Malice in Wonderland #1: Alice the Assassin
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Authors: Lotus Rose
Malice in Wonderland #1: Alice the Assassin
Copyright
©
2012 by Lotus Rose
Cover art copyright
© Annnmei/Dreamstime.com
Books by Lotus Rose~
More info at
loteyrose.com
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Malice in Wonderland Trilogy
Malice in Wonderland #1: Alice the Assassin
Malice in Wonderland #2: Alice the Angel of Death
Malice In Wonderland #3: Alice the Girl Who Will Tear Your Heart Out and Show It To You Before You Die
CHAPTER ONE
The Thirteen of Hearts
Alice peers woefully out the window into the black-and-white squares of Wonderland. When she first arrived here, Wonderland followed the rules of chess, but things changed over the years to a confusing mish mash of broken rules with nonsensical rules piled on top.
It’s one of the quiet parts of her days, when the guard card leaves her chained to her writing desk in her hut.
She turns over a card, sets it down onto one of the other cards.
Mumbling to herself, “I will lose again. Like always.” Solitaire is a game one rarely wins, she thinks, just like life.
From the edge of her vision, she sees something in the window, causing her to raise her head. One of the male playing cards waves at her next to a scraggly tree in the distance. There are two kinds of cards in Wonderland—the small kind she plays games with and the person-sized ones with arms and legs and mouths. At first she assumes the card is the Queen of Heart’s guard coming to unchain her before her unhappy unbirthday party, but no, it’s a different card, one that seems to have holes in it. “Curious,” she mumbles to herself, that being one of her favorite one word sentences.
Alice waves back from her desk while smiling huge, though she doesn’t recognize the card. He seems to have two vertical lines of holes where symbols should be. She’s never before seen a holey card. ( “Holey” as in “with holes” not as in “holy cow”.)
Though she doesn’t recognize him, she assumes it’s best to pretend, because she doesn’t want to risk offending him, because the citizens of Wonderland can get very cruel when offended.
Alice sighs and returns to her game as the strange card approaches. She hopes he’s nice, or at least the amusements he seeks are not too vicious.
Soon, there is a knock at the door.
She shouts, “Come in! I’m a bit chained to my desk at the moment!”
The door opens, and there stands the large card, ogling her from the doorway.
She ogles back, for he is a most curious card, unlike any she’s ever seen before. Because the light behind him shoots beams of light through the heart-shaped holes in his body that are lined up in two columns like an ordinary playing card. But there, centered above the columns is another cut-out heart, which is quite abnormal.
Quickly she counts the cut-out hearts. Six on the left, six on the right, plus the one on top…
The answer comes as a shout from the card, as if it’s a playful race. “Thirteen!” he proclaims, raising his short arms up in the air and flourishing with a little hop. “I am the Thirteen of Hearts. Or, the twelvety-one of them, if you prefer.”
Alice makes a wrinkly face. “How can you fit so many wrong things in such a short utterance?”
“Is that a riddle?” He clasps his hands together in front of him in a mocking sort of delight. “Here’s one!” His eyes ping to the wooden seat she’s chained to. “Why is a raven like a writing desk?”
She rolls her eyes, despite the fact she doesn’t yet know how easily offended, and just how cruel he can be. Note, she doesn’t wonder
if
he is cruel, but
how much
of that quality he possesses, for it has been her experience that most of the creatures of Wonderland are cruel now. They started out as pleasant or tolerable, but they’ve grown downright malicious over the past six years. They’ve quite forgotten the rules of civility, and even the rules of Wonderland, what little there were to begin with, it seems to her. One of the few exceptions is the Jabberwock, who seems nice, but shy.
After she rolls her eyes, she says, “Yes I’ve heard that riddle before so many times, and I have so many answers, depending on the situation, because I’ve had so much time to think on it, chained here, you see. But let’s not go to that right now. Let’s go back to what you said. So many things are wrong with it, it makes me quite see red.” She looks at him hopefully, hoping he will appreciate her flight of poetry. She’s acquired a habit of rhyming whenever she can, being after all a (unwilling) citizen of Wonderland.
The card takes two steps into the hut, with its bed, and books laid page down on the ground, its stove in the far corner, its small dining table where they set her cakes during her unhappy unbirthday parties, its painting on the wall of Alice’s parents.
The card takes two more steps, looks around, now at her, and says, “What’s the second thing you dislike about what I said?”
Alice doesn’t even bother to groan out loud and huff.
All
the creatures of Wonderland are just like this—so clever, whimsical, full of mischief. “The second thing,” she says, “is that there is no such number as ‘twelvety-one’. But the
first
thing is that you are quite lacking in hearts, so it is wrong to say you’re the Thirteen of Hearts, because you have holes where hearts would be. You’re actually heart
less.”
