When Chloe drove back to the hospital from the forest, it was already past hospital hours, and none of the wards were lighted. So, she again used the spare key and sneaked in with her backpack. She walked stealthily down a corridor and make a detour using the stairs instead of the elevator for fear of meeting a nurse. When she reached Kip's ward, she again heard a sound from inside the ward.
'Did they come back?' Chloe opened the door in a hurry, expecting the presence of the creature or the man in the black cloak she had seen before. She silently slipped into the ward, watching for a nurse, and looked around inside.
However, she didn't find anybody except Kip who was lying on the bed in the dusky ward, the twilight lit by the glow from the TV screen. With less surprise this time, she curiously looked at the TV that had been somehow turned on again.
'Taro; sweet potato; lily; These plants are called 'geophytes.' These are perennial and can stay over a hiemal season. Although the subastral part of these plants withers up and dies in winter, they retain the subterranean stem and root. They maintain their lives under the ground over the winter and again propagate from the subterranean buds.'
The TV program on the air now seemed to be about a natural science, but Chloe again didn't understand it very well because of many words she didn't know. Rather than trying to understand it, she wanted to know why a program like those Kip had used to watch was on again. The only thing she could think of was that Kip had somehow turned it on, choosing his favorite channel, so she sat on the chair staring at his expressionless face and tried to talk to him.
'Kip? Kip! Do you hear me? Kip? Did you turn this TV on?' Chloe directed questions to him in her mind, but there was no reply from him. 'Kip? Please wake up. You hear my voice, don't you? I am right here with you. There is nothing you should worry about. You don't have to confine yourself in the shell of your mind. Break it up and launch back to this reality.” She clasped him by the hand and tried to communicate somehow in her heart, but there was no sign he acknowledged her attempt. Has he really started to walk the path to his last home where he will never be allowed to change his direction? Chloe asked herself and wondered if there was really no means to take him back now.
“Although the fairy godmother seemed to give me some clue, what do I need to do?” she murmured to herself. Taking the hand mirror from the fairy godmother out of her backpack, she looked into it. She saw a black shadow on the wall behind her in the mirror, and she quickly turned her face back in surprise.
She thought it would be the man with the black cloak, but it was just her shadow cast on the wall by the dim light from the TV screen. “Are you still anticipating the man coming back?” she asked herself in the mirror, wondering about why she mistook her own shadow for the man with the black cloak.
No, I am not. He must have gone back with the weird creature. She imagined the image of herself in the mirror answering her question.
Gone back? Gone back where? To the place they came from? Where did they come from? Chloe asked herself in the mirror again.
I don't know where the place itself is, but the creature I saw came through the tunnel made in the window there, answered the image of Chloe in the mirror.
Then Chloe glanced at the window, but she didn't see anything like a tunnel on it. How can you make such a tunnel in the window? she looked into the mirror again and asked.
I have no idea..., answered the image of Chloe.
Do you know how, Kip? Chloe again asked him, holding his hand firmly, but there was no reply at all. Finding no answer to her own questions disappointed her.
Then she looked at herself in the mirror with a sigh and suddenly chuckled, reminiscing about her childhood when she had vexed her father with her innocent questions.
“What are you doing, Chloe? You should stay in bed; otherwise, you won't get well,” said Dr. Rorschach tenderly to Chloe who had not attended preschool today.
“I am talking to myself in the mirror of this dressing table,” said Chloe.
“Why?”
“Because I was bored. I cannot stay in bed all day long. I was waiting for tomorrow, but I felt time was longer than usual. I want to go to school as soon as I can, but tomorrow hasn't come soon. The more patiently I wait, the longer time I feel. Why? I have to practice with Kip. I am to act Cinderella. The play is on Sunday.”
“Ha-ha. I know your feeling, but you should stay at home today. You don't want to give your cold to your prince, do you?” said Dr. Rorschach, who then gently took her to bed. “I can tell you one thing you can do to let tomorrow come soon. That is to get some sleep. If you have a good sleep today, tomorrow will come sooner, and you can practice with him.”
