"Mother bought a huge new mirror — and it's haunted!"
Arliss' sister had informed him on the phone.
"You'll see when you come home!"

Arliss In Wonderland (or Ten Years Before The Looking Glass), by C.S. Lewis-Carroll

*C.S. Lewis-Carroll is the nom de plume (the "feather name") of the author otherwise known as Kaleigh Way.

"Mother bought a huge new mirror — and it's haunted!" Arliss' sister had informed him on the phone. "You'll see when you come home!"

Arliss chuckled to himself, Yes, I will see! and then he felt quite guilty for laughing at his little sister, even if she had no idea that he was doing so. The poor little girl spent nearly all her time alone in a massive old house with no company but her mother and a series of au pairs. She had to be forgiven her fantasies.

The taxi arrived in front of the family home, and Arliss stepped out. There was no one to greet him; he knew there'd be no one. His first year of college ended a week early, and the family was off visiting the old aunts. Arliss had the place quite to himself for the weekend, and he was looking forward to it!

First of all, he made himself an enormous sandwich and devoured it. A second followed, and then, his stomach quieted, he went to have a look at the "haunted" mirror.

It stood in a strange little room, which the family called "the extra room." The room served no real purpose, and at the moment it held large random pieces of furniture that didn't fit anywhere else. Among other items, there stood a massive wardrobe (or standing closet), the huge and ornamentally ugly mirror, some chairs and a few small tables.

Arliss was particular interested in the wardrobe: he knew that his mother treated it as a sort of overflow, or extension, to her closet, and now that the young man was as tall as his mother, his experiments in dressing up were much more satisfactory and a great deal more fun.

He pulled open the door of the wardrobe, curious to see what its current contents would be. Usually it was his mother's off-season: winter clothes in summer time, and vice versa, but occasionally the selection was inexplicable. This time, he found, among his mother's Spring collection, some items that would be called fancy dress in the U.K. and costumes in the U.S.

He also found some of his father's tuxedos, which would be called fancy dress in the U.S. and smoking in Italy.

The most exciting piece of all was an enormous dress, with a full skirt, petticoats, ribbons, laces, ruffles, flounces, and furbelows… It was a veritable potpourri of feminine embellishments.

Of course, it was nothing less than the Little Bo-Peep ensemble that his mother had worn to a Halloween party last October. Arliss extracted it from the closet and hunted up the other pieces: the shoes, the white stockings, the bonnet, and the unconvincing but pretty shepherd's crook, complete with shiny blue bow.

As excited as he was by the discovery, Arliss took his time and took great care in putting it on. He didn't dare rip or damage any piece of it, or let it be seen that the clothes had ever come off the hanger.

When he was done, he clip-clopped over to the mirror to see the result.

Damn my short hair! he regretted silently. If it weren't for his obviously masculine haircut, he told himself, he could easily pass for a girl, and a pretty one at that. He admired himself, he curtsied, flounced, spun, and skipped away from and toward the mirror. He looked over his shoulder at his back, and wondered whether he dared risk taking a photo.

— and then he looked at the mirror.

It was a weird old mirror. The reflecting surface had the strange, creepy, mercury-like quality that all really old mirrors have, and the frame was so ornate, so packed with curlicues, flourishes, spirals, and flowers, it cause him to think baroque tripped out on acid. The effect was not much ugly as unsettling. He understood right away why his sister had called it haunted.

There was indeed something strange about the mirror, and when Arliss took a step closer and put his face nearer the glass, it got even stranger. The surface now seemed softer, even gauzy. Surprised at the difference, Arliss took a step back. The mirror didn't change, though: instead of snapping back to its cold hardness, it appeared even softer, like a mist, or a nearly transparent curtain.

Arliss reached out to touch it, and gasped as his hand passed through — or into — the mirror. He jerked his hand back, and the surface of the mirror rippled like water. He put his hand, then his arm through, and noticing that his reflection had vanished, he pushed his face through.

Inside was (much as one would expect) the same room, in reverse. Instead of the chair facing this way, it faced that way, and so on. The only difference was a letter that lay on a table in the mirror room that wasn't in the real room at all. Curious, Arliss stepped through, quickly ran to the table (as well as he could in his mother's heels), snatched the letter, and ran back to the mirror.

As anyone but Arliss would expect, the mirror had gone back to being a mirror. He rapped his knuckles on the glass; he touched it, he felt it, he put his face up against it as he'd done before, but nothing happened. The mirror remained a mirror, although there was no boy dressed as Bo-Peep on the other side.

