The river murmurs secrets Alice cannot quite catch. She kneels at the edge, grass tickling her shins, and dips her fingers into the cold thread of water. The ripples spread, distorting the face that looks back at her. For a moment, she doesn't recognize the girl in the reflection. The girl has her hair, her dress, her blue-green eyes—but there is something unfamiliar in the set of her mouth, something older and more knowing than Alice remembers herself to be. Her sister sits a few yards away, back against a willow trunk, lost in a book that has no pictures. Alice envies her that absorption—the way words can build walls against the strange. But Alice has never been good at staying inside walls. She traces a circle in the damp earth beside the water. A spiral. A question mark. The reflection watches her do it. The reflection does not blink. “If I stepped into you,” Alice whispers to the water, “would I come back the same?” The river does not answer. But the wind shifts, and from somewhere far off—or perhaps very near—she hears a sound like a watch ticking, insistent and hurried, pulling at the edges of the afternoon. Alice looks up. Her sister has not moved. The book still holds her. But the sunlight has dimmed, as though a cloud has passed over the sun. Only there are no clouds. She looks back at the reflection. The girl in the water is smiling now. A small, patient smile. A smile that knows something Alice has not yet learned. From the direction of the rabbit hole, the ticking grows louder.