Alice Unbound

by Colleen Anderson

  Then the door opened and the last customer walked in.

  She closed the door and shook the wet from her coat. She’d buzzed her blonde hair short, and apparently sworn off makeup, but she still wore that tiny gold key on a chain around her neck, and made no effort to cover the scar that curved across her right cheek like a disembodied grin. She carried a narrow wooden box under her arm.

  He took her coat and hung it beside his own. She slid her arms around his waist and said, “Hello, Henry.”

  He hugged her back gently. “Hello, Alice.”

  The website hosted by the world’s governing chess body, the Federation Internationale des Echecs (FIDE,) rates Alice Liddell as Europe’s best active female player.

  There are perhaps 1,000 chess grandmasters living today – grandmaster being a title bestowed by the FIDE upon players who have attained 2,600 points in tournament play, and won at least twenty-seven sanctioned FIDE tournaments.

  Odds were good that Alice would join their ranks this year. Instead, she all but retired from public life.

  A chess star with a shadowed past and training in several martial arts, Alice has always been a fiercely independent woman, determined to do things for herself.

  The story of finding her in the woods had been one of his best. The interview he’d done with her fifteen years later in Oslo had been better. It was the only interview she ever gave. Between matches, she’d talked candidly about how her sister’s death had torn her family apart. How she sometimes still had trouble recognizing herself in the mirror. About getting help to deal with her PTSD. How both chess and martial arts made her feel as if she had a measure of control in her life.

  She talked about Wonderland. When asked what she thought of the movies based on her life, she said, “Not much.”

  She’d emailed him when the article came out, saying it had been nice to see him, and thanking him for being a good listener. Henry, who knew about the stories children told themselves to survive, printed the note and saved it.

  They didn’t saw each other again, and Henry wasn’t sure following each other on Twitter constituted a relationship. But he was glad she was here now.

  Nadia came to their corner table with another glass of wine and a pot of tea. As Alice poured, Henry said, “It’s funny what we remember, isn’t it?”

  She said, “Sometimes.”

  “You know the first thing I always remember about that day?” She didn’t ask which one. “Just before you got in your father’s car, you turned and waved to me.”

  “I remember that. I had the strange idea it might encourage you.”

  And, strangely, it had. She’d come out of the woods with all kinds of wounds, including gaps in her memory; the victim of things she was simply too young to understand. But even splattered with blood and obviously in distress, somehow she’d still thought to turn and wave goodbye. He’d wondered if kindness was so much a part of her nature that she hadn’t had to think about it.

  She opened the wooden box and set the small carved figures on the table, the queens and kings, bishops and knights, rooks and pawns, then turned the box over and opened the hinges wide. The box itself converted to a chessboard. She set the pieces on their squares, and began moving them immediately. “Do you often do that?” he asked.

  “Do what?”

  “Play against yourself? Pretend to be two people?”

  “I always did, even as a child.”

  He wondered if it was the only way she could find a decent opponent. Her gold key glinted in the low light. She’d had it in her hand when he found her that day, and, walking back to the river, she’d said, “Will you keep this for me? They’ll take it away from me if you don’t. They take everything good.”

  He knew better. He knew he should give the key to the police, her father, someone. There’d be hell to pay if anyone found out, and it was wrong. But he couldn’t refuse her. She was being so brave, and her words cut deep into his memory, making it bleed. She dropped the key in his shirt pocket, and he didn’t think of it again until that night when he undressed for bed.

  He went to see her the next morning, carefully cleaned up and on his best behaviour. The police had checked out all the members of the search party as a precaution, and Alice showed no fear of him, but still – he thought her parents would be wary of a stranger at the door. He’d brought Alice an arrangement of yellow carnations and daisies in a small blue mug, and said he just wanted to say goodbye to her, and he was glad to see she was okay. Which was stupid, of course she wasn’t okay; but she offered her hand politely, and he slipped her the key as they shook. Her smile was small and pleased. She waved goodbye as he left.

