Alice (10 page)

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 made 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 for 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.

Someone’s boots blocked the view. The boots were twined with a woman’s bare feet, very dainty feet with shell-pink nails. Someone banged away at a piano, a discordant tune that made Alice’s back teeth ache. Then the boots and feet moved away, clearing the view.

There was a very large room behind that little door, a room with many tables. Men sat at the tables, and they appeared to watch something that Alice could not see. Some of the men had women with them, and what they did to those women made Alice shudder and turn away. Decent folk should not do such things where others could see.

Hatcher nudged her aside so he could have a look. Alice gladly ceded the space to him. She had no wish to see any more.

He stood up. “There’s nothing for it. We’ve got to get in there.”

A hundred objections were on her tongue, but he shook his head before she could voice them.

“That’s the only door that opened. I could break down the others. I got out of the hospital room. But I don’t think that’s what we’re supposed to do.”

“How do we know what we’re supposed to do, Hatch?” Alice asked, slumping against the wall. “Every time we stop to talk to someone or catch our breath, a trader tries to take me or a street soldier tries to kill both of us. We came to this place because Cheshire told us to, but he hasn’t exactly been helpful.”

“He told us to come here, and he made sure we did,” Hatcher said. “I only know how to go one way, Alice. Forward. I don’t know how to turn back, retrace our steps, start over. I don’t even know if we can. Our past was padded and drugged. At least out here we’re free.”

“We’re not free. We’re still dancing to someone else’s tune,” Alice said, but softly.

Hatcher rummaged in the bag and pulled out the cake that he’d presented to Alice earlier. The cake was as pristine as if it lay on a table, fresh from the cook’s kitchen.

It should have crumbled,
Alice thought.
It should have been smashed to bits in that bag.

“This is what Cheshire gave us,” Hatcher said. “He told us to come here, and he gave us this.”

“Maybe we’re supposed to give it to the Caterpillar,” Alice said.

“No. You know that’s not who it’s for.”

She didn’t want to eat it, and she knew that was what Hatcher was saying they should do.

“What if it makes us sick?” Alice asked.

“Alice, my grandmother told you I was a Seer,” Hatcher said.

She frowned at him. “You’re claiming Seer powers want us to eat the cake that Cheshire gave you?”

“Well, no,” Hatcher admitted. “I just wanted you to go along with me and stop arguing.”

“Hatch, I was the one who knew something was going to happen at the tavern, not you,” Alice said. “Why should we trust your instincts more than mine?”

She didn’t have time to stop him. He lunged for her, and since Alice trusted him implicitly it did not occur to her that he might hurt her. By the time she realized what had happened the piece of cake was in her mouth and she’d swallowed it.

“You—” she began.

Then everything was spinning, spinning, spinning, like she was swirling down a drain. When the spinning stopped she was in front of the little red door, and Hatcher was next to her, grinning.

“If we see that centipede again I’m going to feed you to it,” Alice said.

She opened the door—the knob fit perfectly in her hand now— and marched through it.

Hatcher jerked her out of the way just as a shiny pair of men’s shoes nearly crushed her. They huddled close to the wall, so far unnoticed by the revelers in the room.

“Now what?” she hissed. “We’re not going to get anywhere while we’re the size of beetles.”

He pulled a small bottle from his bag and presented it to her. There was a label with a pink rose on it. Pink liquid sloshed inside. Alice sighed. She would have liked to ask why Hatcher thought this would make them big again, or why he was so certain of their path. If she asked too many questions, though, he would find some other way to make her drink what was in that bottle. She knew that now.

She knew, also, that even though he loved her, he was not entirely trustworthy.

He’s killed people, Alice. Why did you think he was trustworthy in the first place?

He waited, holding the bottle patiently.

She took it from him and unstopped the cork. The liquid tasted like rose petals, and she nearly spit it out. It didn’t seem to want to go out, though, sliding down her throat and into her stomach before she could expel it.

Hatcher snatched the bottle back from her just as the room spun again. This time she could feel her arms and legs stretching, the muscle snapping back into place around her crackling bones.

