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

by Kaye Chazan

  "Hey, wait!" Toby shouted. "What do I do? I'm still falling!"

  "So land," the coyote yowled back to him and disappeared into the clouds.

  And so Toby did.

  The bed frame practically bounced and a cloud of dust puffed up from the long-disused coverlet. Its four posts shuddered.

  Deep in the bedding, Toby groaned.

  "You know, I hear that's a lot easier in a skirt."

  Toby sat up and groped for the edge of the oversized mattress. The indentation he'd made upon landing was surprisingly deep, and he'd managed to get his feet tangled up in the bedding. He looked around for the source of the voice. "Tell me you're not another coyote."

  "I'm not another coyote. Though if I were..." The voice trailed off. "Are you stuck?"

  Stuck was something of an understatement. Every time he tried to extricate himself from the bedding, the blankets clung to him, almost like they were deliberately gripping at him. He pushed that idea aside the second he realized he was thinking it. That was far too much to cope with after… after, well. Everything. Plus, he still couldn't tell where the voice was coming from. "I'm—" He dug his fingers in tight and tried to drag himself up out of the bed, which seemed to get deeper by the minute. "I'm fine."

  "That's good," the voice cooed. "I'd hate to think I'm causing you distress."

  Toby twisted in an effort to free himself from the tangled sheets. If he could reach the headboard, he could probably climb it—

  The face in the headboard grinned at him. "Honestly, it's better for both of us if you don't struggle."

  His mouth opened but he was too gobsmacked to speak. He pushed back with his arms and tried to drag his feet up under him to kick away. The headboard face grimaced in apparent discomfort, and then anger.

  "I caught you, you ungrateful morsel. You fell from the sky and I caught you. Finder’s keepers."

  "Actually, if you want to get particular about it, I found him first."

  The headboard twisted in an effort to see where the other voice was coming from. Toby jerked his head up as well. The coyote from before sat in midair. It watched them with curiosity, its white aviator's scarf rippling in the breeze.

  "Yes, but you didn't catch him."

  "Sorry, is it 'catcher’s keepers' now?" The coyote's yellowy eyes seemed to gleam, even behind the goggles. "Because that's not what I remember you saying just now."

  The bed glowered, but the sheets and coverlet stilled themselves. Toby scrambled free of them and then back over the footboard and onto the ground. He noticed, for the first time, that he was in some sort of forest.

  "That's what I thought," the coyote said.

  The bed growled. After a minute, it turned and shuffled away into the trees on its posts.

  "You're not very good at this." The coyote looked down at Toby. "There's a perfectly good municipal leaf pile over in the next town over. Didn't anyone ever tell you to stay off the furniture?"

  "Hi. Kind of falling through the air? I didn't exactly have much of a choice."

  The coyote rolled its eyes at him. "Oh, of course you had a choice. I'm up here by choice. Just like you're down there by choice."

  "No, I'm down here because of gravity."

  The coyote yipped out a laugh. "Oh yes. Thank goodness for gravity. If it weren't for gravity, there'd be no telling what sorts of things might decide to get up off the ground around here."

  Toby had to concede that the flying coyote might have a little bit of a point, though exactly what that point was, he couldn't quite decide. "Where is here, anyway?"

  The coyote gave him a surprised look. "You don't know?"

  "I just fell out of the sky into a man-eating bed. That's kind of outside of my experience."

  "Hm." The coyote gave Toby a thoughtful look. "Maybe it might be better if you don't know. I can't remember the last time somebody came through. Or went back."

  "I'm trapped here?"

  The coyote yawned. "First gravity, now being trapped? You're not much for self-determination, are you?" It stood up on all four paws, swished its tail, then sniffed. It seemed to be testing the wind. "You should probably work on that."

  "Yeah, thanks. I'll keep that in mind."

  "In your mind, out of your mind. Makes no difference to me. I'm just calling it like I see it." The coyote padded higher into the air. "Have fun in Wonderland."

  "Wonderland?" Toby looked around at the forest in disbelief. "Like... like Alice in Wonderland?"

  The coyote laughed. Its howls carried eerily in the wind as it bounded out of sight.

  Alone, Toby tried to get his bearings. The forest floor was thick with leaves and brush save for the clearing where the bed had tried to eat him—and there was something you couldn't say every day—and three narrow paths that led out from it.

  He tried to remember which one of the paths the bed had taken when it fled. He worried that maybe he'd gotten turned around talking with the coyote.

  On his own in an unfamiliar landscape, he didn't like his chances much. He couldn't see the sky with any clarity through the treetops, but what he could see seemed wrong to him. It's because I'm in the center of the Earth, he thought, giving in a little to the surreality of the situation. Why there would be such a thing as night and day down here—if there was a day at all—was another question entirely.

  "I guess I'll find out sooner or later," he muttered to himself, and gave the three paths out of the clearing another look. There wasn't much to differentiate one from the other. Each was just a way through the dark, surrounded by trees. Except...

