Malice in Wonderland Bundle 2

by Lotus Rose

  Malice smirks. “Or…maybe if you would cease being such a prat and actually practice being nice to people, as opposed to constantly demanding people beheaded…well maybe then people should like you better.”

  She glares at Malice. “You’re only nice because of a machine. You’re so fake.”

  Malice replies, “No… I’m actually nice, and you’re actually mean, which is why no one likes you.”

  “You take that back. There are people who like me! I’m the queen! They have to like me!”

  Malice huffs. “And yet they don’t.”

  The Storyteller interjects, “Now, now, my queens. Save your animosity for the game. I’m going to get into it now. Here are the basics. I’ve set up a game board of sorts. It is made up of game squares, five squares long by three squares high. The game is based on turns, but due to the workings of magic, you won’t notice the time that goes by as your opponent takes a turn. Also, I call it a game board, but once you enter it, it shall appear very different to your eyes. Your teams shall start in one of the squares on the bottom row. Each square serves as its own particular challenge of my own devising, and if you meet the challenge and ‘win’ the square, you can move on to square above it. But if you fail the challenge, you’ll have to select one of the side squares for your next turn. The first of you to solve a square on the top row, will win the game and be declared the ruler over all of Wonderland. That’s the game in a nutshell. I don’t want to get dragged into various scenarios, so I’ll say, the rules of special circumstances will be made clear to you when and if they happen.”

  “Well, quite frankly,” says the Queen of Hearts, “this is rubbish.”

  The Storyteller nods with a terse mouth. “Oh? Well…once upon a time, there was a woman named the Queen of Hearts,” He raises a hand, with one shaking finger pointing upward… “who lived every minute of every day in unrelenting, mortal terror!” He points the finger at the Queen of Hearts and out streaks a little miniature bolt of lightning that crackles into the Queen of Heart’s forehead with a little thunderclap.

  The Queen of Heart’s eyes go wide and she begins screaming at the top of her lungs. “Ahhh!! Ahhhhh!! No, no! Ahhhhh!”

  “Just kidding,” the Storyteller says as he waggles his finger.

  The Queen of Hearts ceases her screams. She is breathing heavily with a big frown upon her clownishly made-up face.

  “Now,” says the Storyteller. “Shall we begin the game?”

  The Queen of Hearts smooths her gown. “Quite,” she says.

  Malice tries to nod as agreeably as she can.

  Chapter 25

  From the coin flip, it’s decided that Malice’s team shall go first. Malice looks down at a large game board of squares five squares long by three squares high. They get to choose one of the squares on the first row. From left to right, the squares on the bottom row are labeled: Puppet, Ribbit, Muffet, Oink, and Quack. They choose Ribbit.

  Malice steps forward onto the square, and quickly it expands, becoming another scene entirely. Looking around, the Storyteller and Queen of Hearts and her team are nowhere to be seen.

  Here’s what they see instead: they are amongst the trees of a forest. In front of them is a pond surrounded by a treeless shore.

  In front of the pond, facing them, is a girl of about 17 in a very fancy, but muddy gown. It could very well be a royal blue gown, but the girl is not respecting her clothing very much though, since she is squatting down in the filthy mud.

  Malice notes the girl is wearing a tiara and has a sort of lazy expression on her face indicating she’s been squatting there for quite a while and intends to continue doing so.

  And meanwhile, about forty feet away, sitting in the middle of the pond upon a lily pad, squats a large person-sized frog, and his position of squatting makes her chuckle for its coincidental similarity to the girl’s.

  But an instant later, her mirth is replaced by dread, as she realizes it may not be a coincidence at all.

  Now Malice notices the frog is sitting beside a ball on the lily pad—it’s one of those bouncy type balls, about three foot wide in diameter.

  Behind the pond is a stone archway with a wooden door out in the open—that is to say, it’s not set in a wall. Attached to the front of the door is some sort of contraption—a wooden ramp in front of what looks to be a hoop for throwing balls into. Painted in big letters along the top of the archway is the word: Shoes.

