She rolled to her back, ready to snap at him for pushing her, but stopped when she saw large rosebushes, taller than Hatcher, rising up from the ground on either side of her.
Hatcher reached down to help her. “He pushed me out the door. That guard. I think he didn’t want us to get a good look at what was out here.”
“Where are we?” Alice asked, staring around in wonder. “This can’t be Cheshire’s garden.”
The bushes grew above them and stretched on in the distance, much farther than should have been possible. There was an intersection in distance, turnings going left and right.
There was no sign of the City, the buildings that surrounded the cottage, the noise of the street. It didn’t even smell the same. The air was clean and fresh and the roses here lightly perfumed the air instead of clawing at Alice’s nose and throat. The sun was so bright compared to the dreary Old City that it hardly seemed to shine on the same world.
“This is Cheshire’s idea of fun,” Hatcher said.
Alice studied the passage before them for a moment. “It’s a maze.”
“Yes, and I’ll wager anything we’re trapped in here until we solve it,” Hatcher said.
He turned back to the white door and gave it a hearty kick, strong enough to rattle the panes of glass in the windows.
“We haven’t the time for this, Cheshire!” Hatcher shouted. “Have you forgotten the Jabberwocky?”
There was no answer, although Alice thought she heard the faint sound of laughter in the wind.
“This is the price for what he told us,” Alice said. “He must be a Magician himself, Hatch. How else could this be? And we saw what he did with the roses inside.”
Hatcher shook his head. “He is not a Magician. I told you a Magician built Rose Way. Whoever built it must have added this maze, and Cheshire is simply taking advantage.”
“But doesn’t he need magic to manipulate the space?” Alice asked.
“I don’t know that much about magic, Alice,” Hatcher said. “You would likely know more than me.”
“Don’t repeat that nonsense Nell said,” she said, irritated.
“Why not? You did something in that tavern. They all saw you. I felt the Jabberwocky leave, and he wouldn’t leave unless he was forced.”
“What if he simply found better prey elsewhere?” Alice asked. She did not want to believe that she had the power to send something so horrible away. She did not wish to be any more “interesting,” as Cheshire had said, than she already was.
Hatcher did not say anything more. That wasn’t his way. He walked away and into the maze, expecting her to follow. He would not stand and argue with Alice when they did not agree, even if she wished to.
And she did wish to. They had left the hospital, and since then she had felt as though she were buffeted in a rushing river, pulled along by the force of the water and knocking up against everything in her path. There had hardly been a moment when she felt her fate was in her own hands.
She did not wish to be a Magician, and to draw attention from those who would seek to exploit her. Alice was no fool, even if she had been muddled for a time. If anyone thought she as a Magician (and Alice did not believe she was), then even Hatcher’s skills would not keep her safe. She would be scooped up by a boss and presented as a curiosity to the discerning men who frequented the Old City looking for excitement. If a boss did not kidnap her, then the government would. It was illegal to practice magic in the City, to be a Magician. Alice did not know how Cheshire managed to keep the government’s interest out of Rose Way. He must have knowledge that the men in power would not like revealed.
As she thought all of this she automatically wandered behind Hatcher, and that irritated her as well when she realized she did it. She should not follow him like a frightened dog (but you have acted like a frightened dog, especially at the beginning).
Altogether she was feeling very bothered and not at all scared, although she supposed she ought to be scared. They were trapped in a maze of magical rosebushes and had no way of knowing how long it might take to get out.
Her face was hot and gritty from the soot-stained fog they’d passed through in the night. The bright sun would have been a welcome relief from the dark warren of the Old City, but in this exposed maze it was another irritant. Though the roses’ scent was not as thick and heavy as inside, there was no escaping the perfume. Alice was tired of roses, tired of walking.
She sat down in the middle of the maze, crossed her arms and legs and waited to see whether Hatcher would notice. Almost immediately he turned around and gave her a questioning look.
“What are you about, Alice? Are you hungry?”
