As We Go Along - Ch. 2

 Sometimes you don't know how stupid you are until the opportunity to prove yourself arises. For instance, if your nightmares came true, would you willingly take part? I apparently would.

There is a round, gold-framed mirror that hangs on the wall in my room. It's about the size of a porthole in a ship. This evening, I was gazing into it, wondering if I would look better with contact lenses instead of glasses, when my reflection disappeared, replaced by blackness.

I jumped backwards and yelped a little.

"Madalyn? Is everything okay?" Mom called from the kitchen.

"Yup! Just stubbed my toe!" I shouted back. Forgive me for lying, but if something clearly impossible happened before your eyes, would you tell anyone about it? Especially when your family already thinks you're somewhat unstable? 

I stared into the mirror. The reflective surface hadn't just turned dark - no, the glass had dissolved entirely, replaced by swirling black mist. I frowned and took the mirror off the wall, laying it on the floor. I knelt beside it and reached out to touch it, but stopped myself just in time. Who knew if this stuff was poisonous?

I didn't want to turn my back on it lest it disappeared. If this was real (e.g., not a hallucination), then it was magic. And magic was exceedingly finicky stuff. I walked backwards to my desk and groped around behind me for a pencil, preferably a pencil I didn't care about much. My hand landed on the pen-pot, and I grabbed a chewed-up yellow number two. 

I returned to the mirror and dipped the pencil into the mist. It didn't melt, catch on fire, or disappear. I withdrew it. There wasn't any vapor on it - it was dry. Well, that was good enough for me: the mist was safe. But how deep was it? I dipped the pencil in farther. It didn't hit anything. That told me nothing; it was a short pencil.

I cast about my room and my eyes fell upon a box of paperclips.

Ten minutes later, I had a chain about 250 paperclips long. I taped a snow-globe to the end of it and lowered the globe into the mist. Sure enough, after I'd let out about eight feet of chain, the globe hit something.

I'd been having nightmares about dark mirrors for months now. Naturally, I decided to go through the looking glass, but I would go unprepared. After changing into sturdier clothes and stuffing a backpack with whatever struck my fancy (including several blank notebooks to record the experience), I was ready to go.

Now's a good time to mention I compulsively keep diaries. You should see my closet. Pile after pile of notebooks of every shaped and size, filled with detailed records of most of my childhood and teenage years. It helps me understand life when I can write it down.

Problem number one: I won't fit through the mirror with my backpack on. Solution number one: I lowered the backpack down on the paperclip chain, which I hooked to my belt.

Problem number two: ten-foot drop. Solution number two: Suck it up, buttercup. You've fallen out of taller trees.

I sat on the floor by the edge of the mirror and lowered my feet in. The mist didn't kill me, so my calves followed. Clinging to the sides of the mirror, I lowered the rest of me through. Good thing I'm skinny.

Problem number three, I thought as my head entered the mist. What if the mist is poisonous to breathe? Solution number three: Well, we'll find out, won't we?

I took a deep breath and dropped into the mist, my eyes tightly shut.