Unbirthday

by Liz Braswell

  “Oh!” Alice said. “That was sort of what I came to see you about.”

  Katz made a sour face and threw himself into his chair with the strength and lankiness of a young man not quite grown out of childish acrobatics but constrained by the very nice suit he wore. Alice couldn’t help noticing how pretty his lips were even when pursed in distaste.

  “Is it about ‘Ramsbottom’s Rally’? They’re going to be burning down houses by the end of it, the silly fool,” he spat. “Always a good idea to rally up the proletariat with hate and free punch.”

  “Ah, no, although Aunt Vivian and Mr. Willard are equally concerned as you. I am, too,” she added hastily. “I just don’t see what can be done about it. It’s a free country, Mr. Katz, and Ramsbottom is allowed to have a rally if he wants and has all the permits.”

  “It’s a free country for you and Mr. Coney,” Katz agreed. “There are some of us who might find it uncomfortable to continue living in a town where he holds sway.”

  Alice took this not quite as a slap in the face. Here she was showing up wantonly at his door and he was flinging their differences in her face and making her feel bad about it.

  “Yes. I suppose I am free. But how did you vote in the last election?” she asked pointedly.

  “Why, for Garretty, of course. He…Oh.” He looked at her in wry amusement. “I see what you did there. You didn’t vote, of course. Because you’re a woman. Well played, Alice, well played. I am quite justly put in my place.”

  She smiled. “I think perhaps you’ve never had an opponent quite like me. At any rate, I came for advice from a friend, not to spar. This is why I’m here.” She fished the photo of Yao and the stone out of her purse and handed it to him. He had to squint and hold it under the green-shaded lamp to see it clearly.

  “I don’t understand,” Katz admitted immediately.

  “Some ruffian threw a stone through Mrs. Yao’s window with a nasty note attached—you could read it, if the picture were a bit larger—suggesting she leave town before worse things were done to her shop. She has had to replace the window at her own expense and the police have made no effort to try to catch the true villain. Instead they rounded up a couple of very innocent children from the Square and have them locked up. I thought maybe having this picture in the paper would put a fire under the police, as it were, to find the actual villain, to let the children go…or at least I shall wake local sympathy to her plight.”

  “Hmm, not a bad plan at all,” Katz said. “Plus it’s a nice advertisement for the tea shop—it would certainly help her business. Alice: ‘English white savior to the rescue’ again, eh?”

  “You’re very disagreeable sometimes, Mr. Katz,” Alice said, narrowing her eyes at him. “It’s not about me at all. It’s about my friend, and the children in the Square. I am perfectly willing to not even have a credit to the photo—I am here considering having you bring it to the paper, since they may not even accept one from a woman.”

  “Well, there I think you’re wrong. Not about my being disagreeable—I am entirely. I’m a barrister. We’re always disagreeable. If we agreed all the time there would be no court cases at all.

  “I think everyone in Kexford knows Alice, the town photographer, and it would only help to know that you were involved with this. Say…” He pulled out a magnifying glass and held it over the photo, frowning. “I still can’t entirely read what the note says, but that handwriting looks awfully neat and flowing for some random thug without schooling, much less an immigrant from Russia…. Just look at the flourishes on the end.”

  “Yes…I’m fairly certain I already know who the miscreant is. The police, with some actual effort, could also figure out who wrote out the note and paid someone else to do the actual dirty work. Probably the same person who stole my camera in an attempt to get the film back.”

  “Your camera?” Katz asked, blinking. “Someone stole it?”

  “Yes, rather mugged me for it. I shall deal with all that shortly.”

  “Someone attacked you?” Katz asked, standing up. “And stole your camera? You seem very calm about the crime that was perpetrated upon your person!”

  “There are so many things going on right now, Mr. Katz,” Alice said wearily. “As strange as it may sound, it is not my greatest concern. My brains are fine. The camera can be replaced. The perpetrator will be caught. I have other things to attend to. I have a world to—ah, a world of other concerns to get back to. Other things need saving more than I do, Mr. Katz.”