He says, “And who do
you
say you are?”
“I’m Alice. I don’t believe we have met.” She holds out her unchained hand—her left one. She happens to be left-handed.
The card shakes hands, then bows. “Nice to meet you. Yes, this is my first day of existence. I’m an entirely new card. Depending on which card game you’re playing, if you were to draw me, why, I’d completely change the game! I am a surprise card you see. A wild card! More wild than the joker! I see that you are playing solitaire. Why, if you were to draw me, do you know what the rule would be?”
“Why no. As you say, you’re new. I’ve never encountered a card such as you in a deck.”
The card stands up straight and regally, and proclaims,
“If solitaire’s the game that you draw me in,
Up into the air, toss five darts!
If one of them sticks in the ceiling, you win!
For I am the Thirteen of Hearts!”
In annoyance, she shouts, “Less!”
The card, looking somewhat deflated at Alice’s lack of being impressed, says, “No, I assure you, I’m thirteen
exactly.
No more. No less.”
“Well I’m thirteen too, more or less.”
Now he peers at her body, as if
she
is the curious creature!
Alice, ignoring his rude eyes, says, “What I
meant
is you’re not the Thirteen of Hearts, for you only have empty spaces where hearts would go! So as I said before, it’s more accurate to say you’re heart
less!”
“Yes!” he shouts, with a big grin. Now another bow, this time with a twirly whirl of his arm as he bends downward.
“If me you are dealt when poker’s the game,
Your opponents must fold then confess,
The one thing they feel is their own greatest shame,
Because I’m the Thirteen of Hearts…LESS!”
He twirls in a little circle, coming back around to face her.
Alice says, “No. No.
Heart
less. That’s the proper way of pronouncing it.”
The card rolls his eyes, crosses his arms. “That’s not how you said it before. And why are you such an expert anyway? What exactly are
you
the thirteen of?” He leans forward slightly, staring at her body and black dress. “I see no marks on you. No spades, no diamonds, clubs…or hearts! No
heart
lesses either, I might add.”
“Well,” says Alice, “I’m not a card, I’m a girl, twelve years old you see, almost thirteen.”
The card says, “Today’s your birthday.”
Alice gasps. “Why so it is! I had totally forgotten. Imagine that! How did you know it was my birthday?”
“Well, I was at the party. Weren’t you invited?”
Alice pouts. “No, I wasn’t. Who hosted it?”
“Why the Queen of Hearts, of course. She’s the one who took all my hearts!”
“Ah, I see. I’m so sorry.”
The card frowns. “Me too. Did she take your hearts too? I see none on you.”
“Well, I don’t have one
on
me.”
“So you’re a one of heartlesses?”
“No, I have a heart, but it’s inside, so you can’t see it right now. And I’m not sure your saying ‘heartlesses’ is correct, for heartlessness is not a thing but an absence of a thing, so I can’t see how it can be plural.”
The card makes big eyes and points to himself while waving his arm up and down. “You’re obviously wrong, for look, I have thirteen heartlesses.”
Alice rubs her chin. “Why, I see you do. Perhaps I’m incorrect. I wonder, if I got rid of my own heart, which has caused me so much pain, would I be a ‘one of heartless’?”
“Heartless!” the card proclaims. “Why…”
Now he starts to dance a little, bending up and down, pumping an imaginary bicycle pump with his arms.
“Let’s say you’re dealt me, when it’s blackjack you play,
And your age is before drinking starts, yes?
Well, you’ll be 21 for exactly one day.
The power of Thirteen of Heartless!”
Alice scowls. “But what’s that got to do with the game? Would I win or lose?”
“Why, what does it matter? You wouldn’t care either way if it was the first time you imbibed. Have you ever gotten drunk?”
Alice narrows her eyes disapprovingly. She does her best to cross her arms, though they don’t quite cross all the way due to her right arm still being chained to her desk. “I’m thirteen.” She rolls her eyes.
The card mimics her posture, right down to the awkwardly angled right arm. “Of?…”
She sighs in frustration. “Nothing! I’m just a girl. I’m not a card like you.”
He lowers his arms, looking genuinely perplexed. “But I recall you saying you were a one of hearts. Red or black?”
She thinks for a moment of correcting him once again, but instead ponders a bit, says woefully, “Black. I have a black heart. From living in this horrible place, all these years.”
Now the card, taking his cue from her, seems woeful as well. “I’m sorry. But I doubt you have a black heart. You seem too nice. It must be terrible to be the ‘one’ of anything. I didn’t even know the numbers went so low.”
She lowers her arms. “Well, it is the average number of hearts to have for my sort, which is human girls. But let me tell you, this one heart of mine has been the source of such great misery, for it forces me to feel all that happens to me, and provides me only yearning and loneliness and sadness.”
“Those are three things.”