The Looking Glass
Alice never did like the ordinary, and her sister’s place of work was the definition of it. With every imaginable shade of beige on the shelves, she’d rather lock herself in her mind, which is where most people liked her to stay, anyway.
She slumped against the wall, her eyes fixed on the clock.
Tick
Tock
Tick
Tock
She raised her bright yellow wristwatch to her face and let out an audible groan. Nope, it was taking that long.
“Lizzie,” Alice whined. “Are you nearly finished?”
Her sister turned to face her, a vein throbbing on her forehead. The one that meant she was about seconds away from committing murder.
“Alice, you are well aware my shift ends at five and it is three.”
Alice let out another groan and threatened to sink to the floor. “I’m boooored.” She wrung her hands.
“Well, find something to do. I am busy.” Lizzie picked up an armful of T-shirts and made her way over to the display rack. Alice followed, wanting something to do.
“Let me help.” She tried to take hold of a shirt, but Lizzie slapped her hand away.
“No. My manager is already staring at you. You’re acting like a petulant child.”
Alice was tempted to stick her tongue out at the grumpy-looking bald man, glaring at her from behind the cash register.
“I don’t care about Mr. Dumpty’s opinion.”
“Well, I do.” Lizzie folded the shirts, laying them on the display. “And don’t call him that. It’s Mr. Dupree.”
Alice shrugged. “With that bald head of his, he looks like an egg. Though Humpty Dumpty wasn’t really an egg. He was a cannon! Fascinating, isn’t it?” She’d learned a great many things about old nursery rhymes and stories, and if anyone allowed her to, she could speak on them and similar subjects for ages. Lizzie wasn’t in the mood for trivia.
“Don’t you have summer homework to be getting on with?”
Alice grimaced. She’d rather spend the day organizing hideous T-shirts than be buried in calculus.
“It’s the first week of break!” She protested. “Nobody does their homework in the first week!”
“Don’t leave it all til the last minute like you did last year,” Lizzie warned. “And the year before, and the year before, and-”
“Yes, I got it.” Alice crossed her arms. “I’m so bored I can’t see straight.” Her stomach growled. “And now I’m starving! When will the misery end!? Am I here just to suffer? Tell me, Lizzie!”
Lizzie, seeing a way to get Alice off her back with all her dramatics, plunged a hand into her pocket and withdrew a twenty-pound note. “Here, take this and go buy yourself a sandwich or something, and don’t come back until my shift is over.”
Alice took the note with caution; it wasn’t often her sister was so charitable. “How am I supposed to eat a sandwich for two hours?”
“You can keep the change and go and play in the arcade or something. Please, let me work.” With that, Lizzie seized Alice round the middle and tossed her out of the land of beige and khakis.
Alice stumbled to catch her footing, so fierce was the shove, and she was about to turn around to tell Lizzie off, but she had already turned on her heel and gone back to work. She muttered under her breath, cursing the ocean of beige and all who shopped there and left to enjoy her newly-gotten riches.
The smart idea would be to find the nearest place to procure a sandwich, but Alice didn’t see any fun in a journey that was over before it even started. Instead, she took her time, peering through the window of every shop she passed and taking in the displays. Mannequins followed her with their featureless gazes. Some were elegant enough to have wigs, but most made do with various hats and sunglasses.
Alice liked those the most; they seemed to have something hidden behind them, even if she knew they did not, it was fun to pretend. She passed an abundance of clothing shops, some with lacy dresses in the window, others with baggy cargo pants and flat-top caps gracing muscular male mannequins.
What a boring life they lead.
Alice continued on her journey, passing sports shops and swimsuit shops, lingerie shops–where she kept her gaze firmly forward out of respect, and so on until she came to the only shop in the mall that held even a fraction of her attention.
Black Cherry stood out amongst its beige, cream, and pastel peers. The walls on either side of the windows were painted rich black, and the sign overhead in fittingly cherry red. The mannequins here were the shiny black plastic kind with the tops of their heads missing.