  She finished the game, and said, “Play with me?” It sounded like an invitation to slaughter. She held out two pawns. “Offensive or defensive?”

  “I’ve been called both.” He chose white. “Are you still in therapy?”

  “No. After a while it was just a waste of time and money.”

  “It didn’t help me, either.” His wine smelled of wild mint and Gran’s lavender hand lotion; of slippery stones, and things dropped in the water late at night.

  “Do you still think of Wonderland?” he asked.

  “Every day. That garden was so beautiful. A little peace and quiet would be nice, don’t you think?”

  He did. “Why did you keep the key? Didn’t your parents ever ask where you got it?”

  “Once. I said I’d taken it from my sister’s jewellery box because I wanted something to remember her by.”

  As if you’d ever forget, Henry thought.

  “As if I’d ever forget,” she said.

  “Did you ever remember where you got it?”

  She said, “I remembered everything, eventually. Starting with my sister’s string of boyfriends, and how she played them off each other, making them vie for her attention. They didn’t like it. One of them followed us into the woods that day. When he attacked her I just went haring off into the woods. I tripped over the roots of an old stump. The key was on the ground there.”

  “Did you ever see him again?”

  “About a year ago, in New York. That’s when it all came back to me.”

  “What did the police do?”

  “Nothing. I didn’t tell anyone.”

  “Why not?”

  “Oh, you know me, Henry. I prefer to take care of things myself.”

  She snapped the head off one of his pawns and whispered, “Snicker-snack.”

  Alice poured herself another cup of tea. “My therapist used to say I became so independent because I was trying to distance myself from my parents. But I think it was the other way around – I was just making it easier for them. We didn’t talk much after the murder, true. But we hadn’t talked much before, either. My sister was their favourite. I knew it. She knew it. They just didn’t seem to know what to say to me. I think they were relieved when I started playing chess. They didn’t have to spend so much time trying to deal with me.”

  “My mother used to talk to me all the time,” Henry said.

  “Not now?”

  “She’s dead.” It was the first time he’d ever said it aloud, and it opened the door for all the other words he’d kept to himself.

  He told Alice about the night his mother had disappeared. About Gran and Mama yelling at each other, sounding angrier than usual. Something about his father, he thought. Gran’s voice high and cold and shrieking like the night wind. He remembered both falling silent at the same time.

  He had pulled his blanket up around his ears and closed his eyes tight, telling himself it was okay, it was okay. Mama had said it was the last night they’d ever have to spend in Gran’s house.

  “When I was a little boy I thought that at least she’d got out of the house.”

  “And now?”

  “I think she never left.”

  He thought Gran had kept him only because she knew it was the one thing Mama wouldn’t want. She was that spiteful. Growing up in her house was hard.
He didn’t have many friends, and none would ever visit him because they were scared of her. He understood, but it was still lonely.

  She wouldn’t talk about his parents. The only time she’d ever mentioned his father had been to say Henry would grow up to be dirt like his daddy. And there’d been anger in her look, but also something young Henry had never seen before. Looking back, he thought it had been a kind of hunger. He thought Gran and Alice’s sister must have shared the same appetite for attention. People said Gran had been lovely back in her day. But when they didn’t know Henry was nearby they also said her parents hadn’t done her any favours by spoiling her. That she was too used to getting what she wanted when she wanted it.

  Henry suspected she’d wanted his daddy for herself.

  (Yellow: the colour of madness.)

  She’d never liked competition. She’d never liked the word no.

  He’d spent his evenings studying hard, hoping good grades would help him get out. They did. Local college, local part-time jobs, and finally full-time work at the local newspaper. He wrote well and worked to get better, knowing his success would infuriate Gran. He got noticed and moved up.

  And moved out, never to see Gran again.

  “Did you ever look for your father?” Alice asked.

