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Alice and Meg had spent the better part of an hour trying the many doors throughout the mansions hallways. Several of them proved to be mere decorations that led nowhere or wouldn't even open. A few revealed storage closets with nothing to store. Once in a while they would find a dining area or study containing furniture that seemed to be bolted to the floor and very little they could interact with. Alice had wondered aloud if the place had meant to be a museum, to which Meg had no response.
They hadn't found anything to eat, and after a while they'd forgotten it was the reason they'd gone exploring. A confusion about the mansion's layout had become the more pressing concern, as they found themselves hopelessly lost in the maze of corridors.
Meg reached for the next handle and felt the door give a little. "That one is a façade," Alice told her but Meg ignored the suggestions, throwing all of her weight into it. The portal flung open; a small cloud of dust causing Meg to cough.
"Goodness, Miss Meg! Are you all right?"
"I've breathed worse," said Meg. "Although not by much, considering what dust is."
"My apologies. I was so sure I tried that door already."
"I think we're both pretty turned around." The room had a double bed with drapes, a small dresser with a missing mirror, and a stack of large blocks with letters carved and painted on them. An open window revealed the night sky. "Bedroom," observed Meg.
"Nursery by the looks of it," said Alice. "Who would care for children in a place like this?"
"Doll, there are people who don't care for children in any place."
Meg lingered in the hallway, doing her best to beat the dust out of her hair while Alice scurried inside the room. A quick press on the cushions confirmed that the bed was real. The blocks were permanently fixed in place but the dresser drawers properly slid in and out. This was the only room they'd been in for some time that seemed to serve a function other than appearance.
Alice produced an untouched hairbrush from a top drawer. "Will this help, Miss Meg?"
"Sure, thanks." Meg meandered over to Alice's location, glancing around the nursery, her mind replaying a series of unpleasant things that could conceivably drop down on them from the ceiling. She reached for the brush, but Alice wasn't ready to relinquish it.
"Forgive my impertinence," she explained, "but may I?"
"You want to brush my hair?"
"If it's not a bother. Your hair is so lovely."
Meg shrugged and sat down at the dresser, removing the ribbon that held it in place. "Happy to pawn off the ordeal."
"Thank you. I often brush my sister's hair, and I'm very fond of it."
"The two of you pretty close?"
"Quite." Alice smiled, running the bristles through several feet of auburn. "How long did it take you to grow?"
Meg sighed. "A lifetime or two. Lots and lots of mornings of waking up looking like a gorgon." Alice giggled at the comment, and Meg couldn't help but feel pleased. "You just have the one sister?"
"Oh Heavens no. I have nine brothers and sisters altogether." Alice brushed a few more strokes before becoming distracted by her thoughts. "How odd that I can't remember any of their names."
"It's okay Lilies, I think we're both a few petals shy of a bouquet. I don't even remember if I have siblings. Or children for that matter."
"I certainly hope not. I imagine any child of yours would miss you terribly."
"Wow," said Meg. "I wasn't expecting you to say anything that sweet."
For a few minutes neither of them spoke, with only the sounds of Alice's brushstrokes and the night sky through the open window filling the room.
"You know, I don't think there's anything for us here in the mansion," said Meg. "We should probably leave in the morning. Through this window so we don't get lost in the halls again."
"Agreed." Alice set the brush down on the dresser. "Would you like me to retie the ribbon for you?"
"What I really want is a mirror."
Alice fished around in the drawers. "I imagine the former owner of this dresser may have shared the sentiment." As her logic dictated, she found a well-crafted hand mirror tucked away in the bottommost drawer.
"Lucky guess," said Meg. She took the mirror and stared dumbfounded at her reflection. "You know, I barely recognize myself? I can't even remember the last time I let my hair down."
"It's a pity we're not dreaming, because that makes for such a wonderful metaphor."
Alice's smile was contagious and Meg couldn't help but admire the young girl's unending cleverness. But Meg's sense of delight almost immediately fell away to the harsh truth of what she'd been afraid to admit she believed.
"Alice, there's something we haven't talked about."
