by Tom Holt
‘Don’t I know you from somewhere?’ it said.
The queen shrugged. ‘Possibly,’ she replied. ‘I used to be something of a public figure around here. Why do you ask?’
‘No reason. Well, carry on. And please — don’t touch anything, will you? I’ve just done a thorough spring clean, and—’
The queen did a double-take. ‘Spring cleaning?’ she demanded.
‘That’s right.’
‘As in “Hang spring cleaning!” and everything that implies?’
The rat twitched its whiskers. ‘Don’t know what you’re getting at,’ it said. ‘And now, if you’ll excuse me.’
The queen nodded, and they carried on up the news-papered passageway, past what seemed like miles of sofas, coffee-tables, Parker Knoll reclining chairs, embroidered footstools and the like. ‘Now I know where we are,’ the queen whispered, as soon as they were out of earshot. ‘This confounded tunnel’s mutated into Wind In The Willows. Which means that where we’re headed for is going to turn out to be Toad Hall.’
‘Oh. Is that bad?’
‘I’m not sure,’ the queen confessed. ‘You see, it won’t be your actual Toad Hall, because of all these horrid random mutations. It’ll have turned into something ostensibly similar but effectively different, just like everything else has round here. And without knowing what that is, I haven’t a clue whether it’ll be good for us or not. See what I’m getting at?’
‘I think so,’ Sis muttered. ‘Look, I don’t know if this is at all important, but when Carl was a kid, he really used to like Wind In The Willows. Well, the cartoon version, anyhow, he never was a great one for books. Not unless they’re the right height for propping up a wobbly computer workstation.’
The tunnel had come to an abrupt end. ‘Which means,’ the wicked queen said, as she groped in the darkness, ‘that somewhere here there’s got to be a trapdoor or something of the like. It’s one of the immutable laws of physics in these parts: mysterious tunnels always come out somewhere important. Causes a hell of a lot of problems for big rabbits, I can tell you.’
‘Here,’ grunted the Beast. ‘I think this may be what you’re…’
The rest of his sentence was cut off as he tumbled sideways into a sudden wash of bright light. The queen scrambled after him, but before Sis could follow, the door slammed shut.
Odd, Sis reflected as she screamed and hammered with her fists against the unyielding panel, that we should have been talking about secret phobias only a moment ago. What you might call a curious coincidence. A trifle bizarre, you might say.
Another thing you might say (and Sis did) was ‘HEEEEEEELP!’ It didn’t seem to do any good, though. It rarely does.
Now then. Calm down. In the immortal words of Lance-Corporal Jones: don’t panic. All you have to do is go back down the tunnel till you meet the nice rats — (Nice rats. Just listen to yourself. You’ve been here way too long…) — And ask them if you can borrow a screwdriver or a big hammer or a couple of sticks of dynamite, and then you can be through here and out the other side in no time at all. This sort of thing happens all the time. People are buried alive every day of the week, and…
‘HEEEEEEELP!’ she repeated hopefully. As a problem-solving technique its main virtue was consistency; it didn’t work but at least it kept on not working, so at least you knew where you stood. Looked like it came down to a choice between staying here and losing weight the sure-fire way, or the nice rats.
Query: down a long, dark tunnel with no visible vegetation or animal life, what do the nice rats find to eat? Maybe not the nice rats.
‘Ah’m.’
In any list of things not to do in a five-foot high tunnel, suddenly jumping six feet in the air must come pretty close to the top. ‘Ouch!’ Sis remarked twice; once when her head bumped against the roof, the second time when she sat down hard on what felt suspiciously like a bone.
‘Sorry. Did I startle you?’
Sis had been intending to say ‘EEEEEEK’ or something along those lines; but the voice sounded so soft, quiet, gentle and terrified that instead she sat up, rubbed her head and said, ‘Yes.’
‘Oh. I hope you didn’t hurt yourself.’
‘What?’ Oh, no, not really. Who are you?’
The voice didn’t say anything for a moment. Then it said, ‘I’d rather not say.’
‘Huh?’
‘Well — only if you promise not to laugh.’
‘What?’
‘People do, you see. Or else they assume I’m taking the mickey. You won’t laugh, will you?’
