The Gilded Looking Glass: Chapter 2

The hand reaching into the attic was comically large for being attached to the comparatively little person stepping through the mirror. To use the word “person,” at least in the sense that people seem to use it in reference to other people who are, importantly, human, would perhaps be false. Each finger on the hand was excessively long and pointed, and if the soft, slipper-like shoes had been removed from the feet they would be revealed to be likewise. The face of the small person, now fully through the looking glass and into the attic, was round, pointed at the chin, framed by two ears which also pointed slightly at the tops. The ears were peeking out from petal-soft hair, the color of grass in the springtime. Most of the face was dominated by two lilac eyes, barely divided from each other by a tiny upturned nose that sat above a rather wide, smiling mouth. The reader will perhaps recognize this creature-person as a pixie, likely from the forest given the elongated hands and feet. It is also worth noting that this particular pixie was a female. She was dressed quite elegantly in a fine silk tunic that was clearly too big for her, amusingly contrasted with bare, spindly legs below the knee and practical shoes. It would certainly be easier to refer to this pixie by her name, but names are curiously powerful things, and one should not go about freely offering their own name about. Or the names of others, for that matter.

The pixie moved purposefully through the attic, heading directly for the lamp. The lamp switch was located about three-quarters of the way up the stand, approximately 5 feet off the ground. As a result, she was required to shimmy, ape-like, up the pole until her long fingers could just barely reach the switch. She accomplished this task in the blink of an eye, clearly accustomed to the ritual. Upon reaching the switch, she expertly pressed it six times in rapid succession, her fingers making an odd clack clack clack sound as she did so. The entire room was plunged into black, save only for the pinpricks of starlight now suspended throughout the attic. The street outside, which had before been solidly in the grasp of a dim twilight was also transformed into a night lit only by twinkling stars. What the residents of Steven Street thought about this sudden acceleration of the evening’s progression is unknown, although truth be told it is doubtful that anyone was paying enough attention to notice.

The stage successfully set, the pixie darted through the attic, pausing only to gaze longingly at the spinning top, lying on its side. Her fingers twitched towards it, as if debating whether or not to set it into motion, but she abstained and continued on her way. She left the attic, heading with purpose downstairs towards the front door. Her feet, as long as they were, left no imprint in the dust beneath her. Pixie’s do tread uncommonly lightly, and so this should not come as a great surprise to anyone.

Before turning the doorknob, the pixie peeked cautiously through the letterbox, her large violet eyes taking stock of the street in front of her for a long while. Finally, satisfied as to the lack of people about, and with the cover of darkness, she opened the door and stepped outside.

First, she collected the newspaper sitting in the middle of the driveway. She set it inside the house, just beside the front door, for later. Then, she approached the lawn.

Seemingly from nowhere, the pixie pulled a long-ago forgotten pamphlet, dropped by Mr. Smythe of 133. The pamphlet, among other things, specified the exact height the grass should be for any house in the town of Roebuck. The pixie read and reread the pamphlet, then began to presumably take measurements with her lanky fingers. She smiled, revealing a mouth full of sharply pointed teeth, and began to crawl on hands and knees up and down the yard, munching at the grass as she did so.

Once the entire front yard had reached the requisite height as mandated by the pamphlet, she headed to the back garden where she repeated the process. After eating both lawns, she paused to rest, letting out a high-pitched noise suspiciously like a burp. Though positively bloated with grass, she still paused to scramble up the pear tree to retrieve a few fruits. Pixies are uncommonly fond of pears.

She then proceeded back inside the house, where she collected the newspaper and took it with her to the attic. She went first to the lamp, where she restored the street outside to the proper level of light. Evidently, the lamp had a “normal” setting where it provided the expected standard level of light hat every lamp ought to. Clicking the lamp to this setting, the pixie settled herself comfortably beneath the light, where she sat eating pears and reading through the newspaper, twittering occasionally at entertaining passages. One entry in particular caught her eye, though she did not seem at all amused. The story was on the third page, not quite the headline but important enough to be reported within the first five pages of the daily paper.

Fourth In String of Missing Dogs

Citizens and pet owners of Roebuck grow increasingly concerned as the fourth in a string of missing dog cases pops up. Mr. and Mrs. Stanley first noticed something was amiss when their beloved pet, Roger, did not come in from the back garden when called. The Stanley's’ back garden is enclosed by a tall wooden fence on all sides, and no broken or damaged sections of the fence were discovered. Upon inspection of the back garden, no holes under the fence were found. It appears as though Roger was taken from the back garden of the Stanley home with no indication of how someone was able to enter and exit with Roger, a large German Shepherd, without being detected or leaving any trace. Residents of Roebuck are dismayed at this apparent pattern emerging in the case of now the fourth dog to go missing. Roger is preceded in his predicament by Ms. Jones’ terrier Knight, the Gardeners’ St. Bernard Amy, and the James’ family Chihuahua Titan. The four canines are all well cherished, and anyone with information about the missing dogs is encouraged to telephone the police. There is currently a reward of £1,000. At this point in time, the police have no reason to believe that the animals have been harmed in any way, but they do ask the community to remain vigilant and contact them with any information they may have.

The pixie read and reread the article, tapping her fingers together in an anxious rhythm. Finally, she tore off the section containing the information about the missing dogs and tucked it away into her tunic. She scoured the rest of the newspaper, more purpose driven then before, though she did not seem to find anything else worth noting. Finished, she grabbed up the newspaper and waved it in an unusual pattern in the air, where it disappeared inexplicably. She then clicked the lamp all the way off, returning the attic to the dim evening light that matched the dusk outside. Then she turned, not to the mirror, but towards the music boxes, all still facing one another in a small circle. Deftly she wound each one, holding each knob until all three were ready, then released them all at the same time. Immediately, a mournful sound filled the attic and drifted into the street below, as the three figures spun in tandem. The pixie sat, pulling her knobby knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around herself. She closed her eyes and began to rock slowly, back and forth, in time with the music. Tears of pure molten silver fell from her eyes and made her way down her face, where the fell to the floor, disappearing in a puff of steam as soon as making contact with the attic floor. Tears of crystal fell from the figurines’ eyes, as the pixie well knew, disappearing in a similar manner once reaching the bottom of the music boxes.

The pixie stayed this way for a long time, until well after the music had stopped and the figures had come to a standstill. When she finally moved to stand, she gently patted the richly dressed woman, the turbaned man, and the school boy all on the head and whispered I’m sorry to each, in a voice that was somehow both raspy and honeyed. The figures, unsurprisingly, made no response, though tears continued to wind their way down all their cheeks.

Evidently having completed her task, the pixie picked her way back to the looking glass, the frame of which was currently portraying a stag hunt in a Grecian urn style. She peered into the mirror, waiting until she saw what she needed, then placed one hand experimentally to the glass. When it gave way beneath her touch, she brought the other to meet it, then stepped through the mirror, disappearing entirely from the attic.

The attic was left exactly as it had been before, amidst deafening silence, untidy, at the top of an untidy house, at the end of a pristine street.

A few streets away, at this exact moment, a pair of glowing red eyes was watching a man walk a Doberman. As the pixie moved through the mirror, the owner of the red eyes felt the shift, and smiled to itself. Closer, closer I am, it thought. Pleased, yet still focused, the creature remained dedicated to the task at hand, stalking man and dog in the night.