Unbirthday

by Liz Braswell

  The present mantis finally reached under her desk, ripped two tickets off a roll, and sulkily slammed them down in front of Alice. “No return indeed. I’m on my tea break now. Good day. And good luck.”

  “Charming lady,” Alice murmured. She turned and handed her companion his ticket as if he were a child. “Don’t lose this, now—or shall I keep it for you? Where did everyone go off to?”

  “Away. To…rally everyone.” The Hatter shrugged, putting his hands in his pockets and falling into step beside her. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world. Hair grew out of the insides of his ears. His striking half goggle had become a frayed-looking eye patch.

  “Well, that’s good! Just as I thought.”

  They wandered over to the single track that came out of the hideous Droozy Forest. A heavy mist lay over the land now, so it was impossible to see the tops of the “trees.” Alice hoped it turned to rain and soaked the trousers of whosever legs made the forest.

  A train charged in, blasting smoke and screeching to a halt far more unpleasantly than the little choo choo she had seen far away on the hillside. Alice took the Hatter by his arm and made for first class, holding her head high and trying to look like she belonged. She didn’t not belong, considering that all the other passengers waiting were, in order, a half-empty jam jar, a cow with very long horns, a pair of furred creatures that resembled ducks but for their manes and tails, a small gaggle of eggs with feet, and a woman with a giant crab on her head.

  Once she and her family had taken a leisurely boat trip to France and her father had sprung for chaises on the fashionable part of the deck. Alice had watched with amusement as her mother, somewhat surreptitiously, tried to adjust and tie her shawl around her hat the way the rather more glamorous (and younger) wealthy ladies just starting out on the Grand Tour did.

  (Mathilda had also seen this and proceeded to lecture her own mother on the sin of vanity.)

  Now Alice sort of wished she had a crab to put on her head as well.

  They had a nice cozy little compartment to themselves. A kindly old walrus took their tickets and clucked when he saw their destination.

  “Ahh, I wouldn’t go there given the choith, mith. It ain’t a thafe plathe for vithiting theeth dayth.”

  Alice supposed the tusks were why he lisped.

  “Thank you,” she said politely. “But we have unavoidable business there.”

  “Well, all hail the Queen of Heart-th,” he said unemotionally. She noticed, as he waddled to leave, that amongst the black scrimshaw figures that decorated his tusks, a new and bloodred heart stood out. It made her uncomfortable.

  Alice shivered and turned back to her companion. “Dear Hatter, are you feeling all right? It seems as though every last bit of nonsense has been just…drained from you.”

  “That’s it, exactly.” The Hatter nodded. “I’ve seen too much and none of it is funny. The Queen of Hearts has ruined the world, or me. You’ve got to stop her, Alice,” he begged. “Please.”

  “I’m trying, dear Hatter. I’m trying.” Alice put her hand on his.

  Poor man! He was all dried up by the horrors of the reality he experienced. All that was left was sense, and it was aging him terribly.

  Was this happening to all of Wonderland?

  Was this the future of all its dreams and creatures? Was it too late, even if she prevented the End of Time? Saving the world was one thing. Fixing it was another.

  “Here, I’ll just go fetch us some tea from the dining car,” Alice said, trying to put worry and panic aside. “And maybe a biscuit or two. That should do us worlds of good.”

  The Hatter nodded morosely and looked out the window.

  “Perhaps I can find him a talking tart, or something else,” Alice thought as she gracefully wended her way down the swaying aisle into the next car. “The next thing that says Eat Me or Drink Me I’ll give him instead of taking myself.”

  She passed all manner of passengers and then the smoking car, which was, literally, smoking. Closed, impenetrable, and grey windows showed nothing of the world outside; and its occupants were betrayed only by a scaly tail or tentacle snaking out the bottom of the door. After that was a baggage car, which narrowed down considerably and which Alice had to turn sidewise to get through. It wasn’t so bad in her new Land of Clubs outfit, but it was still a little tight. And then a man stepped out in front of her.

  She didn’t see him at first because he too was turned sideways; and card thin as he was, practically invisible even in his luxurious velvets and silk.