  “I did. His name was on the birth certificate. Mama’s bus tickets would have taken us to a place called Layton. I put two and two together – and found nothing. I don’t know why she wanted to go there. I tracked every lead I could think of. I hired a private detective. I never found him.”

  “Do you think your grandmother knew where he was?”

  “I’m afraid she might have.”

  He thought of things hidden and voices gone silent. He thought of things dropped in the lake, and ripples that spread forever.

  He thought of all the places he might have lost the key to his mother’s suitcase.

  He thought of memories so jumbled that neither he nor Alice might ever sort them out.

  She moved her queen, finally putting him out of his misery. “You know the first thing I always remember about that day?” she said, and he didn’t ask which one. “I knew right away you were going to be my best friend.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You hid my key. You kept my secrets.” She folded the chessboard back into a box and began stashing the pieces. “I always had the feeling that I mattered to you. Was I wrong?”

  “No.”

  “And I was always sure I could call you if I needed help.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you could’ve called me.”

  She hadn’t been born when he’d really needed help, but he appreciated the sentiment. He looked into his empty glass, thinking that at one time he’d hated himself for not doing anything to protect his mother. (Yellow: the colour of cowardice.) But he’d been a child, and it was all he could do to save himself. Though he didn’t know that he’d done such a good job of it.

  He thought, I wish none of it had ever happened.

  Alice said, “I wish none of it had ever happened.”

  Nadia rang the bell for last call at 10:45. The shuttle to La Maison Jaune was scheduled to leave at eleven. No one asked for another drink. Alice left the chessboard and her cell phone on their table. Henry checked his one last time. No messages, no surprise.

  Andrew tossed a heart flush beside the pile of money on the table. The red-haired woman left her book on the end of the bar. A quiet rustle went through the room as people collected their coats.

  The shuttle bus was small and sleek. Henry and Alice sat together. “I was nervous about accepting the invitation at first,” she said. “All I’d ever heard about La Maison Jaune was rumour. You know why I finally accepted?”

  “Because the card looked like a door?”

  Her smile was small and pleased. She leaned against him to look out the window. The rain had stopped. The clouds were parting. She said, “Do the trees look different to you? Does…everything look different?”

  It did. Where are we?

  The trip seemed short. He’d lost track of time. Or maybe, he thought, time was different here. The article had stopped writing itself in his head, not finished but as done as it was going to get.

  La Maison Jaune was huge, and a truly disturbing shade of yellow. It was all wrong angles and unmeasured walls. The door opened as they approached. Alice took Henry’s hand as they walked in.

  “Welcome to La Maison Jaune.”

  Their guide was a shadow clothed in shadows, Henry thought. Male, female, human, all, none, he couldn’t tell. Maybe it was an unmentioned ghost. But…if they’d come this far did it really matter?

  There were no introductory speeches, no explanations. No stories about the history of the house or their unknown benefactor. There were no answers.

  He supposed they’d find their own soon enough.

  Their guide gestured to a registration book on a table near the door. It was old and yellowed, and looked thousands of pages thick. “Please sign in.”

  Henry recognized some of the signatures on the page. He wondered who needed to keep track of who passed through. He signed and didn’t ask.

  “Now we begin,” the guide said. “La Maison Jaune has many doors. You may open one. Only one.” Henry glanced at Alice, who was glowing quietly. “When you find the door you wish to open you separate from the group and go in alone.”

  The tour began. “It’s like a maze,” Alice murmured. Some of the hallways were long, some short; some panelled in golden maple, some made of mortared stone. There were no windows, but in the first ten minutes Henry thought they must have passed a thousand doors.

  The redhead went first, pausing before a faintly shining, milky glass panel in a brick wall. She reached out tentatively, and tapped a forefinger against it. The glass shattered musically, falling in slow-motion shards, revealing a quiet winter woodland. A cold breeze freshened the hallway, ruffling her hair. She stepped into the Christmas-card scene, her footsteps trailing her into the woods, and vanished among the trees.

