“I hope I have more of her than that in me,” Alyss replied.
“You would!”
Redd’s dress flared from a sudden gust of wind, obscuring her niece’s vision with blackness and—
Alyss awoke, sat up, and stared at the branches and vines tremulous against the dawn sky. It took a gwormmy-blink to remember where she was: Outerwilderbeastia, halfway between the Ganmede Province and the Snark Mountains, three-quarters of a night’s journey from the limbo coop whose perimeter wall she and Dodge had walked through as effortlessly as if they’d been strolling the palace portico.
“What is it?” Dodge asked. He was seated on a rock, watching over her.
A dream, she should have said. But it felt too real to be a dream. Could it be . . . is it possible I really communed with Redd? Could the two most powerful imaginationists in Wonderland have met, conversed, and come to an agreement telepathically? Had she experienced a sort of transmigration of her deeper self, made possible by her rare gift?
We summoned each other. Of necessity.
“You haven’t slept,” she said to Dodge.
“If I sleep, who will watch over you?”
He came and knelt down beside her, took her hand in both of his and stroked her palm with delicate fingers. The increasing light silhouetted his long eyelashes, and with his head lowered and his unscarred cheek turned to her . . .
Could almost believe we’re living what might have been: I’m still a princess, with mother and father alive, he works at the palace under the guidance of Sir Justice, and we’ve sneaked away from everyone’s expectations, just the two of us, shyly loving, and—
“I need to ask you something . . . personal,” he said. “I’ve been meaning to for some time.”
Tell him.
“Dodge.”
But he was on his feet, an AD52 in each hand and aimed past her as a figure stepped from the brambles, a figure Alyss recognized as one of Redd’s assassins by the spike-tipped whip coiled at his hip.
CHAPTER 30
Oxford, England. 1875.
ON UNSEASONABLY warm, sunny days, streets from Longwell to Mill, Thames to St. Giles, filled with open carriages bearing leisurely men and women, with bicyclists and strollers and window-shoppers; the green expanses of Christ Church Meadow, Merton Field, and Magellan Grove crowded with picnickers, footballers, cricket players, and countless others. Revelers in nature, enthusiasts of every manner of outdoor activity—all emerged from the confines of four walls and a roof to partake of al fresco pleasures. But on one unseasonably fine day in 1875, along with this variegated lot, a certain trio were enticed to a certain sycamore tree on High Street between All Souls and Queen’s College, though not by the sun and breeze, nor by the tree itself, however closely Reverend Dodgson seemed to study its bark.
“It’s not that I doubt the validity of w-what you’ve told me in toto,” the reverend explained to Hatter and Molly, “so much as . . . as there is a point or two that could use c-c-clarification, the foremost of which . . . if Alyss is in Wonderland, housed in a prison or some such, how do you explain her.”
Dodgson poked his head around the tree and with a darting bird-like jerk of the neck indicated a group of ladies congregating before a tea shop. The ladies were similarly dressed in ankle-length skirts, in flouncy blouses ruffling out at cuffs and collar from beneath short-waisted jackets, yet Hatter and Molly instantly recognized one of them as Wonderland’s queen.
“That’s Alice Liddell,” Dodgson said, noting their reactions, “the same young lady who told me of her Wonderland trials so many years ago.”
“Not the same,” Hatter said, catching his daughter’s eye.
“It is, I t-tell you,” the reverend sputtered. “She’s no longer as young as she was, of course. N-none of us is.”
How to explain to this timid, squeamish fellow the aftermath of Redd Heart’s leap into the Heart Crystal? How to describe in believable detail the post-battle lull inside Mount Isolation, with Hatter, Molly, Bibwit, Dodge, General Doppelgänger, the white knight and the white rook as witnesses to Alyss’ immediate assumption of Wonderland’s crown? Could Reverend Dodgson, already beyond the limits of what he’d grown up believing, credit an account of Bibwit Harte suggesting that Alyss conjure a double of herself to occupy her place in the Liddell family—the place she’d rightly vacated to be Wonderland’s sovereign? Would the reverend empathize with Alyss’ self-doubt as she questioned whether her powers were strong enough to birth a double even as she reached out to the Heart Crystal with both arms and—popzzzzlllpipipopzzzx!—caused the room to disappear in a wash of light?
