Lydia's Looking Glass
Chapter One
Lydia Aliston sat buried in a dark covered book by the brightest window in the library. Her short, auburn curls dipped in front of her eyes and she batted them away impatiently, her long fingers making quick, deft movements as if it were a habit. She coughed slightly, the dust from the pages of the old book creeping into her lungs sneakily, and turned the page, her chocolaty eyes gulping up each word in the first line then flicking back to the left side of the second line like lightning.
A small smile twitched the corners of her delicate mouth up and as the girl took in a particularly amusing illustration. She flipped her curls out of her eyes again and scrunched her knees up to her chin, reading from over her kneecaps.
For a while she sat like that, drenched in mid-afternoon sun and buried in her book, but after a time her eyes peaked out above the crinkly page she was reading to glance at the big Grandfather Clock standing by the Children's Fantasy section. Lydia smiled to herself as she took in the time, ten minutes to four, and then whipped over the bindings of the rather shabby looking fantasy books. She pushed herself up out of the chair and walked over to the books, muttering under her breath in a sweet voice,
"Fantasy is what poisons the mind… but my teacher said we had to read a book that isn't based on real life. She said it would be difficult to find, but I think if I get over in this section I'll find something." The fifteen year old had a habit of talking to herself when no one could hear her. Sometimes she didn't even know she was doing it until someone looked at her oddly or she said something a bit louder than intended and broke her own trance.
She sighed heavily, as if exasperated by the idea of such nonsensical, whimsical stories in which handsome young knights on valiant steeds rescue lovely maidens from dragons and then everyone lives happily ever after. She reached the shelves and plucked out a copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone. "Well, well, well. This absolutely can't be based on real life. It's so ridiculous. She thumbed though the pages and put a hand to her mouth to stifle a fake yawn. "No. I don't think it's exactly me." She rolled her eyes and carelessly flicked the book back into place. Then her contemptuous eyes fell on The Little Mermaid By Hans Christian Anderson. She scoffed.
"Singing fish girls melting into sea foam. How depressing." She tucked it away and smirked on at the never-ending list of "ridiculous" and "unfathomably pointless" stories. Then her eyes fell on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and she stopped, her grin spreading across her whole face as she picked it up. It was battered, the pages torn, and there were scribbles in the margins of almost every page. She shook her head, tut-tutting under her breath about defiling public property, and peered at one of the pages, reading the notes scrawled across the empty space at the side of the page.
"'The mad tea party is my favorite scene in the entire book. Do you know why they called hatters mad?'" Intrigued by the tidbit of reality, Lydia read on: "'…It's because the mercury from the felt in the hats drove most of them crazy because they touched it so much.' Fascinating." She said to herself, flipping the page and reading the next note, "'The Dormouse is actually a real creature!' Well, I knew that. 'It is rather more like a squirrel than a mouse, however, and is nocturnal. That is probably why it's so tired during the tea party.'" She turned the page and read the next note, "'Mad as a March hare refers to the frenzied antics of the hare during March, its mating season.' Ha! That I didn't know!" Said Lydia indignantly. "The book knows more than I do." She was a bit pleased, as if a particularly stupid person had all of a sudden said something brilliant.
She flipped a few more pages and gazed down at the picture of Alice shielding herself from a rain of cards. "Funny… I never even knew this part was in here." She flipped back a couple of pages to see what the chapter was about and read the footnotes at the beginning of the chapter out loud. "'You can find the recipe for the queen's tarts in this cookbook…' and then there's the name of a real live cookbook. Unheard of. I didn't know fantasy was so based in fact. Well, at least this one is."
She wandered off, her nose buried in the pages of the book, her slender fingers absent mindedly tucking a stray, chocolate curl behind her ear as she went.