He put the blanket over Chloe affectionately, but she asked another question.
“Daddy, I wonder why he has never caught a cold?”
“Well, that's probably because he is under the protection of the forest.”
“Under the protection of the forest?”
“Yes. This is my guess, though. I think the reason he has never gotten sick is because he often goes to the forest near his house. That lets him take a forest bath.”
“A forest bath?”
“That is to bathe yourself in the tiny particles coming out of forest trees and floating in the air, just like you take a steam bath. You cannot see it, but it kills germs and virus.”
“Really? So, I should go to the forest, shouldn't I? It must be fun! If I go there, at least I won't be bored as I am now.”
“No, no, no. You can't go there. You should stay inside today and have a good sleep.”
“Why?”
“Because....” He thought for awhile. “Because Chloe in the mirror doesn't want to go outside today. If you go there, she must go there unwillingly, too. Look at her in the mirror. She is frowning on your going to the forest, isn't she?”
“Well, I am not sure. She looks in an ill mood to me today. She has closed her mouth and not said anything, although I was trying to talk to her. I wonder if something is wrong with her.”
“Well, probably she is sick today. So, she must want to go to bed and get a good sleep to let tomorrow come soon,” said Dr. Rorschach in a soft voice.
“Is she doing the same thing as I am doing now?”
“I guess so.”
“Why does she always do the same as I do?”
It was very difficult for Dr. Rorschach to answer her innocent wonder.
“Well, I don't know. You probably should ask her.”
“I did. I already asked her, but she didn't answer me. She just glumly mocked all I was doing. I wanted to show how ugly she was. I think she didn't know what she was actually doing. If I put another mirror in front of her, she will be annoyed by a third Chloe in the mirror who will mock what she does, and she will know what she was actually doing to me. But, unfortunately, I don't have another mirror. Do you have one, Daddy?”
“Not with me.”
“Do you think she will be bothered?”
“Maybe...well, I don't know.” He knew he should make an appropriate explanation understandable to a young child, but he gave her an evasive answer because he wanted her to have a good sleep.
“Daddy, I have another thing I wonder about,” said Chloe without knowing she was vexing him.
“What is it?”
“If I hold a hand mirror in front of the dressing table, she may be bothered by a third Chloe in the hand mirror. But the third Chloe will see a fourth Chloe in the hand mirror held by Chloe in the mirror of the dressing table. Then the fourth Chloe will see fifth Chloe, who will see sixth Chloe...ah, I am confused. Does this continue forever? What will happen in the end?”
“That's a good question. You should figure it out by asking the other Chloe. But not now. You should first let the other Chloe in the dressing table have a good sleep. Then she will willingly answer your question tomorrow, said Dr. Rorschach. It was the best answer he could give her in order to make her go to sleep.
“How can I let her do so?”
“If you have a good sleep now, she will have good one, too.”
“Okay, I'll do that,” said Chloe docilely. “Good night, Daddy.”
“Good night, Chloe.” Dr. Rorschach kissed Chloe on the forehead and left the room.
“Good night, Chloe in the dress table. See you tomorrow morning,” Chloe whispered and then fell into sleep.
When Chloe roused from her childhood reminiscence, she suddenly became impatient to see what would happen if she held the hand mirror in front of a mirror. In fact, she had never attempted it after she had fallen asleep on that occasion. Although she used to have many ingenuous questions in her childhood, she often forgot what she wondered about by the next day and didn't seek an answer.
But now she had the hand mirror given by the fairy godmother and wondered about the world in the mirror, since she had talked with the fairy godmother about a different dimensional world. Because she urgently needed to pursue Kip who had gone somewhere in a different world, she looked around to find one more mirror. Then she saw the window reflecting the TV screen. In the dark ward with the dim light emitted from the TV screen, the window was like the surface of a lake that reflected a blurry gray sky. She curiously went to the window and looked into the mirror-like surface. As she gazed, she saw the faint image of herself in it, and she contemplated her face for a moment.