  There is another archway to their left, without a door, labeled: Puppet. An archway to their right is labeled: Muffet. Those archways don’t have doors—instead, the inside of their arches are totally black. Malice realizes the archways represent doorways to the adjacent “squares”. Beyond the archways lies the forest.

  She decides to shift her attention to the squatting feral-looking girl. (Does she ever brush her hair, I wonder?) A shape has been drawn in the mud around the form of the girl. Upon closer inspection and squinting of eyes, Malice sees that someone has drawn with a stick, the crude shape of a lily pad in the mud.

  Malice cringes at the realization, wondering what she’s gotten herself into. She steps out from the trees.

  The squatting girl is looking at her expectantly. Malice takes a deep breath, squares her shoulders, lifts her dress to trod daintily as she can manage upon the muddy ground, as the others stay behind.

  There is something strange about the girl’s eyes—her pupils are dilated. Malice gives the girl a withering look…until her kindness programming kicks in and causes her to smile. “Hello, I’m Queen Malice.”

  “I’m the Frog Princess, and that’s the Frog Prince.” She gestures with her head to the frog who is watching with a scowl on his face (unless Malice is bad at reading amphibian facial expressions).

  While Malice is trying to read the frog’s facial expression, the princess states simply, “Ribbit.”

  “Praytell, what do you mean by that?”

  “It means many things. One of those all purpose words. Much like the word ‘bollocks’.”

  Malice arches her brow. “I see,” she says, even though she actually doesn’t quite. “I don’t mean to be rude, but may I ask why you are squatting upon the ground like that?”

  “May I ask why that cat head has no body?”

  Alice groans and turns her head to the left then to the right and slightly behind her shoulder. There she sees the grinning, floating head of the Cheshire Cat. “G’day Queeny,” he says.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Think of me as moral support. Though I must warn you, the Storyteller told me I’m here to observe only.”

  “No, I mean, I thought you were incapable of entering Fairy Tale Land.”

  “That was before. But now that the glass of the snowglobe is broken, it’s no problem for me. Oh, and I’m glad to see you too.”

  Malice rolls her eyes.

  “Do you consider him a pest?” asks the squatting princess.

  “Yes,” Malice says, “but he’s not all bad.”

  “Aww,” says the Cat.

  “Is he—does he bug you, does he always float like that, like a fly?”

  “More like a gnat,” Malice mutters.

  “Ribbit. Well, I prefer flies. Ooh, I’m so hungry. Sorry.”

  Malice and the Cat both ponder the princess, then the Cat busts out laughing. Malice looks at him with a questioning expression.

  The Cat winks at Malice, says to the princess, “So if I was a fly, would you flick me with your tongue?”

  “I might just do.”

  “Well, is your tongue long enough? May I see?”

  “Why of course it is.” The princess holds her mouth open to provide a view.

  The girl’s tongue looks like quite a normal one to Malice—not overly long at all.

  And the Cat once again guffaws. “Why my girl, that’s quite a tongue you have there. I daresay you’re a frog, aren’t you?”

  The princess rolls her eyes. “Of course. What was your first clue? It’s eve
n in the title, the Frog Princess.”

  “Well, I beg your pardon, girl who is obviously a frog.”

  She gives a curt nod. “Ribbit.”

  Malice says, “Err, and that lily pad you’re standing on. It’s a real lily pad?”

  “Well, of course,” says the princess. “What does it look like, dolt?”

  Malice feels a surge of anger that is repressed by her kindness program. “And this part, that I’m standing on?”

  “You mean the water?” the girl says.

  Malice looks to the muddy ground beneath her feet. “Yes, um, the water. How do you figure I’m standing on it?”

  “That I don’t ribbitly know. But I also don’t know how a floating talking cat head works either.”

  The Cat chuckles.

  “Quite,” says Malice. “In any case, I hate to impose, but myself and my friends who are currently in the trees there are attempting to surpass a bit of a challenge at the moment, and were wondering if you know how we could open that door that says, Shoes.” She points.

