peaceful.”
Alice wasn't sure she wanted to know either. She had similar issues with Brian's shady background. Maybe that was what was haunting her now. “You'll have to excuse me,” Alice thought to say. “I'm not exactly familiar with the idea of talking to wolves. Where I come from...” And she wondered if she should say more.
“Don't worry,” Peter soothed, although the voice was only able to be just so soothing. He was still a wolf after all. “I get around, see more than most. You can't trust just any wolf, not even in these parts. But don't worry. You're safe as long as you're with me.”
Somehow that wasn't all that comforting, Alice thought to herself.
She was actually glad to get to the village, even though there were no people like herself anywhere in sight. There were, however, quite a lot of animals, most of whom were far more well dressed than the wolf. There were also a few smaller people, Alice thinking to call them dwarfs, but then was never quite sure what the most politically correct term might have been.
Most of the animals looked like rabbits and badgers and other creatures of the somewhat smaller and fury kind, and few gave Alice even a second glance. Even when they did it tended to be a friendly nod hello rather than any look of surprise or horror. In all it was very sweet and polite and very much not like where she had grown up in San Diego. The village was also very much unlike anything she was used to, all very European, with lots of stone walls and puffing chimneys and cute little windows. It was all somewhat ramshackle, and yet in reasonable repair, at least for a village of rabbits and badgers and apparently several sheep who trotted by.
While Alice was looking over the scenery, Peter had already paused at a doorway of one of the larger buildings and tapped the brass knocker several times. She could only stand then and wait hopefully. It didn't seem that she was actually getting anywhere, but then there was hardly anywhere to go.
When the door opened it revealed a somewhat annoyed turtle, although Alice assumed by its appearance that it was actually a tortoise rather than a turtle. As it was wearing some rather thick rimmed spectacles and was standing erect on its rear legs, it didn't particularly look like either. When it saw the wolf its frown only deepened, of course. “I don't want any insurance,” it said immediately, and was clearly a him, his voice deeper than expected and somewhat elderly.
“I don't sell insurance any more,” Peter told him.
The tortoise squinted through his thick lenses. “I suppose we should be thankful of such small mercies.” He gave only a brief glance toward Alice, his attention focussed on the wolf. “What are you selling then?”
“I'm not selling anything.” Peter looked to Alice as she stood there as bewildered as ever. “Harold Parker found one of these common folk in his garden,” the wolf then explained. “She is not from Finscéal and she is looking to get home...”
“I'm a magician, not a travel agent,” the tortoise growled angrily. “Try main street. I am sure you can book passage there and have someone direct you to the appropriate portal.”
The wolf frowned, his ears well back. “I'm not stupid, Simon. Alice was magicked here, obviously, and she isn't going to find a commercial portal to where she wants to go.”
The tortoise remained unconvinced. “Oh really. And where would that be.”
“Chicago,” the wolf said in somewhat lower tones, almost as if fearful of being overheard.
“Toronto,” Alice sighed.
“Oh dear,” came from the tortoise, and he looked more carefully over the very large woman he had standing on his doorstep. “I suppose you had better come inside then.”
With that the tortoise moved back into his office, Peter following in his wake, looking back to his charge. “Well come on in. We might have a chance of getting you home yet.”
Alice wasn't so sure, but then she had a feeling she hadn't actually gone anywhere at all, except perhaps to the nearest hospital. At least the door was substantially taller than the one belonging to Mrs. Parker the rabbit, but she still had to stoop quite a bit to get inside. Once there she found it just as cramped as she imagined it would be, and was left with few options other than finding a clean piece or floor in a corner of the room in which to sit.
There were no chairs anyway, not that Peter would have used one. Somehow Alice had a feeling the tortoise wasn't one to sit a great deal in any case. The rest of the room was very much as one would expect for the average witch or perhaps wizard, with ample shelves filled with numerous coloured potions. There was a smouldering cauldron, of course, although it could have been lunch as far as Alice knew. Or perhaps his laundry.
Another wall contained a large number of very thick and very old looking books, and that was where the tortoise was headed. “You are talking some very serious magic here,” he was saying as he pulled down one of the volumes. “Must have been quite some magician who brought you here.”
Alice frowned. “I was in a park. I fell down. I woke up in this nightmare.”
Simon the tortoise snorted. “You don't simply fall through several levels of transdimensional existence my dear.”
“I tried to explain that already,” Peter sighed.
The tortoise began to thumb through the pages of the dusty book, his thick scaly brow creased with a frown. “Well you can't simply pop into existence here for no reason,” he explained, although a thought did bring him to pause a moment. “Unless you died, of course.”
Alice raised her own brow at the suggestion. “Died?”
“Died yes,” Simon said thoughtfully. “People do this all the time. Die that is.”
“And then get lost,” the wolf agreed.
“Get lost, oh yes,” Simon nodded. “Easy to get lost when you die.”
Alice had no idea what to make of the suggestion. “I'm not dead,” she argued. “At least I don't feel dead.”
Her words only seemed to annoy the tortoise further. “Well what is that suppose to mean? How are you suppose to feel dead? That doesn't make any sense at all.”