Then she held the hand mirror in front of the window and tried to see what would happen to the reflection of the window by changing the angle of the hand mirror a few times. When she put her face close to the hand mirror and curiously looked at the window, she was amazed at what she saw.
Although it was very hard to see in the darkness, there was actually a tunnel enclosed by many frames of the hand mirror that looked like frames juxtaposed in a perspective drawing.
“This looks like the tunnel which the weird creature came through!” As she struck her, she fearfully held out her hand and tapped her fingers lightly against the image of the tunnel. But she felt nothing with her fingers, as if she touched air. She slowly put out her forefinger into the tunnel and quickly pulled it out in surprise.
There seems to be a vacant space in the window! But it was still unbelievable to her, so she tapped her fingers against the part of the window beside the images of the framed hand mirror in order to determine if the window was still there. When she touched it, the window made a rap. The image of the TV screen reflected on the window also confirmed the presence of the windowpane. She again put her finger slowly into the image of the tunnel. There was absolutely nothing in it. She curiously peeped into the tunnel, and then she saw a bright white light far beyond it.
There must be the bogey-creature there! I should ask it about Kip! She immediately felt a glimmering of hope in the light beyond the tunnel.
But, unfortunately, it was too small to enter. Although she was sure she should go through the tunnel toward the bright white light, she had no idea how she could get in. What was worse, she heard footsteps of a nurse who was making her visiting rounds among the patients.I must do something now, she told herself, but she didn't know what to do.
The nurse was already coming to the next ward, so Chloe went back to the chair to get her backpack and get ready to hide under the bed in case the nurse came into the ward. She hastily unzipped the backpack and put the hand mirror in it, but at the same moment she noticed something in the mirror. Where is my pendant? She promptly turned her eyes on her bosom, and there was the pendant hanging from her neck. She again looked into the mirror, but there was no pendant in it. What happened to my pendant? Musing upon it, she again ruminated on what the fairy godmother had told her.
'Ask your pendant for its help...
But it is actually given from your future father-in-law...
You are always with his help. Never lose it.
Never. Ever....'
She still didn't understand what those words meant, but there was not enough time to think about it because the nurse was almost there. Holding it firmly in her hand, Chloe asked her pendant to let her enter the tunnel, without knowing what she was actually saying in her mind.
Then, she turned her eyes on the window and found the tunnel in the window surprisingly enlarged.
I can go through it now!
Chloe was so excited, she quickly took off her sneakers and put on the white high-heeled shoes given by the fairy godmother. When she saw the shadow of the nurse through the frosted glass of the door, she ran to the tunnel with her backpack. As the very moment the nurse opened the door, Chloe dove headfirst into the tunnel. It vanished just as the nurse came into the ward. The only things the nurse wondered about were Chloe's sneakers left on the floor and the TV that was kept on in the dark ward. However, those were no longer of any concern to Chloe, who had already disappeared into the invisible tunnel.
It was a very dark place; there were no lights in the tunnel except for the bright white light that looked like a vanishing point far beyond the tunnel. Chloe looked around curiously for a moment, but she couldn't see anything, as if her eyes had not adjusted yet to the darkness. Feeling blind, she tried to touch the ground and started groping for her backpack. Strangely, she felt nothing against her hand, just as she hadn't felt anything when she had tapped her fingers against the image of the tunnel in the window. She didn't know if she was on the ground or floating like an astronaut in the space. The only thing that gave the tunnel direction was the tiny point of bright light far beyond the tunnel. She even didn't know if it was still the tunnel because she couldn't see any surrounding walls. Although she knew she should go toward the light, she wanted to determine where she actually was or what the place looked like. So, she carefully fumbled for her backpack and the flashlight in it. Finally she touched the backpack, which was the only thing she could feel with her hands, but she couldn't tell if it had any weight. If this place was like space or a virtual place, she would not feel any weight. But it was not a matter of concern now; she just wanted to know what the place looked like. So, she took the flashlight out of the backpack and turned it on, but she still couldn't see anything.
