Malice in Wonderland Bundle 2

by Lotus Rose

  He groans, before saying, “Ha, I thought that would be a fun way to go down the steps. I was just joking about entering the hut. Ha, bet I fooled ya! Um, would someone please do me the favor of helping me up?” He holds both his arms up, having lost grip of his sword. The back of his neck is currently resting in front of the bottom step, the rest of his body lying upon the stairs.

  After helping the Knight up and retrieving his sword, the group considers the pig’s words.

  Wilhelm says, “I believe we are being presented with a puzzle that must be solved.”

  “Obviously,” says the Queen of Hearts. “So how do you propose we get into the straw hut to get the key?”

  Jacob muses, “We can destroy the hut or somehow ‘convince’ the piggy to come outside. But I’ve been thinking about something he said. He said only ‘the red-headed stick’ or ‘wolf’s mouth’ could destroy their huts.”

  “Yes,” says the Queen of Hearts. “And we don’t have a wolf’s mouth. But a red-headed stick…”

  Jacob nods. “We have a match stick.”

  The Cat interjects, “And you also have the grenade. Oh, that’s sure to create a spectacularly gory corpse!”

  “But the pig didn’t mention the grenade,” Jacob mutters.

  “What do you think that means?” Wilhelm says.

  “Maybe he just forgot,” suggests the Knight.

  The Queen of Hearts says, “Well obviously we’re meant to use the match on the straw hut, to burn it down. We can save the grenade for one of the other two huts.”

  The two brothers exchange a look before nodding at each other.

  “We agree,” Jacob says.

  Wilhelm says, “Now we need only decide who shall light the hut on fire.”

  “It shan’t be me,” says the Knight. “I already performed my heroic duty, masterfully, I might add. And besides, I believe I may have injured myself slightly, sliding down the stairs…err, which I completely intended to do.”

  The Cat says, “You intended to slide down the stairs, or to hurt yourself?”

  “Both, err… I mean, neither. I mean I meant to…” His brow furrows while he thinks.

  “Slide down the stairs…” the Cat helps.

  “That’s it. Thank you.”

  The Cat bows graciously, which, since he’s a floating cat head, means he dips down a few inches in the air, graciously.

  The Queen of Hearts says, “The guard card can do it.”

  “Yes, Your Highness.” He bows.

  “See?” she says. “He doesn’t worry about being a hero, merely follows orders.”

  She checks the inside of the match box to find there is just one match inside. “Better make it a good go,” she tells the card.

  The guard card approaches part of the back of the house, while the rest of the group remain watching in front. His goal is to set the back of the hut on fire, so that the pig will run out the front door, to be captured.

  The Knight stands at the bottom of the stairs, sword drawn.

  The Queen of Hearts and brothers stand about ten feet away from him.

  The Queen of Hearts sees and smells black smoke rising up from the back of the hut.

  The guard card comes running to the porch, with the Cat beside him letting out an excited howl. “She burns! She burns!” he shouts.

  The guard card takes up position next to the Knight with the Cat’s head floating behind the pair.

  The Queen of Hearts calls out, “You’d best come out the front door, unless you want to be turned into roast pork. We promise we won’t harm you.”

  Of course, she’s not particularly devoted to that promise—her goal is to get the key, whatever it takes.

  “Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin!” the pig calls out defiantly.

  The Queen of Hearts calls, “Please, it’s a terrible end, to be burned alive. There is only one way out of this for you. Come out the front door, with your hands, or hooves or whatnot, up.”

  The pig shouts through the door, “Not by the—” He coughs a couple of times. “hair of my chinny chin chin,” he says, sounding less defiant.

  The Queen of Hearts can see the red tongues of flame rising up from the back of the hut now, as well as hear the crackling and pops.

  She waits. The flames spread to the roof and the sides of the hut. She hears the pig loudly coughing inside.

  “We won’t harm you!” the Queen of Hearts assures.

  She watches and waits, growing impatient. Giant flames consume every side of the hut, except the front.

