Alice (5 page)

“I thought—” Alice said.

“I know what you thought, and you could hardly be blamed for thinking it. But if you go on like that you’ll attract every trader we pass. And while I can defend you—and I will—I’d rather save my energy for what lies ahead.”

Alice nodded, feeling chastened. “I need to defend myself.”

“Start by holding your head high,” Hatcher said. “You’re only a mouse if you let them make you one.”

After that Alice tried to copy the way Hatcher walked—his long legs taking long strides, his upper body still, coiled and ready to spring. His head hardly moved, but his eyes were always on the lookout, taking in everything. If any threat lurked in the shadows and fog, Hatcher would see it.

They walked for a few hours. Alice knew they moved deeper into the City because the scent of the river had become very faint, though its reek was so strong it had not disappeared entirely.

Sometimes they moved through the alleys, and sometimes they walked in the thoroughfares. Hatcher seemed to know where to go, for he moved with a purpose, never hesitating or contemplating where to next. Alice tried her best to keep up, to not be a burden, but despite the sleep she’d gotten, her body was worn-out. It wasn’t long before her breath came in audible pants, and her head began to spin.

For the first time she felt frustration at her weakness, and shame. All those years in the hospital Hatcher believed they would get out. He’d trained, prepared for the day that would happen, even though he’d no reason for that belief. He had no family that he knew of, no one to tell the doctors it was all right for him to come home.

Alice had a family, one she knew would be no help to her. But Hatcher was certain one day they would fly from their cage, and now he was strong and capable and she was about to fall down— again. She could almost hear Bess tutting in her ear.

Alice pushed on a little longer, but after a while she couldn’t keep up, and lagged farther and farther behind.

“Hatcher,” she said, and her voice was so reedy she was surprised he heard it.

He turned around then, as she leaned against a building, the world tilting to one side.

“Sorry, sorry,” he muttered, returning to her. “Let’s have some of that bread, then.”

They sat on the ground where they stopped, their cloaks billowing around their feet, and Hatcher broke off a large chunk of Bess’ bread, giving half to Alice.

“I was following the map and not thinking of much else,” he said by way of explanation.

“What map?” she asked around a mouthful of bread. Her tongue was dry and it made the bread hard to swallow.

Hatcher tapped his temple. “Trying to remember all the whos and wheres, all the lines drawn. I figure even if the bosses have changed, the territory is likely the same. If one goes down, another will always be there to scoop up the goods.”

“Goods?” Alice asked.

“The area and the business in it,” Hatcher said.

“Oh.” Sometimes Alice felt there was more than one person inside Hatcher, pushing to get out. She’d never noticed so much when they were in the hospital, but now he would talk one way and then another, like the street tough he used to be was nudging aside the man he was now, and both of them tangled with the madness inside.

A pair of rats the size of cats scuttled near them, sniffing the air, attracted to the smell of bread. Alice stilled in the act of chewing, hoping they would go away. She’d never liked rats, having been bitten by one as a child. A particularly large rodent had gotten into their house and bit her face in her sleep.

She’d woken screaming, and the whole household chased the creature until it was cornered. The parlormaid, whose name was also Alice, later told her “the master beat the wretched animal with a stick till there was naught left but bones and blood.”

Alice had trouble picturing her very proper father, with his starched cravat and polished spectacles, as the author of such heroics. But the other Alice assured her it was so.

Dr. Horner came to treat the bite, and he said it wasn’t unusual for rats to do what this one had done, for the face smelled of food and that’s what rats were interested in. There had been a little scar on Alice’s cheek from the teeth, but that scar was gone now, covered up by the long ridge that went from her mouth to the top of her cheekbone.

Hatcher continued eating, seemingly unconcerned about the presence of the rats. The vermin grew bolder, approaching Alice’s and Hatcher’s feet. Alice tensed, huddled in her cloak.

As the first rat drew within range of his boot, Hatcher casually kicked out his leg so hard the creature flew into the opposite wall with a sickening
crunch
.

The second rat scurried away as soon as Hatcher’s leg moved. The other one lay motionless in the faint circle of light emitted by the gas lamp just outside the alley. Alice released the breath she’d been holding and finished her bread, though the sight of the broken corpse left the food tasteless in her mouth.

“All right, then?” Hatcher asked. “I’ll try to walk slower.”

Alice nodded and they got to their feet, moving out into the maze of the City. She had no inkling how he was able to tell where they were in relation to anyplace else. All the streets appeared the same to Alice—foggy and sooty and smelling of sweat and frying food.

In the New City the avenues were lined up neat and straight, at orderly angles to one another, and all the streets were marked with pretty names like Daisy Lane and Geranium Street. Bess said that Cheshire lived up in Rose Way. Alice doubted very much that roses grew there. The sun barely penetrated the haze that blanketed the Old City. And how could anyone tell which street was Rose Way at any rate? Nothing was marked.

