Playing Hearts

by W. R. Gingell

  I got a nasty shock once or twice, though. One night I woke at midnight to see a pale, pale face in the dressing mirror that was not my own, its crimson lips plump at the top and sharp at the bottom, almost as if its mouth were a heart. The Queen’s eyes—for it was certainly she—were searching the mirror, falling inevitably into a line with my own. I closed my eyes with a gasp, fearful of meeting her gaze, and when I dared to open them again, she was gone. Her face had burned itself in the back of my eyes, however, and for many hours that night I lay awake with her strong, cruel face etched in the place where sleep should have been. Perhaps the most unsettling thing was that she looked so much like Jack. I should have expected it, but somehow I hadn’t. There was a cruelness to Jack’s face as well, and they both had that edge of madness to their eyes—though that, I was beginning to think, was simply an Underland thing rather than a familial thing—and the same pale gold hair.

  I didn’t last long in the foster home where I first saw the Queen. Maybe it was the sight of her, knowing she could find me so easily; that she could see me. Maybe it was my silent, prickly nature that made foster parents dislike me. Whatever it was, it saw me out of two foster homes in quick succession, and when I caught sight of the Queen in the next a few months later, I knew I wouldn’t be long there. I began hanging clothes over the mirrors and twitching the curtains shut as soon as I went into my bedroom. It meant that I saw less of Jack, but that wasn’t really a bad thing.

  Hare and Hatter, on the other hand, I began to see a great deal more of. Though it was hard to see them in mirrors and windows, I saw them easily in anything curved and reflective; and most clearly in water. Before long it was second nature for my eyes to linger on the puddles that I passed—though I was careful not to jump in them—and I spent most of my spare time reading beside whatever pond or creek that happened to be near my current foster home. Through the ripples I learned that though Hatter and Hare mostly remained by their tea table, they did a remarkable amount of work. Exactly what that work was I was never quite sure: visitors seemed to pop up at their table quite regularly. Much to my amusement, their method of ‘popping up’ was most often similar to mine. That big teapot saw a ridiculous amount of use, considering the pond close by. But sometimes the Hatter did something quick and sneaky with his hat that made things very difficult to see, even in the ripples. I watched and wondered: it seemed to me that whenever Hatter gazed at his hat with his mad purple eyes and made ripples, the Underland I saw in the ripples changed ever so slightly. I remembered Hatter saying that how Underland appeared depended upon the person doing the seeing, and on how they saw; and I wondered if Hatter was Seeing Things in a Different Way. And maybe changing things, little by little, just by Seeing them differently. I was too young to find the idea ridiculous, and I’d seen too much both in and of Underland to find it ridiculous by observation. I wanted to test it.

  The next day after school, I wandered down to the creek behind the highschool. I didn’t want the twin boys I was sharing a foster home with to stumble over me, and since all of the highschoolers smoked beneath the overpass during periods, they wouldn’t see me either. The creek ran shallow in a few sheltered spots where I could water-gaze without being disturbed. I found one of the quieter ones beneath the swaying fronds of a weeping willow, where the water eddied gently in a curved cut-out of the bank, and crawled in beneath the fronds. I had already been seeing flashes of Underland as I followed the stream, but when I settled on my stomach to gaze into the water properly, Hatter and Hare appeared immediately, sharp and clear. They weren’t at their tea table; they were in a foresty part of Underland, dark and green and foreboding. Hatter and Hare looked distinctly out of place in it. Hare, for some incomprehensible reason, seemed to be carrying a crutch, and I saw Hatter’s top hat as he passed close by my line of sight. In the ripply bit at the top of it I saw another view of him and Hare- this one of them walking in the sunny glade close by their tea table. They looked just the same but for their surroundings. I wondered if that other picture was what the Queen saw when she looked at them, and if so, how? What were they up to? They were talking to each other but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. I never did hear through the ripples, and I wasn’t sure if that was because it wasn’t possible, or if I just hadn’t learned the trick of it yet. As I watched them they slipped silently into a darkened cave, heavy with shadow and sinister with dark mossy bones. It didn’t look like a safe place to be. My reflected view took me through with them into the bare interior of the cave, where cobwebs soon began to drape from the walls and curved ceiling. At least, I thought they were cobwebs, until Hatter and Hare passed close by a particularly heavy patch and I discovered that they were actually wool. It was everywhere, draped in the corners and nooks, dangling from the ceiling in massive loops and tangles, forming giant dust-bunnies around the floor of the cave. I gazed at it, fascinated, and wondered if a cave hung with wool was any less frightening than a cave hung about with cobwebs, if they both had bones out the front. I was inclined to think that it was. In Underland you just didn’t know what sort of madness you would meet with, and the kind of madness that had woollen cobwebs juxtaposed with human and animal bones was perhaps even more terrifying than that which had cobwebs. At least you expected cobwebs when it came to caves and bones.