  “Such as what? What could a young woman like you have to worry yourself with—what other things?”

  “I wish I could tell you. It would ease my mind considerably to share some of these troubles,” Alice said with a wan smile. “And afterward you would never speak to me again—you would send me to straight to the madhouse.”

  “Oh, I doubt that,” Katz said, raising an eyebrow. “I mean, we don’t need a special house for that. We’re all mad here.”

  Alice looked at him sharply. But he was just smiling his usual guileless smile…with perhaps a bit of extra sparkle in it. She had the urge to curtsy, to take time while she thought of something to say. The moment drew out, and it was rich and full like a slant of late-afternoon sunlight through a dusty window.

  “Why isn’t your name on the sign outside?” she finally found herself saying, rather stupidly.

  “Oh.” Katz rolled his eyes. “I am not a partner yet—another six months and another connection with the right solicitor, I think. It’s coming, don’t you or my mother worry about that. Look, though, I have all the proper paraphernalia!”

  He went over to a small wardrobe and with more energy than strictly necessary pulled out a robe and wig with a flourish.

  “I even have a mirror to make sure not a whisker is out of place.”

  He opened the wardrobe all the way and revealed a simple but long looking-glass that showed a slightly warped version of the handsome young man: his jowl pulled out to ridiculous horizontal lengths and his toes disappeared into pinpoints. He grinned and put the wig loosely and lopsidedly on, and the overall effect made Alice laugh—out loud, for the first time in days, in the real world.

  “All right, it’s a bit of a carnival deal,” he admitted, putting the wig back after making one last face. “But as soon as I’m a full partner I’ll get myself a really nice one. And a house,” he added quickly.

  He looked uncertain—and hopeful—and nervous—and—

  And Alice found she was enjoying all of it rather much.

  “A house. Indeed, Mr. Katz. I hadn’t realized they were required for barristers, or solicitors, or even clerks. Along with the uniform, I mean.”

  Katz flushed but also grinned with good humor.

  “Let me take care of your photograph—and Mrs. Yao, and the children,” he offered. “What’s a little more pro bono between friends? Anything that will ease your mind and lighten your troubles would be pleasure for me. And it would allow you to concentrate on your…other…concerns, whatever they may be. Saving the world.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Katz,” Alice said, standing up and preparing to say goodbye. She was relieved—she felt she really could trust him to do the right thing. But she was also sad the interview was coming to a close. She put out her hand. “But I’m not, ah, saving the world. I just need to…need to find a way to…”

  “To get back to that world?” he asked softly.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Mr. Katz.”

  But he was pointing at the mirror.

  Alice gasped.

  Somehow, rather than the dusky and half-lit view of Katz’s office that should have been reflected, there was instead a scene of a grim but sunlit field: of checkerboard squares, and fires burning, and smoke….

  Alice looked back at the barrister and found herself reaching for a camera she no longer had.

  Katz shook his head. “You know who I am in that other world, Alice. You don’t need a photograph.”

  “Kat
-z,” Alice said slowly. “Cheshire Cat!”

  He executed a bow, and just as easily she could imagine him disappearing halfway through, or tumbling all the way over in a somersault, or something else ridiculous but graceful.

  He didn’t, however.

  “But how? And how do you—know all this?”

  Katz shrugged. “How do you travel back and forth so? My other half can, and he comes to visit. He brings me riddles.”

  “And you give him riddles in return,” Alice said slowly, suddenly seeing all her recent interactions with the Cheshire in a whole new light. They had both been trying to help her, all along.

  In infuriatingly mysterious ways.

  “Return to Wonderland,” he said, looking her in the eyes. “Save their world. But…come back to mine.”

  “That’s rather forward of you, Mr. Cat.”

  He grinned. But it wasn’t just like the Cheshire Cat’s smile. There was warmth in it, and even love.

  “I’m not the single young lady who goes knocking on strange barristers’ doors,” he pointed out.

