At first she wasn’t sure it was her she was seeing. The other Alice. Her old eyes had so much trouble focusing these days.

But it was her other self, for sure. The little girl with blonde hair and the sweet dress and shoes, her hands placed against the mirror, looking back at her elderly self.

Something had happened after the Hatter did his magic. She had split into two, one in the regular world, the other in Wonderland, where apparently there was no aging.

At times others would appear in the mirror in addition to young Alice: the dormouse, the Red Queen, the Cheshire Cat, oysters, Jabberwocky. Looking back at her, curiously.

“Ms. Liddle,” the nurse said. “You need to stop staring at that mirror. Do you want us to take it away?”

Alice shook her head and retreated from the mirror. She needed to stop looking. But she would still see them out of the corner of her eye, waving, blowing kisses, sipping tea.