Alice and the Looking Glass (Clockwork Wonderland Book 1)

In Which Cat Attends a Public Meeting

Mirror could not sleep, though he often wished he could. Instead, he meditated, appreciating the sounds of the forest dwellers settling down, or waking up, as the sun set.

Last night, however, he did not rest. Instead, he paced up and down the ruddy mists of his home, thinking. Everyone now and then, Cat, curled under a makeshift hut of brambles and ferns, grumbled or squeaked. Had anyone else invaded his clearing yesterday, he might feel angry. But he trusted the innocent druid and she needed him after the disaster.

Several hours of pacing later, Mirror had thrown his hands up in despair and stared at the moon rising over the tree line. Magic remained unaffected that night. Some might call that a good thing, but Mirror knew better. Whatever had happened would come again, worse than before.

At the thought, he snorted. "I sound like a fatalistic fool," he said, to no one in particular.

Tomorrow, he would insist Cat return to the forest proper and find out what the mayor was doing to protect his people. If he refused to investigate, Mirror would do it on his own. Somehow. How does a figment of one's imagination, trapped inside an object, do anything?

Hours later, dawn broke and Cat stirred. She woke and slept with the sun, as most plants do.

"Cat," he called out, trying to hide a deep sense of dread that had grown as the night lingered on. "Cat?"

The druid propped herself up on her arms and her hut began to disperse.

"...what?" Then she rolled out of the shelter, her body turning that bright green of alarm and fear. "Where am I?"

Mirror wanted to bang on the pane of glass that separated his world from the outside. They didn't have time! Everything felt so urgent now that the sun peeked out of the tree line.

"You're in my clearing. You slept here because of the emptiness you felt the previous night."

The druid scrubbed at her eyes with one hand, languidly flinging the other skyward.

"Well, it didn't happen last night, so everything is fine now. I'm so tired," the brambles and ferns started to shift towards her again, "maybe I'll just take another nap."

A nap? Mirror fumed.

"You can't nap, not now. I need you to run an errand for me."

A stray fern frond shifted down to cover her face and break their eye contact.

"No. I don't want to go into town. They don't like me there. It's boring."

It didn't matter what she wanted. He needed someone to help, and she was the only one who could provide it. Had he raised her from the start, like a real Caretaker, perhaps she'd respect him more? That thought only fueled his fire.

"Cat, wake up! I need you stop behaving like a spoiled child and go into town. How is the mayor reacting? What are they doing to understand the disturbance?" Mirror all but shouted the words. If only he could leave this place, he wouldn't need to rely on her!

Then, Cat's eyes filled with tears and she started wailing, a keening noise that grew until it seemed to shake the trees around her. Tears almost always worked on him. Early on, before she'd learned to follow his rules, she'd bawled quite often to learn how much he'd budge on all his do's and do not's.

"Cat." No reaction.

"Cat?" She paused for a brief moment, testing him.

"Little one, please." Those were the magic words.

Her wailing stopped as soon as he finished speaking. A shoulder vine began settling her brown hair back into place and cleaning her face with a dense cluster of dandelion puffs. Mirror always wondered just how dandelion puffs cleaned anything at all. It was not polite to ask.