(Re)Visions: Alice ((Re)Visions)

by Kaye Chazan

  Just the thought of that was galling, and when she sulked, or yelled, or even threw things, he seemed to like that, too, smiling and kissing and rubbing her shoulders.

  Now that her time had come, he insisted upon remaining in the room, which was just as well, since she had only met the Duchess a few weeks before, and her opinion of the woman was not very high. She wore too much perfume and was startlingly ugly. It wasn't polite to stare, Mary Ann knew, and in her years of service she had learned not to stare, but she almost couldn't help it now. She needn't have worried, she realized, when she saw how afraid the Duchess was of her.

  Now, the Duchess rubbed her pointy chin. "I suppose I have seen this done with cows and horses."

  "Let's try that, then," the King agreed.

  Mary Ann shrieked, partly out of pain, and partly out of everything else. But there was no going back—something that was in had to come out.

  A short while later, exhausted and smiling, Mary Ann lounged in the bed with the babe in her arms, wrapped up in the King's ermine cloak and a few fresh bathing towels. The Duchess had enlisted the help of her Cook to clean the room, and Mary Ann found that she was too tired to be bothered by all their fussing and squawking. It was only when the Cook lobbed a chamber pot at her mistress that the King banished her from the room.

  "She's very round," the King said, poking at the swaddling. "It's charming."

  Mary Ann looked into the baby's eyes and wondered what confusion might be there. Did she know where she was? Did she know who she was? Did she know anything, really? And if she didn't, then she could be anything Mary Ann wanted her to be.

  Even a princess. A princess of hearts.

  "She smells like milk," the Cat said, its head appearing above the bed.

  "Oh, you," the King said. "You can't hang about here, you know."

  "Then slip a noose about my neck," the Cat crooned. "I look dashing with a hempen collar. You do know," it continued, its eyes rolling from her to the baby, "he knows it's here."

  "He's dead," Mary Ann said, her finger tracing her child's perfect lips.

  "He's dead there," the Cat corrected, "but what is he here?"

  "Still dead. Dead is dead," Mary Ann insisted, though hesitantly. The Duchess handed her a glass of cool water and she drank it down before pressing the iced vessel to her head. She was so very warm, and the air was so thick and dry.

  The Cat materialized then, padding up the duvet to peer into the swaddling that Mary Ann held in her arms. Beside her, the King tensed, as if he would swipe the thing from the bedding at any moment.

  "They used to think that I sucked the life out of babes as they slept," it purred. "And I'm just a cat." It stared at Mary Ann. "He shan't let you keep it. What do you think he'll do?"

  Mary Ann watched the Cat begin to disappear. "You would have to take her someplace where he'd leave her alone," she said warningly. "Do you hear me? If I gave her up, you'd have to promise."

  The grin faded back into view and rocked on her knee like an empty cradle. "There's only one place she should be," it said. And then it was gone.

  The King tapped her knee where the Cat had just been. "Dearest, perhaps it's for the best," he tutted and then sighed. "We can have others. Many more. Ours. A full deck, even. Though, who wants to play with a full deck?"

  Mary Ann watched the baby yawn and she had to close her eyes, shut out the noises about her. The pit of her stomach throbbed. The Duchess had counted the panels of the afterbirth, so it couldn't have been that, though perhaps she was still giving birth. The baby snuffled a bit and rooted against her finger when she brushed its cheek.

  "Take her," she said to the Duchess, who stood next to her bed. "Take her above and see that she's placed there."

  The Duchess held the baby and stared at it. "It's not even grunting," she murmured. And to Mary Ann, she added, "Are you sure, your majesty?"

  Mary Ann turned to face the wall. "Get her out of here. Get her out of here before he comes. He'll come for her."

  The moment she let go, the anger took hold, branding itself onto the darkness of the Queen's chest.

  Wake up, Alice, dear!" said her sister. She blew a curl out of her face and smiled. "Why, what a long sleep you've had!"

  Alice found herself lying on the bank, with her head in her sister's lap. She brushed dead leaves from her face and reached into her pocket for her handkerchief (later she would discover a large feather tangled amongst the leaves and comfit seeds).

  "Oh, I've had such a curious dream!" said Alice to her sister. "I was in a little room, and there was a White Rabbit..."

  Alice told her sister, as well as she could remember them, all her strange adventures. As she told them, she watched Samuel the gravedigger from down the road as he walked across the meadow, studying the ground. Alice might have been afraid of him, as he was such a filthy and frightening thing, but he had once worked in service to her family, and she had a few memories of him bouncing her on his knee whilst she waited for her mother to seat herself on her rider.

  "It was a curious dream, dear, certainly," her sister said to her, smoothing her pinafore. "But now run in to your tea; it's getting late." So Alice got up and ran down the hill, away from the rabbit-hole and the stream, and towards the house, close to Samuel.

  He noticed her running through the grass, and smiled. "Miss Alice!" he called, waving a hand. "Be careful where you step! There's been some sort of mishap in the dirt!"

