Prologue: The Splintering

It was an ordinary afternoon, which was quite suspicious, for Alice had learned long ago that “ordinary” things have a habit of becoming extraordinary the moment one looks away. She was sitting in the drawing-room, watching the fire mutter to itself in the grate and glancing now and then at the great Looking-Glass above the mantelpiece.

The Looking-Glass had never struck her as trustworthy. For one thing, it was altogether too polished, as though it knew secrets it was unwilling to share. For another, it sometimes showed her reflection doing things she was certain she had not done—like tapping its foot when she was standing still, or frowning when she felt rather jolly.

This afternoon, however, the glass seemed well-behaved. Alice tilted her head; so did Alice-Through-the-Glass. Alice stuck out her tongue (not very politely, but no one was looking); her reflection copied her precisely. “At least you’re obedient today,” she said.

But no sooner had she said this than the Looking-Glass Alice gave the tiniest smirk, as though mocking her. Alice’s heart skipped, and she leaned closer. “That wasn’t me,” she whispered.

The smirk grew.

Then came the crack.

It began as a thin silver line across the surface, like a spiderweb spun at impossible speed. Alice drew back with a cry, for the crack was spreading, branching into a hundred more, until the whole mirror was a maze of glittering shards. And in each shard, her reflection was different.

One Alice looked much older, hair white as frost. Another was cross and scowling. A third was laughing so violently her shoulders shook. Some reflections looked away, some refused to meet her gaze at all.

Alice pressed her hands to her cheeks. “Oh, this is most irregular! Which of you is me?”

The reflections did not answer, but one of them—a solemn-faced Alice with eyes like wet glass—stepped forward. She did not step out of her shard so much as the shard slipped away to let her through, like a curtain parting.

“You’ve taken your turn long enough,” said the Reflection. Her voice was cool, not echoing but hollow, as if spoken inside a bottle. “Now it is ours.”

Before Alice could protest, the mirror burst into a thousand pieces that did not fall, but flew, whirling about her like a storm of knives. She tried to run, but the room had gone, the hearth, the carpet, the walls—all vanished. Only the shards remained, spinning faster and faster until they became a blinding whirlpool of silver light.

Alice gave one last shout—“Oh, I do not approve of this!”—before she was swept off her feet and carried into the storm.

The very last thing she saw was her own reflection, hovering calmly in the air, waving her farewell as if to say, Goodbye, Alice. We’ll take it from here.

To be continued.