‘I don’t know,’ Sis replied. ‘Depends on whether it’s funny or not.’
‘All right. My name’s Rumpelstiltskin.’
‘Really? Fair enough.’
‘You’re not laughing,’ Rumpelstiltskin said.
‘Why should I? Listen, compared with some of the stuff I’ve been subjected to since I got stuck in this beastly continuum or whatever it is, your name’s about as funny as the second season of George & Mildred. Do you know a way out of here?’
‘Well, I can recommend the way I’ve just come, if you don’t mind spartan but functional. Nice straight tunnel, nothing fancy, no frills.’
‘Really?’ Sis replied. ‘What about the rats?’
‘Rats?’
‘You didn’t come across a whole load of rats, then?’
Rumpelstiltskin shivered. ‘Certainly not.’
‘Rats in pinnies with carpet sweepers and feather dusters who put down newspaper for you to walk on?’
‘Don’t be silly,’ Rumpelstiltskin replied. ‘Rats don’t do that. You’re thinking of the Beatrix Potter mice, and they live over the other side of the forest, just across from the sewage farm.’
‘No rats,’ Sis repeated. ‘Oh well. I’ve stopped being surprised by things like that now. After you, Mr Rumpelstiltskin. And if you’ve been lying to me and there are rats, I’ll kill you. Got that?’
They turned a corner and hey presto, there the rats weren’t. Instead, there was a door.
‘That’s odd,’ Rumpelstiltskin said, rubbing his battered nose. ‘There wasn’t a door here just now.’
‘I know,’ Sis replied. ‘There were rats. In frilly aprons. Well, aren’t you going to open it?’
‘I don’t know,’ Rumpelstiltskin said thoughtfully. ‘You hear all sorts of things about unexplained doors and stuff in this neighbourhood. There’s supposed to be one in the back of a wardrobe somewhere that’s an absolute menace. You can get into a lot of trouble going through doors.’
‘You can get into a lot more not going through them,’ Sis pointed out. ‘If you don’t believe me, I can arrange a demonstration.’
‘Please try not to be so aggressive,’ the dwarf replied. ‘Really, it never helps in the long run. I’ll open this door if you insist, but don’t blame me if you don’t like what’s on the other side of it.’
‘Oh, get out of the way and let me do it,’ said Sis impatiently. ‘So long as it’s not the rats again, I don’t mind what it…’
Mistake.
‘Oh marvellous,’ moaned the wicked queen. ‘That just about wraps it up as far as I’m concerned. Now what do we do?’
The Beast shrugged its asymmetrical shoulders. ‘Depends,’ he said. ‘If she had any luggage, we could sell it.’
The wicked queen tried the panel again, but it wouldn’t budge. ‘Nothing for it,’ she sighed. ‘We’ll have to get out of the castle, go round to the entrance of the tunnel and go back in to look for her. What a nuisance.’
The Beast clicked its tongue. ‘Actually,’ it said, ‘that might not be possible. You see, I have an idea the tunnel isn’t there any more.’
‘Oh? What makes you say that?’
By way of reply, the Beast banged its fist against the panel. ‘Solid,’ he pointed out. ‘Therefore, no tunnel. Not in this version of the story, anyway.’
The queen closed her eyes and counted to ten. ‘I’ve had about enough of this,’ she said. ‘This domain was never exactly wh
at you’d call stable at the best of times, but at least you used to be able to walk through a door without it turning into a wall the moment your back’s turned. It’s intolerable. Think of going to the lavatory, for instance.’
‘Odd you should mention that,’ mumbled the Beast, shuffling its feet uncomfortably. ‘Would you excuse me for just a moment? Only—’
‘Stay right where you are,’ the queen snapped. ‘You’ll just have to wait.’
‘Sorry, I don’t think that’s going to be possible. I’ll be right back, I promise.’
He scampered off down one of the three dark, gloomy corridors that converged opposite the panelled wall they’d emerged through. For a while the queen kept herself amused by poking and prodding at the corners and edges of the panelling; nothing happened. As she did so, it occurred to her that she’d never before met anybody in the domain who’d had to interrupt the adventure to sneak off and have a pee. That sort of thing doesn’t happen in narrative, ever; it’s in the Rules. Why, then, should the Beast be taken short at what was obviously a crucial moment in the story? Good question.