  Toby squinted and took a step toward one of the paths. Sure enough, stapled onto the papery bark of an old birch was a ragged handbill, faded by rain and sun. The lettering was worn enough that Toby had to get close to read it. It said:

  WONDERS AND THRILLS!

  SEE the AMAZING BRANDY

  and her

  MAGNIFICENT TRAVELING SHOW

  Appearing for

  ONE NIGHT ONLY

  And then, scrawled in pencil in the right-hand margin:

  Follow the FIREFLIES!!!

  Toby scoffed a little under his breath. "Lot of good that does me," he said, and stepped back from the tree. Whoever had left the handbill up there must have done so years ago. He started to turn back toward the clearing, but a tiny glimmer of light caught his eye. He blinked, looked for it again, spotted the firefly drifting along in the night air. The tiny beetle lit on a branch next to the handbill. Its glowing abdomen pulsed bright, dim, bright.

  After a moment, Toby spotted another one further down the trail.

  "Well, I could do worse," he said, and walked along the path, deeper into the woods.

  The path was dark and narrow, and the weird flat disc of a moon that shone in the Wonderland sky wasn't as much help as it might have been. Toby was grateful for the fireflies as they gathered here and there, bobbing along in the air or alighting on branches. There were more of them the further along he went, enough that he imagined they were arranging themselves among the branches into loose arrows, directing him forward. It occurred to him that after the thing with the bed, he ought to be more cautious, but waiting around in a clearing for everything to fix itself wasn't a viable option. And anyway, he remembered just enough about Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland that he was pretty sure the kid had made it through all right. Whatever risk there might be in moving forward had to be offset by the possibility of progress.

  All of that went out of his head when he rounded the corner and wound up face-to-face with the dimly lit façade of the Amazing Brandy's Magnificent Traveling Show.

  The boards were easily twice his height and blocked the path completely. They loomed out as far as he could see in both directions. Each peeling panel was painted in garish yellows, greens, blues, and oranges, and except for the two that blocked the path directly, each had a different sideshow act depicted on it. The ones in front of him had an arch cut out of them, hung with a faded red velvet curtain for a doorway. Judgi
ng by the cracks in the paint and the vines that grew up along the edges of the boards, these had been here as long as the handbill.

  Toby leaned closer to the curtain and listened for any evidence of life, but all he heard was his own breath and the sounds of the forest.

  Fireflies gathered on the boards, illuminating a small, rusted steel can sitting in the grass. A note, scrawled in the same handwriting from the handbill, sat folded inside it. Toby pulled it out.

  "Please tip the fireflies," he read aloud, then looked around. As far as he could see, the forest was alive with tiny points of light, each one of which might be watching and waiting.

  He dug the loose change out of his pocket and dropped it in the can, then put it back down in the grass and leaf litter where he'd found it.

  The fireflies dispersed.

  "I guess that means I go in," he said, to nobody in particular. He parted the velvet curtain and stepped through.

  The forest was just as dark on the other side of the boards, but the trail opened out into a large, round clearing, ringed with striped canvas tents. In the center of the space was a huge post, like the mast of a ship, complete with a crow's nest.

  "Hello?" Toby called out as he wandered further in. "Is anybody here?"

  "AWDIENCE!" a strong baritone voice boomed out from the crow's nest. "AWDIENCE!"

  The clearing burst to life as each tent flap zipped up into a tidy roll over its doorway. Lamps and torches were hung on hooks or lit where they sat waiting around the clearing. Shouts and noises and songs rang out as the performers rushed themselves to readiness.

  The man from the crow's nest slid down the ladder. He was dressed in a comical, antique striped strongman's uniform, and was met on the ground by two smaller men and a wheelbarrow, which held an assortment of enormous round-ended barbells and a wooden sandwich board proclaiming him to be the World's Strongest Man. The three of them hurried off to a space between a tent now marked as the home of Maude, the Real Sleeping Beauty, and another advertising Benji, the Boy Who Eats Glass.

  On the other side of the clearing, four glitter-dusted men in Egyptian-style loincloths appeared, carrying a sparkling, curtained litter. Performers stood at attention as the quartet strode through the center of the tent circle toward Toby. They stood tall and straight and held their chins high as they approached him. Their kohl-circled eyes were proud, as if their work conferred the highest possible status.

  When they reached Toby, they stopped and brought the litter to rest on its gilded legs. One of the porters stepped away from the front, brought out a single step, and drew back the side curtain. He averted his gaze and extended a hand.

  A hand in a black beaded satin glove took it.

  "Announcing Her Regal Magnificence!" the other front porter called out. "Her Most Fearsome Fabulousness, and Our Mistress of Most High Ceremonies, and the Queen of the Main Drag! The one, the only, The Amazing Brandy!"

  The Amazing Brandy extended a spangled platform boot and took a decisive step from the litter. She was tall and powerfully built. Her wig was as ornately styled as any from the court of Louis XVI might have been, and her makeup was exquisite. She wore a fitted frock coat over a pinstriped corset. Her skirt was slit high up one thigh, where a garter was clearly visible. She carried a vaudeville-style cane and wore a glittering tiara.

