The Reflection

The girl loved visiting her grandma's house. The creaking floors and the dark wood paneling. Every summer and every winter she explored, wandering aimlessly down the halls. Sometimes she was a vengeful ghost, sometimes a medieval princess with perfect posture parading down the hall. She knew every crook and cranny, she knew which rooms were the best to act out her favorite books. The hulking dusty wardrobe in the second guest room was perfect for her rendition of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Her grandfather's study was the backdrop for any scene featuring a library. As she grew older the works of Jane Austen, Dickens, the Brontes, entered her repertoire. She continued her reenactions of these works of fiction, her playmates were the Pevensies and the Bennets, she hated Mr. Wickham and the White Witch with the blazing passion of one personally wronged.

She glided down the hall in the midst of her latest embodiment of a Gothic heroine when a movement caught her eye. The spell broke and she was plunged back into reality with the shocking immediacy of being woken up with a bucket of ice water. She looked around for the source of the movement and saw naught but the mirror that hung from the wall. The mirror had always been there and was used as the Magic Mirror during her rendition of Snow White several years ago. She looked into the mirror and saw a face there, expecting nothing less of a mirror she turned away. Only to return to the glass, not able to help feeling like there was something off about the image. She examined it and realized that although the face gazing back at her was hers, the attire was not. Her light summer dress had been replaced in the mirror by a fully bustled Victorian style dress. She blinked and the image shifted back to a reflection of her reality, one in which she was wearing her bright summer dress.

This odd incident floated to the back of her mind as she finished her gothic misadventure. The day continued on in the typical way, imagination running rampant and daily activities, such as the consumption of food, completed absentmindedly. Waking early the next day she felt nostalgia for the classic fairy tales she used to revel in, and decided that she would revisit them all. She began with The Sleeping Beauty, and started by playing the role of Aurora's mother, the Queen, as she fawns over her infant child. She looked out at the crowd of people who accepted the invitation to her child's christening, and smiled in approval at the well-organised ballroom. The garlands were draped elegantly above the heads of the guests, reflecting the bright colors of the multitude of bright finery on the women. The hues of the flowers were as varied as those of the ladies' gowns. All was running smoothly, the invited fairies were giving magical gifts to young princess.Yet she had a sense of approaching danger. The doors slammed open and a rush of cold air swept in announcing the arrival of the Evil Fairy (for this scene the girl stood in front of the open fridge door to achieve the correct atmosphere). The girl switched roles at this point to pronounce the curse on the baby, a moment she felt was better to enact oneself instead of leaving it to the characters in one's head. She finished the christening scene, and retreated back to the hallway with the mirror for her version of Aurora's growing up montage.

She skipped down the hall acting the part of a happy young princess oblivious to the presence of evil in the world. She passed the mirror and stopped, remembering the events of the previous day and touched the image in the glass that perfectly reflected the picture of Aurora in her mind. There was a sharp tug on her hand where it rested splayed against the mirror She stumbled forward and fell against the glass, but it didn't feel like glass, it was supple and slowly gave way. She slid through the pane, which acted just like the wall of the invisible prison cell Mr. Murray was kept in on Camazotz. She fell out the other side, into a hallway the mirrored the one in her grandparents house. Except this one was made of stone, not wood, and the walls were lined in tapestries. She looked down at her clothes and saw that they were the clothes that Aurora had been wearing. A stern woman briskly walked up to her and bobbed a curtsey,

"There you are, Your Highness, your governess was growing anxious when you didn't arrive on time for your history lesson"

"I fear I lost track of the time. Please walk me back, I'd hate to worry my governess even more"

"As you wish, Your Highness"

She walked with the woman until they stopped at an ornate door and the woman knocked sharply at the door. There was a rapid patter of footsteps and the door swung open to reveal a frantic young women in her early twenties, seeing the princess, she dropped into a curtsey,

"Your Highness," after the formalities had been observed she pulled the stunned girl into her arms, "Thank goodness, you're alright!"

The older woman curtseyed and walked away, her task completed. The younger woman led Aurora into the suite of rooms and her name popped into the girl's head out of nowhere,

"Lady Amelia, what am I to learn today?"

"Well, Princess, I'll give you a choice, you may be lectured on the trade networks and alliances of the nine kingdoms, or I can tell you of the great deeds of the heroes of legend"

The girl picked the latter, and was so engrossed in the stories that she never noticed the forlorn girl looking out of the small mirror on the wall.