  “Hmmph,” Alice said, sniffing. “Excellent point.”

  He gave her his hand. She picked up her skirts with her other one and began to step through the mirror—which was all soft and fading, just as she somehow expected.

  She stopped before she was all the way through to turn back and look at him.

  “Well then, Mr. Katz?”

  “Well then,” Katz said. He leaned forward and brushed a tendril of hair out of her face. “Good luck, Alice. Remember, time is always on your side. Or your wrist, in fact, if you’re wearing a watch.”

  And then she fell backward into Wonderland.

  She didn’t so much plummet as sort of drop and float at the same time.

  “Flop,” Alice decided.

  Fast and violent but also peaceful and quiet. End over end, head over heels, slowly turning round as though she were a leaf making its leisurely way from a branch to the ground. Her skirts billowed out around her and she was a little sorry to see they were her clothes from Angleland, not the smart suit the Queen of Clubs had given her. Still, the layers of fabric blossomed and fluttered like a pretty flower as she continued her journey downward.

  She flapped her arms and tried to spin herself right way up. She kicked her legs to propel herself through the air faster, but to no avail. Gravity took the girl with her own sweet time, like a thistle seed, through low puffy clouds and air pockets of different temperatures, fluttering through flocks of fast-flying birds.

  “Geddoutta the right lane, it’s for fast fliers and passing only!” an angry goose squonked at her.

  Far, far below, like one of those amusing paintings for which you need a magnifying glass to view all the details properly, was a vast board game—field—upon which two opponents—armies—had drawn up their sides. Literally drawn, though not so much like a picture as from a deck of cards, of course. These soldiers were neatly arrayed into rank and file on either side, but there were dozens upon dozens of other red and black cards patrolling the edges, organizing the support, trying to spy, and checking weapons.

  Alice wondered where the Spades and Diamonds were.

  “Ah well, adventure for another time, I suppose.”

  On the side of the red cards, defended by them, were the giant slowly burning piles of rubbish—and one really giant hill of toys.

  All the toys in the world, it looked like.

  There was every kind of dolly: folksy ones with no faces and angelic French porcelain ones whose eyes closed when they were laid down to nap. There were pushcarts and model trains and tiny velocipedes for tots and wagons and hoops and those little wooden ducklings on a rope you pull along whose bills snap open and shut and whose heads nod as they go. There were lawn games like croquet and darts, and many beautiful rocking horses, and tops and marbles and music boxes and jack-in-the-boxes. And there were things that Alice couldn’t quite categorize, for they were toys unique to Wonderland and unfettered by English imagination.

  And on top of this, grinning horribly and kicking her legs and shaking an evil black and twisted sword above her head with glee, was the Queen of Hearts.

  Alice was so immediately filled with rage that she wanted nothing more than to reach down and shake the stupid little card queen until her head popped off like a flower.

  “You…stupid…murdering…little…spoiled brat!” Alice screamed, thinking of the worst words she could. “I will destroy you!”

  She had no plans beyond smashing herself into the nasty little creature from above; even now-Alice had her moments of acting without thinking.

  Which is why it was a good thing she had friends.

  Sensing something amiss, the Queen of Hearts stopped her laughing. She looked up with big, bulgy eyes that popped even further when she saw what was coming at her from the heavens. Her mouth opened wide, wider, wider still as if she couldn’t decide whether to scream or to swallow the approaching danger.

  Alice felt her own mouth pull back into a dry grin. All her teeth were exposed.

  It wasn’t really at the last moment; she had quite a good number more feet to go, really, but nearabouts the end something like a violent wind wooshed through and seized Alice, knocking her off course and carrying her aside.

  (Of course the very angry and frustrated Alice couldn’t see the Queen of Hearts’ reaction; suffice it to say that the Queen merely looked perplexed for a moment, then took it in stride. “Must have been about to rain cats and dogs, and then the impounder came,” she decided—quite reasonably for Wonderland.)

  “No!” Alice cried. “Let me go!”