  And so Alice slowed, which was quite good, since she had time to jump over a runnel in the ground, where something had hollowed out the earth underneath and the grass sank down in a deep V. "Goodness," she thought, "if I hadn't been more careful, I might have fallen into a hole and really gone underground! And I am sure there are no White Rabbits and Gryphons under there!"

  With that thought, she carried on, thinking while she ran, as well she might, what a wonderful dream it had been.

  My notion was that you had been

  (Before she had this fit)

  An obstacle that came between

  Him, and ourselves, and it."

  "My dear," the King said again, "it doesn't fit you."

  The Queen sat in her chair and read the verdict lines over and over under her breath. Alice was gone, carried away on the Gryphon's wings. Disaster was averted.

  She crumpled the paper in her fist and tossed it down to the ground. "No, no it doesn't" she agreed loudly. She spotted the Otter and a few others from earlier in the day. "Why aren't you headless?"

  The King patted her hand on the armrest. "Now, you know we cannot get rid of them all," he began, but there was a commotion just outside the garden. The Duchess's Frog-Footman staggered into the courtroom, bleeding from a gash in his side. He croaked something to the nearest card and fell over, stone dead.

  The card paled, his diamonds pinked, and he turned to the next card, stammering something too soft to hear. That card flipped and told the card next to it until there was a full straight up to the White Rabbit, who listened intently. His ears twitched and straightened before flattening along the top of his head, very much like a displeased dog.

  "What is all this?" the Queen tried to growl, but it sounded more like a whinge. Inside, she already knew. She could already smell him.

  "Your Majesty," the White Rabbit said, flipping his watch open and closed repeatedly. "The mome raths saw it, in the tulgey wood." He took a deep breath, his whiskers quivering.

  The King put his hand over hers, squeezing gently. The Knave and the children were silent, and everyone stared at her.

  The tulgey wood was far away enough that they had time. There would be no surprise rush. The Queen opened her fan and cooled herself in the silence. For once, her thoughts laid themselves out in a straight line, a lone boat sailing across still waters. The King cocked his head and waited. Everyone paused, as if they could not very well breathe without her.

  Finally, she snapped her fan closed and rose, clutching her pearls in one hand, leaning on the arm of the thro
ne with the other.

  "Get my armour," she said to the eight and four of clubs.

  The King nodded and smiled, and the rest of the court cheered. The White Rabbit clapped his hands at the clubs, who scurried off.

  They brought it, the burlap sack, and dumped it on the table. She let them take off her pearls, her outer corset. They removed her top skirt and bustle, her neck ruff and rings. They brought out the spools and hung them from her neck, the egg timer across her breast. A kirtle of silver spoons. An old boot, a broken clock, Mister John's filigree snuffbox. An oyster shell. A bottle of salt.

  The King handed her the kitchen knife. "Beware the biting jaws," he said, kissing her cheek.

  "And the catching claws," added the White Rabbit.

  The Queen kissed all of her children but one, as they stood there flat and quiet. She waved goodbye and strode out into the garden, then through the maze to the edge of the forest, by the path from the wooden door.

  Not far into the tulgey wood she rested, her back pressed against a Tum-Tum tree. Her feet were tired from having run about all day, and her stomach was empty and turning. All the anger had drained from her as they had put on the armour, and she felt as listless and helpless as she had the first day she had come here, all filthy linen and burlap.

  When it was time to start again, she pressed on, listening for the crashing and the whiffling, following the noise to its source. She picked up her skirt with one hand and hefted her knife with the other, blocking out the tinkle of the spoons at her waist.

  He didn't take long to find, lunging and seething and flying to and fro, his wings seemingly too small to carry him, but doing well just the same. She straightened her crown and lifted her knife, waiting for him to notice her, waiting for him to see her for the first time again.

  His eyes were flames, and his teeth gnashed. He smelled of coconut oil and violets. Dirt and mold. Bile and blood.

  "Mary Ann," he burbled.

  The End

  Knave

  By Hilary Thomas

  I didn’t know the answers,” he says—just keeps saying it, half out of his mind with fear. “I didn’t know the answers and she… she… god.”

  Canary isn’t a stable guy at the best of times. Someone drops a pen and he’ll duck and cover. Look at him sideways and he’ll tell you anything you want to know, everything he knows about it. But this is something different. I’ve never seen him this scared.

  “Easy there, songbird,” I say, hands out in front of me like I’m soothing an animal. “Take it easy. What did she want to know?”

  I don’t know who “she” is, but I figure we’ll start with an easy one.

  Canary’s eyes go wide and wild, cutting from side to side. “She… she wanted to know everything, Jack. What’s my name, who do I work for, where are they, who, how, fuck…” He cuts himself off there, curls in on himself and wraps his arms so tight around his knees that he’s going to have finger-shaped bruises come tomorrow. He gasps, makes a sick, choking sound that’s not crying, but isn’t exactly laughing, either. It makes me scared for him, he’s so worked up.

  “Jack,” he whispers, so soft I can barely hear it. “She wants to get in the Garden. Really in. Really really.”

