THERE WAS A FULL-LENGTH MIRROR in Kokoro’s room.
She had got her parents to put it up as soon as she had chosen her room – an oval-shaped mirror with a pink stone frame. When she looked at herself in it now, she looked sickly, and she felt like crying. She couldn’t stand to look at it any more.
She quietly lifted a corner of the curtain to make sure that Tojo-san had left, then collapsed in slow motion back on her bed. With the sound down, the glow from the TV struck her as overpoweringly bright.
She thought about how, now that she’d stopped going to school, her father had taken away her video game console.
‘If she doesn’t go to school but still has video games, she’ll never do any studying,’ he’d said to her mother. It looked like the next step was to take away her TV as well, but her mother had cut him short.
‘Let’s just wait and see,’ was her verdict.
At that moment, Kokoro had hated him, but now she wasn’t so sure. She had the feeling he might be right – that if she did have video games to hand, that would be all she did all day. She certainly wasn’t doing any studying at this point.
Keeping up with schoolwork in this new school – junior high – wasn’t going to be easy. She felt lost, not knowing what to do.
The glow in her room was becoming really bright.
She casually raised her head from her pillow, thinking she should switch off the TV, and gasped.
The TV was not on.
She must have turned it off without realizing.
The light was coming from the full-length mirror near the door.
‘What the—?’
She got off her bed and walked over to it without really thinking. Light seemed to be radiating from inside the mirror; it had become so blinding she could barely look.
She reached out a hand to touch it.
She realized a beat later that it might be hot, but the surface was still cool to the touch. With a flat palm, she pushed a little harder.
‘Oh my god!’ she screamed to herself.
Her palm was being sucked right into the mirror. The surface was soft, as if she were pushing against water. She was being dragged to the other side of the mirror.
In an instant, her body had been swallowed up into the light and was moving through a tunnel of chilled air. She tried calling her mother, but no voice emerged.
She was being dragged somewhere far away. Up or straight ahead, she couldn’t tell.
✦ ✦ ✦
‘HEY YOU, WAKE UP!’
The first sensation was of a cold floor beneath her cheek.
She had a splitting headache, and her mouth and throat were parched. Kokoro heard the voice again, but couldn’t lift her head.
‘Come on, wake up.’
A girl’s voice, a girl from the lower grades of elementary school by the sound of it.
Kokoro didn’t know anyone that age. She shook her head, blinked, and sat up. She turned to look in the direction of the voice and gasped.
A weird-looking child was standing there, hand on hip.
‘Are you awake now? Kokoro Anzai-chan?’
She was looking at the face of – a wolf.
The girl was wearing the sort of wolf mask usually found at temple festivals.
She was wearing an outfit that clashed with the wolf mask – a pink, lace-trimmed dress, the kind a girl would wear to her own piano recital, or to a wedding. She was like a live version of a Rika-chan doll.
And she – knows my name.
Kokoro’s eyes darted around.
Where am I?
The shining emerald floor reminded her of something from The Wizard of Oz.
She felt perhaps she was in an anime, or in a stage play. Then she noticed a dark shape looming over her. She looked up and took a huge, deep breath. Her hand flew to her mouth.
She seemed to be in some sort of castle. A castle from a Western fairy tale, with a magnificent gate.
‘Congratulaaations!’ a voice sang. Behind the mask, Kokoro couldn’t read the little girl’s expression, or see her lips move.
‘Kokoro Anzai-san, you have the honour of being a guest in this castle!’ She spread her arms out wide and spun around.
The magnificent iron gate began to creak open.
✦ ✦ ✦
KOKORO’S MIND WENT BLANK WITH fear. She had to get out.
The wolf girl continued to gaze at her, inscrutably. Kokoro hoped that, if this was some sort of dream, then the next time she looked, the girl would have vanished.
Something caught the edge of her vision. Kokoro slowly turned around: a mirror on the wall was shining.
Not the same oval-shaped mirror as the one in her bedroom, though it seemed a similar size. Its frame was ringed with multi-coloured, teardrop-shaped stones. Kokoro scampered towards it. This mirror must surely connect up with her room, and if only she could pass through it, she might be able to go back.
Kokoro suddenly felt the weight of the little wolf girl clinging to her back, tackling her from behind with her spindly limbs. The force of her charge sent Kokoro tumbling face first back on to the emerald-coloured floor.
‘Don’t you dare run away!’ the little girl shrieked in her ear. ‘I’ve been interviewing six others all day, and you’re the last. It’s already four o’clock and I’m nearly out of time!’
‘I really don’t care!’ Kokoro found her voice.
She was sure she sounded extremely harsh to this girl, so much younger than her, but Kokoro was feeling panicked.
Lying on the floor, she tried to prise the clinging girl off her back. She twisted her head sideways for another look at her surroundings.
It was like a Disney Cinderella castle, ripped from some fantasy.
This has got to be a dream, she thought. But the girl now pinning her to the floor with her legs around her waist had tangible weight and substance.
She continued crawling towards the shining mirror, when she felt the little wolf girl begin to pound her with her fists.
‘What’s wrong with you? Don’t you want to know where you are? You could be on the brink of an adventure, and you’re telling me you really don’t care? Use your imagination for once in your life!’
‘I will not!’ Kokoro shouted back, nearly in tears. In her head she was thinking she could still get back. Pretend it never happened.
But she was becoming more certain: this was no dream.
The girl tightened her grip around Kokoro’s waist, squeezing her sides so hard Kokoro could hardly breathe.
‘As I was saying – we’ll grant you a single wish. It will come true, even for a dullard like you. So listen to me!’
As I was saying, the girl had said, but this was the first time Kokoro had heard anything about a wish. She was too out of breath to respond. She tried as hard as she could to shake her off, shoving the wolf girl’s snout away from her shoulder, where it was rubbing on her neck. Visible above the mask, the girl’s hair was so soft, the head Kokoro had pushed against so tiny, it surprised Kokoro how much it really did feel like a very small child. Nevertheless, she gritted her teeth and shook her sideways to the floor.
She crawled further, then struggled to her feet, and reached out to touch the shining mirror. Within seconds, her hand was being sucked into the surface, as if passing through water.
‘Wait!’ a voice shouted, and she held her breath. Shutting her eyes, she pushed against the mirror with her whole body, and leapt into the light.
‘Hey! You’d better come back tomorrow!’
She was assailed by a deafening, blurry noise. Then it faded away.