The Looking Glass Page 9

  “It doesn’t matter. Eventually you won’t have a choice.” The girl shook her head at the mirror and Alice, angry that this conversation was turning up nothing useful at all, turned her back and walked to the other side of the room, taking deep breaths to calm herself. What if the girl was right? What if the mist ate up more and more space until there was nowhere left to hide? Alice clasped her trembling hands together.

  At least one thing seemed clear—the witch was in no great hurry to harm her. Alice still had no idea (and wasn’t about to ask) if the girl could get free of the mirror, but for now she seemed content to stay there. And Alice, oddly enough, felt much better now that she knew exactly where the witch was. It was easier when she could keep an eye on her, when she didn’t have to worry about her popping up unexpectedly.

  It was morning now—of that she was fairly certain. Steady sounds came from the hallway mirror and a couple of families kept coming in and out. Some little boy was screaming from inside one of the rooms. He wanted to go swimming and his mother wouldn’t let him.

  The girl was examining her fingernails one by one. Each one was long and perfectly shaped, like the fake nails some of the girls at Alice’s school wore. She pulled one to her and rubbed it against her dress, then held her hand up to the light and stared at Alice from between her fingers. Alice was just about to attempt conversation, take two, when she heard a voice she recognized.

  “Dad?”

  It was Tony. Relieved to have found a distraction, Alice leaned closer to the mirror. The girl put her hand down and grinned, but didn’t say a word.

  “I need you to tell me everything again.” Tony was trailing behind his dad, who still looked very grumpy. At this question, he actually stopped and turned around to face his son.

  “For goodness’ sake, Tony! What else is there to say? I’ve told you everything I know three times now. Why are you suddenly so interested in haunted houses, anyway? Is there something you’re not telling me?”

  So he hadn’t told his dad about her. Alice was relieved; she hated to think what kind of awful contraptions George would set up if he knew she was wandering about—hotel manager or no.

  Tony shrugged. “Do you remember when I told you to unplug the sensors yesterday?” he asked. “It’s like I said before—I could have sworn that I actually felt … someone. Is that even possible?”

  George shook his head. “I told you … it’s complicated. Have you even read my book?”

  “I was going to … I had homework. Could you please just tell me?” Tony said, with a hint of irritation in his voice. “Do you think it’s possible … well, no, that’s not exactly what I mean … Have you ever felt like you had one foot in your own body and one foot in somebody else’s? Like you were feeling their emotions, their pain? Like, if you tried hard enough … you could read their thoughts?”

  Alice took a quick, deep breath. She remembered how Tony had cried out with words that seemed to come from her. And she wondered … she wondered if they might be able to manage it again. Because, secretly, she would have liked very much to see into Tony’s mind … to find out how it worked, how it felt about certain people.

  “I could show you how he feels,” whispered the girl, and in the hotel beyond the glass she ran one of those long, perfect fingernails down the back of Tony’s neck. Alice felt her heart skip a beat. “Let me help,” said the girl. Now it looked as though she was digging her fingers into his hair. Tony jumped and touched his head, looked puzzled. “Don’t you want to know him better?” asked the girl.

  “Get away from him!” said Alice. The girl, instead of moving away, leaned forward, stuck her tongue out, and ran it down Tony’s jawline. Alice felt sick. She slammed her hands against the glass so hard that the frame around the mirror shook. The witch grinned, walked back to the couch, and sat down cross-legged on the cushions.

  “Well … Tony … ” George stumbled over his words and Tony glared at him.

  “Don’t try to lie to me, Dad. You don’t have to try to impress me; I just want the truth.”

  George’s face went pale. “Your mother said that to me once. Has she been telling you I’m a liar?” All the blood seemed to pour into his cheeks at once. He was glowing red now, like an overripe cherry on a flaming tree.

