The Looking Glass

by Jessica Arnold

  Lillian will be the first to serve the curse; she will become part of this place, just as the witch became part of her mirror.

  Of course, every curse must be carefully crafted. Curses are like artwork, you see—they must be balanced. If the curse is to survive, there must be a way to destroy it; invincibility is against nature. I have not yet decided what the escape will be. Perhaps the witch will help.

  The four elements, of course, I must include. Lillian must burn and hang, drown and be buried. Burial, of course, is simple. Hanging will be simply a matter of finding the rope. Fire will be more difficult, but this attic will do for wood. I shall burn the floorboards, I think. Water is challenging as well, but there is a pond outside my window. I shall lay the body there after it has been touched with fire.

  I mentioned before that I discovered the secret of magic—three and four. The witch included four in her curse, but not three. I believe that this is the reason it was unstable. I shall remedy that in my own experiment. Three chances—that is what I will provide. The victims will each escape three times from their doom. Three times in seven—thrice in a week. This will balance the power of the curse with the victim’s ability to destroy it. But, once that week is over, the victim’s fate will be sealed.

  And that will be the end of it.

  ***

  So that was it.

  Alice let the diary close in her hands. Her eyes drifted and she found herself watching the glow from the lamplight shimmering on the dark ceiling. Elizabeth’s painting as Ophelia stared down at her, a cruel sneer in the curve of her lips. Alice had reluctantly moved into the library only a few hours before, when fear of the dark and uncontrollable nerves forced her to seek out a more enclosed space—one where she could keep a close eye on the one and only door. And yet she was still not sure if she felt any safer in here. The room itself was overbearing, and the painting gave her chills every time she caught a glimpse of it.

  “Three chances, then,” Alice said to the painting. “Is that the secret? But what am I supposed to do? Three chances to do what?”

  The painting offered no answers.

  Alice turned away, clenching her teeth in frustration. If she could only get into the attic—she would find some answers there, she was sure of it. Elizabeth was always talking about the witch’s books that were hidden there, and Alice knew she needed to get her hands on them. If Elizabeth had adapted one of the witch’s curses to her own purposes—to bind a soul to a place—then maybe the witch’s books would show Alice how to break the curse as well. The fact that the attic was locked only made her more desperate to get inside; if the house was trying so hard to keep her out, then she had to try just as hard to get in. Alice hated losing at games.

  Behind the armchair she was sitting in, a grandfather clock counted out the seconds. Alice had been so busy decoding the cryptic handwriting in the diary that she hadn’t looked at the time for hours. Only now did she turn around to see how late it was.

  One hour until midnight.

  “Are you ready for the ball, Cinderella?”

  Alice was so beyond sick of the girl that, as she walked out into the foyer, she had every intention of destroying that mirror, just for the momentary pleasure of it.

  “You don’t know me,” Alice said, taking an umbrella out of the stand by the door, “and I’m just about finished with this.”

  The girl smiled—wide. Her teeth glinted; her voice was sharp.

  “I don’t know you. I am you,” she said. She reached out and stroked the mirror with two thin fingers, and her skin didn’t turn white when pressed against the glass. It was as if the mirror wasn’t there at all and, if she wanted, she could reach her hand all the way through and grab Alice by the throat.

  “You’re not me,” said Alice, preparing to swing the umbrella. “You’re lying to me.”

  “You’re lying to yourself. You do it all the time.”

  “Why would I—”

  “In the night, in the dark, when you tell yourself that everything’s okay. When you pretend that people care. That boy … ”

  Alice leapt forward; the umbrella fell forgotten to the floor. “Don’t you dare bring him into this.”

  But the girl continued on, completely unperturbed.

  “Do you want to know what he really thinks about you? I can show you.”

  “I don’t want—”

  She held up a finger, shook her head. “Lying.”