'What is wrong with this? Is the battery dead?'
She curiously looked at the light bulb, but it was actually emitting a light. It was working normally. But even though she cast the light around, she didn't see anything. This made her wonder if the wall of the tunnel was all black or if there was no wall at all in the huge, open, dark space.
“Chloe, what are you doing? Is that a new game you created?” Dr. Rorschach asked in wonder.
“No. I am just huddling up in this bag,” said Chloe in a trembling voice.
“Why are you in a garbage bag, Chloe?”
“Because this is all black....”
It seemed very strange to Dr. Rorschach that Chloe, who was a preschool child, was in the black garbage bag if it was not play. “Why should you be in the bag if it is all black?” he asked in confusion.
“Because I feel very cold now,” said Chloe in a feeble voice.
“Do you feel cold on such a warm day?” Dr. Rorschach soon realized she had a cold, so he got her out of the bag and felt her temperature by putting his hand on her forehead. “You have a little fever, Chloe. Why don't you go to sleep in bed? It will be warmer than the garbage bag.” He then put her in bed and said, “Chloe, I still don't understand why you tucked up yourself in the garbage bag rather than snuggling up in a blanket. Would you explain it for me?”
“Sure,” said Chloe in a low voice without any of her usual cheerfulness. “If it were now winter, you would wear a black coat or a dark coat, wouldn't you? That's because black clothes are the warmest, isn't it?”
“Yes. But why did you use the garbage bag rather than any of your black clothes?”
“I don't have black ones. The blanket I have is not black, either. That is why I still felt cold even in the bed, I thought.”
“But you felt cold in the garbage bag, too, didn't you?” said Dr. Rorschach tenderly without teasing her. She nodded at his question, a little embarrassed. “That's because you have a cold now. Your idea was very good, Chloe. But you'd better use the blanket because if you are in a garbage bag, you may be dumped out by a garbageman,” said Dr. Rorschach playfully.
“I don't think he will come inside this house to pick me up,” said Chloe, brushing aside his joke. “Daddy, could you explain seriously why I should use the blanket rather than the garbage bag? I thought I'd better use the garbage bag because a black thing would absorb all the light. Well, that is what you told me before, isn't it?”
Dr. Rorschach was surprised at Chloe's remark. He didn't think a very young child would require a scientific explanation to such a matter. “Well, that's right. I was amazed that you remembered such a thing. Okay. Let me be serious and explain it for you. The reason you should use the blanket is because it prevents your temperature from escaping easily. This blanket is much thicker than the garbage bag, isn't it? This has many air layers inside which hold your temperature. That's why the blanket is warmer than the garbage bag. This may be difficult for you now, but did you understand this explanation?”
Chloe just nodded and said, “Daddy, why do you know so many things? You seem to be omniscient.”
Dr. Rorschach was again surprised and wondered how she knew such a word as “omniscient.”
“Daddy, I have another question. May I ask?” said Chloe.
“Sure. But it will be the last question. I will answer it for you if you go to sleep after that. Okay?” said Dr. Rorschach affectionately.
Chloe nodded contentedly.
“Okay. What is your question?”
“When I was in the garbage bag, I couldn't see anything. If I had a flashlight, could I see something inside?”
“Yes, you could,” Dr. Rorschach answered simply, but he didn't know why she asked such a question. “Why do you wonder such a thing?”
“Because if a black thing absorbs all colors of light, I may see only the black color in the garbage bag. Doesn't it look like a dark room with no light? When I go into a room at night without turning a light on, I don't see anything except for black.”
“Well, that's a good question, too. This is more complicated to explain, but I don't want you to misunderstand. So I'll explain it for you, but if you don't understand, don't worry. You'll see when you learn at school,” said Dr. Rorschach and then thought for a moment about how he should explain it.
