Alice (9 page)

As she thought all of this she automatically wandered behind Hatcher, and that irritated her as well when she realized she did it. She should not follow him like a frightened dog (
but you have acted like a frightened dog, especially at the beginning
).

Altogether she was feeling very bothered and not at all scared, although she supposed she ought to be scared. They were trapped in a maze of magical rosebushes and had no way of knowing how long it might take to get out.

Her face was hot and gritty from the soot-stained fog they’d passed through in the night. The bright sun would have been a welcome relief from the dark warren of the Old City, but in this exposed maze it was another irritant. Though the roses’ scent was not as thick and heavy as inside, there was no escaping the perfume. Alice was tired of roses, tired of walking.

She sat down in the middle of the maze, crossed her arms and legs and waited to see whether Hatcher would notice. Almost immediately he turned around and gave her a questioning look.

“What are you about, Alice? Are you hungry?”

“No,” she said, and lifted her chin. “I’ve had enough. I’m not moving one step more.”

“We have to get through this maze,” Hatcher said, gesturing ahead of him. They were in a long tunnel with several turnings off the main thoroughfare ahead.

“We’ve no idea where to turn or how to get out. And Cheshire is likely sitting in his parlor laughing at us. I’m not an amusement for him. I’m not a toy,” she said hotly, thinking of the term he’d used for her.

“No, you’re not a toy,” he said. “But I think I can find our way out of this if you let me try.”

“Why?” Alice asked. “This isn’t like the Old City, where you’re retracing your steps from long ago. You’re just guessing, same as anyone would.”

Hatcher walked back and crouched on the ground in front of her. He stared hard into her eyes. “What happened to my quiet, trusting girl?”

“She was drugged,” Alice said, thinking of the powders that the hospital had put in her food for ten years. “She’s not anymore.”

Hatcher’s eyes lit up. “That’s it, Alice. The powders!” “What about them?” Alice asked. She was confused by the sudden change in his manner, and the way it undermined her rebellion.

“The powders kept your magic inside you,” Hatcher said, grabbing her hands and pulling her to her feet. “If you hadn’t been taking them all those years, you would have known you’re a Magician long ago.”

“Hatch, stop,” Alice said, tugging her hands away and planting her feet. “I’m not a Magician. And—” She leaned close to his ear, a sudden flash of inspiration. “If I were a Magician you wouldn’t want everyone to know about it, would you? You wouldn’t want Cheshire to know about it. So you should stop talking about it so loud. We don’t know who’s listening. He could be watching us, hearing everything we say. He very likely is.”

“He already thinks you are a Magician, whatever we say,” Hatcher said. “Why do you think he was so interested that you knew the story of the Jabberwocky?”

“What’s that to do with anything?” Alice asked, confused again. Every time she thought she caught up she fell behind again.

“It’s not a well-known story he told. You could tell by the way he told it that he was certain we’d never heard it before,” Hatcher said. “Who told you that story? Your mother?”

“Yes,” Alice said.

“Where did she learn it from?”

Alice shrugged. “Her parents, I suppose.”

Hatcher nodded. “Who learned it from their parents, and so on. Did your family always live in the New City?”

“I suppose so,” Alice said. “I never learned otherwise.”

“Alice,” Hatcher said, his brows drawn together. “I can’t feel the Jabberwocky in here.”

Alice might be less befuddled than before, but Hatcher’s brain was just as twisty as it always was. She sighed, and took his hand, and they walked along the path carved between the rosebushes. She thought that it was a good thing if Hatcher and the Jabberwocky were less connected, even if it were only temporary.

At the junction of every turning, Alice peeked into the opening, each time hoping for some clue to the exit. But the maze was always the same. They decided to stay on the main path.

“After all,” Alice reasoned, “it must come to an end sometime. And when we reach that end you can simply cut through the bushes.”

The leaves behind her rustled, and Alice spun around, for there was no wind.

Two vines exploded from the maze wall, and wrapped around her ankles. The vines tugged hard and she fell hard to the ground on her back. Before she or Hatcher could do anything she was pulled along the grass and the roses closed around her.