  “I don’t care—”

  “Do you ever stop?” The girl shook her head and sighed the careworn sigh of a much older person. She reached out toward the mirror, as if to stroke Alice’s hair, but her fingers stopped again at that invisible barrier.

  Alice tried to say something, tried to get the words out, think of an adequate reply. But she realized with horror that the girl was right. She was a walking lie; she couldn’t stop. She lied to her mother all the time. She’d lied to Tony. To herself.

  “I care,” the girl said gently. “I care.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Alice whispered, stepping away from the mirror again.

  “Let me prove it to you. Let me in.”

  “In?” A chill coursed down her spine. Surely the girl didn’t mean … couldn’t mean …

  “In,” the girl said again.

  “No.” Alice shook her head, crossing her arms in front of her. “Absolutely not. Even if I could—”

  “But you can,” crooned the girl. “You just have to wish it.”

  “Why would I ever … ? You … you’re all wrong.”

  “We’re both wrong. Surely you see that? Let me help you. I want to help you.”

  Alice was silent. Her skin tingled and she ached to turn around and run somewhere—into the library, maybe, where there were no mirrors for the girl to torture her with. But she couldn’t do it, couldn’t work up the will to simply turn and leave. It was as if some heavy, painful lump inside of her were weighing her down, gluing her feet to the floor. Her heart felt heavy in her chest and throbbed when the girl spoke.

  Wrong. Both wrong.

  The long-gone words still echoed in her ears, and she began to wonder if they were true. It seemed far too coincidental—too random—for the house to have simply singled her out. What if the curse picked her because she was different in some way? What if it picked her to destroy because somehow she was already broken?

  “You see,” said the girl, softly now, “I can help you understand.”

  Alice looked up. The throbbing inside of her was stronger now, like a drum, like an extra heart beating. Her hands shook; her mind reeled. But she wanted it so very badly—to understand, after all this confusion. She looked into the witch’s eyes; they were so brilliant they seemed to glow amber through the glass. She had a slight upturn to the corners of her lips, a grin that made Alice sure she knew more than she was saying. Alice did want answers, and if the witch was really offering to tell her …

  “But I can’t,” she whispered. The cost was too high; the consequences would surely be dire.

  The girl looked down and clasped her hands together. Her triangle bracelets clanked like old bells when she moved her arms.

  “I know what he thought when he saw you the very first time. I know how his heart was pounding.”

  “You don’t know anything about Tony,” Alice said quickly, fighting back her nearly unbearable curiosity. She told herself that it didn’t matter. What was it to her if Tony felt one way or another? Knowing his heart rate—no matter how fast—wasn’t going to get her out of this mess.

  The girl let out a tiny laugh—barely more than a hiccup. “I know everything about him. If you would just let me show you—”

  “You don’t know him. It’s not possible.” Alice said the words, but wasn’t sure she believed them. After all, the girl had shown her things from her own life that she couldn’t possibly have known, or at least shouldn’t have.

  The girl laughed again.

  “Look at yourself. You aren’t possible. None
of this is possible. Reality doesn’t apply here—not the reality you’ve always known.”

  Alice tried to think of something wrong with the girl’s reasoning—if she could only catch her in a lie, then she would know once and for all that the girl was not to be trusted. But she couldn’t find anything to disagree with, and for a moment she found herself almost believing. She protested anyway. “I just don’t—”

  “Don’t believe me? Why should you? You and I—we aren’t fools.” Her lips were parted; she was breathing hard. “But you don’t have to believe me. You just have to give me a chance to prove it you. Let me in—just for a minute—and if you want you can send me right back out.”

  Alice’s heart was pounding now. Her head throbbed. Proof was what she wanted. Proof was what she needed. Her mind was whirling; the girl’s proposal sounded possible … teetered on the verge of being acceptable. “I can do that?”

  The girl’s lips curled into a not entirely pleasant smile. “This is your party.”

  But again Alice drew back. “If you want to help me so much, you can tell me what you know from out there. With the mirror. Just—you know—blow on it.”

