‘I’M SO GLAD WE COULD talk,’ said Moé, as Kokoro was going through the door.
‘That teacher, Ms Kitajima, told me,’ Moé went on, ‘as we’re neighbours and it’s the spring holiday, that I should see you and catch up. I wasn’t brave enough to go over to your house, but I told myself the next time I bumped into you I’d try to talk to you.’
Tojo-san’s face looked more relieved and cheerful than before.
‘I’m glad we could talk, too.’
✦ ✦ ✦
BEFORE SHE REACHED HOME, DISASTER struck.
She glanced casually up at her bedroom window. It was past five now, too late to go to the castle. She didn’t regret not going any more.
Tomorrow was their farewell party, so everyone would be there. She looked up at her window again.
There was no mistaking it. The mirror was shining, but not with the usual rainbow-coloured light. It was now completely dazzling, a blinding white ball of fire swelling up into a huge mass just beyond the window.
Kokoro stood dead still in shock, until she heard a huge Bang!
She remembered a scene in a TV drama where a fire had made a window shatter. This was the exact same sound, with shards of glass flying in all directions.
As if on cue, after the bang, the blinding ball of light suddenly vanished, leaving its image still imprinted on her eyes.
In three strides, she reached the front door, fumbled with the key before unlocking it, then leapt over the front step and raced upstairs to her bedroom.
She pushed the door open, her breathing ragged. Then she screamed.
The mirror was cracked.
At the centre of her portal to the castle was a huge fissure. The glass around it was smashed to pieces. This mirror had always coolly reflected Kokoro’s room, but now that it was in pieces it looked cheap, like thin aluminium foil.
‘Why?’ Kokoro shrieked. She reached out to touch the mirror. She didn’t care about cutting herself. Tears rolled down her cheeks.
‘Why? Why? Wolf Queen, answer me! Wolf Queen!’
She shook the mirror violently, her face reflected over and over in the tiny shards. Every one of them showed her bawling her eyes out.
‘Wolf Queen!’ she screamed. ‘Wolf Queeeeeeeeeeen!’
A dull light began to shine from the mirror’s cracked middle.
It was different from the usual array of rainbow colours.
The light now resembled the pattern on the skin of a giant snake.
A mottled black and inky-grey pattern wriggled around, glistening like scales.
As when oil falls on a puddle and spreads; as if stirring the surface of the mirror, the dull light moved around like something alive.
✦ ✦ ✦
‘KOKORO.’
She heard a voice.
A faint voice coming from beyond the mirror.
In the dim light of evening, she peered hard into the inky glow. Looking for the figure of the Wolf Queen.
In a tiny fragment of glass, a face came into view.
‘Rion!’
‘Kokoro.’
In her confused vision, she noticed more movement in another fragment of glass.
Masamune and Fuka’s faces.
‘Kokoro.’
‘Guys!’
She heard their voices calling her name. In another shard of glass she saw Subaru and Ureshino. They all seemed to be there.
Distorted faces, as if being compressed by the haze of dull light.
Kokoro went into a panic. Had everyone gone to the castle today? And were all the mirrors in their homes like this?
She heard another voice. ‘Help us, Kokoro.’
She could hear this voice more clearly, bell-like.
‘What’s going on? What in the world is happening?’
‘Aki. She broke the rules.’
It was Rion.
Kokoro held her breath.
‘She didn’t go home, it was after five o’clock. And she was – eaten by the wolf.’
The fingers of her right hand tightly gripping the pink stone frame of the mirror, Kokoro covered her mouth with her left, in shock. Her eyes stared unblinking.
Rion’s voice continued.
Among all the friends’ faces reflected in the shattered mirror, she realized Aki wasn’t there.
‘I think we’re all going to get eaten!’ Subaru said this.
Before Kokoro could respond, she heard Masamune: ‘Collective responsibility.’
The faces in the mirror wavered.
‘Everyone in the castle is going to be punished.’
‘We were on our way home when we got pulled back through the mirrors. Aki had apparently hidden in the castle until closing time.’
From beyond the mirror, Kokoro could see that Fuka was crying.
‘We’re all trying to get away now, but the howling—’ Ureshino said.
And just then, two loud howls.
Aooooooooooo!
Aooooooooo!
From the other side of the mirror, they struck Kokoro with force. Like being hit by a powerful wind, the sound made her heart quail.
‘It’s here!’ she heard Fuka scream. They covered their ears, wrapped their arms around their heads, and closed their eyes.
Kokoro pictured them all running for their lives, dashing to the double stairs in the grand foyer, staring into the mirror that led to Kokoro’s house.
‘Kokoro, please!’
Their voices were fading. She couldn’t tell who had called. Fear and shock had clouded her vision.
‘Guys!’ she shouted back. ‘Guys!’
‘The Wishing Key—’
Among the cacophony of voices she heard the words.
‘Find it and make the wish—’
‘And help Aki—’
This last from Rion.
‘It’s not Little Red Riding Hood. The Wolf Queen is—’
‘Guys!’ Kokoro shouted, shaking the mirror. ‘You guys, please – answer me!’
Aooooooooooo!
Aooooooooo!
This howling was the only response she got.
The faces had disappeared. Something passed in front of the mirror she was clutching. Long, like a tail.
Still clutching the frame of the mirror with her fingers, she screeched and pulled away. When she looked into the mirror again, she saw nothing.
No faces, not the shape that looked like a beast’s tail.
Only a dark patch lingering on the surface, proof that the mirror and the castle were still connected.