Alice and the Looking Glass (Clockwork Wonderland Book 1)

In Which Mirror and Cat Discuss Gardens

"Fools!"

Cat put her hands on her hips, defiant in the face of Mirror's misdirected wrath. His glass vibrated and the frame creaked.

"Mirror-"

But he wasn't listening. "How could that damn fairy be so stupid! I knew he was an oaf, but this? This!" He smashed his palm into the glass, the echo bouncing off the stone terraces of the small amphitheater surrounding them.

"Mirror, stop it!"

Her shrill yelp shocked him into silence, leaving his mouth hanging open.

Cat pouted. "You are right about Glowdust, but you can't do anything to him in there, so hitting things won't help."

"Cat," he smiled at her, "sometimes you are very wise."

While she didn't understand what he meant, she beamed at the compliment. Time to enact her plan, concocted on the walk back. "Mirror, I want to help. I want to go." She conjured up her best wide eyed, pleading look.

"Absolutely not!" The very idea made his stomach knot up.

"Mirror, you have to let me help. I'll be careful. No one will see me, I can pretend to be a plant or something," she hadn't worked out that detail yet. "We both know the answer is on the other side. The humans must be responsible."

Despite how many problems that course of action solved, how could he send her over the wall? No matter how confident she felt, Cat was too young, too naive, to understand what death meant.

"You cannot know that, Cat. They have some new method of detecting magic. They might capture you the moment you open the gate. They might turn to torture and no one could rescue you." Perhaps scare tactics would work?

"Someone has to do it." The stubborn set of her mouth informed Mirror, in no uncertain terms, he had already lost this fight. She continued, "Glowdust won't. The forest people won't. You're the only one who understands what's happening. I may be young and I know you think I'm stupid," she didn't pause when he opened his mouth to protest, "but even I understand this is big. Important. Can't be missed. Besides, no one else will help you and you know it."

A huff escaped her lips at the thought of all the folk who ignored Mirror's wise council, out of animal fear. True, she'd heard snippets of conversations that a mysterious stranger had sealed him away to protect the forest, many years ago. But gossip also had a way of growing, everyone knew that.

"-Besides, the humans may not even understand what they did. And if it was deliberate, then they covered their tracks. Waltzing in and hoping to stumble upon the answer will end poorly." He'd kept talking, oblivious to her glowering. "Right now, the important part is persuading you not to go through that gate."

"If you don't help me I-" she paused, trying to summon up an appropriate threat. "I will go by myself!" Wait, that didn't make sense, she'd be alone either way. "I will go without your help!" There, that sounded much more dire.

Mirror squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Fine. I have some thoughts on what to do, but you must promise to listen to what I say and follow the plan."

"Yes, yes." She waved her hand. "Now, what's this plan of yours?" A thornless bramble branch snaked up from the earth and formed a stool for her to perch on.

What a disaster. No force in Wonderland could stop this, any more than he could stop the rain from falling.

"We need to make you a Garden."

She stared at him. "A what?"

"A Garden."

"But it's-" She stopped herself from saying it's a Caretaker's job.

"I know, little one...I know." Fading into the mist, a dozen questions swarmed before him. A Garden took more than one little girl to prosper. How could he coax her out of trees when she ran off to sulk? Trim her wilted vines? Lend her strength she grew listless and pale in the winter months?

Trying for upbeat, to mask her fear, she giggled "we can't know until we try! It sounds so exciting." Such an endeavor was supposed to be impossible, but if Mirror suggested it, she knew it could be done. The cost of failure? Well, she tried not to think about that.

Returning to the glass, he took a deep breath. "For starters, I know where you can find some Seeds."

"Yes?" No matter how much she tried to act mature, excitement started to bubble, making her voice crack.

"They're...uh-"

"They're 'uh?'"

Was he embarrassed? Mirror never acted like this. First the dramatic yelling and brooding all day, now uncomfortable silence? Madness.

"They're behind me. I have no idea how they got there."

She gasped. He hung his head. The birds stopped chirping. The trees' branches stilled.

No one went behind him. Not even if the forest was burning would she hide behind his frame. The last creature, a curious imp, who tried to sneak back there died at Mirror's hand! Metaphorical hand, that is. That was a valid reason to fear him, she realized. But all they had to do was not go behind him.

"I felt them - the seeds I mean. When the magic stopped, they didn't. They're somehow connected to me, which means they can, to a degree, resist the human's strange power."

Plans swirled around in Cat's head, heedless of logistics. What kind of seeds hid in his shadow? Where would she get the tools to till the earth, since Mirror couldn't do it himself? Maybe she should form a sort of semi circle around the base of his frame, line it with river stones?

"Cat? Pay attention."

"What? Oh, yes?"

"Cat, you may keep a Garden here for as long as you wish." He spoke the contract in an offhand way, hoping to pass off the gravity of the moment. Too much thought on just what they were both getting into would just tighten his already high strung nerves.

She answered by bursting into frantic tears for the second time that day, this time from joy. Mirror massaged his neck, unsure how to calm her. No more hiding, she thought, watching her mother raise new seedlings as if her black sheep daughter had never Sprouted. Cat would have a Garden. A Caretaker. A home.