  Toby grinned as he caught the porter's meaning. Queen of the Main Drag. Clever. He pulled a five dollar bill out of his pocket as Brandy approached him. She smiled and presented her garter.

  "This isn't what I expected Wonderland to be like."

  "What were you expecting, honey?" Brandy leaned in and planted a kiss on his cheek, then waved off her porters, who hustled away with the empty litter. "Talking rabbits and Victorians with mercury poisoning? Please."

  "I met a talking coyote, actually."

  "I'm not surprised. Those mangy beasts get into everything."

  "I'll bet." Toby had to make an effort to suppress a smile. He looked around at the campsite. A few of the performers were still getting into position, but the larger commotion had died down. "I hope you don't mind me asking, but why are you out here in the woods? Wouldn't you draw a better audience closer to a city?"

  "A city?" Brandy gave him a suspicious look. "Cities are too full of decent, hard-working people, spooky little girls, and self-important matriarchs if you ask me. But you didn't ask me. You came for a show!" Brandy twirled her cane and turned to gesture toward the tents.

  Curious, Toby followed Brandy's lead into the camp. As they drew in, he spotted the porters—still shirtless, but dressed now in pinstripe trousers, saddle shoes, and bowler hats—walking among the tents, juggling.

  "Our Wonderland home is so terribly small. It's a wonder we have any wonders at all! We gather tonight to show you the sights, some lovely, some bound to appall!" Brandy tap-tapped her cane on the ground, then gave Toby a wink. "Step right this way, don't be afraid. You might be surprised, and you might get lai—"

  There was a massive creak and crash near the back of the camp, and then a bang, like a large firecracker.

  The performers scattered from their places. Some dashed along the rows using buckets of water to douse the torches, while others kicked and tugged at tent pegs, or set to work striking set pieces and packing them away. Brandy's entourage reappeared; they encircled her protectively and led her down the strip, their flight punctuated by more explosions. Toby followed.

  "What's happening?"

  "The wrong sort of entertainment," Brandy called out over her shoulder as her four sparkling boys carried her away.

  Toby made as if to chase after her, but a small carriage driven by a diminutive woman sporting an impressive beard cut him off and blocked the path. All around him, the camp—which only moments ago had looked as if it had been waiting there forever—rolled up and came down, leaving only a bare patch of ground. The only thing that remained was the ancient mast and its crow's nest.

  The crashes and bangs, meanwhile, were getting closer.

  Toby darted across the rapidly emptying clearing and scrambled up the mast into the crow's nest. He crouched and peered over the edge. There was movement in the trees, but what was making that movement wasn't clear. He listened, but all he heard was rustling in the brush, punctuated occasionally by the sound of fireworks.

  Or, he realized, possibly gunshots.

  After what seemed like quite a long time, a cowboy ambled out of the forest. Or, rather, a man who looked like an exaggerated cliché of a cowboy. He wore a pearl-buttoned shirt, old denims, and a pair of heavy-looking leather chaps. A criss-crossed pair of gun belts weighed heavy on his hips, and a pair of jingling spurs jutted out from his heels. He chewed a stalk of green wheat as he paced the clearing, checking the wind by holding his finger up into the air. His white cowboy hat was enormous.

  Satisfied, the cowboy gestured back to the trees. A second man, dressed as a colonial soldier, emerged. The brass buttons on his blue military jacket glittered in the moonlight. He adjusted his tricorn cap and brandished his musket. A third man, dressed in a brown scoutmaster's uniform and carrying an old-fashioned compass, joined them. His red kerchief looked almost black in the low light, but the patches stitched onto his sleeve stood out against the khaki.

  He looked up from his compass. "Well, boys, this looks plenty secure to me."

  The musketman didn't lower his weapon. "That's what they want you to think. Vigilance, man! Vigilance!"

  "Now now," the cowboy said, patting the musketman on the shoulder. "We're just looking for one of the little rascals. Ain't nobody crossed the border into Wonderland on our watch in years. Ain't nobody gonna get away with it now."

  The scoutmaster crouched and looked at the ground. "These darn tracks are a mess. Looks like somebody—a whole bunch of somebodies—decided to cut and run."

  "They got out of Dodge, huh?" The cowboy rubbed his chin, thoughtful.

  "Seditious cowards." The musketman scanned the trees and adjusted his bayonet. "I'll w
ager that even now they're sheltering him, giving aid and succor to our enemy."

  "Not on our watch, boys!" the scoutmaster proclaimed as he stood. He took a few steps further into the clearing and pointed to the ground. "Do you see here? That's where our man walked in. There's where he went all willy-nilly with the rest of them. And here—" The scoutmaster leaned down, then nodded. "Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle."

  "Find something?" The cowboy rested a hand on one of his pearl-handled revolvers. The musketman edged a little nearer and gave the ground a quick, nervous look.

  "The boy's still around here somewhere," the scoutmaster said, an expression of pure delight on his face. "In fact, I'll bet he's right up there."