Alice

by Christina Henry

  “But how?” she said to herself as her eyes roamed all over, looking for evidence of Hatcher’s passing.

  The grass was not flattened to show his boot prints. There was nothing to show where he’d gone. The sun was brighter than ever, blinding her, making her see dark spots when she closed her eyes and bright yellow ones when her eyes were open. She rubbed at her face, blinking in the glare, and looked down at her boots for a moment to shake off the sun.

  Next to her right heel was a tiny drop of red on a blade of grass, a little crimson jewel drying to brown in the never-ending heat.

  Alice dropped to her hands and knees, her face very close to the grass. Her eyes searched ahead until she found another blade of grass carrying a red droplet, also rusting in the sun.

  She tucked her head low, her nose just above the grass, and scurried forward (like a puppy smelling something good), following the intermittent stains of red in the grass to the right-hand turning. After a few moments she was certain Hatcher continued in that direction and stood again.

  Alice tried to run, but she was far too tired and thirsty to keep up the pace for long. She sensed that Hatcher was in danger, but could not force her weary body to move any faster.

  Hurry, Alice, hurry, hurry.

  She reached another junction with two choices and put her nose to the ground again. This time the blood was fresher, still jewel-bright, and hope surged inside her. Perhaps he wasn’t too far ahead. Perhaps she could still save him.

  But the singing stopped.

  That was worrisome, the lack of singing. To Alice’s way of thinking the singing was meant to draw them to the singer. If she (Alice thought it sounded like a “she,” although it could be a turtle for all she knew) wasn’t singing anymore, then that meant she’d gotten the thing she wanted. Alice did not want that thing to be Hatcher.

  The maze turned a corner ahead of her and Alice followed it. Then she stopped, and she stared.

  Before her was a very large body of water. It was too large to be a pond, but too small to be a lake, and it was so blue it hurt the eyes. Alice could almost taste that water in her mouth. She wanted to dive into it, let the water cover her until she drowned.

  In the center of the lake was a small island, and on the island was a tiny cottage painted up like pink-and-white-striped peppermint. There appeared to be no one on the island, and Hatcher was nowhere to be seen.

  “Hatcher!” Alice shouted. “Hatcher!”

  Then she saw it. There was a small pile of clothes close to the lapping water of the shore. More alarming was the stack of weapons on top of the dirty clothing. Hatcher’s axe was there. Alice could not believe Hatcher would leave his axe behind.

  She sat on the beach and pulled off her boots and pants and jacket, leaving only the oversized shirt. Her knife was in her hand as she dipped her feet in the water.

  It was cold, but the cold was refreshing. Alice again felt an overwhelming urge to sink to the bottom of the lake and she shook her head from side to side to get that thought out of her head.

  She knew Hatcher was in trouble, or else he would have answered when she called. Still, she hesitated. Alice did not know how to swim. The only time she had been in water in the last ten years was when she and Hatcher had jumped into the fetid river to escape the burning hospital. She knew she should kick and move her arms, but how would she keep herself afloat? And the impulse to sink beneath the water was very strong. The lake was clearly enchanted, and Alice wasn’t certain she would have the concentration for swimming and fighting off the urge to drown.

  I need to get to Hatcher, she thought. She focused all of her will on this singular idea, and hoped it would be enough.

  Alice waded into the water.

  She half expected something terrifying to rise from the water, a green monster with long arms to grab or a silver-scaled dragon with razor-edged fangs. Her childhood picture books were full of creatures like these. Nothing disturbed the water save Alice herself.

  There was only one thought in her mind—Hatcher. The water soon covered her knees, and her thighs, and then the bottom suddenly fell away and her head dipped below the surface.

  The drop was so abrupt that she didn’t have time to take a breath. The water closed over her, so light and refreshing after the sweltering heat of the maze. But she couldn’t breathe. Her chest hurt from the strain of keeping air inside, and she sank very fast.

  Alice opened her eyes underwater, found that it was clear and utterly calm. The floor of the lake was not far from her feet.