Lydia read on and on, from beginning to end, the entire story of Alice's Adventures In Wonderland. She read how Alice fell into the rabbit hole and the margin notes telling her that a rabbit den is actually called a warren. She read about the little bottle with "Drink Me" and the little cakes with "Eat Me" on them. She read about the cards in the garden playing croquet with flamingos and hedgehogs, read about the duchess and her baby that turned into a pig. She read about the Cheshire cat with his constant leer and she red the mad tea party. She read the tart trial and laughed at the illustrations. She was reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and enjoying every minute of it. Her eyes bright with curiosity she turned the pages, never taking her eyes from the witty poems and clever characters. When she finished, Lydia looked around her, startled to find herself in the library instead of in the courtroom waiting for the verdict for the Knave of Hearts. She yawned and stretched, looked at the clock and leapt to her feet, shocked to see that it was nearly eight o' clock.
"Shoot. I was supposed to make mom dinner tonight!" She dashed to the Fantasy section and searched franticly for Alice Through the Looking Glass. She needed to see if the fascinating notes were in that one too. She found it and flipped through the pages. The familiar spidery scrawl greeted her on every page. She sighed happily and turned to the checkout counter. When she put the two books on the counter, the librarian looked at her inquisitively.
"Lewis Carroll, Lydia? I didn't think you were into such stuff." The pretty young woman said. She couldn't be any older than twenty-seven. Her hair was blond, her eyes blue and sparkling.
Lydia smiled sleepily, for she had spent all day reading and she was drowsy from not doing anything for so long. "Yeah, well. It's for school and I actually liked it!" She scrunched her curls in one fist and let them drop down to her jawbone, framing her face.
The librarian smiled. "Well. I see you've finally taken a liking to fantasy. I knew I'd get you there sometime."
Lydia laughed slightly. "Yeah, Rose. Maybe I do owe it to you." She paused, uncertain if she should mention the notes in the margins. She decided not to just yet, in case the books were thrown out so they could be replaced with new ones.
"Thanks, Rose." She said as the librarian pushed the books towards her.
"Enjoy!" She said, smiling at the fifteen-year-old girl. "Don't get lost." Lydia laughed and shook her curls away from her eyes.
"I won't. Don't worry." She waved at her friend and walked to the large oak doors, the two books crooked under her arm.
Lydia walked down the sidewalk, immersed in her thoughts, preoccupied with ideas about Alice's incredible world. "What if it were real?" She asked herself, "What if there really were a world somewhere where the animals talk and magic exists?"
Lydia stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and a white haired man nearly crashed into her. "Watch where you're going!" He shouted at her. "Oh…" She said vaguely, "Sorry sir!" And then she hurried across the street and towards her house, away from the gathering storm clouds.
"What a stupid idea. How could I think that that is actually possible?" She scolded herself angrily. "Utter nonsense." She smiled slightly, "But entertaining nonsense none the less."
She sighed, wishing there was a world she could escape to every now and then, so that she could get away from her dreary, every day life. Just then, the first raindrops fell a few feet in front of her, making small, dark spots on the cement. Lydia muttered something indistinct under her breath and quickened her pace, her deep eyes narrowed against the stiff breeze that had just kicked up.
"Unbelievable." She grumbled as she ran in the direction of her apartment building, curls flying behind her, "The forecast said it wouldn't start raining until tomorrow. This is so unfair." She ran a few more steps then yelped as she remembered the books she was holding in her hands. She shoved them hurriedly into her backpack, cramming them in between Pride and Prejudice and Moby Dick.
"Better cut across the park if I don't want to get soaked." She told herself, and dashed under the cover of the thick foliage, flinging her backpack over one shoulder as she ran. Under the trees, she slowed her pace, walking now instead of running. She breathed in the scent of crushed pine needles and damp earth for a moment and then quickened her pace just a little, making sure she would get to her house before the rain really picked up. But Lydia had only taken a few steps before she slipped in a mud puddle and fell, hard, against the packed earth. "Ow." She said, wincing as she straightened her twisted ankle. "That hurt." She got to her feet slowly, making sure she could stand on her injured left foot, and took a couple of hesitant steps.
That was when she caught sight of the rabbit hole.