  “Killing yourself and the Queen won’t save the world now. Not even killing the Queen and lightly injuring yourself would save the world,” came the voice of the thing that had seized her. Alice saw that she was in the grips of four strong claws, two leonine and two eagle-y. But no sooner had she noticed this than they switched directions quickly again and she had to focus on not losing the many sandwiches she had eaten back in Angleland.

  Just as her stomach righted itself they were done: the wind stopped and was she released. Alice tumbled unprettily to the ground, and the Gryphon just stood there for a moment preening a stray spot on his neck without saying a word—he was half lion, after all.

  She rose unsteadily to her feet. They were in a tiny wood that jutted out into the battlefield, a strange little peninsula of trees and thicket that felt protected and safe. A small assortment of Wonderland creatures were also there (hiding), including the Hatter, the Dormouse, the Dodo, and Bill.

  “Hatter!” Alice cried and ran over and hugged him. “Dodo!” she added just as happily. “Dormouse, Bill,” she said, carefully taking their tiny appendages and shaking them delicately but properly. “And Gryphon. Sorry I struggled, but…”

  “No worries. My rescues are always affronting. It’s just the family way.”

  “I’m so glad you’re all safe,” Alice said.

  “We are not all of us,” the Hatter said. “But we are glad you’ve not bled to death, or however you do it in that other world of yours.”

  “I see the plan worked—the Queen of Clubs is here to save the day!” Alice said, admiring the two armies in the distance. Her royal friend rode a giant, fuzzy creature Alice decided to call a buzzywhump for future reference. It was mostly calm but pawed the ground occasionally with its furry front hooves. The Queen wore a black helm with a set of shining black clubs on top and a long black horsehair plume behind. The older accordion-necked owl sat on her shoulder, wearing black feathers for the occasion; his child, or tiny twin, was perched right next to him. The Clubs army was dealt out on either side of the Queen as far as the eye could see, some riding black pigs.

  Alice thought it most interesting that the Queen was down in the fray, as opposed to remaining above her army like the Queen of Hearts.

  On the other side, Tweedledum and Tweedledee raced round and round the base of the toy pile in opposite directions, sin
ging. They crashed into each other, of course, falling down onto their backsides with their legs kicking into the air. Then they leapt up, rather more adroitly than seemed likely, shook hands, bowed, linked arms, and twirled around each other. Their ruby-colored heart pins glittered in what little light there was.

  Alice couldn’t decide if their antics were amusing or chilling.

  “Surrender now!” the Queen of Clubs ordered, raising her club. “You cannot hope to win this game of War.”

  “What do you mean? Win? And win only War? I intend to win all games! The last one! I shall be the one with the most toys!” the Queen of Hearts shouted back, laughing baldly. She nearly cut herself on her own sinuous black blade with her dramatic antics.

  “She can win, can’t she? The Queen of Clubs, I mean?” Alice asked a trifle nervously. “That’s a lot of cards out there. More than enough for a game of War.”

  “You tell us,” the Dodo said, not unkindly. “You’re the one who arranged all this.”

  “I? Yes I did, but I couldn’t be certain exactly how it would turn out…and what else was there to do? No one has told me that yet,” Alice said a little peevishly. “It was the only solution I could think of that I could effect.”

  “It doesn’t involve you at all,” the Hatter said cryptically. Or maybe not so cryptically, considering the eyebrow he raised at her like a dueling pistol.

  “Why are you even here?” the Queen of Hearts was shouting to the other Queen. “Is it just to witness my excellent royal winning of the last game?”

  “We are here to free your people, and to take over whatever worldly possessions and treasures you have as our reward,” the Queen of Clubs shouted back (a little too honestly, in Alice’s private opinion). “You have betrayed every noble responsibility of being a queen. You have scared, tortured, killed, seized, imprisoned, and stolen from your subjects willy-nilly, without even a warrant or an advertisement in the newspaper about it. You are, in a word, unfit to be queen. Step down willingly and we shan’t execute you too much.”