  The woollen cobwebs grew in size and fluffiness the further Hatter and Hare went. Soon they didn’t even look like cobwebs anymore: they looked exactly what they were, great mountains of unwound wool heaped up toward the sides of the cave. I saw Hatter looking at the piles, and he seemed satisfied with them; but Hare was nervous, twitching, and inclined to tap against the cave floor with his powerful back legs as if he was preparing to run. That left me to wonder exactly who lived in a cave, apparently ate humans and animals alike, and had a passion for wool. Hatter and Hare didn’t seem to concern themselves with the question: what I could read of Hatter’s lips (Hare's were impossible to guess at) was merely the usual back and forth I was used to with them. It meant nothing and something at the same time.

  I was so intent on trying to read their lips that I didn’t notice the small thread of wool that seemed to be moving until the piles of wool ended abruptly and the single, taut, moving thread was the only skerrick of wool still to be seen against the darkness of the cave. It stretched far back into the darkness, still moving at a good speed, and as Hatter and Hare followed it, I began to see a vast glow of white something in the further recesses of the cave. Was that—could it be?—a mountain of knitted wool? And in front of it, a small white sheep, knitting. He almost blended into the mountain of wool, so similar were their colours, and although he looked quite sleepy, his hands manipulated his knitting needles so quickly that they were a blur. Hare still looked nervous, and even Hatter seemed watchful now, his purple eyes for once intent and focused. I curled my fingers into fists, vainly trying to tell what was happening, but they were only talking, and I couldn’t even guess at what they were saying because I was at their backs. The sheep, whose face I could see, was impossible to read. His mouth wasn’t formed for talking, and though the nonsense of Underland meant that he could and did talk, it didn’t make it any easier to read his lips.

  The first idea I had of something wrong was the sheep’s knitting needles. They had been a blur, but now they stuttered and slowed. I saw Hare’s big feet tap the rocky cave bottom twice, an unconscious twitch. His one good paw wrapped tightly around his crutch as though he was preparing to hit something with it. Hatter, very slowly, took off his hat. I found myself gripping handfuls of riverside grass, my fingers dirt-and-grass-stained, as the sheep’s knitting needles slowed still more. I still couldn’t tell what he was saying, but Hatter and Hare’s body language said that when his knitting needles stopped completely, something very dreadful was going to happen.

  Then his needles did stop. The little sheep slipped from his seat and stood upright, his knitting dropping to the ground. When the knitting hit the floor Hatter and Hare were already runni
ng, Hare bounding ahead on his powerful back legs and his crutch waving madly, and Hatter legging it with his top hat gripped in one hand. And then, from the mountain of knitting behind the sheep, something big and dreadful began to stir. Something that uncoiled to display claws and fangs of the sharpest...wool? This huge, fanged, clawed beast arising from the knitting was the knitting. Only it didn’t look soft and cuddly and stuffed. Its edges and curves were all deadly sharp, and there was a wicked gleam in its mad, knitted eyes. It wasn’t like anything I had ever seen before. It wasn’t dragon, or basilisk, or wyvern, though it looked a little like each.