  It was littered with skeletons.

  She kicked hard then, up and away, not wanting to touch the abandoned bones at the bottom of the lake, not wanting to become another victim of whatever lived in that candy-striped cottage.

  Her face broke the surface, her paddling just barely keeping her mouth and nose out of the water. The cottage was not far. She only needed to go a little way more. She gulped air, and sometimes water, and the water was sweet and delicious, like lemonade on a summer’s day. She thought again that she might like to drift away to the bottom.

  Hatcher, she thought again, and kept thinking it. Hatcher, Hatcher, Hatcher.

  She struggled through the water, moving in tiny increments, and when her feet touched the sandy bottom near the cottage, she was surprised to discover she had made it there.

  Alice crawled out of the water. The shirt she wore was heavy from the lake and it seemed to try to drag her back in, but her hands and knees moved forward and her lips spoke over and over, “Hatcher. Hatcher. Hatcher.”

  Then her fingers were in grass instead of sand, and she struggled to her feet, the shirt dripping puddles around her. The knife Bess gave her was gripped in her right hand.

  The little house, white with red peppermint stripes slashed across it (like blood, Alice thought), was perfectly still. The door was the only entry. There were no windows, no indication that anyone was at home. Alice knew Hatcher was there, for he was not under the lake, rotting with the other bones. She opened the door, the red doorknob smooth beneath her touch.

  Hatcher was there, naked on the floor, his eyes blank and far away. A woman with skin as luminescent as the moon crouched over him, her back to the door, all the bones of her spine showing through the skin. Alice did not stop to think. She took one step forward and plunged the knife into the woman’s neck.

  The woman arched her back, her face curling up toward Alice. She saw that that it was not a woman at all, but something from a nightmare, something with long teeth like needles that curved over the chin and eyes as blind as an earthworm. The point of Alice’s knife protruded just a bit from the creature’s throat.

  Alice pulled the knife up hard and blood the color of milk spurted out of the creature’s mouth. Its arms stiffened out like wings and it fell forward onto Hatcher, the white liquid pooling on his chest and stomach.

  “Hatcher,” Alice said, and pushed the creature off his body with her foot.

  He sat up, rubbing the back of his head and looking sheepish. “I think she was going to eat me.”

  “I should say so,” Alice said, averting her eyes. Hatcher had not intended to be naked before her.

  Hatcher stood, seemingly unashamed of his lack of clothing, and stared down at the creature for a moment. “I wonder how long she’s been here.”

  “Quite a while, if you consider all the bones in the bottom of the lake,” Alice said.

  Hatcher blinked. “Bones?”

  “Many,” Alice said. “Let’s return to the other shore. We left all of our things there.”

  They exited the peppermint house—an odd house for such a creature, Alice thought; there ought to have been a plump little witch inside—and walked to the shore of the lake. Hatcher waded in immediately. Alice followed with more reluctance. She had not enjoyed the crossing the first time.

  Hatcher turned around when he was waist deep. “What’s the matter?”

  “I can’t really swim,” Alice said.

  “You mad
e it here, didn’t you?” Hatcher said, holding out his hand. “Let’s go, silly girl.”

  Alice smiled a little, and put her hand in his.

  The water rose up in giant wave then, higher than any building in the City. Alice’s mouth dropped open. Hatcher squeezed her hand tight and pulled her close just as the wave crashed over them.

  A moment later all the world was rushing water and Hatcher’s grip on her hand. Alice’s head went under, bobbed up again, then repeated the process too many times to count. She couldn’t see anything except waves, and couldn’t hear a thing save the pathetic splashing she made to stay afloat. Hatcher never let her go, not even for a moment, and she felt certain that at least they would be together whether or not they survived.

  She thought, I do not like Cheshire at all.

  The rushing river ended just as abruptly as it began. Alice and Hatcher slammed into hard cobblestone on their stomachs. Alice tasted blood in her mouth. She dropped her knife and wiped her eyes with her free hand (Hatcher had not loosed his grip on the other) and looked blearily around her.