CHAPTER
9

Thorns pricked at her skin everywhere, poked at her face and hands and the top of her head and wormed through her jacket and pants. She thought Hatcher yelled her name but she couldn’t tell, for roses were in her ears and her nose and under her eyelids, crawling inside her. She opened her mouth to scream and roses pushed their way inside, choking her.

Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.
She wished she were a Magician; she would make the roses go away, get them out of this maze, fly away from the Old City forever and forget about the Jabberwocky and the Rabbit and Cheshire and the Walrus and Mr. Carpenter and roses, everything that could make her scared or cry or bleed. She would make the roses burn to the ground so they could never hurt anyone again.

Her hands were hot, hot with her own blood running from the thorn pricks in her arms down over her palms, and suddenly there was smoke, and a sound like a million tiny creatures squealing. Then the thorns were yanked from her skin and the flowers crawled away from her throat and nose and ears and eyes and something pushed hard into her back, and she was out, flat on the grass and crying and spitting rose petals from her mouth.

“Alice, Alice.” Hatcher’s voice, and then Hatcher’s hands all over her, patting and soothing, and then Hatcher’s arms taking her into his lap and rocking her as she cried and cried and cried.

All the strength she thought she’d found was gone now, smashed beneath the roses’ assault.

Hatcher rubbed his hand down her back and said, “Alice, my Alice, don’t cry. I can’t stand for you to cry.”

“I w-want to go h-home,” she said. Her tongue tasted like salt and roses.

“Where’s home, my Alice?” Hatcher said. “Where’s home? We don’t have a home, you and I.”

“Then I want to go back to the hospital,” she said. “We were safe there. Nothing could hurt us. Nothing could grab us and take us away.”

“Except the doctors,” Hatcher said. “Or the medicine they gave us. Or our own memories. We weren’t safe there, Alice. It was an illusion. And the hospital burned down. There’s nowhere for us to go back to. We can go forward. We can find our way out.”

She cried harder then, because she knew what he said was true. They had nowhere to go and no safe place to be, and they were trapped in this labyrinth by the whim of a madman.

“How do w-we even know there is a way out?” she said. “How do we know that Cheshire won’t keep us here, running in circles forever?”

“We don’t know,” Hatcher said. “I do know this. You’re a Magician, as sure as I’m mad.”

“Not now, Hatch,” she said. She was tired and scared and not up to fighting about this.

“Look,” he said, taking her chin and turning her head toward the rosebushes.

There in the hedge was a hole—a smoking, charred, empty place where roses used to be.

“Did you set it on fire?” Alice asked. “Is that why they let me go?”

“You set it on fire,” Hatcher said. “I don’t think the roses will trouble us any longer.”

At these words he stood, still holding her in his arms like a child. She never thought about how big and strong he was, but she was very tall and he could hold her like she was nothing, a little bit of a thing. He approached the wall of the maze, and Alice turned her head into his chest, her eyes closed.

“No,” he said. “Look.”

She opened her eyes just enough to see through the slits, and then opened them wider, astonished. The roses were curling back on themselves, rolling into tight little coils. Alice reached her hand toward the vines, her curiosity stronger than her fear.

The roses shrank away from her touch, emitting that high pitched squeal, like they were afraid.

Afraid of her.

“A Magician?” she breathed.

“A Magician,” Hatcher said.

“Perhaps,” she said. It was wondrous if it were true, but also terrifying. She wasn’t prepared for this.

“All right, then,” Hatcher said, and put her down. “Can you walk now?”

Her legs were wobbly and her stomach heaved like she was seasick. Alice closed her eyes again and leaned on Hatcher’s shoulder for a moment, breathing deep in through her nose. The reek of roses no longer pervaded the air. A fresh wind blew through the hedges, carrying with it the sweet, clean scent of grass.

They started forward again, periodically checking the turnings as they had before. Alice did not feel at all steady. Her heart thumped rapidly in her chest, and though every rose moved away from them as they passed, it was difficult not to feel frightened. The flowers were cautious for now. There was no guarantee they would be in future.

She briefly considered trying to burn their way out of the maze. This plan was not practical for two reasons. First, Cheshire might resent the destruction of his plaything. He was not their friend, but it did not seem he was yet their enemy. Alice did not desire to make an enemy of him.