  And ridiculous feather.

  “Alice!” he purred, blocking her way forward and angling himself so she was forced into a baggage nook.

  “Knave! You…disgusting pig!” Alice cried, spitting angry. She wished she could spit, like she had seen other people do. Of course Mathilda and Alice had not been raised that way at all and Alice was afraid it would come out all wrong if she tried it now.

  “Actually, not a pig at all!” she then added, thinking of the toves. “They are at least honest about their alliances and loyalties and affections!”

  “Why, Alice,” the Knave said, and she honestly couldn’t tell if his surprise was genuine or mocking. “Did I break your Heart?”

  “You betrayed me and my friends and may have got some of them killed!”

  “Oh, is that all,” the Knave said, a little disappointed. “It’s War, darling.”

  “It is not War!” Alice hissed. “It is an insane tyrant wreaking violence on her own people. And what you did was not an act of war—it was an act of cowardice. Going traitor and running to the Queen to reveal the location of the Grunderound condemned dozens of innocent victims without you having to risk yourself at all, or take a single shot yourself! You don’t even have the honest awfulness of a regular enlisted man ordered to shoot. You had a choice, and you hid behind the Queen’s skirts when the real violence occurred!”

  Perhaps the Knave flushed, perhaps he went pale: it was hard to tell behind the shiny finish of the card.

  “I’m sure the innocent will be let go,” he mumbled.

  “Mary Ann was executed, the Hatter was almost executed—”

  “They were enemies of the state! They broke the law. They conspired to overthrow the Queen.”

  “A mad queen. An unfit queen! A queen who was was locking everyone up and torturing them and seizing their property and killing everyone! An insane tyrant!”

  “The law is the law, Alice,” the Knave said with a smile. “The Queen is the queen. Even in your world there is a queen who rules.”

  “My queen would never attack her own people, or try to bring about the end of the world.”

  “So she fancies herself a good queen, eh? To…everyone, really?”

  Alice regarded him frostily. “Victoria would never take toys from babes. And what about this whole business about the Queen winning? I have heard that once she has enough toys, she will bring about the End of Time and therefore the end of the world, and that is how she wins. Are you really in favor of that?”

  The Knave gave her a brilliant smile. “I’m but a knave, with no power or say in these things: the pursuits and glories of queens and kings. The game of thrones. Whatever happens, I intend to stay on top until the end.”

  “What a pleasant philosophy. It allows you to feel no guilt and just float along with whatever those in charge decide, leaving you free from thought or duty beyond the next moment.”

  The Knave sighed. “What are you even doing going back into Heartland?” he asked wearily. “It is the exact wrong place for you to be—you made it out of there, you should stay out. There is a price on your head: a thousand tarts and a jack-in-the-box confiscated from one of the auntlions.”

  “How did you find me?” Alice countered. “Have you been following me?”

  “Of course I’ve been following you!” he said, exasperated. His entire countenance of bravado and enthusiasm fell. He simply looked tired—like everyone in Wonderland now. “Initi
ally we thought you were dead, or trampled, or otherwise gone forever after the raid on the Grunderound. When it was obvious you had somehow escaped, the Queen had me find and follow you.”

  “You couldn’t have followed where I had escaped to,” Alice said. “You cannot go to Angleland.”

  “Some can. And do.”

  A narrow panel of window that lit the dark baggage nook flashed with the changing scenes outside, at one point showing an orchard whose fruits were all shiny black letters sparkling in the sun. Alice had a single glimpse of a pleased-looking rabbit, a brown one, holding up an E and getting ready to take a bite.

  “But I cannot. I admit that road is closed to me,” the Knave finally said. “Be that as it may, I picked up your trail as soon as you returned to our fair land. There is still a price on my own head, you know? The tarts. The stupid, stupid, delicious tarts that I ate in the Forest of Forgetting. I am to repay my misdeed by serving the Queen in whatever way she wants.”

  “So what now?” Alice asked.

  She made herself look in his eyes—his printed, black eyes.