“No,” she said, and lifted her chin. “I’ve had enough. I’m not moving one step more.”
“We have to get through this maze,” Hatcher said, gesturing ahead of him. They were in a long tunnel with several turnings off the main thoroughfare ahead.
“We’ve no idea where to turn or how to get out. And Cheshire is likely sitting in his parlor laughing at us. I’m not an amusement for him. I’m not a toy,” she said hotly, thinking of the term he’d used for her.
“No, you’re not a toy,” he said. “But I think I can find our way out of this if you let me try.”
“Why?” Alice asked. “This isn’t like the Old City, where you’re retracing your steps from long ago. You’re just guessing, same as anyone would.”
Hatcher walked back and crouched on the ground in front of her. He stared hard into her eyes. “What happened to my quiet, trusting girl?”
“She was drugged,” Alice said, thinking of the powders that the hospital had put in her food for ten years. “She’s not anymore.”
Hatcher’s eyes lit up. “That’s it, Alice. The powders!” “What about them?” Alice asked. She was confused by the sudden change in his manner, and the way it undermined her rebellion.
“The powders kept your magic inside you,” Hatcher said, grabbing her hands and pulling her to her feet. “If you hadn’t been taking them all those years, you would have known you’re a Magician long ago.”
“Hatch, stop,” Alice said, tugging her hands away and planting her feet. “I’m not a Magician. And—” She leaned close to his ear, a sudden flash of inspiration. “If I were a Magician you wouldn’t want everyone to know about it, would you? You wouldn’t want Cheshire to know about it. So you should stop talking about it so loud. We don’t know who’s listening. He could be watching us, hearing everything we say. He very likely is.”
“He already thinks you are a Magician, whatever we say,” Hatcher said. “Why do you think he was so interested that you knew the story of the Jabberwocky?”
“What’s that to do with anything?” Alice asked, confused again. Every time she thought she caught up she fell behind again.
“It’s not a well-known story he told. You could tell by the way he told it that he was certain we’d never heard it before,” Hatcher said. “Who told you that story? Your mother?”
“Yes,” Alice said.
“Where did she learn it from?”
Alice shrugged. “Her parents, I suppose.”
Hatcher nodded. “Who learned it from their parents, and so on. Did your family always live in the New City?”
“I suppose so,” Alice said. “I never learned otherwise.”
“Alice,” Hatcher said, his brows drawn together. “I can’t feel the Jabberwocky in here.”
Alice might be less befuddled than before, but Hatcher’s brain was just as twisty as it always was. She sighed, and took his hand, and they walked along the path carved between the rosebushes. She thought that it was a good thing if Hatcher and the Jabberwocky were less connected, even if it were only temporary.
At the junction of every turning, Alice peeked into the opening, each time hoping for some clue to the exit. But the maze was always the same. They decided to stay on the main path.
“After all,” Alice reasoned, “it must come to an end sometime. And w
hen we reach that end you can simply cut through the bushes.”
The leaves behind her rustled, and Alice spun around, for there was no wind.
Two vines exploded from the maze wall, and wrapped around her ankles. The vines tugged hard and she fell hard to the ground on her back. Before she or Hatcher could do anything she was pulled along the grass and the roses closed around her.
CHAPTER
9
Thorns pricked at her skin everywhere, poked at her face and hands and the top of her head and wormed through her jacket and pants. She thought Hatcher yelled her name but she couldn’t tell, for roses were in her ears and her nose and under her eyelids, crawling inside her. She opened her mouth to scream and roses pushed their way inside, choking her.
Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. She wished she were a Magician; she would make the roses go away, get them out of this maze, fly away from the Old City forever and forget about the Jabberwocky and the Rabbit and Cheshire and the Walrus and Mr. Carpenter and roses, everything that could make her scared or cry or bleed. She would make the roses burn to the ground so they could never hurt anyone again.