  They were in a dark alley, seemingly empty of people, with only a little light coming in at the far end. As her eyes adjusted, Alice saw a neat little pile of clothing in front of her, and several weapons stacked on top, including Hatcher’s axe and gun.

  Hatcher released her hand and knelt, inspecting the items as well as he could.

  “Are they our things?” Alice asked. “Did Cheshire send them with us?”

  “He just might be a Magician after all,” Hatcher said, by way of answer. “Best to cover yourself before someone comes along.”

  They dressed quickly. Alice’s pants and jacket and cap were dry, but the shirt was very damp. She wrung out the hem, pulling it away from her waist and watching water dribble onto the stone.

  “You’ll have to pull the jacket closed,” Hatcher said.

  Alice was thinking the same thing. The wet shirt made it much more apparent that she was not the boy she pretended to be. Her chest was small but noticeable when the fabric clung.

  Hatcher rummaged through the bag of supplies. “There’s food.”

  “Pies from Nell and apples and bread from Bess,” Alice said.

  Hatcher shook his head. “That food is gone. There’s new food.”

  He pulled out a cake shaped like a rose. Alice waved her hands.

  “I don’t want any food from Cheshire,” she said.

  “Probably wise,” Hatcher said. “I have my money still. We can get something else. I’m hungry.”

  Alice wasn’t hungry at all. She supposed she ought to be, but everything that happened in Cheshire’s house and maze crowded out thoughts of food. Was Cheshire really a Magician? Or had he simply learned to manipulate magic that was already there?

  The question you ought to be asking is, are you a Magician?

  She didn’t feel like a Magician. Some strange things had occurred around her, but she was hardly a practitioner of magic. Above all she believed it was most important to make sure others did not think she was a Magician. She and Hatcher had enough trouble with the Jabberwocky.

  (and the Rabbit) Bess had told her to stay away from the Rabbit. Cheshire told her she’d taken out his eye, and that the Rabbit had never forgotten her. As they went deeper into the Old City the possibility increased that they would encounter the man who’d danced through her nightmares for years. He would know her for certain, for Cheshire had known her by the scar on her face, and the Rabbit was the one who put it there.

  Hatcher snapped his fingers in front of Alice. “Did you hear me, Alice? We have to find out where we are.”

  “Yes,” she said. She followed Hatcher, for she’d been standing still and staring into the distance, thinking about the Rabbit and Cheshire and the Jabberwocky.

  And cakes. Only the day before she’d been dreaming of yellow cake iced with pink sugar and cream, but the thought of Cheshire’s rose-shaped cakes made her shudder—and remember.

  Four people around a table. Alice, Dor, the Rabbit, and a man in the shadows. They were laughing, all of them were laughing so much because everything was so funny, and the Rabbit told Alice she could have all the cake she liked. She couldn’t stop eating it. The cake was so pretty and there was plenty of it, and it made everything seem funnier than before. No one else was eating cake. They drank tea and they smiled and laughed but only Alice ate the cake. Dor had some biscuits on her plate, little yellow biscuits she said tasted like lemons. Alice didn’t want any biscuits. She could have biscuits at home.

  After a while she felt sick and dizzy, her mother’s voice in her head saying, “Too many sweets.” She slumped in her chair, her eyes halfclosed.

  The man in the shadows took a slice of cake with purple frosting and put it on her plate, urging her to eat more. She didn’t want any more but he cut a piece with his fork and pushed it in her mouth. Crumbs spilled over her lips and onto her chin and they all laughed again, all except Alice, who coughed and spluttered and took large gulps of tea. Who was that man? She couldn’t see him. His hands were large, though, larger than both of her hands put together, and white as snow. No, not snow. Gloved. He had large hands and he wore white gloves.

  Hatcher stopped at the end of the alley and Alice bumped her nose in his back. That brought her to the present again, and she peeked around his shoulder to see what made him pause.

  He gestured with his hand. “Butterflies.”