  The door flings open, opening inward, revealing a pig consumed in flames. The pig is about five feet tall and is atypical in that he stands upon two legs, and the Queen of Hearts also catches glimpses of a wolf’s tail on the pig’s rear end.

  The pig is shrieking in terror as he runs out the door, onto the porch, and skips the stairs entirely as he leaps over them onto the ground.

  The Knight and guard card are standing next to the stair landing, prepared to intercept, except that’s not what they do.

  As the flaming pig lands in the grass and stumbles forward, the Knight shrieks, “Fire!” and draws back.

  Meanwhile, the guard card merely looks on, with a dumbfounded expression.

  The pig is consumed in flame, with clearly only moments to live. He raises his head to peer at the Brothers Grimm and the Queen of Hearts behind them.

  The pig rises to his feet. “Burn you!” he shouts as he runs toward the brothers and the Queen.

  The Queen of Hearts is frozen in terror. She realizes what a mistake her inaction is as she watches Jacob run off to her left and Wilhelm run to her right, leaving her in the direct path of the flaming pig.

  The pig charges at her while howling a suicidal war cry, but he only takes a couple steps before he is tackled from behind by a similarly-howling guard card. They both fall to the ground.

  The guard card, being mostly paper, quickly catches aflame.

  The flaming, smoking pig and card are struggling on the ground, howling and shouting as the stench of burning flesh and paper fills the air. The grappling couple keeps rolling over and over, back and forth, as the Knight watches with his sword drawn, waiting for an opportunity to strike.

  The card clinging to the pig’s back is mostly ash now—he stops struggling and slides off the pig.

  The card suddenly glows with a white light, and disappears.

  The pig is burnt beyond recognition, breathing laboredly, still on fire. Without a word, he rises on his two legs and slowly lumbers toward the Knight with arms outstretched.

  The Knight swings his sword, easily beheading the pig. Before the separated body parts even touch the ground they glow white and vanish. A necklace that had previously been around the pig’s neck lands in the grass. The burnt wolf’s tail also lands on the ground.

  The Cat howls. “Nice shot, my good Knight!” He cackles.

  The Knight is peering at the necklace on the ground. On the necklace is a glowing red, metal key.

  Jacob, who is standing beside him now, says, “That would be the first key. Best wait till it cools.”

  The Queen of Hearts rubs her tummy. “I can still smell the roasting pork. I could go for some lunch right now. Where’d that oinker go?”

  Wilhelm answers, “In this game, when the fairy tale creatures are killed, they are magically sent through the Looking Glass into the outside world.”

  The Queen of Hearts considers that for a moment. “Lucky them.”

  Jacob says, “It is good news for you as well, My Queen, for since the fairy tale was killed by your team, the pig is now beholden to you.”

  “Beholden?” She’s heard the word before, but she can’t be expected to know the meaning of every fancy word.

  “Yes. You are his leader now, he answers to you—you’re his queen now.”

  The Queen of Hearts straightens in delight. “Quite.” She frowns slightly as something nags at the back of her mind. “Oh. Didn’t we also have a guard card?” />
  Jacob says, “Yes, he was killed.”

  She snaps her fingers. “That’s right. I remember now.”

  “He lit up spectacularly!” the Cat shouts. “Oh, all the flames! Bright hot flames!”

  The Queen rolls her eyes. “Did the guard go through the Looking Glass as well?”

  Wilhelm says, “That we don’t know. All the Storyteller told us was that if one of the fairy tale creatures bites one of us to death, they shall rise again.”

  “What did he mean by that?”

  Jacob shrugs. “He wouldn’t tell us any more. For the sake of suspense.”

  The Queen of Hearts sighs. “I say, that Storyteller is an odd bugger, isn’t he?”

  “Aye,” the brothers concur.

  They wait for the key to cool down, before taking it to the archway labeled, Heads. The door has three keyholes lined up side by side. The Knight slips the key into the first keyhole and twists it.

  Jacob says, “There we are. One key down, two more to go. Let’s attend to the second hut now…”

  Chapter 28

  The group discusses their next course of action.