  Two middle-aged women, walking across the lobby with hiking poles and backpacks, stared pointedly at George (who’d been speaking louder the longer this conversation went on). Tony grabbed his dad by the elbow and steered him toward a small parlor that opened off of the lobby. Alice turned away from the mirror and was about to follow them when she saw through the open doorway to the parlor a wall of mist shedding a pale glow over the wood shelving. It had eaten up half of the room; a third of an armchair poked through—front legs resting heavily on the rug, back legs nowhere to be seen.

  Alice glanced back at the mirror just in time to see Tony closing the door to the parlor. The girl (perched on the edge of the couch) smirked at her, then covered her face with her hands in mock consternation. Alice, cheeks flushing, stood up straighter, turned deliberately on her heel, and marched into the mist-eaten room. She kept close to the door—as far from the mist as possible—and parked herself in front of a tiny round mirror on the bookshelf. She didn’t like turning her back on the mist, so she angled herself with one shoulder to the mirror and the other to the half-gone armchair.

  “Please—don’t bring Mom into this,” Tony was saying. He cringed, and Alice could tell that, more than anything, he did not want the conversation to go in this direction.

  George picked up right where he left off; if anything, he was speaking more loudly now. “And why shouldn’t I? If Madeline’s been calling me a liar to my own son, I have a right to know about it!” His eyes were burning blue and he looked almost menacing.

  “I know you’re not a liar, okay? Just don’t … don’t lose it on me.”

  “And Madeline—”

  “Hasn’t ever said a word against you,” Tony said in a very unconvincing way. George huffed and looked away.

  “Not true.”

  The girl was leaning against the fireplace, running her fingers through her short hair. Alice didn’t remember seeing her come in; it was as though she had simply materialized. Maybe she had. “He’s lying,” she said, her voice somewhere between a whisper and a hum.

  Alice tried to ignore her, keeping her eyes fixed on Tony. But she watched the girl out of the corner of her eye.

  “You’re a bad liar, Tony. Just like your mother. But, ” he shook his head, “you shouldn’t lie. You don’t ever have to lie to me, okay?” He sounded like a parenting audiobook—practiced and sincere—but Alice wasn’t sure he meant it. “As for your … experience,” George went on. He hesitated, then said, “Honestly, Tony, I haven’t ever heard of anything like it. But really, anything’s possible. Spirits aren’t bound by our limitations. They can share thoughts, even bodies I suppose. Don’t discount what you felt, Tony. Don’t forget.”

  Tony looked disappointed with this answer, and George sighed.

  “I know … ” he started to pace, “someone who had an experience once where she—”

  His voice cut off abruptly and Alice, who could see him leaning against the back of the armchair, his lips still flapping, clapped her hands to her ears. She could hear her fingers hitting the side of her head.

  “Hello,” she said, and her voice was clear.

  The girl yawned loudly.

  George’s jaw was going up and down, but Alice could hear nothing at all. She turned to the girl.

  “What’s going on? Why can’t I hear him?”

  “Oh, I see. Now you want my help,” said the girl, her lips in a pout.

  “Yes, I do.”

  The girl shrugged as George blabbered on. “Guess he must have left the room.”

  “What do you—?” Alice cut off, her eyes coming to rest on the two feet of the armchair that stuck out of the mist. She looked back up to the mirror and realized—George was leaning against
the back of the chair. The mist had swallowed up that whole section of the room in her version of the house.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said, wringing her hands in frustration. The mirrors were her only source of information from the real world; if she didn’t have them, she would be completely on her own. It was as though her senses were being ripped away from her one by one.

  “And then she thought she saw a man in corduroys sitting on the end of her bed … ” Tony interrupted his dad in a very bored voice. “Dad. You’ve told me this story before. I know who she is.”

  George put his hands in the air and walked forward to stand just in front of the chair. Alice heard him this time when he said, “You’re the one who didn’t want to bring your mother into this.”

  Tony looked away.

  “My point is,” George continued, “instead of trying to call him back the next night, she convinced herself that it had been her imagination. And that was the last experience she had with the supernatural.”

  “So what you’re telling me is I just have to believe?” Tony asked. His gaze flicked upwards, a hint of an eye-roll.