“We’ll go until sunrise, then find somewhere to sleep for a few hours.”

“Not in the street?” Alice asked hopefully.

Hatcher shook his head. “I changed some of that gold for small coin, so we won’t attract attention if we take a room.”

“At an inn,” Alice said, picturing downy soft beds and maids with tea trays and breakfast buns.

“There are no inns hereabouts—leastways, not any where I would take you,” Hatcher said, his face grim.

“They’re not really inns,” Alice said, understanding at once.

“No,” Hatcher said, and left it at that.

Alice wondered how many girls went missing every day in the Old City, how many mothers cried because their daughters never came home.

Her mother had cried, the day they found her. She’d thrown her arms around Alice and wept and said everything would be all right now, she was home.

Except it wasn’t all right, and soon her mother stopped weeping with gratitude and instead spoke sharply, telling Alice to stop talking nonsense about a Rabbit. In the end there was no trace of the woman who’d loved her, only an impatient mask, eager to send away the person who no longer fit neatly in the little jigsaw puzzle of their house.

Alice dragged alongside Hatcher, desperate for rest, squinting hopefully at the sky for any pink-and-orange ray of light. She was looking up instead of around, which was why she didn’t see the sentries.

Hatcher did. He touched her shoulder and pulled her into a little alcove next to a cobbler’s shop.

“There’s two guards ahead,” Hatcher said. “We’re passing into the red streets now, and every captain will have soldiers patrolling to keep the enemy out.”

“The red streets?” Alice asked.

“Aye. This is a part of the City where the bosses don’t simply sit back and collect tithes from the shopkeepers. They fight each other tooth and claw for every penny and every square inch of ground.” Hatcher put his hands on Alice’s shoulders. “If you go missing from me here, or if they find out you’re a girl, I’ll never see you again.”

CHAPTER
5

She nodded, trying to look brave though everything inside her quaked. “I understand.”

“You’ll wish you were dead,” he said.

“I remember,” she said, her voice faint. “I remember wishing that. I’ll stay close, and I won’t be a mouse. I’ll be your brother.”

Hatcher nodded. “Let’s pack up the cloaks. They’re noticeable, and we don’t want the guards to pay us too much mind.”

Alice took off the cloak with no small amount of regret, and shivered. She tugged her jacket close around her and felt the weight of the little knife in her pocket.

Hatcher spent a moment arranging things in the pack and then said, “I’ll do the talking if there’s any to be done.”

She followed him back into the street, her cap pulled low over her eyes, and stuck her hands in her pockets. Her fingers went around the handle of the knife and gripped it hard. The street ahead of them appeared deserted. She didn’t see any sentries. Perhaps Hatcher imagined them in the fog.

Then, as suddenly as if they’d crossed some trip wire, two men appeared out of the darkness, one from each side.

“Just where do you think you’re going, lads?” one asked. He was a little shorter than Hatcher, and had a blaze of white just above one eyebrow. It stood out in stark relief against the darkness of his hair and the night.

The two men formed a wall in front of Alice and Hatcher, their bodies saying quite clearly that nobody was going around without their say-so. Alice felt a quick burst of relief that the man referred to her as a “lad.”

“Just passing through,” Hatcher said. His head was up, staring directly into the face of the man in front of him, not insolent, not daring, just . . . not afraid.

Alice thought it best to copy him. She lifted her chin and faced the man in front of her. He was around her age, or maybe even younger. His face was crusted with dirt and some rusty stains that might have been from splattered blood. Two of his bottom teeth were missing, and he held a long knife in his right hand. Alice thought that in a duel with her own blade, he would win. He had the advantage of size.

But then, you don’t have to duel, do you?
she thought.
Just find somewhere soft and push it in as hard as you can, like you did before.

The thought startled her. Before? When she’d escaped from the Rabbit?

She’d gotten lost in the tangle of memory for a moment, so she missed some of what passed between Hatcher and the man with the blaze, who seemed to be in charge. When she came back to where she was supposed to be, everything seemed more fraught than it had been a moment before, like the air around them was a balloon slowly filling up with tension.

The man in front of Alice—
Toothless,
she thought—took a firmer grip on his knife. In her pocket, Alice did the same.

The other man—Blaze, she thought of him—took two fingers and pushed at Hatcher’s shoulder. “I asked what you were doing here. No one passes through Mr. Carpenter’s streets without his permission, and I’m the one gives permission when he’s not about. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll tell up and then pay up, and mayhap we’ll let you through without too much damage.”

Hatcher did not speak. Alice darted a quick look at him. His face was blank, and she thought with a flare of terror that the Jabberwock might be near, possessing him.