Meg's solemnity made Alice tremble a little inside, but she was determined to keep it to herself. "I'm listening."
"I think I know why we keep forgetting things the way we do." Meg searched for an easy way to break the news, but there wasn't one. "We might be dead."
Alice stood quietly. And thought.
And thought.
"That's a perfectly valid possibility," she said at last.
Meg blinked. "Really? That's your reaction? I thought you'd be a bit more broken up about it."
"Perhaps I will be. But right now I'm curious as to why you think so."
"Experience. I know death's superintendent. He's a nasty piece of work. And I've watched many people die. A lot of them try to covet what they know, and it always slips away from them and it's always awful. The worst ones are the ones who don't think they're dead because they'd rather suffer than be wrong."
"So if this is the case, how do we cooperate?"
"I honestly have no idea."
Alice nodded, and without another word put her arms around Meg's shoulders and gently squeezed her.
"Are you crying," asked Meg.
"No. I'm only saying thank you. For being such a good friend. Just in case I don't get another chance."
Meg hugged her back. "Then thank you as well."
They held onto each other for a moment. Then Alice took a step back and resumed her most cherished demeanor where she seemed to be quoting a lecture. "Whenever faced with a problem too big to solve, always break it down into smaller portions in order to invoke progress and alleviate frustration."
Meg smirked. "Did that saying come with lottery numbers on the back?"
"It came with good advice," said Alice, moving back around to the opposite side of Meg's reflection in the hand mirror. "Would you like your hair tied the way it was?"
Meg examined her reflection, weighing a few options before giving Alice an over the shoulder wink. "I don't know. Show me something I haven't seen before."
It took Meg a moment to realize that Alice's expression had changed to one of shock, the young girl involuntarily taking a step backwards. "What's wrong?" she asked, but Alice couldn't speak.
Meg turned her attention to the open window, assuming whatever had spooked Alice would be coming from the outside. In doing so she almost missed spotting the image that had appeared in the hand mirror; a full row of teeth from a dark figure that appeared to be lunging for her. On reflex she dropped the mirror on the dresser and bolted from the chair grabbing Alice and pulling her to the side, against the wall.
Meg surveyed everything from the window to the hall until she was convinced the vision had not been reflected from a threat in the room with them. "You okay Lilies?"
Alice hadn't realized she'd been holding her breath. "That gave me quite a fright."
Meg placed her hand over her own heart. "I think it gave me something else."
The mirror lay face down on the dresser, and Meg tentatively reached for the handle and turned it around to where she could see the glass. It was dark, but a few elements were discernible; rocks, sand, and a couple of spider-like plants that waved back and forth.
"Oh my," said Alice. "If I'm not mistaken, that appears to be the ocean floor. Do you think this mirror is magical?"
Meg flipped it around to the back to examine the workmanship. "It's definitely something."
"Perhaps it reacted to your words. Why don't we have it show us something else?"
"Yeah, hang on. Sometimes these things have limited uses." The carvings were elaborate, but they weren't telling her anything. "Okay, let me think. Show me..." She was about to ask to see Hades but changed her mind. One, she honestly didn't want to see him. Two, she was convinced by now that this wasn't his doing. And three, the huge shadow that engulfed the image of the ocean floor (accompanied by a single white eye) proved to be distracting up until the point that the image dissolved back to Meg's irritated expression. "No, no, no! You stupid piece of-"
"It's all right, Miss Meg. The looking glass may only be able to respond to what you say out loud, and your last words were 'show me'. It's reasonable to conclude it thought you wanted to see yourself again."
"Good thinking," Meg sighed. "Show us that same place again."
As quickly as it had gone, the image was back; momentarily blocked out by the massive tail of the sea creature. "Curious," said Alice. "May I try it?"
Meg happily relinquished the item. "All yours."
"Good evening looking glass. Would you be so kind as to show us the moment Miss Meg and I first met in the meadow?"
The image flickered to a silvery hue, pulsating as if it was trying to do something beyond its capabilities. For a few seconds nothing happened. And then the reflection of Alice in the nursery resumed.
"Maybe it doesn't respond as well to politeness," Meg offered.