No one seemed surprised by their sudden appearance. No one seemed to notice at all.

Now that they were taller, Alice could see what everyone stared at. There were several platforms set up around the room. Each of the platforms was boxed by glass walls, so it was almost as if you peered into a little room.

In these rooms were girls, naked girls with butterfly wings strapped to their shoulders. The girls posed in various positions, all of them suggestive and obviously pleasing to the crowd. The platforms were brightly lit, though Alice did not see how. The rest of the room was dim.

The air was thick with smoke, but it was not the comforting pipe-tobacco smoke that Alice remembered from her childhood. This smoke was spicy and somewhat sweet and made her nose wrinkle.

The few men who were not entranced by the posing butterflies had naked women with them. These women had elaborate tattoos of butterfly wings on their backs, and equally intricate paintings around their eyes and cheeks. The men fondled these girls while they sat in their laps. Some had pushed their girls to the table and pounded away between their legs, right out in public.

Alice didn’t know where to look except the floor. Her legs shook and her hands were knotted in tight little fists. It was horrible, horrible what was happening. Those women made loud noises, as if they liked what the men were doing to them, but how could they? How could they like it when it hurt so much, when these men used them and left them here for another man to take?

(
she was screaming, and hot blood ran down the insides of her legs, and she was trying to keep him off her but he was stronger, so much stronger
) Someone touched her shoulder, and she looked down to see a tiny girl whose head would come to just the top of Alice’s throat. The girl took Alice’s hand in hers and guided that hand to her very large breast.

“You’re shy, I can tell,” the girl said, rubbing Alice’s hand all over her chest. The swirls painted on her face sparkled in the low light. “Don’t be shy. Come with me. I know what to do with shy boys like you.”

Alice yanked her hand away as if the girl were on fire. The girl pouted, looking insulted. Alice noticed her eyes were glazed and strange, and she wondered whether the girl really knew what she was doing.

“Am I not pretty enough for you? What about your friend?” the girl asked, sidling around to Hatcher.

Alice grabbed the girl’s hair before she could do to Hatcher what she’d just done to Alice. Her hair was long and red and beautiful and knotted in a braid down her back so you could see the butterfly wing tattoos carved there.

And the tattoos
were
carved, Alice realized. It was not ink or paint but scarring. She touched the girl’s back, felt the ridge built up there and the scab that meant the design had recently been retraced.

Horrible,
Alice thought.

The girl interpreted Alice’s tug on her braid and the touch on her back to mean something Alice had not intended. She snuggled into the curve of Alice’s arm.

“Not so shy after all?” the girl asked, rubbing her body against Alice’s side.

Alice looked at Hatcher helplessly, hoping for assistance. He stared at the girls under the glass with an odd, hungry look on his face.

He
is
a man, Alice,
she thought.
And even the best of men might be lured by flesh dangled so willingly before them. Though you are not, whatever this poor confused creature might think.

Alice carefully put her hands on the girl’s shoulders and pushed her away. She kept her eyes right on the other girl’s eyes because there was nowhere else decent to look.

“You’re very pretty,” Alice said. “But I am not looking for a pretty girl tonight. I am looking for the Caterpillar.”

“Are you sure?” the girl asked, and tried to grab at Alice again. “Quite sure,” Alice said firmly.

“The Caterpillar won’t have any truck with you,” the girl said, giving Alice an up-and-down look. “You don’t look like you have any flash, and he only takes the ones with flash in his special room.”

“Let me worry about that,” Alice said. “Where is his ‘special room’?”

The girl pointed to another red door on the far side of the long room. A large man who bore a distinct resemblance to Theodore, Cheshire’s guard, stood there glowering at everyone who approached.

“I can suck you for twopence,” the girl said as Alice tried to move away. “If you don’t want a tumble.”

Alice did not even know what “sucking” meant, though she was certain she didn’t want it. “No, thank you.”

The girl walked away, muttering under her breath about pocket money. Alice wondered where the girl would have put the twopence anyway.

She stood in front of Hatcher so that she blocked his view of the butterflies and waited for his eyes to see her again.