He was gone an awfully long time.
Eventually she got tired of waiting and set off to find him. That was easier said than done; the corridors wound on and on, the way that only corridors in an interior that has no exterior can do. At last, just as she was cursing herself for not marking her way with bits of torn-up paper or a thread or something, she came across a rather disagreeable sight.
On the floor there was a small puddle; but that wasn’t the bad part. What the queen really didn’t like the look of were the chunks of plaster gouged out of the wall, the splashes of blood, the stray bits of Beast fur scattered in all directions, the scorch-marks and the words chalked on the wall just above the puddle. They read:
HE SHOULD HAVE GONE BEFORE HE CAME OUT
Well. These things happen.
She walked carefully round the puddle and carried on up the corridor. As well as having a missing girl to find and a Beast to avenge, she was by now hopelessly lost in a building that could be a castle, Toad Hall or pretty well anything that has long winding corridors with no doors in them and no lighting apart from the occasional flickering torch set in a sconce high up on the wall. You could have played Doom in there for hours, assuming you survived that long.
Arguably, the wicked queen muttered to herself, that’s precisely what I am doing. What fun.
She wandered around for another ten minutes or so, but all she found were more corridors. They were, she noticed, all carefully swept and dusted and free of cobwebs; and that set her thinking. Housework — castlework, even — doesn’t do itself. Therefore — No sooner had she formulated the thought than she heard in the distance the sound of somebody humming, off-key. She ducked behind a pillar and waited.
Not long afterwards, someone came. It was a cosy-looking middle-aged woman in an apron, wheeling one of those big housekeeping trolleys you see in hotels. Every fifteen yards or so she’d stop, unload a broom or a dustpan and brush or a long-handled feather duster, clean up, put new torches in the sconces, polish the noses of the gargoyles and move on. The tune she was humming was almost but not quite recognisable; it was probably a theme song or an advertising jingle, and she hummed the same bit over and over again.
‘Excuse me,’ said the queen, stepping out from behind her pillar.
‘Gaw!’ The woman started, then clicked her tongue. ‘Gave me a fright, you did, jumping out like that.’
‘I’m sorry,’ the queen replied. ‘The fact is, I’m lost.’
The woman smiled sympathetically. ‘Confusing, isn’t it, till you’re used to it? Where was it you was wanting to go to?’
‘Actually,’ the queen said, selecting a silly-me sheepish grin from her repertoire of facial expressions, ‘I’m not even sure where this is. You see, I was in this secret passage—’
‘Oh, one of them,’ the nice woman said, with a knowing smile. ‘Ever such a lot of them, aren’t there? And you come up out of it and you haven’t a clue where you are, right?’
The wicked queen nodded. ‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘You see, I thought this was Beauty’s castle, but then it seemed as if it had turned into Toad Hall, and now — well, I’m completely foxed. I mean, it could be anywhere.’
The nice woman laughed. ‘Funny you should say that,’ she said. ‘Oh well, best of luck. Some of ‘em do get out eventually, so they say.’
The wicked queen’s happy smile faded abruptly. ‘Well, couldn’t you, um, point me in the right direction for the way out? If it’s no trouble, that is.’
‘Sorry, love.’ The nice woman looked genuinely sorry. ‘But I’m just the housekeeper. And that’s a job and a half, I can tell you. All of this to keep clean and tidy, and never a word of thanks. I reckon they think it all cleans itself, you know.’ She loaded her tackle back on to the trolley and prepared to move on. The wicked queen grabbed a trolley handle.
‘Please don’t do that,’ the housekeeper said.
‘Look, I really don’t want to cause trouble, but—’
‘Funny way you got of showing it,’ the housekeeper said, making the wicked queen feel rather wretched; after all, the poor woman was only doing her job, and it looked as if it was a fairly horrid job and in all probability she only got paid a pittance for it. ‘Now you take your hands off my trolley. You’ll get me in trouble, you will. I’m behind with my rounds as it is.’