  “More than that. Spirits don’t appear to just anyone. If one has taken an interest in you, you’ve got to jump on the opportunity. You’ve got to do everything you possibly can to communicate with it. You might never have another chance.”

  Tony sighed and thrust his hands into his pockets. He looked at the door and said. “We should get breakfast before the kitchen closes.”

  “Did you hear me, Tony? This is your chance to prove you can be in touch with the supernatural.”

  “I know, Dad. I know.”

  He glanced at the bookshelf and for a second his gaze stopped on the mirror. Though he could not see her, Alice felt a chill run through her as his eyes swept over hers. Then he left the room, muttering something about being hungry. His dad, eyebrows furrowed, followed him out.

  Alice hurried back into the lobby, but Tony and his dad were already walking into the dining room. When Alice tried to follow, she entered just in time to see the last inch of the only mirror in the room give a final twinkle as the mist swallowed it up.

  “Nice boy,” said the girl, who was lounging on the lobby couch in the mirror when Alice returned. “Too bad about his problems.”

  Alice was still caught up in his look, in his tone. And—he had been talking about her. “You don’t know the first thing about him.”

  “Another thing we have in common, I guess,” said the girl, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

  “I don’t have to listen to this.” Alice turned away from the mirror and walked into a small piano room that branched off from the foyer. The mist had eaten one wall of the room, but the rest was intact. Alice sat down in a chair and fidgeted with the worn floral fabric, her eyes on the mist, her mind on Tony.

  “You should listen.”

  Alice started. At first she thought the girl was standing right behind her, but then she turned around and saw that there was yet another mirror hanging on the wall. The girl was observing her from the glass, arms folded, expression inscrutable.

  Without a word, Alice got up, grabbed the mirror, and threw it to the ground. To her surprise, the mirror’s face went completely black. Then, a moment later, it reappeared on the wall.

  The girl wagged her finger, unperturbed. “Naughty.”

  “What is with you?” asked Alice, holding the sides of the mirror so tightly that her knuckles began to turn white.

  “I’m here to help you. That’s all.”

  There was silence for a moment; the girl stared and Alice glared back at her, thinking hard.

  “What do you know about Tony—how do you know about him?” she asked at last. Alice remembered how the girl had touched Tony’s head and, for a second, Tony had looked as though he felt her do it. And Alice wondered if it was possible that the girl could read Tony’s mind the way that Alice had read it for one brief second, thanks to his dad’s equipment. If the girl could connect to Tony—without equipment, without anything—then maybe she would send a message to him for Alice. Maybe this was the way to communicate through the glass. It could be the only way.

  The girl ran her tongue across the edge of a fingernail. “I have ways.”

  “What ways? Tell me.” So the witch wanted to help? Let her prove it.

  “Didn’t anyone ever teach you how to just believe?” asked the girl.

  “Believing is useless unless you have a good reason.”

  “Then it’s not believing.”

  Alice grabbed the frame around the mirror. “If you can read Tony’s mind, just tell me how you do it.”

  “Don’t you want to know all the dirty secrets?”

  “I don’t care about that,” she said, which wasn’t entirely true. If she’d been alive and at home, she’d surely have Internet stalked him by now. But, being trapped in a not-real house, she had other, more important things to worry about. So she asked again, “Can you talk to him?”

  The girl smiled; her teeth glinted. “Someone wants to send a message in a bottle.”

  “Can you make him hear you?”

  The mist was pulsing gently, sending ripples across the surface. Alice stared at it and could have sworn she saw it inch forward, eat up another quarter of a brick on the fireplace. She shivered and came even closer to the wall, so that her toes were pressed against the molding.

  “Oh you do want to know about him. You want to know everything—it’s killing you, isn’t it?”

  Alice pulled back from the mirror. The girl’s brown eyes looked almost black, like enormous dark holes ready to suck her right in. Her mouth was twisted into a funny little smirk. Alice glared, furious, because she realized now that she wasn’t going to get anything useful from this girl. The witch was baiting her, toying with her—dangling things over her head, then pulling them away.