  “Now I turn you in,” the Knave said—perhaps a little too flatly. Flat as a pressed card. Both were silent for a moment.

  “Or maybe I rip you in two,” Alice suggested. She had no idea if the new powers she had in Wonderland would work; she had no cookies or drinks left. But her hands twitched, delicate fingers posed to grab card and tear.

  “Or maybe you call for the Hatter,” the Knave said. “Or maybe the conductor. Or, perhaps, you will simply push me out under the door….”

  He wasn’t mocking her this time; his eye slid to the thin space under the door from which the roaring sound of the wheels on the track came. He would fit.

  He was…suggesting it.

  “Why?” she asked softly.

  He shrugged and smiled sadly.

  “The next time I see you, I will have to take you in. Listen to me: do not return to Heartland. It will mean your death. The Queen is so furious about you and Mary Ann she would be likely to set everything aside just to hunt you down and punish you. There are those…unlike me…who do not have a paper heart. They have scissors to rend and cut and destroy.”

  Alice’s eyes widened. Scissors to cut?

  “You mean the Card Cutter? The Droozy Trees mentioned something about it…the Hatter was terrified!”

  The Knave shook his head impatiently.

  “Do it,” he whispered. “Now or never!”

  “Hatter…?” she called. “Hatter!”

  Then she took the Knave by his side and carried him to the door like a piece of mail delivered to the wrong address, when one slips it back through the slot and out. “Hatter!”

  The Hatter came rushing in just in time to see the Knave get sucked out the car and fly into the fields beyond, picked up by a fresh breeze, turning over and over into the blue sky until he disappeared.

  He did not arrive in time to see the Knave give Alice a saucy little wave before he went, or the kiss he blew.

  “Oh,” the Hatter said, surprised but not crestfallen. He saw that Alice was unharmed and safe, and that was enough for him. He had no obvious machismo, nor any desire to be a hero if it was uncalled for. Only when it was needed. Alice rather appreciated that; it was so contrary to all the men and boys she had known (except for her cousin Cuthbert). “You’re all right, then. Was that the Knave?”

  “It was indeed,” Alice said, breathing heavily from her exertions and—whatever else. The new outfit she wore had a much looser corset, which made the process easier and more pleasant, but she wondered about how good it was for supporting her back. “Either he was just information gathering, or there really is a price on my head. Or Mary Ann’s head. I’m not sure the Queen can tell the difference—I’m not sure any of you can.”

  “Oh, that’s not fair,” the Hatter said reasonably.

  “Let us do go get that tea,” Alice decided, patting her trousers clean. “I have a feeling it may be a while before we have another chance.”

  The long-faced gentleman behind the counter in the dining car regarded them gravely when Alice ordered two cream teas and a packet of sweets. She realized she hadn’t even thought about payment—it was always somehow just handled in Wonderland—and the attendant definitely looked distrustful of the situation.

  “What is your affiliation?” he asked carefully around his large teeth, avoiding any hint of a horsey accent. “You don’t wear any indication.”

  “I wasn’t aware one needed to when traveling by rail. What is yours?”

  “The great National Rail, of course.” He sniffed through wide nostrils. “It is beyond any local, geographic loyalty. I am a citizen of the world. Your tea, miss.” He turned his back on her. Alice raised an eyebrow at the Hatter.

  “Mind he doesn’t introduce you to the biscuits,” he whispered. “I know this breed.”

  “I had no idea Appaloosas were so rude,” Alice murmured.

  But the fellow didn’t say another word, keeping whatever prejudice he had against the pair of travelers to himself while sliding over a tray of biscuits and scones along with a waxed bag of candies that seemed to be shuffling themselves in an attempt to get comfortable for the ride. EAT US was scrawled in clotted cream and underlined in jam—raspberry, it seemed—on the tray.

  “Very posh,” Alice said with admiration. “Eat up, Hatter old chum! With any luck these will have you feeling like your old self again.”

  They perched on the stools and she nibbled a scone while the Hatter literally threw everything else into his mouth. Alice just barely managed to keep back the bag of sweets but was delighted to see his maw did seem a little larger and out of proportion compared to a normal human man’s. Perhaps he was going to be all right.