“It's not as if you stay dead,” the wolf added. “Nobody ever stays dead for long.”
“I'm not dead,” Alice stated again. The last thing she needed was to be lying unconscious in a park panicking about being dead.
The tortoise peered back toward her. “Well tell us more of how you came here then. Anything at all you can remember, no matter how trivial it might seem. Sights, sounds, unusual weather phenomena. Anything.”
Alice just wanted to wake up, find a bathroom, take a couple of Tylenol, and sleep through to tomorrow. “It was a park, a little overcast. There was some thunder. Maybe I jumped when I heard that...”
“Ah, lightning,” Simon exclaimed. “Lightning kills people all the time.”
“And rabbits,” Peter considered.
“Indeed,” Simon agreed, “and no doubt the occasional tortoise I fear.”
“I'm not dead.”
“I wouldn't discount the possibility so easily,” Simon said. “Retained memory after death is not exactly unusual.”
Alice feigned a smile. “It is where I come from.” She thought to leave, to walk right out of the strange little house, but somehow there just didn't seemed to be any point.
The wolf at least seemed to understand she had heard quite enough of being told she had died. “Well if she has died then there is nothing we are going to do about it,” he said. “So let's assume she hasn't died. Can you get her back to Chicago or not?”
“Toronto.” Alice thumped her skull on the stone wall. It hurt far more than it really should have.
The tortoise paused in thought. “Well that will take some time.” He looked back into the book, flipping pages furiously. “I do know of someone who has dabbled in such things, so the possibility is certainly there.”
The wolf simply rolled his eyes again, while Alice thumped her head against the wall and moaned to herself. The tortoise looked across at her as she did. “I do have this,” and he waddled to the shelving, removing a small vile of bl
ue liquid and bringing it to where Alice sat. “You should drink this.”
Alice took the vile and looked at it cautiously at first, then chuckled to herself as Simon returned to his books. It wasn't as if she had anything to lose, and so Alice drank the liquid and close her eyes. It was only then she realized it tasted something much like motor oil, not that she drank a great deal of that, and she coughed and gagged and spat what she could of it onto the floor.
Then she dared look carefully around herself, hoping for the best. Finding a wolf and a tortoise looking back at her did nothing to improve her mood. “I'm still here,” she growled, but nowhere near as effective a growl as the wolf, of course.
Simon frowned back at her. “Well of course you are still here. Where do you think you are going to be now?”
“I though the potion...” She shook her head. It had been a bit much to hope for.
“You were looking agitated. I thought that might relax you somewhat.” Indeed Alice did feel somewhat drowsy, even as illogical as that seemed.
Peter, however, seemed to have had enough. “I need to make a few calls,” he said, looking both to Alice and the tortoise. “I have a few contacts; have a few favours I can call in. Just wait here. I'll be back. Trust me.” And there was that large toothy grin that Alice doubted she could ever be completely comfortable with.
Still, she could do little else but wave as the wolf left, Alice feeling more groggy than ever. The stupid turtle was back in his book, she noticed, and she even considered calling him a turtle just to annoy him. But eyelids were heavy and sleep was calling. Perhaps that was even a good thing. If she slept there was every chance she would wake back in her normal state of mind.
Then there was voice, a gentle hand on her shoulder dragging Alice out of a difficult dream. She tried to recall some of it, things like talking rabbits and a very annoyed turtle. “Brian,” she called hopefully, looking for the deep brown eyes that had first attracted her.
Finding a pair of all too red eyes looking back into her own was unexpected, Alice jerking away from several large teeth that she found far too close to her throat. “Sorry to wake you,” Peter said softly. “I brought someone to help.”
There was still a very large grey paw on her shoulder, and the wolf and the tortoise were still in the wizardly room. Alice had desperately hoped to wake to something far more real. There was also another figure, she noted, one that was tall and vaguely human in shape. It wore a hood and long robe, both such a dark grey that they may well have been considered black by some. Alice rose to her feet to face the apparition, her head coming very near to the low ceiling.
The figure she faced was only slightly shorter than herself, and pale hands rose to remove the dark hood, the fine features of a young woman much the same age as Alice revealed. Then there was the hair, blazing red even in the poor light, and skin of ivory. It was the last thing Alice expected, and she could only offer a questioning frown toward the wolf.
“She is here to help,” Peter explained. “I got lucky.”
Alice looked back to the woman. “And who are you supposed to be? Little Red Riding Hood?” Well, she wasn't all that tall, there was the red hair, and she did have a hood and cape. It wasn't that big a stretch.
The woman smiled easily. “If that is what you wish,” she sang with an ageless voice. “I have been know by many names, and Red, or Rua, is one that has been used before. ”
“So can I wake up now?” Alice tried.
“She will send you back to Chicago,” Peter told her.
“Toronto,” Alice corrected, wondering why she would think so often of Chicago. There had to be some significance in that, something perhaps her therapist could put a finger on.
The wolf then winked toward the redhead, Alice was sure of it, the woman nodding in
Alice and the Rabbit - A Shards of Heaven Story Page 3