Then there was the question of how to burn the roses. Somehow she had performed magic—twice, according to Hatcher—but on neither occasion was she certain how she’d done it. She was afraid that if she tried to light the bushes on fire and nothing happened, then the roses would know they had nothing to fear from her, and attack.

They walked and the sun beat down, never changing position. There was no shadow cast by the maze, no place to hide from the continuous glare. They quickly drank all the water Hatcher carried in his bag, and it was nowhere near enough.

Alice removed her jacket and tied it around her waist, pushing the knife behind the belt of her pants. Hatcher followed suit, and Alice could now see how he kept all his weapons in place. He had rigged a sort of harness—it reminded her of mules pulling carts— with many sheaths and buckled it close to his body. The axe swung closest to his hand, near his waist, so he could grasp it at a moment’s notice. Higher up there were knives big and small, and the gun that had frozen Cheshire’s grin, if only for a moment. There was a line of grey sweat under the harness where it rubbed against Hatcher’s shirt.

Her own face and neck and chest were soaked, though her throat was parched. Still the maze went on and on, with neither sight nor sound of water. After a while Hatcher started muttering.

“Rabbits and caterpillars and butterflies and carpenters,” he said. “I’ll cut through all of them like trees. Watch my axe swing wide and gleaming and they all fall down, knock down all the toy soldiers. Jenny. Who’s Jenny? Cheshire thought I knew her. Jenny. Jenny. She had grey eyes.”

Alice said, “You have grey eyes.”

Her tongue was swollen in her mouth and the words didn’t sound right in her ears.

“Jenny,” Hatcher said again, and he clutched both sides of his head. Alice saw his knuckles whiten, as if he were trying to squeeze the knowledge from his skull. “Jenny. Cheshire thinks he’s so smart. So smart, but he has to sleep sometime. Oh yes, he must sleep sometime.”

Blood ran from Hatcher’s left nostril as he spoke, over his lip and onto his chin, a torrent that made Alice still in alarm. She forgot how thirsty she was, how tired.

“Hatch,” she said, pulling on his arm, trying to make him stop crushing his head. “Hatch, stop.”

He tilted his head to one side, his eyes not recognizing her. “Are you Jenny? No, you’re not Jenny. Your eyes are wrong.”

“Hatcher,” Alice said. “Come back to me.”

“She had grey eyes,” he said. “Grey eyes. You’re too tall to be Jenny. Stop pretending to be her.”

“I’m not Jenny,” she said, trying to keep her voice firm and calm. “I’m Alice.”

“Not Jenny,” he said, and then his right hand was off his head and there was a knife in it.

Alice released his arm and stepped back. “All right, Hatch. All right.”

She couldn’t stop him from carving out her heart if he was so inclined. She knew she was no match for that blade or the hand that held it. So Alice moved away, walking backward, her eyes on Hatcher and her hands high. Fresh blood dripped on his shirt.

“Jenny,” he said again, and his voice had gone crooning. “My little mermaid swimming in the sea, my Jenny.”

He staggered to one side, caught his shirt on the thorns of the hedge. Alice’s breath caught, but the roses did not twine around him. Hatcher tore loose from the thorns, stumbling forward.

Then Alice heard it. Someone was singing, singing in the most beautiful voice. Hatcher heard it too, for he stilled, turning his head in the direction of the voice.

“This way,” he said, and ran for the nearest junction in the maze, a few feet behind them.

“Hatcher!” Alice called, running after him. She was astounded he had so much energy. His boot heels disappeared behind another turn, and she labored to catch up. “Hatcher!”

The voice still sang, too lovely to be real and somehow . . .

Not very nice,
Alice thought. It was a little-girl thought, she knew, but it was also true. There was something cruel in that voice for all its beauty. She rounded the corner where she’d last seen Hatcher and came upon a four-way intersection like a cross.

“Hatcher!” she called again, running to each direction in turn and finding nothing. Hatcher was gone.

The voice stopped singing.