“First of all, the statement that a black thing absorbs all colors of light is not necessarily correct. Actually, I would rather say if something absorbs all colors of light, it is black. That's because no color is reflected into your eyes. If it reflects only the orange color of light coming into your eyes, it looks orange. So, an object itself doesn't necessarily have a color,” said Dr. Rorschach, thinking that it might be difficult for a preschool child.
But Chloe seemed to try to follow him and asked a reasonable question for her age.
“I don't see any difference between what you told me before and what you said now. Why can't I say 'Because it is orange, it reflects only an orange color of light to my eyes'?”
“Because even though an orange color is not the only color reflected, an object can look orange. For example, if it reflects all colors of light except blue, in another words, if all colors except blue come into your eyes, you will see it as orange. So in this case, blue and orange are called 'complementary colors'. You don't have to memorize it though. Likewise, well, in a way similarly, an object you see as white does not reflect white color coming into your eyes. It is in fact reflecting all the colors of rainbow. So, if something reflects all colors of light, it looks white to your eyes, and if it doesn't reflect any colors of light, it looks black to your eyes.”
Then, Dr. Rorschach glanced at Chloe, but she didn't seem to follow him any more.
“Let's look at the garbage bag now. You see white color in some part of its surface, don't you? You don't always see only the black color in an object which you think is black. You usually see white or graying black, too, depending on the angle from which you see it.”
Chloe curiously looked around the tunnel again, remembering what her father had told her in her childhood, and gazed at her surroundings, casting the light from various angles, but she didn't see anything. She saw neither any reflection nor shadow at all. So she concluded that there was no wall there, or if there were, it would be so far from her that the flashlight couldn't reach. But she never thought it might be dependent on how she perceived it.
I hope the white light there is not a world of only white color, she thought.
She worried for a moment about what she could do if it was all white, but she remembered that the bogey-creature called Celestial Tapir was not all white. It had some black dapples on its white body hair and was in red Chinese clothes. 'Well, if that creature is in that world, there must be some colors there. Otherwise, the bogey-creature would be all white, and that could not happen at all! As long as there is a normal light there, I will look like...well, I am actually white. But that's just the way people describe my race. My skin doesn't necessarily look white. So, my skin will look the way I see it now, even if I go there....'
As she contemplated this possibility, she casually looked at her hand, but she couldn't see anything. In fact, she couldn't see herself at all. “What's wrong with my body? I cannot see myself, even though I am shining the flashlight on myself. Is this possible?”
She was suddenly seized with doubt about the certainty of her existence. She thought she must be alive as long as her mind was still thinking, but she was not sure if she physically existed.
“Be calm, Chloe,” she said to herself. “Think rationally now. I suppose I entered the metaphysical world, didn't I? So, even though I don't see my physical body now, nothing is strange here.” She tried to put her fears aside, but another worry soon came to her mind. “If that is true, will I even be able to see the bogey-creature there? I suppose I will be able to hear its voice since I hear my voice now...well, I think I hear it now, but how can I find the bogey-creature there if I cannot see anything physically?” She sat down with a sigh and pondered for awhile.
“Well, you'll never get anywhere, Chloe, if you only keep thinking here,” said Chloe to herself. “You try to see what will happen if you start moving. Don't just speculate on what will happen -- go there and see.”She commanded herself to start searching. “Okay,”said Chloe, and she jumped up, grabbing her backpack, and started to walk toward the white bright light. Although it had looked very far away when she was sitting on the ground, she approached it very quickly as soon as she started to walk. A moment after she excitedly realized she could reach it soon, she was dazzled by the very bright glow radiating from the end of the tunnel. She quickly put her hands over her squinting eyes and tried to see through the slits between her fingers. Then, she suddenly heard a voice.
“Welcome to our world....”
She turned in the direction from which the voice came, but her eyes took a while to adjust to the light.
