luke made a big deal of looking at his watch. ‘OK. Look, I’m sorry, Lainey, I have to be getting back,’ he said. ‘I’m actually on an eleven o’clock curfew.’

  ‘What?’ Lainey pouted. ‘You can’t stay? C’mon, Luke, you have to. Savvy has loads planned!’

  ‘Sorry,’ he repeated. ‘I can’t get out of it.’

  Lainey looked dismayed. ‘Just a little while more?’ she pleaded. ‘I know where Savvy’s dad’s drinks cabinet is, and he doesn’t keep much of an eye on things, so we could easily swipe a little bit of something to liven things up.’

  ‘Nick his whisky?’ Luke asked. ‘I don’t think so, Lainey.’

  She stopped arguing then. I think she knew she’d lost.

  When we got ins
ide, Luke picked up his jacket and nudged the other boys and soon they were all on their feet, jostling noisily and saying long goodbyes. Savvy was disappointed, but she took it in her stride; she hugged each boy in turn, and when it came to Dex she kissed him on the lips and wrote her mobile number on his arm with black eyeliner.

  You had to admire confidence like that.

  Luke and I didn’t kiss, and we didn’t write on each other’s arms either, but nothing could spoil the cloud of happiness I was floating on. Something amazing had happened, something life-changing. ‘I’ll text you,’ he whispered. ‘We’ll get together; catch up properly, yeah? We’ll do our late night escape another time.’

  ‘Cool,’ I said, but I didn’t feel cool. I thought I might explode with happiness.

  We trailed out on to the garden path as the boys made their exit; there was lots of laughter and hugging and flirting, and Luke leaned in close, his face in my hair.

  ‘See you soon, Alice,’ he said. ‘I promise.’

  31

  Luke

  When Alice’s mum has gone, Luke sits in the chair, but it feels sad and wrong and awkward, so he gets up again and perches on the side of the bed.

  ‘Alice?’ he says. ‘Can you hear me? I think you can. It’s weird, because you’re so still … so frozen. It’s like you’re miles and miles away, somewhere else completely; are you dreaming? Are you scared?’

  He is hoping for some kind of reaction, but there is none.

  ‘Look, Alice, I don’t know what happened at the sleepover,’ he says. ‘I am pretty sure it was just an accident, but I wish I hadn’t left you there. We should have run away, like I said. I mean, it was just a joke, really, because I wanted to be alone with you so we could talk. I hated all those fake party games, everyone trying way too hard to be cool and grown up – and I think you hated it too. I’m pretty certain of that.

  ‘Lainey says you fell on the stairs in the middle of the night, that you had your coat and shoes on. I just can’t help thinking that something went wrong to make you want to get out of there. I wish you could tell me. Everyone is so worried, Alice; the girls are really freaking out. Lainey is seriously not coping; she’s ringing and texting me all day and all night, and it’s kind of doing my head in.’

  He sighs.

  ‘I guess what I’m trying to say is that we miss you,’ he says. ‘Your friends miss you. I miss you. It feels like I’ve only just found you and now I’ve lost you all over again. If you’re listening, Alice, I want you to come back soon. Please?’

  Luke looks towards the corridor, in case the nurses are watching, but nobody is there at all. He leans over and kisses Alice’s ear, traces a finger softly along the crescent-shaped scar that slices through her cheek. Her skin is cold to the touch, as if she is made of ice and snow instead of flesh and blood.

  He picks up the iPod with his special playlist, his eyes blurred with tears.

  ‘Alice, I don’t know what to say exactly; I don’t know how to get through to you, so I’m going to let the songs say it for me. I’m going to believe that you can hear this, and that you’ll wake up soon, because … because you just have to, Alice. OK?’

  32

  Alice

  ‘So here we go; this is the playlist I made for you. I’ve set it pretty low and I’ll leave you to listen. I hope you like it. Can you hear it, Alice? Do you remember any of these?’

  ‘Where is she? Where is she? Off with her head!’

  Suddenly, the woods are filled with screaming, and playing-card soldiers are racing through the trees towards us. The Hatter takes my hand and we run into the fog, stumbling and slowing as the mist encloses us. Breathless, we hide behind a tree as the soldiers run past just metres away.

  ‘I think you should go home,’ the Hatter tells me, when the soldiers are gone. ‘The longer you stay here, the harder it will be to leave. And things are getting dangerous for you.’

  ‘But I don’t know how to get home!’ I say.

  The Hatter takes my hands. ‘You just have to remember, Alice,’ he says. ‘You just have to remember, and you’ll find your way back.’

  But I can’t remember anything at all.

  Sleepover

  After the boys left, the party mood crashed. Savvy was philosophical, already sending Snapchat messages on her mobile to Dex, but the others started bickering almost right away.

  ‘It’s only just past eleven,’ Lainey complained. ‘Who has a curfew that early on a Saturday night?’