  They moved on. There were doors and doors and doors. Some pushed in, some pulled out, others slid. Some revolved.

  They passed a great dirty gap in the wall, a pile of dusty bricks in front of it. Henry wondered if a hole in the wall could actually be considered a door. A hole in anything, like a cave entrance or a rabbit hole. He guessed that if it led you somewhere else, then yes, it probably could.

  Andrew evidently agreed. He stepped through and was gone.

  Alice tugged at his sleeve. He turned back to her. “Everyone’s gone ahead,” she said. They were alone in the hallway.

  She said, “Is it my imagination, or are the doors getting bigger?”

  There was a small wooden door in the wall behind her. A short glass table stood beside it. Henry hadn’t thought to look down before.

  Alice was looking up.

  He recognized the plank door in the ceiling immediately. The rod to open the stairs leaned against the wall beneath it. He pulled them down. There was darkness at the top of them. He said, “You realize, of course, this is all impossible.”

  If Alice’s laughter was the last memory he had of this world, he thought, it would be just fine. She said, “It’s been a long time since I’ve believed anything else.”

  She knelt and used her gold key to unlock the door. He caught a glimpse of yellow carnations and daisies beyond. She set the key on the glass table and waved to him. He waved back. She crawled through.

  The door closed behind her. It did look bigger.

  Mama?

  A hard wind blew down. He heard the shush of black water. He put Alice’s key in his pocket, hoping, and started to climb the stairs as they folded up behind him.

  WONDERBAND

  Alexandra Renwick

  Me and Eagle are bumming smokes down by the liquor store when Deuce and the rest of the Hearts show up looking for trouble. I’ve managed to avoid those a-holes for months, curled up in my sister’s basement, sweat
ing through my sheets each night, turning my skin yellow from nicotine, ridding myself of some habits worse than chain-smoking and forgetting to sleep.

  “Look, boys,” coos Deuce to his crew, “it’s our crusty old pals, Duckie and Eaglet, playing at being regular upstanding members of society by digging ciggie butts from the gutter and panhandling change.”

  Eagle’s shoulders tense. “It’s Eagle now, crumplebait.”

  The Hearts all laugh, Deuce and his brother Ace louder than the rest. They’re a bunch of skinny fuckers, rich but mean, and bullies too. Hardly worth the paper they’re printed on.

  “Deuce.” I nod his direction, playing it cool, wishing I’d preened a bit more this morning before leaving home. “Ace. Fellas. Accidentally caught the tail end of your show a couple weeks back, after they opened the doors for free ’cause nobody would pay the toonie cover. Hope your mom’s planning on redecorating the club; you guys’ new sound reeked hard enough to peel paint off the walls.”

  Beside me, Eagle busts out in a raucous caw. “You guys sucked!” he squawks.

  Ace makes ready to knock Eagle a good one square on the beak, but Deuce waves him back. “Ignore these losers, bro. At least we have a sound, which is more than anyone can say for these dizzy feathered fucktits. And after this weekend, everyone will know who rocks hardest in this town. Hells, they’ll know it all up the coast. And once our album drops, they’ll know it all over the world.”

  Deuce has a forgivable faraway-sorta look in his eye, dreaming the dream we’ve all been dreaming in this town since we were big enough to strap on guitars and step up to a mike. This is a music town, man. Everybody’s got dreams. Got no problem with that. I’ve only got a problem with the Hearts.

  So does Eagle. “Nobody never will sign you flap-hards,” he says, looking puffy. His feathers get easily ruffled. Gets him into trouble sometimes. More trouble than he needs.

  I eye Ace warily but he seems to have lost interest in bopping Eagle, or maybe he’s forgotten who we are. He’s a real bruiser but not the sharpest card in the deck. “Underland will sign us,” he grunts. “Once we take the Wonderband title this weekend at Queenie’s.”