  My point of view was suddenly twitched around. Now I saw from the front as Hatter and Hare desperately pelted for the front of the cave, behind them a monstrosity in coloured wool leaping free of the white wool around it. Hatter’s mouth said something like: “Jabberwock!” and in his eyes I saw deep, desperate fear. He didn’t think they were going to make it.

  “Run,” I said, in a small, panting voice. They weren’t moving anywhere near fast enough. The Jabberwock had fully uncoiled, and over their bobbing shoulders I saw it pounce forward, a terror of gaping mouth and arm-long teeth. “Run!” I screamed again. “Hatter, run!”

  A painful show of light flooded the ripples as Hatter and Hare burst from the cave, the Jabberwock breathing hot over their shoulders. It threw the forest outside into high relief, and for a moment I saw the forest fold over the ripples, a piece of it disappearing in the fold. It depends, Hatter had said; it depends on how it’s Seen. I reached out a shaking, grass-tattooed hand and pinched the forest between my fingers, making the rest of the forest disappear, just for a moment. Underland fractured, or drew together, or perhaps it really did fold. Hatter and Hare stumbled from the forest and into green hills—I released my pinch of Underland—the Jabberwock soundlessly howled its enraged disappointment to the forest canopy—and they were somehow safe. I sat up, my pulse thundering in my ears and my hand clasped to my chest, still dripping wet. Hatter and Hare, so far away yet so easily reached, looked as though they had gone mad– or maybe just madder. Hare was bounding in powerful, erratic circles, his legs kicking in mid-air and his crutch waggling at the sun, and Hatter seemed to be beating his top hat with one fist. I giggled as I watched them, and found that I was also crying. I had actually thought they were going to die. I had saved them– had I saved them? Was that me? Had I really reached into Underland and altered it? I looked from my hands to the water and back again, then at the water once more. Hatter had stopped beating his hat and was poking it with his forefinger instead. He dipped his finger curiously in the ripply bit at the top and withdrew it slowly. Then he looked right at me, his purple eyes wide and wild and almost pupil-less. Ashamed of my tears, I scrambled to my feet and away through the weeping willow; but before Hatter quite vanished behind the sweeping greenery, I saw him smile.

  I was an avid puddle-gazer from my ninth to my twelfth birthdays. No cards of invitation appeared on my pillow and I didn’t accidentally fall into Underland either, so there seemed to be nothing for it but to watch from a distance. Then, at last, a few months after my twelfth birthday, I woke with a start to find that a playing card was on my pillow again. It kicked into gear a plan that must have been growing in my back brain for weeks. I snatched at the card, my thoughts spinning, and was out of the house less than fifteen minutes later. On my back was my school bag, stuffed with the food I’d hoarded over the last few weeks and heavy with as many clothes as I could manage. I’d stolen a carrot from the kitchen for Hare—a big fat one that seemed like it might make even him less loud and angry—and a patchwork cap I found in the dress-up bin at school for Hatter. Perhaps if I was clever about it, they would let me stay for a while.

  But I didn’t find them when I leapt into Underland. Instead, my puddle brought me out into a cool, dark woods. There was a chill to the air around my ankles, and dark green grass stretched out in a velvety expanse beneath my shoes. Up ahead was a sharp demarcation of lighter green which I thought at first was a sunbeam finding its way through the trees, but turned out to be a straight line of lighter green grass. There was no graceful or patchy seguing between the two, it was a sharp, straight line; dark one side, light the other. Curious. I frowned at it, wondering if this was a sort of fake turf like the oval at school. Only why would there be fake grass in a wood?

  “It’s Underland,” I said to myself, because I couldn’t keep staring at it. I wanted to find Hatter and Hare. “Maybe the trees aren’t real, either.” I hefted my backpack a little higher on my back and walked toward the line of lighter green grass.

  I had taken just one step over that line when a voice boomed: “Forfeit! Your life is forfeit! I claim this square!”