Her hands were hot, hot with her own blood running from the thorn pricks in her arms down over her palms, and suddenly there was smoke, and a sound like a million tiny creatures squealing. Then the thorns were yanked from her skin and the flowers crawled away from her throat and nose and ears and eyes and something pushed hard into her back, and she was out, flat on the grass and crying and spitting rose petals from her mouth.
“Alice, Alice.” Hatcher’s voice, and then Hatcher’s hands all over her, patting and soothing, and then Hatcher’s arms taking her into his lap and rocking her as she cried and cried and cried.
All the strength she thought she’d found was gone now, smashed beneath the roses’ assault.
Hatcher rubbed his hand down her back and said, “Alice, my Alice, don’t cry. I can’t stand for you to cry.”
“I w-want to go h-home,” she said. Her tongue tasted like salt and roses.
“Where’s home, my Alice?” Hatcher said. “Where’s home? We don’t have a home, you and I.”
“Then I want to go back to the hospital,” she said. “We were safe there. Nothing could hurt us. Nothing could grab us and take us away.”
“Except the doctors,” Hatcher said. “Or the medicine they gave us. Or our own memories. We weren’t safe there, Alice. It was an illusion. And the hospital burned down. There’s nowhere for us to go back to. We can go forward. We can find our way out.”
She cried harder then, because she knew what he said was true. They had nowhere to go and no safe place to be, and they were trapped in this labyrinth by the whim of a madman.
“How do w-we even know there is a way out?” she said. “How do we know that Cheshire won’t keep us here, running in circles forever?”
“We don’t know,” Hatcher said. “I do know this. You’re a Magician, as sure as I’m mad.”
“Not now, Hatch,” she said. She was tired and scared and not up to fighting about this.
“Look,” he said, taking her chin and turning her head toward the rosebushes.
There in the hedge was a hole—a smoking, charred, empty place where roses used to be.
“Did you set it on fire?” Alice asked. “Is that why they let me go?”
“You set it on fire,” Hatcher said. “I don’t think the roses will trouble us any longer.”
At these words he stood, still holding her in his arms like a child. She never thought about how big and strong he was, but she was very tall and he could hold her like she was nothing, a little bit of a thing. He approached the wall of the maze, and Alice turned her head into his chest, her eyes closed.
“No,” he said. “Look.”
She opened her eyes just enough to see through the slits, and then opened them wider, astonished. The roses were curling back on themselves, rolling into tight little coils. Alice reached her hand toward the vines, her curiosity stronger than her fear.
The roses shrank away from her touch, emitting that high pitched squeal, like they were afraid.
Afraid of her.
“A Magician?” she breathed.
“A Magician,” Hatcher said.
“Perhaps,” she said. It was wondrous if it were true, but also terrifying. She wasn’t prepared for this.
“All right, then,” Hatcher said, and put her down. “Can you walk now?”
Her legs were wobbly and her stomach heaved like she was seasick. Alice closed her eyes again and leaned on Hatcher’s shoulder for a moment, breathing deep in through her nose. The reek of roses no longer pervaded the air. A fresh wind blew through the hedges, carrying with it the sweet, clean scent of grass.
They started forward again, periodically checking the turnings as they had before. Alice did not feel at all steady. Her heart thumped rapidly in her chest, and though every rose moved away from them as they passed, it was difficult not to feel frightened. The flowers were cautious for now. There was no guarantee they would be in future.
She briefly considered trying to burn their way out of the maze. This plan was not practical for two reasons. First, Cheshire might resent the destruction of his plaything. He was not their friend, but it did not seem he was yet their enemy. Alice did not desire to make an enemy of him.
Then there was the question of how to burn the roses. Somehow she had performed magic—twice, according to Hatcher—but on neither occasion was she certain how she’d done it. She was afraid that if she tried to light the bushes on fire and nothing happened, then the roses would know they had nothing to fear from her, and attack.
They walked and the sun beat down, never changing position. There was no shadow cast by the maze, no place to hide from the continuous glare. They quickly drank all the water Hatcher carried in his bag, and it was nowhere near enough.
