The Looking Glass

by Jessica Arnold

  “What would it prove? Life after death? You’re not dead.”

  “But at least it would show … something … ”

  “It depends.” He shrugged. His voice was tight. “To some people it would just prove that some lunatics would do anything—even fake a death—to prove a point. There would be lots of people who would believe it, sure, but they’d be the ones who always thought there was something more to death than just disappearing—the ones already looking for proof. And then, when you wake up—”

  She noticed he said when, not if.

  “—it won’t mean anything. People will say my dad filmed it after you came out of the coma and no one will believe it at all.”

  “But I still don’t understand why he destroyed it.”

  Tony frowned. “I guess he just didn’t want his best evidence taken by the police. Maybe he’d never get it back.”

  The manager was wringing out his shirt. He eyed George closely, as though worried he was going to make a run for it.

  “Do you believe?” Alice asked. She knew that she should be talking with Tony about the witch—using her time to figure out how she was going to save herself—but her mind was tired of puzzling over the witch’s cryptic note. Her body ached for rest and she wished she could sit there forever, leaning on Tony’s arm. She envied statues, how they rested for ages, frozen in time.

  Time. Time was flying by, and even though there were things she needed to figure out, there were other things she needed, too—things that she wanted to take with her if she was to die. She craved moments to cling to, moments unsullied by the witch. A mental gag reflex that she could not control strangled the questions she knew she should be asking. The minute she even thought of the curse, something inside of her clenched up and pushed back.

  “Do I believe what?”

  “That there’s something else. You know … after.”

  His frown deepened. He readjusted his legs. “It doesn’t matter.” He wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Who cares what I think? We need to talk about you and the curse. This thing about hate—could you tell me again?”

  “Not now,” she sighed. Thinking about the curse made her stomach spin like a hamster wheel. And she was just sick … so sick … “Can’t I have one moment?”

  “I can tell you how many moments you have. Sixty. And thirty of them are already gone.” Tony’s voice sounded unnecessarily harsh to her. Her hands went cold the way they did when her dad yelled at her, even though Tony was barely whispering.

  She pulled away from him and hunched over her legs, steadying herself. Her head spun the moment she moved—from anger or from weakness, she wasn’t sure.

  “Is it possible in order to understand her hate, you have to feel it?” asked Tony. “Maybe if you could just try to hate all the things that she didn’t like, that would do it.”

  “I’ve been trapped for six days with nothing to do but think about this. Tell me something I haven’t thought of,” she snarled.

  He reached out and put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he said, and she felt a gut wrench of shame that passed in an instant, “I’m sorry to push you. I just … I really want to help you. I need to know that you’ll be okay.”

  “Why?” she said dully.

  He pulled his hand away.

  “You really don’t know what other people see in you, do you?” asked Tony.

  She refused to meet his eyes. Her own were burning. There was too much inside of her and some of it had to come out and it was coming out as water.

  “Do you know what you need?” continued Tony, when Alice said nothing. “You need someone to tell you all the good things about yourself every day, every hour—on the hour. You need someone telling you that you’re wonderful until you finally believe it.” His voice faltered, but he pushed on regardless. “You need someone telling you that they love you.”

  There was something about the certainty in his voice that made her feel warm—heat in her chest that unfurled up and down her body. It made her want to burst out in tears. It welled up inside of her and she tried to stop it from gushing out, but she couldn’t.

  A loud, piercing sob escaped her lips.

  She froze. Tony stiffened.

  A few tears rolled down her cheeks.

  “What was that?” asked the hotel manager.

  George looked a little paler than usual, but said calmly, “A bird, most likely. Lots of birds around here. That’s why you put them on the room keys, right? Very clever of you. Really charming—”

  But the manager was not listening. He was marching toward the copse of trees. Alice clung to Tony’s arm.

  “Are you hiding there, girl?” asked the manager. He was coming straight toward them. He was close enough that she could see his rounded belly jiggling under his soaked shirt. She leaned forward, hand pressed against the grass, fingers wide—like a runner crouched at the starting block.

  “Check it out if you want,” said George coolly, hurrying to catch up to him. “But I think I know a bird when I hear one.”

  The manager acted as if he had not heard.

  He was coming close. She could hear his feet when they hit the ground … bare feet, he’d taken his wet shoes off … he was smiling. Why was he smiling? Smiling like a man who had just won. Could he see them? Oh God, he could see them.

  Her muscles tightened. Panic was raging like a wildfire in her mind and she didn’t think about what she was doing—all she knew was that she screamed and leapt to her feet and that she, who had only a moment ago been barely able to hold herself upright, somehow managed to drag Tony up with her. She ran and he began to run with her, his hand in hers.

  Only this time it was not Tony pulling her, but rather her leading Tony toward the only place she could think to go. The hotel loomed forbiddingly before her, but it was familiar, and Alice, in her alarm, sought only familiarity.

  The hotel manager was close behind them, and though Alice did not dare to turn around, she could hear his footsteps as he pounded the lawn, hot on their trail. He let out a shout so gleeful that it sent Alice’s nerves spinning to entirely new levels of terror. George shouted something indistinct in the distance.