  “The Knight should use the grenade to blow open the door then slay the little piggy,” the Queen of Hearts says.

  In a whiny voice, the Knight says, “Why do I have to do it? What if it blows up in my hand?”

  “Because you’re a valiant knight. You’re supposed to perform heroic deeds.”

  “Well a grenade is not heroic—it’s a dishonorable weapon.”

  “Poppycock,” she says. “You’re just afraid.”

  “Am not.”

  “Are too.”

  Jacob interrupts, “Regardless, if we use the grenade upon the stick hut, how would we get to the pig in the brick one?”

  Wilhelm says, “Hmmm, plus there is also the fact that the first pig said the stick hut could only be destroyed by the red-headed stick and the wolf’s mouth.”

  The Queen of Hearts nods. “And the grenade is not one of those two. I see what you mean.”

  Jacob says, “If the pig wears the wolf’s head, we could take it and use that to blow down the brick house, perhaps.”

  “Very good, Jacob, my man,” the Knight says. “You should go talk to the pig.”

  The Queen of Hearts snaps her fingers. “The chimney!” At the group’s puzzled expressions and questions, she says, “I once sent an assassin down a chimney to eliminate one of my rivals, which got me thinking about how we could use the chimney to kill the pig inside. We could throw the grenade down it.”

  The brothers’ faces alight! “Ah!” “Yes!”

  “Boom!” says the Cat gleefully.

  The Knight, however, scratches his head. “But what good would that do, if the huts can’t be destroyed by the grenade?”

  The Queen of Hearts groans. “Come here…” She slaps him upside the side of his head, causing the Cat to chuckle.

  “Ow! Hey!”

  “Think!” she says. “We can flush the pig out with the grenade. He’ll run out the front door and you can cut him down, then we’ll have our key.”

  The Knight says, “Can’t we just subdue him and take the key?”

  The Queen of Hearts shrugs. “So who shall knock upon the door?”

  “I would,” says the Cat, “but I’m a non-interferer.”

  Wilhelm says, “My brother and I shall go.” He pats Jacob on the shoulder.

  The brothers walk up the porch to the stick hut and Wilhelm knocks on the door.

  A high-pitched voice from behind the door says, “Yes? Who is it?”

  Wilhelm says, “We’re the Brothers Grimm. We would very much like your key.”

  “Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin!”

  Jacob says, “We don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Ha! How could you two hurt me? I can see through my peephole and I see you are weak-looking, you don’t have weapons or claws like me. And your knight looks like a bumbling dolt.”

  Wilhelm says, “Yes, well he was the only knight available. So do you have claws?”

  “Yes, I wear the wolf’s claws. The better to slash you with!” He lets forth a squeaky attempt at a growl.

  Jacob says, “And your brother wears the wolf’s head?”

  “One of those pigs does, yes.”

  Wilhelm says, “Just please give us the key. We have a grenade, and we’re not afraid to use it.”

  “Ha! That won’t work on my hut, it can only be harmed by a red-headed stick or the wolf’s mouth! Now be gone with you!”

  The brothers approach the rest of the group.

  Wilhelm says, “Our chat with the pig has made it clear what to do next.”

  “Yes,” Jacob says. “We surmise that the pig in the brick hut has the wolf’s head, which can be used to blow down the stick hut.”

  The Queen of Hearts shakes her head in confusion. “So we should go to the brick hut first? Isn’t that out of order?”

  Jacob says, “Perhaps it’s meant to be a little trick. But it is logical. We use the grenade on the brick hut to gain the wolf’s head, then use the wolf’s head to blow down the stick hut. I believe that’s the solution to the puzzle.”

  The Queen of Hearts says, “Excellent job figuring it out! So who shall climb onto the roof of the brick hut?”

  The Knight says, “I have all this armor…”

  “And I’m not to get involved,” the Cat says.

  Jacob says, “I’ll do it. My brother can hoist me up.”

  After a bit more discussion, they each take their positions.

  The Knight, standing near the bottom of the steps, calls out, “Little pig, little pig, come on out of there!”