Alice removed her jacket and tied it around her waist, pushing the knife behind the belt of her pants. Hatcher followed suit, and Alice could now see how he kept all his weapons in place. He had rigged a sort of harness—it reminded her of mules pulling carts— with many sheaths and buckled it close to his body. The axe swung closest to his hand, near his waist, so he could grasp it at a moment’s notice. Higher up there were knives big and small, and the gun that had frozen Cheshire’s grin, if only for a moment. There was a line of grey sweat under the harness where it rubbed against Hatcher’s shirt.
Her own face and neck and chest were soaked, though her throat was parched. Still the maze went on and on, with neither sight nor sound of water. After a while Hatcher started muttering.
“Rabbits and caterpillars and butterflies and carpenters,” he said. “I’ll cut through all of them like trees. Watch my axe swing wide and gleaming and they all fall down, knock down all the toy soldiers. Jenny. Who’s Jenny? Cheshire thought I knew her. Jenny. Jenny. She had grey eyes.”
Alice said, “You have grey eyes.”
Her tongue was swollen in her mouth and the words didn’t sound right in her ears.
“Jenny,” Hatcher said again, and he clutched both sides of his head. Alice saw his knuckles whiten, as if he were trying to squeeze the knowledge from his skull. “Jenny. Cheshire thinks he’s so smart. So smart, but he has to sleep sometime. Oh yes, he must sleep sometime.”
Blood ran from Hatcher’s left nostril as he spoke, over his lip and onto his chin, a torrent that made Alice still in alarm. She forgot how thirsty she was, how tired.
“Hatch,” she said, pulling on his arm, trying to make him stop crushing his head. “Hatch, stop.”
He tilted his head to one side, his eyes not recognizing her. “Are you Jenny? No, you’re not Jenny. Your eyes are wrong.”
“Hatcher,” Alice said. “Come back to me.”
“She had grey eyes,” he said. “Grey eyes. You’re too tall to be Jenny. Stop pretending to be her.”
“I’m not Jenny,” she said, trying to keep her voice firm and calm. “I’m Alice.”
“Not Jenny,” he said, and then his right hand was off his head and there was a knife in it.
Alice released his arm and stepped back. “All right, Hatch. All right.”
She couldn’t stop him from carving out her heart if he was so inclined. She knew she was no match for that blade or the hand that held it. So Alice moved away, walking backward, her eyes on Hatcher and her hands high. Fresh blood dripped on his shirt.
“Jenny,” he said again, and his voice had gone crooning. “My little mermaid swimming in the sea, my Jenny.”
He staggered to one side, caught his shirt on the thorns of the hedge. Alice’s breath caught, but the roses did not twine around him. Hatcher tore loose from the thorns, stumbling forward.
Then Alice heard it. Someone was singing, singing in the most beautiful voice. Hatcher heard it too, for he stilled, turning his head in the direction of the voice.
“This way,” he said, and ran for the nearest junction in the maze, a few feet behind them.
“Hatcher!” Alice called, running after him. She was astounded he had so much energy. His boot heels disappeared behind another turn, and she labored to catch up. “Hatcher!”
The voice still sang, too lovely to be real and somehow . . .
Not very nice, Alice thought. It was a little-girl thought, she knew, but it was also true. There was something cruel in that voice for all its beauty. She rounded the corner where she’d last seen Hatcher and came upon a four-way intersection like a cross.
“Hatcher!” she called again, running to each direction in turn and finding nothing. Hatcher was gone.
The voice stopped singing.
Now panic was in her stomach and her heart and her mouth. She’d never been without Hatcher, never all on her own, not since the day he spoke to her through the mouse hole. What would she do without Hatcher? How would she get by?
Find him, you silly nit, a firm voice said inside her head. That voice was disturbingly like Cheshire’s. Alice did not like the notion that her mind would take on the identity of a person she disliked very much. Use your wits and find him.
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