THE SOLITARY CASTLE IN THE MIRROR

A story that delves into the circumstances and psychology of children who, for a variety of reasons, find themselves unable to go to school even when they want to.
Shortly after entering middle school, Kokoro Anzai starts getting bullied by the alpha girl in her class—to the point that she soon finds it impossible to attend classes there. She visits an alternative “free school” that she thinks might be better, but when the time comes, she can’t bring herself to go there, either.
One day she is whiling away the afternoon in her room at home when her mirror suddenly begins to glow with light. On an impulse, she reaches out to touch it, and promptly gets pulled through the glass into another world. On the other side she finds a large European-style castle, where she is greeted by a girl in a wolf’s mask. She also meets six other people her age gathered there—all, like Kokoro, boys and girls who have stopped going to school. The wolf girl tells them that they are there to find a key hidden somewhere inside the castle. The one who finds it will be granted a single wish. Castle rules say they can come and go freely each day from 9:00 to 5:00 for up to one year. Once someone finds the key and gets his or her wish, the castle will close, and all recollections of the castle will be wiped from their memories. Further, if anyone stays in the castle past the designated time, all participants who came to the castle that day will be eaten by a wolf as punishment.

Fantasia / Literatura Estrangeira