  That stops me short. The Garden is the Queen’s dominion, her home, the seat of her power. Most people see it, know it’s a posh hotel with prices to match the gold on the façade, but something tells me this lady ain’t looking for a place to sleep. Whoever “she” is, she’s already in deep.

  I make myself take a breath. “Who is she?”

  Canary shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

  “Not good enough, kid. Who is she?”

  “I don’t know, all right? I don’t know!” His eyes get even bigger, somehow, red-rimmed and panicked, and I know he’s telling the truth. Goddamnit.

  It takes him another minute to make words come out. His voice is strained raw and honest. “Jack, I wouldn’t lie to you, you know I wouldn’t lie to you. I swear to you I never saw that girl before in my life, never wanna see her again, please god.”

  “What did you tell her?” I ask, projecting the calm air I wish I felt.

  “Tell her?” Canary parroted, panicked and earnest. “About the Garden? You know I don’t know shit about that, Jack. That’s big-time inner circle shit right there. The Queen would have my head if she knew I was even thinking about it. I stay outside, stay small-time, stay safe.”

  I let myself smile, just a little. “Safe is a relative term in your line of work, wouldn’t you say, songbird?”

  “Haha, Jack, I’m glad this is so fuckin’ funny to you. I’m a fuckin’ dead man.” He runs his hands back through his hair; makes fists in it like he’s gonna rip it all out.

  “What’d you tell her, Canary?” I repeat, a little kinder now. Dead man he may be, but at least it’s not going to be my job to get him that way.

  “What I just told you, man, that I don’t know shit about shit. That that’s the Queen’s turf, and she’s the number one bitch not to cross, and if she had any sense in her head she’d go the hell home and forget about it.”

  “And what’d she say to you?”

  Canary lifts his head, looks straight into my eyes with an expression I’ve never seen before or since, terror riding the knife-edge into crystal-clear insanity. It makes me want to flinch, but I don’t. I stare right back into that black gaze as the corners of his mouth curl up.

  “Dinah.”

  “Is that her name? Dinah?”

  Canary jerks away, shakes his head so violently he might snap his neck. “No.”

  “Who’s Dinah?”

  “No.”

  “Canary, tell me. Who’s Dinah? What’s Dinah?”

  “No, no, no!” he screams, doesn’t stop screaming even when his voice breaks, cries himself hoarse beating his fists against the floor.

  I leave him there to wear himself out. One of the numbers’ll see to him if he gets out of control.

  Me, I need answers, and there’s none of those left here. Only more questions, and a poor broken bird in a cage.

  Maybe I should back up a little bit; give you some context.

  This is the city; my city, every filthy, gritty inch of her from the docks to the Heights, and everything in between. Her name is Wonderland.

  And they say comedy is dead.

  Canary there? He’s a scout. Runs with a loose coalition; call themselves the Rats & Birds. They’re small-time, like he said, not much more than thugs and swindlers; but they’re fast, and there’s about a million of them scattered all through the city. They play rough, but they don’t play for much, and they’re only worth my time when they keep their eyes and ears open. When they sing for me.

  In my line of work, information is as good as gold. Well, almost.

  The south side of the city belongs to Frank Duchess. He’s always got something to say, always got a moral to the story, and it’s usually “stay the fuck out of my business.” He’s not a hands-on kind of boss... mostly leans on his right hand, the Rabbit, to run the operation.

  The Rabbit is the perfect second-in-command. He’s quick, paranoid as hell, and always on time. He always checks, double-checks, triple-checks his work, and runs a tight ship. If Duchess ever does get his wish, and kicks the Queen off her throne, so to speak, it’ll be because of the Rabbit’s planning.

  The rest of his cronies are ragtag, rough: little better than the R&B. Cookie is the heavy, Frankie’s personal bodyguard. He’s all muscle, all seven feet of him, which is threatening if you don’t know how to handle him. Spends all his money up his nose, so he’s easy to buy, if anyone ever has the need.

  Duchess’s son, Virgil, is even easier, but Frankie’s smart enough to keep that worthless little shit out of his business, keep him in the dark about exactly where the cash he burns through comes from. He’s pig-ugly and just about as smart, and if I took him out tomorrow, his old man wouldn’t notice until his credit card statement came in.

  Not
that Duchess doesn’t know what’s going on. He may trust the Rabbit to do most of the running, but Frankie keeps his eye on the game, almost as close as the Queen does. Makes sense. He’s been after her position for ages, and he doesn’t keep it a secret. Duchess is a good leader, and he is vicious, but he thinks he’s smarter than he is and he loves the sound of his own voice. You can see how that might not work out so well.

  The Queen, now, she calls the shots. All of them. This whole city moves just because she says so, even if the individual pieces don’t know it. She knows her own game, Duchess’s game, all the movements of the Rats & Birds, and she makes sure it’s running just the way she wants it.

  How, you ask? That’s where I come in. My name is Jack Knave, and it’s my business to know your business. I’ve been in this for a long time, and there’s nothing you want to hide that I can’t find out.