It was an unprecedented feat—the conjuring of a live, independent being—but Hatter had never doubted the queen’s ability to perform it, though he was only now seeing the result: a young woman in front of a High Street tea shop who’d never been anyone other than Alice Liddell. And if it was strange for the Milliner and his daughter to palpably confront the existence of this Alyss/not-Alyss, it was quadruply so for Charles Dodgson who, hearing from Hatter how this Alyss/not-Alyss had come to be, kept shaking his head and exclaiming, “It’s too much. Too much.” He was not, however, left to feel his dismay for long.
“It’s my duty to return to Wonderland,” Hatter said. “Molly will stay with you.”
The girl started.
“What?” the reverend protested. “N-no, please, it’s highly improper she should stay with me. Highly improper. If people were to find out—”
“Don’t let them. But I have to do all I can to help my queen.”
Dodgson continued to plead. Silent, Molly glared at nothing. And Hatter didn’t say what he was thinking: that if he gave his life in Alyss Heart’s service, which he was prepared to do, he would not be back.
“Molly will stay with you,” he’d said, as if it was his decision and he could tell her what to do. She’d spent her whole life without a father and now he thought he could make up for the years he hadn’t been around? What a joke. Did he really believe that in his absence she would answer to Dodgson? Because she didn’t have to answer to anybody. She’d do whatever she wanted. No one could tell her what to do.
“I’m not abandoning you,” Hatter said, leading her several paces away from Dodgson for privacy.
“I don’t have to do as you say. I didn’t even want to come here and now you think you can leave me with him,” Molly gestured at Dodgson, “while you go back?”
“But you’re not . . .” Hatter picked his words with care, “. . . yourself.”
“How would you know?”
The Milliner’s hand twitched toward his top hat, as it would to ward off a physical threat, then fell to his side. “You act as if you’re the only one grieving the loss of your mother,” he said quietly. “I’ve seen how you’d rather mope and feel sorry for yourself than wield Milliner blades with the skill I know you have. And since I don’t know the extent of the dangers I face by returning to Wonderland, it’s best you stay.”
There he went again, making pronouncements on what was allegedly best for her! She hated him twice over—for belatedly trying to play father and also for making her hate him, because to be overcome by any emotion, especially a negative one, was un-Milliner-like and reminded her that she was a halfer.
“Why don’t you keep alert for anything you think will benefit Queen Alyss,” Hatter suggested, “no matter how far-fetched it seems? When we don’t know what’s important, we should assume everything is.”
She wasn’t dumb. He was trying to give her something to do, treating her as if she were a child playing at being an adult, and she felt the familiar sting of wounded pride. Which was weird, since she didn’t want or believe she deserved any position of importance or responsibility—not as the queen’s bodyguard, a Milliner, whatever. Even weirder: She was starting to wonder if she might make up for the trauma she’d caused. Not erase her mistake from collective memory but balance it with a feat of immense good or—
Stupid, stupid, stupid. How c
ould anything in Reverend Dodgson’s world benefit Alyss Heart?
“I’ll run off,” she said. “I won’t stay. You can’t make me.”
Hatter’s eyes grew moist. His chest rose and fell. “No, Molly,” he said finally, “I can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do. I’m asking you to stay with Mr. Dodgson. When I come back—which will be soon, I promise—we’ll return to Wonderland together and you can hear from Queen Alyss personally that she’ll accept no one but you as her bodyguard.”
Molly folded her arms tightly against her chest, felt the unyielding bulk of her mother’s notebooks in her coat’s inside pocket. Her mother had loved this man. She would do it for her mother, would honor the ties of family and abide by Hatter as a daughter should. At least for a little while.
She felt Hatter’s kiss in retrospect, so preoccupied with her thoughts that she registered the brief press of his lips to her cheek only after he was disappearing into the High Street crowds.