Now panic was in her stomach and her heart and her mouth. She’d never been without Hatcher, never all on her own, not since the day he spoke to her through the mouse hole. What would she do without Hatcher? How would she get by?

Find him, you silly nit,
a firm voice said inside her head. That voice was disturbingly like Cheshire’s. Alice did not like the notion that her mind would take on the identity of a person she disliked very much.
Use your wits and find him.

“But how?” she said to herself as her eyes roamed all over, looking for evidence of Hatcher’s passing.

The grass was not flattened to show his boot prints. There was nothing to show where he’d gone. The sun was brighter than ever, blinding her, making her see dark spots when she closed her eyes and bright yellow ones when her eyes were open. She rubbed at her face, blinking in the glare, and looked down at her boots for a moment to shake off the sun.

Next to her right heel was a tiny drop of red on a blade of grass, a little crimson jewel drying to brown in the never-ending heat.

Alice dropped to her hands and knees, her face very close to the grass. Her eyes searched ahead until she found another blade of grass carrying a red droplet, also rusting in the sun.

She tucked her head low, her nose just above the grass, and scurried forward (
like a puppy smelling something good
), following the intermittent stains of red in the grass to the right-hand turning. After a few moments she was certain Hatcher continued in that direction and stood again.

Alice tried to run, but she was far too tired and thirsty to keep up the pace for long. She sensed that Hatcher was in danger, but could not force her weary body to move any faster.

Hurry, Alice, hurry, hurry.

She reached another junction with two choices and put her nose to the ground again. This time the blood was fresher, still jewel-bright, and hope surged inside her. Perhaps he wasn’t too far ahead. Perhaps she could still save him.

But the singing stopped.

That was worrisome, the lack of singing. To Alice’s way of thinking the singing was meant to draw them to the singer. If she (Alice thought it sounded like a “she,” although it could be a turtle for all she knew) wasn’t singing anymore, then that meant she’d gotten the thing she wanted. Alice did not want that thing to be Hatcher.

The maze turned a corner ahead of her and Alice followed it. Then she stopped, and she stared.

Before her was a very large body of water. It was too large to be a pond, but too small to be a lake, and it was so blue it hurt the eyes. Alice could almost taste that water in her mouth. She wanted to dive into it, let the water cover her until she drowned.

In the center of the lake was a small island, and on the island was a tiny cottage painted up like pink-and-white-striped peppermint. There appeared to be no one on the island, and Hatcher was nowhere to be seen.

“Hatcher!” Alice shouted. “Hatcher!”

Then she saw it. There was a small pile of clothes close to the lapping water of the shore. More alarming was the stack of weapons on top of the dirty clothing. Hatcher’s axe was there. Alice could not believe Hatcher would leave his axe behind.

She sat on the beach and pulled off her boots and pants and jacket, leaving only the oversized shirt. Her knife was in her hand as she dipped her feet in the water.

It was cold, but the cold was refreshing. Alice again felt an overwhelming urge to sink to the bottom of the lake and she shook her head from side to side to get that thought out of her head.

She knew Hatcher was in trouble, or else he would have answered when she called. Still, she hesitated. Alice did not know how to swim. The only time she had been in water in the last ten years was when she and Hatcher had jumped into the fetid river to escape the burning hospital. She knew she should kick and move her arms, but how would she keep herself afloat? And the impulse to sink beneath the water was very strong. The lake was clearly enchanted, and Alice wasn’t certain she would have the concentration for swimming and fighting off the urge to drown.

I need to get to Hatcher,
she thought. She focused all of her will on this singular idea, and hoped it would be enough.

Alice waded into the water.

She half expected something terrifying to rise from the water, a green monster with long arms to grab or a silver-scaled dragon with razor-edged fangs. Her childhood picture books were full of creatures like these. Nothing disturbed the water save Alice herself.

There was only one thought in her mind—
Hatcher.
The water soon covered her knees, and her thighs, and then the bottom suddenly fell away and her head dipped below the surface.

The drop was so abrupt that she didn’t have time to take a breath. The water closed over her, so light and refreshing after the sweltering heat of the maze. But she couldn’t breathe. Her chest hurt from the strain of keeping air inside, and she sank very fast.