  “Oh yes. You must shoot the ball into the basket five times to unlock the door and go to the next square. Ribbit.”

  Malice says, “Are you friends with the frog?”

  “More than,” she replies.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “He is my husband. I adore him.”

  “Oh, boy,” the Cat mutters under his breath.

  “Well that’s just grand!” Malice says with a big grin. “Tell me, do you think you can ask him to let us borrow the ball for just a short while?”

  “Nope. He loves his ball. He spends most of the day beside it. I daresay, the only thing he loves more than it, is me.”

  “Then why isn’t he sitting next to you?”

  “Well, he likes to sit around on his favorite lily pad. But it’s out in the middle of the pond, so I can’t go there.”

  “Why not?”

  The girl looks a little embarrassed. “Well, um, because I can’t swim. But that’s okay, I’m not clingy. And he visits me several times a day.”

  “A frog who can’t swim,” the Cat says, working hard to stifle his laughter.

  “Well, I wasn’t always a frog you know.”

  “And you still aren’t,” the Cat says.

  “What?” the girl says.

  Malice interjects, “When he visits you, does he bring his ball?”

  “No, that would be a bit difficult to maneuver. He leaves it on the lily pad. But he misses it the whole time. Of course I’m sure my kisses help lessen his loneliness! Ha ha! Ribbit, I say, don’t you agree?”

  Malice cringes a little.

  The Cat sticks his tongue out in disgust. “Blech.”

  “Well,” Malice says, “I hate to impose. But my colleagues and I would be so very grateful if we could use the ball for just a little while to open the door. He wouldn’t even miss it.”

  “Well, if it were up to me, it’d be no problem, but if he ever does miss it, he’ll attack you and tear you limb from limb, so you better hope he doesn’t miss it. I daresay sometimes it almost seems he even loves that ball more than me! I wish I could change that. He’s not as passionate as when we first met, of course.”

  The Cat is struggling to contain himself. “Ooh, Malice, I am just dying to hear all the juicy details of how this very froggy princess came to be sitting upon this absolutely real lily pad and married to a frog.”

  Malice sighs. “Very well, Cat, but don’t say I never did anything for you. Frog Princess, would you be ever-so-kind as to tell us, briefly, your little fairy tale?”

  She beams. “Ribbit! With pleasure. You see, once upon a time, I was just an ordinary princess who enjoyed playing with balls. I would bounce them everywhere I went. I would bounce them off walls, floors, you name it.” She looks at the Cat.

  He sniffs. “Sorry, it’s just too easy.”

  The girl says, “But I just loved playing with my balls is what I’m trying to say.”

  He huffs and lifts his nose in the air. “Madame, you insult me.”

  The girl chuckles. “Anyway, one day I was playing by this very pond, with that very ball, when it fell into the water.”

  “Oh the horror!” proclaims the Cat, but he can’t hold back a slight snicker at the end.

  Malice shoots him a look.

  “Oh yes,” says the girl. “It was truly terrifying. But luckily, my very own handsome prince came along to save me.”

  “A frog?” the Cat says.

  “That’s right. But at the time, I didn’t know anything about him, so he was just an ordinary frog. Since I can’t swim, he fetched the ball for me, but he requested that his price for returning it would be that I would give him a kiss.”

  “That’s very disturbing,” the Cat says.

  But Malice, because of her kindness programming, chooses to be more tactful. “But I thought you said you think he’s so desirable.”

  “Yes,” the squatting girl says, “I do now, but that was then. I was so stuck up. I was a speciesist, and yes, at that time, I only thought human beings were attractive, because that’s how limited my thinking was. But it all changed when I agreed to his terms and kissed him.”

  The Cat says, “So that’s when he became a hot frog stud, in your eyes?”

  “No,” Malice says, “that’s when he transformed into a prince.”