  “No, no, not by my chinny chin chinny chin hair!”

  The Knight calls, “Just come out with your hands in the air, and you shan’t be harmed. If you don’t, we have a grenade, set to blow up ten seconds after it’s lit.”

  The pig calls, “I’m looking through my peephole and I see no grenade. Besides, it won’t work on my magically protected hut. Only the wolf’s head has the ability to blow it down, and I’m the one wearing it! Mwa hah hah!”

  The Knight says, “Then we’ll drop it in and blow the inside of your hut up!”

  “Eh?” says the pig.

  “The grenade is going down your chimney, you have ten seconds to escape!” He signals to Jacob on the roof, who pulls the cap from the wick and drops the grenade down the chimney, before scrambling off the roof as quickly as possible (in case the explosion blows up the roof).

  Seconds pass, then the front door opens and a bipedal pig with a wolf’s head comes yowling out, waving his top legs wildly. Moments after the pig exits the door, the grenade explodes, sending flames shooting out the door, and propelling the pig flying through the air—he lands right next to the Queen of Hearts, who feels the strong warm wind of the explosion across her face.

  The pig makes a sickening cracking sound upon landing. Looking down at him, even beneath the mask, she can see that the pig’s neck is bent at a very fatal angle. The body of the pig glows white before vanishing, leaving behind the wolf head and key upon a necklace.

  “Well that was easy,” she mutters to herself.

  She assesses the situation. The brick hut is still standing with the door open and smoke wafting out. The Knight is struggling to stand back up—he doesn’t look hurt. The Brothers Grimm are running toward her.

  “Whooee!” exclaims the Cat. “Did you see that? I wouldn’t’ve believed it! I just watched a pig fly!”

  The Queen of Hearts shouts in frustration and attempts to slap him, but he dodges while chuckling.

  She sighs and points. “There’s the second key, peons. Now let’s get the third.”

  After putting the second key in the door, they put in motion their plan to get the third.

  Jacob puts the wolf’s head on. It fits like a mask, with the eyes cut out so he can see. After a little trial and error, they discover that when Jacob blows out through the mout
h hole of the mask, the force of his breath is magnified hundreds of times.

  Soon, Jacob is standing at the foot of the stairs of the stick hut’s porch, prepared to unleash his fearsome weapon. The Knight stands on the other side of the stairs.

  Their plan is to blow the hut down if the little piggy doesn’t cooperate—and they assume he won’t. They will then take the key from the pig, fighting him if they have to.

  The Knight calls out, “Little pig, little pig, we want your key! Little pig little pig, your other brother’s dead!”

  “You idiot, you imbecile, you stole that wolfen head!” the pig’s high-pitched voice cries out. “It doesn’t belong to you! Give it back!”

  The Knight calls out, “Yes we took it from your brother, who we killed. You’ll suffer the same fate if you don’t give us the key.”

  “Since you killed him, it’s mine now! It belongs to me.”

  The Knight calls, “Enough. Little pig little pig, let us in!” He raises his hand at Jacob. At the lowering of his hand, Jacob plans to shout out “then I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blowww your house down,” for the sake of tradition, then he’ll start blowing.

  The Queen of Hearts, watching it all from her safe position, is surprised to see the door open inward, and in the doorway is a brown, furry creature.

  The Queen of Heart’s realizes it’s the body of a bipedal, tail-less wolf with a pig’s head on top! The pig’s-head opens its mouth and in its high-pitched voice, proclaims, “Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin!”

  The pig-headed wolf lets unleash a blood-curdling squeal, before leaping over the railing of the porch and slamming lower-legs-first into the Knight who falls beneath the weight. The Knight seems to have gone either unconscious or dead, lying unmoving on the ground beneath the wolf’s feet.

  Jacob faces the wolf as the wolf picks up the sword in its hand-like paw.

  The muffled voice of Jacob announces, “I shall huff and puff and—”

  The wolf body lifts its paw to its pig mouth and presses a long-taloned “finger” to its lips. “Shhhh…”