  “The back,” Tony panted, pulling her to the right. “We left it unlocked.”

  They dashed to the door. Tony pushed Alice inside first, then hurried through and locked it behind him. Fists pounded the wood.

  “My key—where is it?” the manager was screaming. “It was in my pocket—”

  “I haven’t touched—”

  “The pool … it must be—”

  Alice glanced back out the window and saw the manager sprinting away. He would find the key soon; she was sure of it. She needed a better hiding place. She needed to run. Alice grabbed Tony’s hand and pulled him through the hotel. The library. She would go to the library. Exactly why the idea appealed to her so strongly, she could not explain; perhaps it was because, somehow, the library was the center of all of this. That was where she had found the diary. That was where the mist had walled her in.

  She dragged Tony inside, closing the door behind them. Then she hurried over to the couch, tried to lift it, but found that it was heavier than she expected.

  Tony hurried over and picked up the other end.

  “The door,” Alice said.

  “I know.”

  Alice struggled under her end of the couch; Tony did most of the heavy lifting. Between her stumbling and his, they managed to get it pushed against the door—a makeshift blockade. Alice bent over, hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath.

  The hotel was silent. At least for now.

  She walked numbly to a wall and sank to the floor, her brain just beginning to process what she had done. She wrung her hands, then slammed a fist into the rug. She had tried to run away from the manager and there she was—hiding right smack in the middle of his hotel. A locked door would not keep him out for long. He would find the key in the pool. Or he would break down the door.

  “I
t’s over, isn’t it?” she said. “It’s too late. My time’s almost up and here we are. Stuck. And I don’t know anything new about the curse. And I just don’t see how … ” She was sitting with her back crushed against the library wall. Huddled up in that dark, musty room, Alice didn’t think she had ever felt quite so helpless, quite so alone. Tony came and sat down next to her and she still couldn’t shake the feeling that she had nothing and no one; she put her hand on Tony’s knee and felt the comforting heat of his skin under hers, and the warmth inside of her burned even more furiously and she felt tears making little paths down her cheeks because she was so afraid to lose him and be alone again.

  Tony reached out and brushed them away; he left his hand on her cheek for a second too long.

  And Alice cried harder, because somehow this made everything worse.

  “I told you my parents are divorced, didn’t I?” Tony finally said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, some relationships just fall apart, you know? But my parents … well, they sort of … exploded. They don’t just not love each other any more—they hate each other. My mom said once that the only reason she hates my dad so much is because she used to love him. She says that’s what happens when you completely love someone and then they disappoint you—hurt you so deeply that you can’t forgive them. When you don’t care about someone, it just sort of stings. It’s love that makes hate possible. Maybe you shouldn’t be asking what Elizabeth hated. Maybe you should be asking what she loved. She loved William, didn’t she? Maybe you need to hate William, too.”

  Alice didn’t say anything. Hate William? Even if Tony was right and Elizabeth had hated him most, then it wouldn’t do Alice any good. She hadn’t ever loved William. He was a lying, cheating scoundrel.

  “It won’t work,” Alice said in a half whisper. “I’m never going to get out of this. I’m going to die tonight. I’m going to die.”

  “No.” Tony surprised her by taking her shoulders and staring her straight in the eye. “No, Alice. You can’t talk like that.”

  She actually laughed—threw her head back and laughed.

  “How? Tell me how! Give me the answer! Now would be a good time.”

  But Tony only tightened his grip on her shoulders, as though if he held on tight enough he could keep her there—single-handedly drag her away from the inevitable.

  “It matters, Alice. You don’t even know how much it matters.” His voice was quiet, strong and smooth as steel. Alice looked at his eyes and felt her heart give the strangest leap. A tingling sensation rushed through her, starting in her chest and sweeping all the way to her fingers and toes. She shivered.

  “Does it matter?” she asked. She was digging for an answer and she didn’t care. She had to know, once and for all. “Who does it matter to?”

  “To your family, your friends, everyone you know,” Tony said. But Alice shook her head and repeated, a little desperately, “Tony. Who does it matter to?” He gulped and looked away for a second. Alice sat there silently. Her mouth was hanging open and she was breathless; the tingling rushed through her again.

  At last, Tony spoke.

  “It matters to me.”

  There were footsteps in the hallway—loud, pounding footsteps. They’d gotten inside even faster than she had expected.

  Maybe it didn’t even matter because they were here either way. She glanced up at the grandfather clock—identical to the one in her own version of the library. Only a few minutes left until one. Only a few minutes left to be truly alive.

  “Where did they go?” she heard the hotel manager demand.

  “Please!” said George. “Please, will you just listen to me?”

  But the manager wasn’t listening anymore. Alice clutched Tony’s hand as one pair of footsteps came closer, then stopped outside the library doors.

  “They’re in here,” yelled the manager. “I know they are! I never close these.”

  The doorknob jangled as he tried to open it.

  “No matter—I have a master key!”

  He hurried off. Alice looked halfheartedly for a window—an escape—but she already knew it was useless. The library was the heart of the hotel. There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. Alice felt the world spin around her—a confusing blur of sound and time. Senseless.