  The girl’s eyes glinted gold. “But it isn’t enough to just watch. I can let you feel what he felt. And I can’t describe it to you, either—not with words. It doesn’t work in words, doesn’t mean anything. I could tell you right now that he thought you were beautiful when he saw your face for the first time, but I can’t describe to you how much he wanted to reach out and just hold your hand … there are things that you have to feel for yourself.”

  “He thought … ” She swallowed hard over the sudden lump in her throat. “He thought that I … ”

  “Beautiful.”

  Her resolve swayed dangerously, threatened to break. He had thought that? She couldn’t suppress a smile. Could it be possible that the witch knew—that she was telling the truth? Maybe it was worth letting her in, just to find out. After all, if she didn’t let her help, she would always wonder …

  What other things had he thought about her? If the girl was right—if she could know … the idea sent a thrill through her, which was quickly followed by a rush of guilt. It was like holding her mother’s diary in her hands again, turning it over and over, feeling the fabric of the cover, knowing that she shouldn’t look inside … not quite able to turn away …

  “I won’t hurt you. I can’t hurt you. I’m just a figment. I don’t have any power over you.”

  If the girl wanted to hurt her, surely she would have already.

  “Why haven’t you asked to come in before?” Alice asked.

  The girl shook her head. “Would you have let me?”

  Alice didn’t need to answer.

  The girl blinked—once, twice, three times—watching Alice silently from the other side of the mirror. Witch or not, she didn’t look dangerous. She looked very helpless and very alone and Alice was so alone and what was the harm in it? Two lonely girls helping each other to understand. No harm. No fear. What did she have to lose? Her life? But her life was already as good as lost.

  Her palms were sweating. This felt wrong.

  She had no right to look into Tony’s mind. But she did need to know more about the witch—needed to learn whether she was friend or foe—and what better way to figure it out than by taking her up on all these promises she had made? I don’t want to do it, she told herself, but I have to. And then, He would understand.

  He would do the same thing.

  “Come in,” she said. The words had a dire sound to them. The girl smiled, twirled around, and then, without warning, she was next to Alice and very, very real. Her eyes sparkled and she reached out a pale hand.

  “You can trust me,” she said.

  Alice hesitated for only a moment. She took the girl’s hand and it was cold, but solid.

  “Do it,” Alice demanded, before she could regret this.

  The girl nodded, and then …

  The flood of feelings and sounds and images rushed into Alice’s mind with a force that knocked away everything else. Fears and doubts were crushed into nothing under the weight of it. Everything was gone; even Alice herself disappeared into the smallest corner of her mind, watching the events unfolding before her as if she were watching a movie. But no movie was ever this absorbing. She didn’t just see—she felt, she smelled, she touched. She was there, in Tony’s body, seeing everything unfold from his perspective, feeling just what he had felt.

  At first it was beautiful.

  He pulled her out of the pool and her wet hair smelled like chlorine and sunshine. Her skin was soft. She felt very light in his arms—too light, as if she weren’t even there. But she was there—he knew she was, because when she looked up at him with those amber eyes he felt the strangest tugging inside of him. He had seen pretty girls before, felt things before, but this girl was … she was different. She was scared and her cheeks were red from the cold and her face was so beautiful in the moonlight. Her eyes had that look about them, as though she had seen things, felt things, and he knew that look because sometimes he saw it in his own eyes when he looked in the mirror. Smart, she was smart, too—something intelligent about the arch of her eyebrow, the way she looked at him.

  And he wanted—what was wrong with him?—he just wanted to make her smile at him. So he said something (What had he said? It was so stupid. Why had he said that?) and she moved farther away from him (“I would have been fine,” she said) and he felt like such an idiot and he just wanted to reach out and hold her and tell her that she was all right, that she was safe now.

  She moved and her thin dress clung to her body like a swimsuit. He was talking to her and every word he said seemed wrong the minute it left his lips. Was she okay? He started to wonder … she seemed upset. He wanted to get his dad but she stopped him and he couldn’t break away now. She wanted his help. His help.