The wicked queen shook her head. ‘I don’t think you quite understand,’ she said. ‘I really have got to find a way out of here, and you obviously know your way around. Couldn’t you just see your way to—?’
The housekeeper tried to move the trolley forward, but the wicked queen jammed her foot against one of the wheels, making it veer off into the wall. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘I honestly don’t want any unpleasantness, but…’
She broke off, mainly because the eight-inch dagger the housekeeper was pressing against her jugular vein made talking somewhat uncomfortable. ‘Mind you hold still, dear,’ the housekeeper said, in a horribly matter-of-fact tone. ‘I’ve got enough to do without mopping up blood all over the place. It can be a real pain, getting blood off these tiles.’
‘Anything you say,’ the queen croaked. ‘The last thing I’d want to do is make extra work for you.’
‘Should’ve thought of that earlier, shouldn’t you?’ the housekeeper replied reproachfully. ‘Now where did I put those dratted handcuffs? There’s so much stuff on this trolley, you don’t know where to start looking. Ah, here we are. Now, you just hold your hands out where I can get at them, that’s the ticket.’
The ratchets of the handcuffs clicked into place around the queen’s left wrist; then the housekeeper passed the central links under the handle of the trolley and fastened the right cuff as well. ‘That ought to do it,’ the housekeeper said. ‘Now you’ll just have to wait there till I finish off my rounds, I’m afraid. I haven’t got too much more to do, just this wing and the east wing and the main hall and the old guard tower and the refectory and the dortoirs and the garderobe and the north dungeons and the inner keep and the solar and the bailey. Pity you can’t give me a hand,’ she added wistfully. ‘Could be through it all like a dose of salts with another pair of hands.’ She stopped, thought for a moment, looked at the large knife and the queen’s wrists, then shook her head. ‘In a manner of speaking,’ she added.
‘I don’t mind helping, really,’ the queen replied, with perhaps just a touch too much eagerness in her voice.
The housekeeper shook her head sadly. ‘Sorry, love, but you know how it is,’ she replied. ‘Not that I’m saying I don’t trust you or anything like that, you understand.’
The wicked queen muttered something uncouth under her breath as the housekeeper carried on with her dusting and her rather unbearable humming. After a while the housekeeper relented and let her push the trolley, but apart from that it looked very much as if negotiations had reached stalemate. If she tried to say anything, the
housekeeper simply hummed a bit louder, or accidentally clouted her across the face with a feather duster. Tactically speaking, it was a mess.
But the queen did have one advantage. Sooner or later, she figured, they’d come to the place where the Beast had had his nasty experience, and that was going to take some clearing up. The housekeeper was going to need the mop and bucket, the broom, the dustpan and brush, the floor cloth and (assuming she was going to do a proper job, which, to do her credit, seemed likely) the tin of floor wax and the electric polisher. To make the electric polisher work, she’d need a power source; and although there hadn’t been any signs of electrical sockets in the walls when she’d been this way earlier, that was probably because she hadn’t been looking for them. The combination of electrical appliance, power source and puddle of nameless liquid suggested various avenues for exploration by a keen strategic mind, although it was pointless trying to formulate a detailed plan of action until she could get another look at the actual terrain.
‘Dah dah dee dah dah,’ the housekeeper warbled; then she broke off in the middle of a mangled bar and tutted loudly, her hands on her hips. ‘Oh for crying out loud,’ she complained, and the queen smiled. Ah, she said to herself. We’re here.
‘Some people,’ the housekeeper was saying, and her back was turned. Very carefully, so as to prevent the links of the handcuffs clinking against the trolley handle, the queen reached out for the polisher flex —‘And you leave that flex alone,’ the housekeeper said, without turning her head. ‘Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to, ‘cos I do.’
Baffled, the wicked queen slumped forward; and the trolley moved. The housekeeper had forgotten to apply the brake.
Quickly, the wicked queen made a mental assessment of the odds. They weren’t good; she stood about as much chance as an egg in a game of squash. But they were still better than nothing. She took a deep breath, threw her weight against the trolley and pushed for all she was worth.
‘Hey!’ shouted the housekeeper, dropping her mop and making a grab for the rail. ‘You stop that, or I’ll—’