  The girl shakes her head. “No, no. You’re both wrong, though the Cat is less so. For my dear scheming frog husband knew something I didn’t. His species has a special magical coating on their skin. It opens the eyes of all who ingest it, let’s them see things they couldn’t before. In the outside world, there are even some areas of the world where certain tribes lick the skin of his frog species in order to bring visions for the sake of tribal rituals.”

  “Whoa,” says the Cat.

  Malice merely nods, at a loss for words. The wild eyes of the girl now make more sense.

  The girl continues, “So when I kissed him that first time, it was not him who changed. It was me. My eyes were opened to what I had never realized. I unleashed my inner spirit animal and transformed into the frog you see here today. My future-husband didn’t become a prince, he always was one, a prince of frogs, and I instantly fell head over flippers in love with him and begged him to marry me. He said he would, under one condition.”

  “The ball,” Malice says.

  “That’s right. He really loved the ball, still does, and he said he would marry me if I gave it to him. I agreed, and he made me his frog princess. And now I can hug him and kiss him and lick him all I want.”

  Malice fights back a nauseous feeling.

  The girl continues, “And whenever I kiss him and lick him, I’m on top of the world, it is as if all the world shimmers and twists and hums around me. That’s what the love I feel for him is like, it’s like the very universe is buzzing, like all sights and sounds whirl together, it’s like I can smell sound and taste colors—love is truly a powerful experience. And I feel that love anew every time I kiss him.”

  “Trippy,” the Cat says with a curt nod.

  Malice is staring at her with her jaw dropped.

  The girl pauses for a moment, lost in thought. “Although…” Her mouth quirks sideways.

  “Yes?” Malice says.

  “It’s just that, I feel he’s becoming more distant lately, not paying as much attention to me. I feel like he’s maybe taking me for granted, you know?” She frowns.

  Malice feels her kindness programming kick in big time. “Awww.” She kneels, pats the girl’s shoulder. “There there.” She awkwardly wraps the girl in a short hug.

  “Thanks,” says the girl, wiping away her tears with her fingers. (Malice wonders how the girl justifies to herself that her “flippers” are capable of doing “finger things”, but the girl’s delusion can probably fight off any anomaly.)

  Malice stands and smooths her dress.

  The Cat is chuckling. “There there,” he says to the girl, sounding partly
sincere, partly mocking.

  The girl says, “I just wish there was a way to ‘remind’ him how much he cherishes me, you know? I’d be willing to help you borrow the ball if you could help me out with my dilemma.”

  Malice rubs her chin. “What do you mean, ‘remind’ him?”

  “Leave him,” the Cat suggests.

  The girl says, “Something like what the Cat said, except not that idea in particular. I don’t want to give him the idea that I want to leave him.”

  “Ah, I see,” says the Cat. “You want to make him jealous.”

  “Well, maybe,” the girl says. “Do you know of any male frogs who’d be willing to come on to me?”

  Malice answers, “No, but we have a few human guys who could help out.”

  The girl says, “I wonder…I have an idea. A way to shock my husband into remembering how much he cherishes me, and that shall also serve as a distraction, so one of your group can grab the ball, open the door, then return it before he misses it.”

  “Oh,” Malice says. “What’s that?”

  “Have some of your guys pretend to kidnap me. Then act afraid when he comes after you. Distract him long enough, then run off. He can’t catch you in the forest if you run. What do you think?”

  “I think I’ll go over there and run the plan by them.”

  Chapter 26

  After discussing things, the Tweedle Twins approach the squatting princess. Malice and the Cat stand and float off to the side.

  Humpty and the Hatter are stealthily making their ways to other positions by darting from tree to tree.

  But Malice and the others aren’t supposed to look at them, so as not to draw attention to them.

  After stopping in front of the drawn-in-the-mud, “lily pad”, Tweedledee says, “Hello, milady, we’re here to pretend to kidnap you.”

  “Of course. Be sure to put on a good, and loud show, won’t you, lads?”

  “Righto,” Tweedledum says.