"On the contrary. The looking glass seems inclined to appease any request it is given, but it may have limitations. I believe it can only show us things in the present, not memories."
"Can it show us the way out of here?"
"Let's see. Looking glass, can you show us the way out?"
The image twisted around to show them the window that was a few feet away from them.
"Cute," muttered Meg. "You can't tell me that thing isn't being facetious."
Alice's eyebrows perked up. "Did you know that the word 'facetious' is the shortest word to contain all five vowels in order?"
"Um...no, I did not know that but I do now- can I have the mirror back?"
Alice stifled a laugh as she gave up the magical device.
"How do we get out of this whole...place? This world?" Meg asked the mirror. Her reflection did nothing but scowl back at her. Meg rolled her eyes. "Show us the way out of this world." The image struggled with the demand but managed to only accomplish blinking silver again. "I kind of figured you wouldn't be that cooperative."
"Perhaps there's a means to ascertain the reason we're both in this predicament," Alice suggested.
Meg asked the mirror to show them why they were there, which was only met with a blank slate. Where they should go next turned up nothing as well. "Either it's drying up or it has an aversion to being helpful," Meg sneered. "Back to basics then. Show us who's in charge."
The mirror sputtered and went black before revealing a new location; a large room with a row of shelves and box-like objects emitting a kind of light source with which neither Meg nor Alice was familiar. And a shape shifted slowly in front of one of the boxes. The placement of the light made it impossible to make out features other than the outline, but the individual seemed lean of build with a pair of appendages protruding from his or her head.
"Is that Miss Maleficent?" asked Alice?
Meg examined the protrusions as best she could. "I don't think so. She had horns, or a headdress with horns. These look like they have some mobility."
"Like a rabbit?" Alice said proudly.
Meg grumbled. "Yes, possibly like a rabbit. I'll believe anything at this point." She handed the mirror back to Alice without waiting to be asked.
"You'll see," Alice promised. "Looking glass? Would you please show me the face of the rabbit?"
In much the same way the image had rotated when it showed them the open window earlier, the room in the mirror spun around to face the creature directly. But a split second before it could show any facial details, the rabbit ducked down, and dove out of the way when the surveillance tried to refocus. From there, the mirror began chasing the rabbit around the room, with the animal managing to stay just barely out of sight.
"Someone doesn't want to be spotted," said Meg.
"Which means he's also aware that we're looking."
Whatever entertainment they were to derive from the pursuit was cut short by a sharp bang so loud that Alice almost dropped the mirror. "What was that?"
"It came from above!" No confirmation was necessary as the ceiling was clearly lowering. "Someone REALLY doesn't want to be spotted."
Meg and Alice leaned out the window, but between the night sky and the mist surrounding the mansion, they couldn't see more than a few feet below them.
"Miss Meg, we'll be crushed if we stay here!"
"Agreed. Wish me happy landing." Meg slipped out the window and hanged as low as she could before disappearing into the mist. A second later there was the sound of impact somewhere between thud and splash. "Oh gods! It's like marsh!"
"Are you harmed?"
"No, it's just a one story drop," Meg called.
A one story drop didn't sound like much, but every place they'd been in the mansion had a very high ceiling, at first anyway. The one in the nursery was now pressing down on the top of the double bed splintering the posts under its weight. Alice shifted uncomfortably. She was notably shorter than Meg, and the possibility of hurting herself was greater. But the only other possibility was to sprint back to the hallway, and she wouldn't dare risk being alone in a place like this.
"I'm sending down the looking glass Miss Meg!" said Alice, as she dropped it out the window.
"Forget the looking- Ow! Okay, got it! Come on!"
Alice climbed out onto the ledge as the structure swallowed up the nursery behind her.. "I can do this," she tried to assure herself, with no reason to believe her own words.
"I see you Lilies! You're going to be fine."
"I'm frightened, Miss Meg."
"I don't blame you. I promise it's not as bad as it looks from there. Just think happy thoughts and step forward."
Alice swallowed hard. "It's only a story," she whispered.
And then she was falling.
Continue to Chapter Seventeen
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