  “Alice.” Tony grabbed her shoulders. “I don’t care what you have to do—what you have to believe—just tell yourself that you’re going to make it. Don’t give up on me, Alice. Don’t give up on yourself.”

  “You really do care,” she said, and this was the very first time she had truly understood that. The revelation was a beam of sunlight in the dark room. She felt it warm her bloodless face, lighten the darkest corners of her mind. She was dizzy.

  “Of course I care. And that’s why I need you”—he was having trouble speaking—“I need you to promise me that you won’t give up. That you’ll keep trying.”

  “I never thought that anyone could care,” she said dumbly.

  “Then that’s your mistake.”

  A key jangled in the lock.

  Tony turned to look at the door, but Alice grabbed his arm and he swung back to look at her. The dizziness had now become so bad that Alice could have sworn the room was spinning around her, that she was at the center of everything, perhaps of the entire world.

  The lock turned.

  Alice knew it was her last chance; she had death in front of her and everything behind her and none of it mattered except for the fact that Tony liked her. Loved her, even! It was marvelous. The whole world was twisting round and round and Alice couldn’t tell up from down or left from right.

  “I’ve never been kissed,” she whispered.

  He almost laughed, but his eyes were red and when he spoke he sounded more sad than amused.

  “Well, why didn’t you tell me that earlier?”

  He leaned toward her; the door began to swing open and Alice leaned in, could feel the warmth of his breath on her lips. There were people running toward her and shouting and flashing lights and Alice didn’t care about any of it. She closed her eyes.

  The clock struck.

  “Tony!” she cried, but it was too late. Just as their lips were about to meet, she began to slip into the floor. Tony reached out for her desperately and grabbed hold of her hand, but Alice’s arm slid out of his grasp like water. In fact, Alice was all water. She slid through the real floor and dripped into the prison hotel, dripped back into that awful place.

  She landed on the floor and Tony was gone. Alice was entirely alone.

  Alice crumpled onto the floor, her hands making nonexistent handprints in the nonexistent carpet. In her mind, she could see Tony, still standing where she had left him with his arms stretched out and that terrible, helpless look on his face. And now he truly was helpless. No matter what he would have liked to do, there was no way Tony would be able to help her now. There wasn’t even a way for her to help herself anymore.

  The mist on the wall opposite her glowed faintly, like moonlight. She curled up into a tiny ball on the floor; her heart ached and hopelessness filled her—water into an empty glass. As much as she tried not to think about him, Tony’s face … his eyes, his smile … haunted her. Her family smiled at her from far away and she could barely see them through the fog. She wanted to escape the images, but somehow she couldn’t.

  Wasn’t that funny? She, the ghost, the shadow, was being haunted by reality. But, the more she thought about it, the more sense it made. If you were alive, you could still make things right. But, once you stopped living, you were stuck with yourself—stuck just the way you were when you left. Living people had no need to be haunted by anything; it was the dead (or not-quite dead) that lived in memories—always remembering what they once were.

  “And what am I?” Alice whispered to the heartless room. “What am I?”

  It was a good question, but Alice didn’t have any answers. The only thing she was sure of was that she had always had this angry voice in h
er head, shouting that, whatever she was, it wasn’t enough. She wasn’t good enough. Somehow, despite her best efforts, she was doomed to be forever inadequate.

  “I can’t do this,” she said to herself. The riddle was too vague and she was too confused to come up with any good answer. Maybe there wasn’t one. Maybe this nebulous promise of escape was just another way for this place to eat her up—destroy her completely. Another cog in a killing machine. She thought of her own body in the hospital, kept alive by a machine that had taken the place of her heart. Was she too only a machine? And when they pulled the plug, would that be the end of it?

  “Just let me go, will you?” she shouted, breaking the dead silence around her. “It’s over, Elizabeth—you win. I can’t solve your riddle, so just let me die.” Tony wouldn’t mind. Her family didn’t need her. It wouldn’t matter.

  I am you. Maybe the witch had been right about everything after all.

  The sound of her voice died away into the stale air that seemed too frail to support much of anything. She closed her eyes and waited for something—she was not sure exactly what. Curled up on the carpet, she waited for what seemed like a very long time. But she felt nothing. There was no slow breeze against her skin, dissolving her body into nothing but dust in the air. Nor was there a ripping pain to tear her away from the world. She opened her eyes and saw the room around her, calm and quiet as ever.

  So this was it? She was supposed to sit and wait until the fatal moment when she really did die? Was she expected to simply contemplate the hopelessness of her situation while, miles away, her heart thudded out the rest of its numbered beats? No. She would not stand for it.

  She thought of the mist. She only had vague memories of it now, but she thought she remembered peace and white and softness. Maybe if she just walked in, she could forget all this. Though last time it had left her right back where she started. No, the mist was no escape. It was the house that she needed to fight.

  She shook her fist at the ceiling. “Do you hear me?”

  There was no answer, so, pulled to her feet by a quiet, last surge of energy, Alice rushed over to the fireplace, reached up, and ripped the painting from the wall. She threw it to the ground at her feet, where it lay silent as Elizabeth’s wild eyes stared into hers.