Blaze pushed Hatcher’s shoulder again. “What’s the problem, my lad? Are you daft?”

Hatcher’s head moved slowly, like an automaton Alice had seen once on an outing with her governess. He looked from Blaze’s hand on his shoulder to the other man’s face.

Alice sucked in her breath. “Hatch, no,” she said, but it was too late.

The blade of the axe flashed in the dim light, before anyone even knew it was there. Hatcher buried it in Blaze’s throat, the force of the blow so great that the head tipped back, almost but not quite severed.

Blood spurted in a wild spray, splashing Alice’s face. There was one motionless second where they all watched Blaze’s body falling backward, the head lolling in an unnatural curve.

Then Toothless opened his mouth, and Alice thought,
He’ ll raise the alarm.

Before she had time to consider it, Hatcher was in front of her, his blade sliding into the other man’s belly.
The belly is soft,
she thought, as he pulled the knife across quick as a wink, under the ribs, making a red gaping mouth there.

Toothless stared at them in shock, his hands going to his stomach. His lips separated, but no noise came out. He fell to the ground like his friend, writhing and panting.

Hatcher moved beside her, the bloody axe in one hand, his knife in the other. “You can’t leave them like that,” he said, as if he were instructing a student. “You have to do the job properly or they come back for you.”

The axe flashed again, and Toothless stilled. Hatcher wiped the blade on the inside of his coat, where the blood would not be so obvious. She uncurled the fingers that gripped the knife in her pocket. Her hand shook badly so she fisted it at her side, willing it to be still.

“Let’s go, before someone else comes around,” he said, leading her past the two bodies, his hand around her upper arm, guiding her.

“I th-thought the second man might raise an alarm.”

Hatcher looked at her sharply when she stuttered. “And he would have, too. Don’t regret what’s done, Alice. We would have had to fight those two and more if I hadn’t killed them both.”

“I don’t,” she said. “Not really. I know they weren’t good men. It’s only . . .”

“Only what?”

“Why did you kill that other man, anyway? The second man wouldn’t have yelled out if you’d left the first one alone.”

Alice was shocked to realize she was angry—terribly, terribly angry. She could not recall the last time she’d been angry, when she’d felt something other than fear and confusion and cold.

“I don’t know,” Hatcher admitted. “He touched me and then there was red in my eyes. I didn’t really think about what I was doing.”

“You were the one who told me not to draw attention,” Alice hissed. Her voice was low, as was his. They both instinctively did so, unwilling to attract any more notice than they already might have done. Hatcher had moved quickly away from the thoroughfare, darting into a nearby alley and continuing on wherever his mind said they should go.

“Aye, I did,” Hatcher said. “You’re right. It was a foolish thing to do. But it’s done, and it’s nearly dawn, so let’s find a place to rest.”

A half hour earlier Alice would have given anything for food and a warm bed. Now her blood ran so hot and busy she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to sleep again.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked.

Hatcher gave her a sideways glance. “I’ve never seen you mad before, Alice. It’s brought some color to your cheeks.”

She grabbed his wrist then, though a small part of her knew it was dangerous to do so, dangerous to do anything so unpredictable around a man who’d just murdered someone for no particular reason.

“Stop treating me like a child,” Alice said, yanking him around to look at her.

There was a momentary flare in his eyes; then it was banked, and she knew he would not hurt her.

“I know I’ve acted like a child. I know I’ve been helpless. But you just killed two men for no reason that I can see. You might have attracted more attention than I ever could, and I would be the one to pay for it.”

They stared at each other, Alice breathing hard. Her hand latched on his wrist, and Hatcher was still as the sea before a storm.

Finally he moved, and his hand went to her cheek, the scarred one. “You’re like me, deep down,” he said, his eyes drawing her near, like a snake charmer from the East. “You’ll do what you must. I see that now. But me, Alice—I’ll do what
I
must, and I’ll do anything for you. No one would have taken you. I would never let you pay for my mistake.”

His hand dropped, and he turned away. Alice’s fingers loosened of their own accord, letting him go. She wasn’t entirely sure what had happened, but she knew her anger had run out of her, leaving her feeling deflated.

She walked beside him, sensing something had shifted between them, but uncertain as to what that “something” was. The sun was coming up now, so far away, its light piercing the fog but not bringing any heat to pierce the cold and damp.

Hatcher paused as they reached the thoroughfare, busy with morning activity, carts and sellers setting up for their trade. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wet it with his tongue.

“You’ve blood on your face,” he said, wiping her face with same attention as a mother preparing her child for Sunday worship.

“You also,” she said, and took the handkerchief from him.