  I clutched at the straps of my backpack, my heart racing, and saw a flash of red in the shadows. A furious thundering of hooves beat in my ears, and then my fear that the Queen had somehow found me again was put to flight by the very much more present danger of the red knight who was galloping straight at me. His horse was blood-red, too, its neck arched and proud, and there was a very sharp red lance pointed at my chest.

  I froze for the barest instant, then threw myself sideways as the horse barrelled past, tearing up chunks of turf. The grass was soft and springy, and I rolled easily to my feet again despite my backpack. Unfortunately, in the time between rolling and rising, the red knight had pulled up, turned, and was setting his lance at me again.

  “Ho! Challenger to the square!” called another voice behind me.

  I gave a squeak, instinctively ducking, and a second horse and knight galloped past me, intent upon the red knight. This horse and knight were white, and when the red knight saw them he spurred his own horse into a furious gallop again. My first feeling was one of relief. Maybe I could sneak away while they were fighting each other. The second was one of sudden terror: both knights had somehow utterly missed each other with their lances, and the red knight was still bearing down on me. I yelled and tried to leap sidewise again, but I was too slow. The red knight’s lance slid between my shoulder and the strap of my backpack, burning me with its speed, and hove me off my feet.

  For the briefest of moments I flew. Then my weight dragged the point of the lance into the grass, and a red, shouting, clanking heap of metal sailed over my head and into a tree. There was the clashing of metal and wood, then a brief silence, during which I discovered that I was pinned to the grass by my backpack strap.

  “Bravo!” shouted the white knight. “Oh, well played, madam! A rout indeed!”

  “Help!” I said in annoyance.

  The white knight at once dismounted. “A thousand pardons, madam! At once, and immediately!”

  At once and immediately was not exactly how it happened. The white knight turned out to be incapable of helping me until he had removed his helmet and his gauntlets, which took far longer than it should have taken. Then he stopped to apologise for the necessity of touching me to remove the lance (which he called ‘rude weaponry’).

  “That’s all right,” I said, eyeing his enormous white whiskers in fascination. “Just take it out, please. Why do you keep calling me madam?”

  The white knight looked at me uncertainly. “Should I, perchance, address you as sir?”

  “What? No! I’m a kid. I’m not even a miss yet. I’m Mabel.”

  “A great pleasure to meet you, Mistress Mabel,” said the white knight, at last plucking the lance from the earth beneath me. “I am Sir Blanc, wandering knight.”

  I took the hand he held out to me and rose to my feet a little shakily. “Thank you, Sir Blanc. You showed up just in time.”

  “Alas!” sighed Sir Blanc. “My interference has brought no glory! I have failed to bring about the downfall of my enemy.”

  “Well, neither did I,” I said, throwing a look up at the red knight. “He went up, not down. And he did it to himself, anyway. Why did he attack me?”

  “You approached his square,” said Sir Blanc. “It was ever thus in the Chessboa
rd Woods. He was honour bound to challenge you; as was I to challenge him. And yet, I failed!” He sank down on a fallen tree, a crumpled little tin can of sad eyes and drooping whiskers. “It’s all of a piece,” he continued, as if I wasn’t there. “A failed knight, a failed inventor, always to be thwarted in my search.”

  He looked so woebegone that I was prompted to ask him: “What are you searching for?”

  “My wits,” he said sadly. “They wandered away and now I can’t find them.”

  I said: “Oh,” because there didn’t seem to be anything else to say. In an effort to be helpful, I added: “Do you remember where you last had them?”

  “I was envisioning my latest invention,” said Sir Blanc meditatively. “Oh, very clever, it was! I’ve no idea what it’s for now, but back when I had my wits about me I was a very clever fellow!”

  “Your wits,” I prompted, hugging my backpack.

  “Indeed, indeed. I let my thoughts wander for a moment—pondering something devastatingly intelligent, methinks—and when I looked around my wits had wandered away.”