  CHAPTER

  10

  Alice didn’t know what he meant. She didn’t see any butterflies. There was a large building before them, directly across the alley. This building was strange, a construction of many different styles all jammed higgledy-piggledy on one another.

  There were turrets and balconies and staircases that went up into nowhere, and tilted shacks that appeared to have been dropped on the roof of others, stacked up to the sky. Parts of the building crept into the structures on either side, like a bloated spider spreading its web all through the garden.

  Alice wondered whether all the parts connected when you were inside. How would you climb up to that highest tower otherwise? It didn’t appear that way, though. It looked like another maze to her, a different sort of maze, and she’d had quite enough of mazes.

  Then she noticed the sign attached to the porch roof. It was made of tin and swung back and forth in the evening breeze.

  BUTTERFLIES.

  Cheshire had delivered them right to the Caterpillar’s doorstep. Only now they were there, Alice did not want to go alight that doorstep. That mad building could only house a mad person.

  Hatcher’s mad, she thought.

  Yes, but there is no evil in him, she thought back.

  She didn’t know why she thought “evil.” The building was twisted and weird, but it didn’t have to be evil. Except that she had that feeling, that same feeling of wrongness that she’d had in Nell and Harry’s tavern, the feeling that something bad was before them and they ought to turn away while they still could.

  She noticed Hatcher’s hesitation also. “It’s not right there, is it?”

  “No,” he said. “But we must go. He’s the one Cheshire said would know about the blade.”

  “Cheshire also tried to kill us for his own amusement,” Alice said. “Why should we trust anything Cheshire said?”

  “Because it’s all we have,” Hatcher said.

  Alice and Hatcher went to the door of Butterflies. Hatcher pushed it open and it creaked like the door of a haunted mansion in a story. Before them was a dusty, musty hallway with several doors. There was no one in the hall; nor was there any indication that anyone might be behind the doors.

  Hatcher took his axe out of his jacket. Alice found the knife was already in her hand. They shuffled forward cautiously, and the door swung closed behind them with a decisive thud. Alice checked the knob and found what she’d already suspected.

  “It won’t open,” she said. She should be frightened. Instead she was angry—angry at Cheshire fo
r sending them here, angry with herself and Hatcher for listening.

  Anger would not help them escape. Finding the Caterpillar would, although she doubted he would know anything about this blade that Cheshire spoke of. She did not believe that such a weapon existed at all, but that Cheshire had sent them here for some purpose of his own. “Let’s try the doors. One of them must open, else how does the Caterpillar go about his business?”

  She didn’t like to think of his business, but there it was. He sold girls to men, and those men must have a way in and out. It was absurd to think that everyone who entered was unable to leave. How would the Caterpillar make money without men to spend it?

  Hatcher tried the first door on their right. It was locked, as was the one Alice tried on the left. They moved steadily down the hall until they reached the very last one at the end. That was locked as well.

  “What now?” she asked. She was not about to stand in the Caterpillar’s dirty hallway forever.

  A movement in the corner of her eye made her start. It was a large centipede—disgustingly large, in fact. The insect’s length was easily half her forearm, and it was as thick as the little snakes that slithered between her mother’s flowers in the garden. She cringed away from it, repulsed.

  Hatcher followed her eyes. “It can’t hurt you.”

  “How do you know?” Alice countered. “Roses aren’t supposed to grab people and try to murder them, either.”

  Alice tracked the movement of the centipede as it moved away from her. It disappeared beneath a door she had not noticed before, and the reason she hadn’t noticed it was because the top of the door was just below her knee. It was a very garish shade of red and had a tiny golden knob. Alice was just able to pinch it between her thumb and first finger.

  “You don’t suppose the Caterpillar really is a caterpillar?” Alice asked, glancing at Hatcher.

  He shrugged. “There are Jabberwocks in the world. Why not?”

  And that, Alice thought, was very typical Hatcher logic.

  The door opened. Noise and smoke spilled out. Alice lowered her head to peer through the opening.