  ‘Lots of people,’ Yaz pointed out. ‘We’re thirteen years old, Lainey. C’mon, admit it – we had fun. They weren’t going to stay all night, were they?’

  ‘It just felt kind of abrupt,’ Lainey said. ‘Did Luke say anything to you, Alice? Did you do something to annoy him? He seemed quite happy earlier, when he was with me …’

  ‘I don’t think Alice annoyed him,’ Erin quipped. ‘They looked pretty loved up to me!’

  Lainey winced, her lower lip trembling, and I knew how much she must be hurting.

  ‘We were just talking,’ I lied. ‘That’s all. About old times.’

  Lainey’s eyes slid away from mine, her eyes cold.

  ‘Is there any more of that teapot punch?’ she demanded. ‘This sleepover’s gone flat – we need something to liven it up! We have the whole night ahead of us, and Savvy had that hide and seek game to play.’

  Reluctantly, Savvy put her phone away. ‘No more punch,’ she said. ‘And the hide and seek was going to be teams: girls versus boys.’

  ‘We can still play,’ Erin said with a shrug. ‘We’ll just do it the regular way. Who needs boys? We can have just as much fun without them, right?’

  I liked Erin’s declaration. Seeing Luke again and spending some time alone with him out by the tyre swing had been without a doubt the most exciting moment of my entire life. Apart from that magical twenty minutes, though, I couldn’t help feeling that having the boys around had been massively stressful. We’d already been acting cool, showing off for Savvy; when the boys arrived, that had taken on a new edge. Flirting, competing with each other … the fun had ebbed away, replaced by stress, anxiety.

  And when things didn’t work out, we got moody, mean.

  On balance, it had been a whole lot easier before the boys had turned up, when we were clearing up and dancing around the kitchen. Was I the only one to think that way?

  ‘Sure we can; who needs boys?’ Lainey said, a little half-heartedly. ‘You set the rules, Savvy – is anything off-limits?’

  Savvy shrugged. ‘Not really. Just don’t mess anything up, and don’t touch anything if you go into my parents’ room, or Carina’s. And stay in the house, I suppose, or else the search could go on forever.’

  ‘It could go on forever anyway,’ Yaz pointed out. ‘This house is huge! And spooky …’

  ‘It’s not spooky,’ Savvy countered. ‘There are no ghosts; or none that I know about, anyway!’

  ‘All old houses have ghosts, though,’ Erin said, watching my face to see if I was scared. ‘The shadows of the past … of people who died here years ago … people who did bad things. Every house has a history.’

  ‘I’m not scared,’ I said.

  Yaz gave me a sidelong look, remembering the times we’d spent Halloween together, terrifying ourselves with ghost stories and ghoulish pranks. Lainey and Yaz knew me too well; they knew I didn’t like ghost stories, didn’t like the dark. They knew all my weaknesses, just as I knew theirs.

  ‘It won’t be scary,’ Savvy said. ‘It’ll be fun, and it might just burn off some of the sugar high from all those cupcakes! I’ll be the catcher. Last one to be found gets to choose the DVD, OK?’

  ‘OK!’

  Savvy flopped down on the sofa, going back to her phone. ‘Go on, then,’ she said, scanning for messages. ‘I’ll count to a hundred. Scram!’

  We ran. Yaz and Erin made for the stairs, but as I turned to follow them, Lainey grabbed my arm.

  ‘Alice?’ she said. ‘Wait; I know a grea
t place to hide. And Savvy’s bound to look upstairs first, it’s just so obvious …’

  I shrugged out of her grip, undecided.

  ‘Please?’ she said. ‘I need to talk to you. About us; about what happened … about being friends again. And about Luke.’

  Her eyes were wide, helpless. This wasn’t the girl who’d given me the silent treatment for a whole summer and then dumped me for Savvy Hunter; the cold, anxious girl who’d tormented me at Savvy’s bidding had gone, vanished. Lainey was as vulnerable as the girl who used to sit up for hours at childhood sleepovers, telling me about her bullying stepdad, how unhappy she was at home. It was like the last two years hadn’t happened. Lainey needed me, finally, and I was there for her, the way I always had been.

  33

  ICU, Ardenley General Hospital

  Laura Beech is sitting in Alice’s room in the ICU when there is a knock on the window; a quiet knock, tentative and uncertain. Looking up, she sees Savvy Hunter, the pretty blonde teenager who visited two days ago with her irritating mother.

  It had been at Savvy’s sleepover, in Savvy’s home that the accident had happened, and Laura cannot help but feel a wave of anger at the sight of her. Alice is lying in a hospital bed, hanging on to her life by what seems a very slender thread; Savvy is untouched, unhurt, a picture of health and vitality.

  Although when she looks more closely, Laura notices that the teenager looks tired, her eyes shadowed and pink from crying, her painted nails chipped and bitten. She swallows down the anger and stands up to show Savvy in.

  ‘How is Alice?’ the girl asks. ‘Has there been any change? Any improvement?’