  But then he took a little flask out of his pocket and carefully metered out a single shining silver drop into the steamy depths of his tea.

  “Hatter!” Alice cried in dismay. “And before noon!

  “I think,” she added, unsure.

  “It’s all right. It’s just mercury,” he reassured her. “To feel like myself again.”

  “But that’s poison!”

  “Yes, so are arsenic and all the other things the ridiculous women of your world use to keep your complexion perfect,” he said with a shrug. “I do this to keep my Madness intact.”

  “How do you know that? About arsenic and the women of my world?” Alice asked suspiciously. Of course she and Mathilda never did such things; between parents who thought they were perfectly beautiful as they were and simple levelheadedness, the most they ever snuck was (newly—for Mathilda, at least) rouged powder and simple cosmetics.

  “Cheshire,” the Hatter said with a shrug as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “He has a friend over there.”

  Alice sipped her own undoctored tea and wondered.

  “HEARTLAND,” the walrus cried hours or minutes later, walking through and taking the ticket stubs off the back of the seats. “All idiot-th off to their violent fate.”

  Before Alice had time to look around and collect her things and then remember that she had no things to collect, the train was quite forgotten and she and the Hatter stood on a platform next to a higgledy-piggledy stack of dishware for a ticket house.

  A nicely cobbled road led away from the station…bright red and sticky, dripping with blood.

  “Alice,” the Hatter said, looking faint.

  Everything the road led to and past was crimson and wet: trees, walls, small churches, postboxes. Alice stepped forward—hesitantly—and knelt down to take a closer look. The Hatter clung to her side.

  (Was he perhaps just a little shorter than before the tea? Ungrowing back to his old size? She couldn’t be sure.)

  “It’s only paint,” she said, trying to soothe him—but she leaned over to take a sniff, just to double-check. “She has covered absolutely everything in paint.”

  There were also signs posted absolutely everywhere along the road.
/>   HEARTLAND

  THE QUEEN OF HEARTS LAND

  KEEP OUT UNLESS FEALTY SWORN

  ALL TOYS CONFISCATED AT BORDER

  TRAITORS WILL BE EXECUTED

  UNDOCUMENTED TRAVELERS WILL BE EXECUTED

  EVERYONE WILL BE EXECUTED JUST TO BE SAFE

  THE WINNINGEST QUEEN EVER

  THIS WAY TO GREAT HEARTLAND

  THAT WAY FOR LOSERS

  HEARTS WILL WIN

  “Well, one can’t accuse her of being unsure of herself,” Alice observed.

  “We are going to walk down that road to our death, aren’t we,” the Hatter said morosely.

  “Have a sweet,” Alice suggested, holding out the bag and shaking it at him as she would at a small child or a dog. He grumpily took one and ate it and then smiled like a tot who had accidentally picked his favorite flavor.

  Alice took the egg out of her pocket and, feeling a little ridiculous, held it up and “showed” it everything, wondered if the Queen of Clubs could see somehow. “This is what is left of the land out here,” she narrated as seriously as she could.

  “Come on then, Hatter!” she added brightly, stepping carefully onto the road to not get paint on the sides of her shoes. “We’re off to change hearts and minds. Remember that: hearts and minds.”

  “Please don’t say that. Don’t say hearts,” the Hatter begged.

  The area just beyond the train station was desolate and unpopulated, at least as of recently. Scattered across arid fields were the still-burning ruins of what once might have been farmhouses. The smoke that puffed up from these garbage fires made heart shapes that would have been perfect for Valentine’s Day had they not been so dreadfully black and oily, dripping down desultorily to their points.

  The sun and moon met briefly in the sky and must have had some sort of argument; the moon retreated back the way it had come, even sulkier than before. The sun glowed stronger and more smugly after, and the day grew hot, and the paint on everything dulled and cracked.

  “Brings a whole new meaning to ‘watching paint dry,’ eh?” Alice asked, nudging the Hatter. “Get it? This time it is really quite fast.”