A mirror is magic.
     
Multiple mirrors are magic into infinity.
     
Imagine. Endless reflections of yourself, refracting back into eternity. Countless images, splitting you into duplicates, triplicates, dozens, hundreds of smaller pieces. You could vanish in here, cascading away into crystal and silver worlds so similar, so closely akin to your own.
 
But they are not your own.
 
Because a mirror is magic. But a mirror is also a liar. It shows the world in reverse. And multiple mirrors show lie after lie after lie, curving all the way to the end of dimensions.

"Don’t run off without me, Bobby," his mother calls. "You’ll get lost."
 
But Bobby knows better. How could he get lost in this child’s paradise of sticky pink candyfloss, garish neon signs and overstuffed toys? What would it matter if he did? Who would harm a small boy here? The white-faced, mournful clowns? The spangly-clad dancers? Of course not! Bobby knows this place is safe. He need not fear getting lost.
 
So he ignores his mother’s warnings and runs off without her, leaving her and his baby sister trailing behind, cooing over elephants and ponies with feathered plumes on their sad heads. He dashes from stall to brightly-painted stall, seeing balloons twist in the wind, seeing other boys and girls, their faces smeared with chocolate, all laughing delightedly, carefree, unafraid of getting lost.
 
He races past the roller coaster and the ghost train. They hold no thrills; he is over-familiar with the rush of air against his skin, the brush of faux-cobwebs over his shoulders. The luminous orange and green witch that beckons from the wooden sign cannot tempt him, nor can the blast of wild guitars from the waltzers. Bobby is looking for something new, something different, something exciting, to lure him away from the blend of music and laughter, the sickly smell of candy and soft drinks. He has seen all that before. Bobby is young, but Bobby is also jaded.

Step carefully in here, unwary traveller, if you don’t believe in magic. If you’ve never been enraptured by the sight of moonlight sparkling on the ocean, drawing a watery path to the stars, step carefully. If you’ve never been heartbroken by the vision of rose petals crushed underfoot, beware. If the sound of a lone bird singing in the dead of cold, white winter has never touched you, you do not belong here. Tread warily.
 
If you don’t believe in the sorcery of glass and silver, move slowly here. If you cannot tell the difference between yourself and your reflection, between your reflection and its twin, do not enter here. You will soon be lost in this mirrored maze and you will not easily find your way home again.

The wizened man reminds little Bobby of a dwarf in a fairytale. Except the fairytales neglect to mention the reek of brandy on the dwarf’s breath, the greasy film on his skin, the lank, light-absorbing hair. Fairytales gloss over the ugly details. They concern themselves only with pretty glass slippers and helpful talking mice. They don’t worry that glass slippers will break and shred the princess’s feet to bloody ribbons, and they don’t care that not all forest creatures are benevolent and kindly. There are wolves in the forest as well as mice.
 
But the dwarf fascinates Bobby nonetheless. He beckons from the shadows of a blue and yellow tent, calling Bobby with his gleeful, cracked voice. He speaks of hidden delights, the mysteries of ages, dreams and visions that even a bright young boy like Bobby could not possibly imagine. He whispers of worlds within worlds and hints at sinister beauty only a bright young boy like Bobby could truly appreciate.
 
Bobby is sold, flattered, intrigued. He digs in his pockets and draws out a handful of coins and lint, tips it all into the dwarf’s hands and waits, brimming with impatience while the dwarf counts his offering. Then, with a bow and a smirk, the dwarf pulls back the flap to his tent. There is darkness beyond, and a suggestion of space. "Go on," urges the dwarf, "or are you afraid?"
 
Bobby is not afraid of going in, any more than he’s afraid of getting lost. He steps inside boldly, letting the canvas slap closed again after him, plunging him into shadows.
 
But they are not shadows, are they? They are the reflection of shadows, marred now by the reflection of Bobby himself. Ah yes, the hall of mirrors, Bobby thinks, disenchanted already. No more exciting or alluring than the ghost train with its funereal music and cackling plaster skeletons. The hall of mirrors, a tent full of lies. Nothing more. He turns back to the exit, ready to leave.
 
But is this the exit? Or is this a reflection of the exit?

You will run for hours, days, until time has no meaning and you cannot remember why you started running. For running makes no difference. You are still lost and all you can run to is yourself, distorted and warped and meaningless. You will turn this way and that, convinced you know the way out, only to realise you don’t. You never did. Perhaps you should have left a trail of breadcrumbs, or a line of red string to mark your path?
 
It wouldn’t have helped. The breadcrumbs, the string, they too would become part of the mirrors, sucked in and spat out in reverse, becoming as much of a lie as the rest of this false, gleaming world.

Bobby presses his hands against the glass, leaving tacky, jellybean palm-prints in his wake, and struggles to find the exit. Doubt is beginning to erode his bored confidence. He is sure, on the edge of his consciousness, he can hear the dwarf laughing. If he follows that brandy-soaked laughter, surely he will emerge into daylight again.
 
He retraces his steps, watching himself in the mirrors, watching his endless reflections watch himself. The sensation makes him nauseous, but he blames this on too much candyfloss, too much lemonade. He is unwilling to accept yet that his mother was right, he did get lost.
 
The dwarf’s laughter echoes around the silvery hall until little Bobby is no longer sure where it originates. Like his own mirror images, it seems endless, sourceless. He cannot find his way out by tracking the laughter. So he begins to run.
 
This is his mistake. As soon as he begins to run, his body begins to panic. His blood grows hot and feverish with it, his adrenaline screams danger, danger. There must be danger, his body thinks, or why would he be running? And in the mirrors, twisting back into infinity, his reflections run too, panicking along with him. Danger, danger.
 
He stops, panting, and casts around desperately. Part of him clings to logic. The tent cannot be this big. He cannot be so far away from the exit and the wicked fairytale dwarf. There cannot be that many mirrors in here.
 
But mirrors are magic and magic doesn’t obey logic. There are no rules in here, little Bobby, none that you can understand.

You will run forever, or your reflections will. You will soon cease to differentiate between the two. Into the cracks of crystal and glass, you will spiral forever into magic and lies.
 
Ah, what’s this? You will smash the mirrors? You think to escape by shattering the magic, breaking the spell? Oh no, unwary traveller, if escape was so easy this would not be magic, would it?
 
Look at the cracks spread across the surface of the mirror, like spider webs on ice, beautiful and sinister and unstoppable. They break your reflection into a million more, sending your body flying in dozens of directions, splintering your soul into trillions of pieces. All around you, your reflection in the other mirrors splinters too, casting you out, whirling and screaming into the end of the world.
 
Does it hurt to break yourself so? You cannot say; whatever part of you tells your body you’re in pain is broken, split away from the rest of you and shattering against another mirror.
 
Do not say you weren’t warned, unwary traveller. Do not say you didn’t know.