The ones that Alice liked the most. Their faces looked like they were made by someone who had never seen a person before, and they were dressed in the sort of clothes Alice’s mom would never allow her to wear, but Lizzie was able to without fuss. Her gaze was ripped from leather and studs by a figure in the corner of her eye.
The girl was dressed as though she were an advert for the shop. A floppy black fringe obscured her face as she hurried past Alice, her head down. Despite how hard she tried to be invisible, she was all Alice could see. Abandoning her window-shopping right there, she waited for the girl to pass and then, as casually as she could, she went after her.
You’re acting like a creep.
Yet she carried on, unsure of what she would do when she caught up to the mysterious girl. Would she speak to her? Unlikely. A sane person would abandon their venture right then, but where was the fun in that?
Alice followed the girl at a distance as she passed by lines of clothing shops, game shops, and a few kiosks that popped up here and there. She moved with determination towards a small, dingy store half-hidden between a knitting supply shop and a shop with tinted windows. She watched the girl slip into the bookstore and, after a moment’s hesitation, she followed, reading the sign as she passed.
Gatsby’s Garden.
Clever. If she had a bookshop, she would probably name it something similar. Though perhaps something more in line with Dickens? Great Inkspectations? She made a note to remember that, though by the time she was done imagining her prospects in the literary market, the girl had vanished between the shelves.
“Looking for something?” A dry and croaky voice called for her attention, and Alice spun around to see a bent and shriveled old man smiling at her from his seat behind an ornate oak desk.
“Oh...” Alice cleared her throat. “No, I’m just looking.” She tried to be polite and casual, considering she had just followed someone inside.
“Well, take a look and try not to lose your way.” The man revealed a toothy grin. For a moment, Alice was hit with a wave of nostalgia, but she brushed it aside in pursuit of the girl. Words raced through her head.
What are you doing, Alice?
She’s going to think you’re mad.
What will you say if she notices you?
Alice paused in her endeavor. Perhaps, for once, logic and reason were right. She could not follow the girl without a purpose.
She’d speak to her, she decided, certain she would have something to discuss given the girl’s unique appearance. She could compliment her on her hair or her shoes.
Perhaps she would walk away with a new friend. It would be a nice change from having none at all. Well, she had Dinah, but cats weren’t much for conversation and preferred to get on with their own lives. Private creatures, and Alice never pried into her business.
Surely a human friend would be more interested in discussing books, movies, and art. The girl had walked into a bookstore. Soon, Alice was on the hunt again, passing shelves and shelves of books with worn covers and faded lettering. Some classics she knew, some obscure. One book jutted out from the shelf, and Alice slid it back into place. The faded gold letters on the spine spelled out three words:
Do You Remember?
What a strange title! She picked it up, her search momentarily forgotten. The pages inside were faded and yellow, containing no words at all—only inky, scribbled drawings of mushrooms, rabbits, and cats with long tails.
That feeling of nostalgia washed over her again, as though she were remembering a dream from long ago. She put the book back and continued her search for the girl, a feeling of spiders crawling along her spine. She caught a glimpse of her mark between the gaps of a bookshelf and made a beeline for where she stood, her heart pounding in her ears.
It took less than a minute for Alice to reach the spot, but the girl was already gone, with no sign of her. It was most peculiar, and for a moment, Alice wondered if she had been seeing things. She was snapped out of her questions by the same creaky, rattling voice.
“Looking for something?”
Her head whipped around, and she came face-to-face with a mirror. The ornate brass frame was tarnished in places, and the glass was misty with age. Strangest of all, Alice’s reflection was nowhere to be seen. Instead, the face in the glass was that of a cat—a gray and black cat with large green eyes and a wide, toothy grin.
“Do you remember?” it purred before vanishing from sight, leaving behind only its grin.
Curiouser and curiouser...
Alice reached out a hand to touch the glass. Perhaps it wasn’t a mirror, but instead an elaborate television screen to set a certain mood? It had to be. All thoughts of that possibility drained away as Alice’s fingers slid past the glass as if it were water. She suddenly felt an overwhelming force pulling her forward.
Her arm went through, then her shoulder, then her head, and the rest of her followed in after.
(Format edited by ElleDStein. Please go check out her work!)