After a few moments of panic, Arliss tried to calm himself. He thought about breaking the mirror but then I could be stuck here forever. He considered simply waiting until the mirror "softened" once again but now that I'm in here, I'd like to explore. And after asking himself what the worst thing that could happen, he realized it was being caught wearing his mother's clothes — and not just her clothes, but a rather hyper-feminine costume at that! So he determined that he'd go find some of his own clothes — since his own room must exist in his mirror-world — and he'd keep the clothes as insurance, in case he was stuck inside until his family returned.

And then, he remembered the letter: the reason he stepped into this strange little world in the first place. The envelope was quite lovely: a heavy, soft paper, high-quality stuff, and written in a fine calligraphic hand were the words:
 

Arliss swore aloud. He was here on a fool's errand, quite literally. If I'm using "literal" in the right sense there, he wondered.

Then, in spite of — or perhaps because of — the warning on the envelope, he ripped it open, and aha! pulled out a folded notecard that looked like nothing so much as an engraved invitation. There was nothing on the front or back, but when he opened the card, there, embossed in ornate black letters were the words:
 

Arliss smacked his forehead in frustration and tossed the letter and the card into the fire, and strode from the room.

Actually, he couldn't stride in those heels. He took one giant step, which wobbled and threatened to make him fall. Then he took more careful, measured steps, and made his way into the hall, and — forgetting his mission of finding male clothes — clacked down the steps, looking at his feet the whole way.

The fact that there was no fire — or fireplace — in the real extra room never registered. What he did notice, however, was the young man standing near the foot of the stairs, looking up at him.

"Oh, hell!" Arliss muttered aloud, more conscious than ever of what he was wearing. But each time he tried to stop, to turn, and to retreat back up the stairs, he found himself taking another step down, toward the stranger.

The young man was wearing a dark suit and tie, a white shirt, and shiny black patent-leather shoes. He looked quite anxious. He opened his mouth and said, "Dear Sir Or Madam!"

Arliss sighed. "Who are you?"

"I am the Patent-Leather Attorney, and you — unless I'm greatly mistaken — are Dear Sir Or Madam."

"My name is Arliss," Arliss began, and was about to explain in some way or another why he was dressed as Bo-Peep. But the lawyer never gave him a chance.

"You may regard that as an alias," he said. "We can list all aliases on a separate document, along with Bo-Peep and Little Bo-Peep. But your primary identity is obviously Dear Sir Or Madam."

"Why is that obvious?" Arliss asked with some irritation.

The Patent-Leather Attorney frowned in what he hoped was a professional way and pressed the fingertips of both hands together. "Your clothes are plainly feminine — excuse me, not plainly — they are quite ornate! So, to begin again: Your clothes are ornately feminine, while your hair is severely masculine. Hence, Sir Or Madam."

"And the Dear?" Arliss asked in spite of himself.

"Ah!" the Attorney replied. "That is short for Dear Me!"

Arliss shook his head and growled. "And what is your business here?"

The young man looked confused for a moment, then said, "I've been retained."

"By who?"

"By whom."

"By whom?"

"That is correct."

Arliss growled again in frustration. "I'm not asking you to correct my grammar! I'm asking you who retained your services!"

"Dear Sir Or Madam."

"Please answer my question!"

"I did," the Patent-Leather Attorney replied. "You retained me. Or you will retain me. It's all one and the same."

"It's not all one," Arliss contradicted. "I didn't retain you, and I won't retain you."

"Be that as it may," the lawyer replied, "It most decidedly is all one." And as he spoke, he opened the front door.

Arliss was speechless with frustration, and without thinking, he stepped outside. The door closed behind him, and he heard the click! of the lock being engaged.

"Hey!" he shouted, and banged on the door. "Let me back in!"

"Are you retaining me?" the lawyer asked.

"Hell, no!" Arliss shouted.

"Then I am not obliged to serve you," the lawyer replied. "I wish you a good day."

Arliss listened to the footsteps retreating inside the house. He fumed and stamped up and down the front porch.

Then he flopped into a chair, and the huge skirt swung up and struck him in the face.

"Now I'm all set," he growled aloud. "Dressed in girls clothes — ridiculous girls clothes! — and trapped outside my own house! Or whatever crazy mirror-house this is! What am I going to do? I can't be seen like this!"

© 2013, 2014 by Kaleigh Way