It was the first time she’d really
looked
at him since he’d shaved off his madman’s beard, really took in the hollowness of his face, the shadows under his eyes. He was haunted, same as she was, except he didn’t know the name of his ghost. Was there comfort in that? she wondered. Did it make it better or worse to know who or what chased you through your dreams?

Hatcher indicated the pub across the way, and they crossed the street. The folk going about their morning business paid them no mind. A few bleary-eyed fellows staggered out of the pub in question. Hatcher slipped around them and Alice followed, blinking in the dim light as they entered.

A middle-aged man wiped long wooden tables with a grey rag, and a woman of about the same age collected plates and glasses in a bucket. Both of them had the worn faces and knotted fingers that showed a lifetime of hard work. A much younger woman, younger than Alice, mopped the floor in lazy circles.

The man looked up, frowning as the door shut behind Alice and Hatcher. “We’re closed,” he said, straightening. “Just chivvied the last of the stragglers out.”

Hatcher didn’t speak. He approached the man, who appeared to swell a little. Alice saw that despite his age, the forearms exposed by rolled sleeves were thick and muscled.

“I said we’re closed,” he repeated.

Hatcher put two shiny silver coins on the table. The girl paused in her pretense of mopping and watched the proceedings with avid eyes.

“We’re looking for a room for the day,” Hatcher said, his voice quiet, nonthreatening, but Alice noticed he let his jacket fall open a little.

The tavern keeper’s eyes flickered from the axe at Hatcher’s waist and back to his face.

“Dolly!” he shouted.

The girl with the mop started, nudging the bucket and sloshing grey water on the floor.

“Take yourself back to the kitchen and get yourself a pie for breakfast before you leave,” he said.

Dolly eagerly picked up the bucket, obviously pleased to be released before her task was complete. She stopped halfway to the kitchen, looking from Hatcher to Alice to the keeper. “What about me wages?”

The older woman huffed, putting the dishes on a table. She hurried to the girl’s side, muttering, “Come along, you ninny.”

They disappeared into the box, leaving the other three around the table. The keeper looked at the scar on Alice’s cheek, and then back at Hatcher. “I don’t want no trouble with Mr. Carpenter.”

Hatcher reached into his pocket and doubled the number of coins on the table. “We don’t know Mr. Carpenter. We just need a bed until nightfall, and perhaps some food.”

The man looked at the coins on the table, and back at Hatcher, who added two more. “You’ll never even know we were here,” he said, and Alice understood this to mean that the keeper was to forget them entirely after they left.

The keeper nodded, scooping up the coins. “Up those stairs,” he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. His eyes moved to Alice’s shirtsleeve.

She saw the blood there, coating the cuff, which she hadn’t noticed before. Hatcher’s right hand, his axe hand, had it too, and along the back of the wrist. Alice supposed they should have done a better job of cleaning up, but then, the blood seemed to help the tavern keeper take them more seriously than he otherwise would have.

“My wife will bring you up some pies in a moment. Second room on the left. I can’t vouch for the mattress. Some of the lads who come in take it for an hour.”

Alice paused on the steps behind Hatcher.

“Don’t worry,” he said, not looking back.

At the top of the stairs there was a little turn and then a hallway that stretched back above the tavern floor. Hatcher opened the door to the room and waved Alice in ahead of him.

She exhaled a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. For a moment she’d been afraid that they would come upon a man and a woman in the act. But the room was empty.

There was a dirty mattress on the floor, straw leaking from a hole in one side. A filthy wool blanket was tossed at the foot. Alice had spent ten years sleeping on the floor in the asylum, but she shuddered when she saw the foul bed.

“You don’t have to sleep there,” Hatcher said solicitously.

“I’m not certain I can sleep at all,” she said.

“You have to try and get some rest,” he said. “Mayhap after you eat something you’ll feel calmer.”

A small dusty window let in the faint sunlight. Alice went and looked out at the alley below. Hatcher joined her.

“Useful,” he said. “You can see the back entrance from here, and right down onto the tavern floor from the door.”

“Do you think someone will come looking for us?”

Hatcher shook his head. “Who’s to know we’re the ones killed those two guards? It was dark.”

“Someone could have seen,” Alice said, thinking of the buildings all around, with their windows that hid watchful eyes.

“They would have followed us, then,” he said. “Any soldier of Mr. Carpenter would have raised the alarm on us right away. And any looking to curry favor with him would have tracked us here.”

“How do you know nobody did?” Alice asked.

She felt restless, and strangely trapped. She wasn’t certain she could fit through that dirty little window, skinny as she was, if they needed to get away. And the stairs could be blocked.

“Don’t worry, Alice,” he said. He lay on the bare floor, away from the mattress, and tucked the pack behind his head. He held out one arm to her. “Come and sleep.”