Picking at the sycamore’s bark, Dodgson glanced uneasily at her, as if to say, Well, here we are. He was no more than ten meters from her, though it might as well have been a hundred million for all Molly felt.
CHAPTER 31
MR. VAN de Skülle stepped from the brambles, his hands raised in surrender and his face impassive as Dodge’s AD52s took aim and—
“No!” Alyss cried.
Razor-cards spun and sliced the air. Fith-fith-fith-fith-fith! Mr. Van de Skülle made no move to avoid them, and just when he should have felt the stinging cut of steel—
The razor-cards parted to either side of him, shooting off into the jungle to his left and right, leaving him unharmed.
“What’re you doing?” Dodge asked Alyss.
Mr. Van de Skülle didn’t reach for his whip, made no move of aggression whatsoever. Dodge again pressed the triggers of his AD52s but the weapons were jammed. His voice rose in frustration.
“Why’re you doing this?”
Before Alyss could answer, Mr. Van de Skülle said to her, “As a show of faith, Her Imperial Viciousness has sent me to be of what service I can to you.”
Dodge whirled, his AD52s still trained on the assassin. “Show of faith?”
I knew it couldn’t have been a dream.
“Show of what faith? What’s he talking about?”
“Redd and I have an agreement,” Alyss heard herself say.
Dodge’s reaction pierced her as painfully as any blade: The AD52s lolled loose in his hands, too heavy to aim, and he kept shaking his head, the skin at the corners of his eyes tight with incomprehension, disbelief, mounting rage.
She hadn’t even begun to explain but already it felt like a confession. Still, she would explain—the how and why of her pact with Redd, the tenuous bond created by a mutual enemy. She would explain and hope that Dodge’s love for her was stronger than the resentment he would undoubtedly feel.
Dodge crouched on the opposite side of the clearing, as far from Alyss as he could be while still keeping an eye on the assassin who stood between them, waiting for something to happen.
It felt like duplicity—not just that Alyss had “partnered” with Redd, but that she hadn’t discussed it with him first. A queen didn’t have to subject her doings to anyone for approval, let alone the head of her palace guard, but shouldn’t she have wanted to talk it over with him? Wasn’t that partly what it meant to be in love—that two people told each other everything, confiding without reserve or embarrassment their dreams, doubts, fears, plans, ambitions? Didn’t being in love mean there was no need of secrets? Alyss had assumed the worst of him: that wanting to avenge his father’s death, he wouldn’t be able to clearly judge the strategic value of Redd’s cooperation. And just when he’d made up his mind to propose!
He sensed Alyss’ solicitous glances from across the clearing but stared into the jungle, pretending not to notice. If he couldn’t fight Alyss, he could definitely fight Mr. Skull or whatever the man’s name was. He could send the lowlife limping back to Redd to let her know what he thought of her deal with Alyss. But . . . wait a gwormmy-blink. Maybe he was thinking about this all wrong. He’d been counting on a larger battle against Redd Heart’s army, a battle in which he would seek a one-on-one confrontation with The Cat, but that was no longer a possibility. Maybe this new connection with Redd was his best opportunity for revenge against his father’s executioner. No matter how briefly or precariously Alyss and Redd were banded together, so long as they were in league to dethrone Arch, wasn’t he more likely than not to have dealings with the slobbering feline?
Alyss had kept a secret from him, he would keep one from her.
He would pretend to accept the new arrangement between aunt and niece. No, he’d do more than that—he’d encourage ever greater cooperation between them, to better ensure himself of a run-in with The Cat. He’d continue to work toward overthrowing Arch and reinstating White Imagination to its supreme position in the queendom, in the course of which he’d just happen to take The Cat’s last life.
He rose to his feet and crossed the clearing. “I don’t like it, but it’s the right thing to do,” he said to Alyss. “But you already knew that.”
“She’s agreed not to risk imagination with an attack against Arch.”
Dodge turned a doubtful, appraising eye on Mr. Van de Skülle. “What makes Redd think you can be of service here with us instead of with her?”