  Alice wished she could reach through the mirror and grab the girl by the neck and …

  Tony’s voice sounded in the other room. She hurried back into the foyer just in time to see him and his dad walk into the lobby and nod to the hotel manager, who was looking exceptionally tired this morning. He had purplish bags under his eyes and his cheeks were sagging. He glowered at George as he passed and George straightened, making himself seem a few inches taller. (He was still shorter than Tony.)

  “So … ” George said. If he was trying to start a friendly conversation, the manager was not responding well. His eyes had narrowed and one of his eyebrows was higher than the other. George cleared his throat. “I heard the girl’s still not awake,” he said casually, as if he were merely noting that it was a cloudy day.

  But the manager’s reaction was anything but calm. His eyes opened wide and he ran clawlike hands through his hair.

  “How do you know that?” he said hoarsely.

  “I just … just saw it on the news,” George said, looking a bit taken aback.

  “It’s on TV now, too. Of course it is.” The manager sank down into his chair, nodding to himself, his lips the thinnest of lines. “Right. Right. And they probably mentioned the hotel. Right. Dangerous hotel.”

  George opened his mouth to answer, but Tony elbowed him and shook his head. “No,” Tony said. “They didn’t mention the hotel at all.”

  The manager just kept nodding.

  “Look,” said George. “I want to apologize for what happened yesterday. I know we didn’t get off on the right foot. But I was hoping to put a few of my sensors up today—very, very small pieces of equipment, I assure you. They wouldn’t be in the way at all and nobody would even notice—”

  “Right. Fine. Go ahead.” The manager spoke in a monotone. He was rocking back and forth in his office chair now, his hands gripping the desk.

  Tony and George looked at each other, stunned.

  “Um … okay, well, thank you—” George said haltingly.

  “Four rooms,” interrupted the manager.

  “Excuse me?”

  T
he manager held up four fingers. “I’ve had four rooms check out early. No reservations have come in since it happened. You go ahead—set up your equipment. At this rate, there won’t be anyone to disturb.”

  “Can I get you a coffee? Or something?” Tony said. “You don’t look … well.”

  The manager ignored him. He started ranting in a voice so loud that it drew a few people out of the breakfast room to stare. “I got a call not half an hour ago from a lawyer in the city. Apparently the doctors are saying that the girl is brain-dead, that she went without air for too long. They want to pull the plug at the end of the week. The parents are upset—not that I blame them—but they’re suing! Do you know what I sacrifice to keep this hotel running? And after all, how much clearer can I get? ‘No diving’ means no diving. None! But they’re saying that I should have had a lifeguard on duty. Imagine! I can barely afford the upkeep on this place. How am I supposed to hire a full-time lifeguard? It’s incredible!”

  Alice stumbled backward and leaned against the nearest wall, fingers grasping at the paint.

  “Pulling the plug?” she whispered.

  Her heart rate tripled in two seconds. They couldn’t! They—they wouldn’t! Would they? Her parents wouldn’t just let her die like that.

  It was just the doctors, surely. The doctors thought there wasn’t any hope for her—they’d probably tried to convince her parents of it. But her parents, of course, wouldn’t believe that. They would give her as long as she needed to wake up from this awful existence that was too cruel even to be a nightmare.

  Still, the urgency inside of her, the urgency that nagged at her every minute to find a way to escape, started pulling even harder. Now it tingled all over her body—pinched her mind and tickled her stomach. She had to get out—wake up—go home. She had to do it soon.

  “You’ll never make it,” said the girl, and Alice didn’t answer because that thought had crossed her mind too.

  Tony. Tony would help her, wouldn’t he? She wondered if her strange midnight reappearance would repeat itself. And what if it didn’t? What if she never touched the real world again? Or what if she appeared and Tony wasn’t there? She felt temporary relief at the thought—if Tony wasn’t there then George wouldn’t be there either to torture her with his inventions—then more fear when she realized that if he wasn’t there then no one would pull her out of the pool. What would happen then? Would she die—for real?