  Help her. He could help her. He went to get his laptop, saw his dad asleep. He wanted to laugh, wanted to tell someone he’d just met her.

  I just don’t like anyone, Mom, okay? So stop bugging me. He’d said that not two weeks before.

  Never been in love yet? You’re really in for it. You just wait.

  He was in for it. This was incredible.

  This was terrible. He was terrified. She was sitting in the grass; her hair had fallen in messy curls around her face. Courage. He just needed a little bit of courage. She was just a girl.

  When she came to sit next to him, his heart nearly stopped. She was leaning over his shoulder to see the computer screen; he could feel her breathing. He imagined he could hear her heart beating, but no—that was his own heart pounding. Surely she would hear it; she would know how scared he was.

  He pulled up the article she was pointing at. Alice. It was a nice name. The girl in the picture smiled at him from the screen—not a full smile, but a tight-lipped one. That was the way he always smiled for school pictures. He stared at the picture, transfixed. He had never felt like this before and it frightened him to no end. Was this normal? How did people live like this? Would it ever go away?

  Alice. The picture of her said everything he needed to know: she was like him, she would understand him, he could understand her …

  Alice.

  No.

  He blinked. The picture came into sharper focus. He looked at the girl beside him. Back at the picture.

  And then—no, surely he was imagining things. People didn’t just sink into the ground and disappear. He didn’t understand. He crawled to the spot where she had vanished, whispering her name as if it was some incantation that might bring her back. He ran his fingers across the grass, felt it bend under his palms, slammed his hands into the hard dirt, pounded it, but it didn’t give.

  He stumbled backward and pulled his knees into his chest; his computer was still open and he numbly read the article on the screen. The girl stared at him with unblinking eyes. He slammed the computer shut and stood; he needed to move, needed to breathe.

>   A ghost. She was a ghost.

  His breathing became panting and he paced faster—back and forth—panicking more with every step.

  Then there was fear. Alice could feel it as he remembered—she remembered too now—the time he had seen a ghost before. Walking by a funeral on his way home from school—a shortcut through the graveyard. The people were talking and he was walking by, silent, and then, suddenly, she was in front of him—an old woman with wild gray hair laughing like a maniac. He screamed and people turned around to stare at him. Can’t you see her? Can’t you hear her? They stared blankly, and still she laughed and laughed and leapt forward and reached for his throat. He fell to the ground as the people watched, murmuring to each other. She’s going to kill me! She was going to kill him. Someone was calling the police. And then the woman was gone and he ran, ran, ran all the way home and didn’t leave his room for the rest of the day.

  Alice. He was back now. His arms were tingling. He was still afraid. He grabbed his laptop and hurried up to his room, was tempted to wake his father. But he couldn’t tell his dad about this—his dad would never let it go, and he just wanted to forget the whole thing. He hadn’t even told him about the other time. He would never tell anyone. And who would believe him anyway?

  He turned around and fled the room, running as fast as he could down the hallway, his feet making the floor creak as they pounded on the rug. He ran down the stairs and out the front door, stuck his key in his pocket and just kept running.

  And that was when everything changed from beautiful to terrifying, when Alice felt her own body cringe and pull away from the girl’s small hand. She could not break away; the pull was just too strong. The images kept coming—a horrible movie that would not stop.

  He was breathing hard from running, but still was cold. The girl—she had taken his sweatshirt with her, back to wherever it was she came from. And that didn’t seem right somehow. Ghosts couldn’t do that, could they? He closed his eyes and tried to remember exactly what had happened—exactly how it had happened, because something about the whole thing unsettled him in a way that had nothing to do with the fact that the girl was a ghost and he had been a big enough idiot to fall for her. There was something else going on here, something strange. When he’d lifted her out of the water, she’d been light—it was true—but real weight in his arms, like a real person.