“I know better than to answer for Her Imperial Viciousness,” the assassin said, “but Wonderland is vast and filled with enemies. Imagination or not, there are just two of you.”
“And now there are three. I feel so much better.”
Alyss’ hand fell lightly on his arm. “Dodge,” she whispered.
If he was going to convince everyone that he accepted this new alliance, he had to stop trying to pick a fight with Redd’s assassin. He had to act as if he trusted the man.
Feigning apology, he dipped his head first to Alyss, then to Mr. Van de Skülle. “We should inform Bibwit and General Doppelgänger,” he said, determined not to lose the best opportunity he had of slamming his father’s sword hilt-deep into The Cat’s guts.
CHAPTER 32
“SCRUMPTIOUS!”
“Delicious!”
“So bold yet so subtle!”
“So pungent yet so delicately flavored!”
“The perfect hint of cinnamon-minnamon and such a delightfully crumbly mouthfeel!”
Blue unstuck his lips from his hookah and grumbled: “Ahem hum hem hem. I remind the council that the king’s surprise delivery has not yet arrived.”
Sitting in a semicircle deep within the Everlasting Forest, each oracle on a fungus as tall and wide as a three-room cottage and as intensely colored as himself, Yellow, Purple, and Red turned to one another, shocked, Orange and Green were horrified, but the antennae of all bent low to explore mouths woefully empty.
“I wish he’d hurry,” Purple moaned, “I’m starving!”
As if in answer, Blue pushed a long funnel of smoke from his lungs—so long that it appeared never-ending, continuing to pour out his mouth even as its other end weaved off through the valley to some unseen rendezvous. Then he began to inhale, sucking the smoke funnel back into his lungs. Purple and the rest of the oracles twittered in anticipation, salivating outright when the funnel’s end came into view, because moving toward them, following the trail of smoke, was one of Arch’s intel ministers bearing what looked like a gigantic upside-down mushroom top filled with fragrant, steaming fresh—
“Tarty tarts!” the oracles cried at once.
Piled willy-nilly in the curious-shaped receptacle: enough tarty tarts to feed . . . well, six tarty tart-loving oracles. Caramel-stuffed tarts decorated with choco-nibblies. Tarts bursting with gobbygrabe goo and strawberry mash. Cream-filled tarts dusted with glittering sugar. Buttery tarts topped with vanilla icing, blueberry swirls, squigberry doilies, cinnamon-minnamon sprinkles. The minister had brought these and more, had in fact brought every va
riety of tarty tart known to Wonderland. Stepping before the council, he cleared his throat and—
“King Arch wishes to present us with a token of his esteem and appreciation,” the orange and red caterpillars said.
Spooked at hearing the words he was about to utter, Arch’s minister—acting by no means ministerial—stumbled off into the valley, where he would, the oracles knew, soon be lost.
Purple dropped from his mushroom and thrust his face into the caldron of tarty tarts.
“Have some manners!” Yellow huffed.
Purple paused from his indiscriminate munching, lifted his head. “I have plenty of manners,” he said, gobbygrape smears staining his cheeks and crumbs stippling the area around his mouth. “There’s the manner in which I puff on my hookah, the manner in which I move through dirt, and what you’re presently witnessing is the manner in which I delight in tarty tarts!”
“I’ll show you delight!” Yellow bellowed, and floated down next to Purple to shove his own face into the treats and munch indiscriminately.
The red caterpillar, meanwhile, had grabbed eight tarty tarts and was holding them in the eight feet closest to his mouth, taking a single bite of each in turn, over and over again. Blue was stacking tarty tart upon tarty tart to make a quintuple-decker tarty tart sandwich and Green was putting an end to the heretofore eternal question of just how many tarty tarts a caterpillar-oracle could fit in his mouth at one time.
“You proceed better than anticipated with the king,” Blue said.
“Aaanhaaah nanh nanh aanhing gah annnahghing,” Green answered, swallowing mightily so that a bulge of food visibly passed along the length of his body. “Excuse me. Depends who was doing the anticipating, I meant to say.”