There were ladies, ladies, everywhere.
They wore suits. An orange pantsuit here, green over there, purple in one corner, red in another. They were a rainbow of ladies sitting perfectly still on stools and tables and crates and benches, on sidewalks and steps and bicycle seats. Hundreds of them.
And they were all, every one of them, staring at her.
“Oliver?” Alice could feel him standing beside her, but she was afraid to break eye contact with the ladies. “Oliver,” she whispered. “What do we do?”
He said something so quietly she could hardly hear him.
“What?” She glanced in his direction.
The ladies gasped. Round eyes and round mouths gaped at her.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t—”
More gasps. Horrified faces. Stunned silence.
Alice was starting to grow nervous. Apparently speaking was not allowed in Still. No speaking, no moving, no disruptions at all. (This was all an assumption, of course, as Alice didn’t know the first thing about Still, or anything at all, in re: what she was or wasn’t allowed to do here, as Oliver [as usual] appeared to be no help. He hadn’t prepared her a stitch for what to expect in Still, and if they were eaten alive by a group of angry young ladies—well, Alice thought—he would have no one to blame but himself.)
Now, before we get to what Alice did next, allow me first the opportunity to defend her actions. In retrospect I realize her decision wasn’t very constructive, but she wasn’t going to stand still for all of eternity (after all, she had Father to think of) so I will say this: In my opinion, her decision was—at least in the moment—a realistic one:
She took a few steps forward.
Someone screamed. Something shattered. Alice knew immediately that she’d made a mistake, but in her haste to correct the error, she made a few more. She scrambled backward, trying to undo what she’d done, but the more she moved, the more it disturbed the ladies of Still, and soon they were shrieking, all of them, screaming and howling and pulling at their hair, their clothes. They raked their fingers down their faces and drew blood, shed tears, and lost themselves in crazed, choking sobs. (Alice felt like crying, too, but for very different reasons.)
The ladies had begun to stand now, but slowly. Their eyes, openly weeping, never left Alice’s face, and the sight of it all was so monstrous that Alice’s poor heart nearly quit. The ladies’ movements were so careful, so slow and methodical, that it was all somehow worse. It would be a slow death, Alice thought, a careful torture, an agony she could not scream through. Terror had so thoroughly overtaken her she was afraid to breathe.
“Alice, run!”
Oliver grabbed her hand and they charged through Still, destroying every bit of composure the village had carefully preserved. They tore through leaves that then crashed to the ground; they whipped through raindrops that broke on their faces and splashed down their necks; they plowed through snowflakes that caught in their hair and clung to their clothes.
The ladies sprang after them.
“Faster!” yelled Oliver. “We must go faster!” And though Alice wanted to kick him in the feet and tell him she was running as fast as she possibly could, she was also in the unfortunate position of being unable to breathe, and so decided to save her quips for a better time. She pushed herself, one small leg after another, to climb up the very high hill that led to the only street that ran through Still and tried very hard not to focus on the fact that they were probably going to die. Admittedly, she was not very good at this.
The ladies of Still were close behind. They were screeching in pain, no doubt agonized by all this exercise that had been forced upon them, and Alice was crying—albeit only a little—but mostly because she was so desperately tired, and because she thought she should very definitely stop running lest her lungs should shatter. But no matter, the ladies of Still did not give a fig about Alice’s lungs, and so her legs and lungs would have to soldier through, whatever the cost.
Oliver’s hand was wrapped tightly around hers, and he was nearly dragging her up the main street now. Alice had no idea how he was managing all this and still carrying the pocketbook, but she was in no position to ask or even offer any help, as she realized rather quickly that the black stone with which this road was paved was in fact quite slippery, and she was already doing all she could to stay upright. They skidded as they ran, slipping and stumbling and holding on to each other for dear life.
The ladies were now silent as snow, catching up to them even without their realizing it, and Alice turned back just in time to catch a glimpse. They were running on tiptoe, knees up and knocking into their chests, and they looked so ridiculous Alice was almost ready to laugh. In agony. Ridiculous though they may have looked, at least they knew what they were doing; these ladies had mastered the road while Alice and Oliver only struggled to survive it. The two children staggered and slipped, constantly readjusting, never fully regaining their footing.
All seemed lost.
Alice’s legs felt as though they were melting beneath her, and if Oliver ever said a word to her, she could not hear him. Her breaths, hard and rasping, were all she knew, and the pounding in her chest had spread up to her head and down her arms and she was so blinded by pain that she could hardly see.
She wanted to give up.
She nearly did.
Instead, Alice shook her head and forced herself to focus. Quitting would be easy. Dying would be simple. But neither would solve her problems, and both would leave Father lost forever. She had to find a way to keep the two of them alive.
Well, and Oliver, too.
Suddenly, she had an idea: All this running they’d done, all this energy they’d exerted—it could be put to good use, couldn’t it? There was no time to deliberate. She grabbed Oliver’s shirt, kicked him in the backs of his knees, and knocked the both of them onto their backs. Before Oliver had even a chance to shout about it, they were flying. Sliding, gliding, they were practically penguins sloping down the shiny street, moving so quickly you’d think they had wings.
Up and left and down and right, the street curved and swayed and dipped and flipped and with it they went, human roller coasters ready to be sick upon stopping.
Eventually, the road came to an end, and with it, Alice’s only hope for escape. She and Oliver had been dumped at the outer edge of Still, beyond which was nothing but grass for miles on end. There was no way out, it seemed, and certainly no time to celebrate Alice’s temporary stroke of genius.
In the few moments they wasted catching their breaths, the ladies of Still had spent catching up to their bodies. Hundreds of ladies in colorful suits and angry, bloodied faces were waiting to attack two dizzy, dazed, and broken children.
They had nothing left to spare.
Not an ounce of energy. Not a shred of power.
Not a single—
“Alice,” Oliver gasped. “Oh, Alice. Bless you. Bless you,” he said, “bless you for getting us to the other side, you wonderful girl,” and he tugged a stoppick out of his bag, broke it in half with his teeth, turned back for only a moment, and threw it hard in the direction of their attackers.
Everything slowed.
The broken casings spun with no real speed, but the very presence of magic sent the ladies into a wild-eyed frenzy. They were salivating, faces distorted by tortured excitement as the magic drew closer, but their eagerness turned to anger as the remains of the stoppick froze and shattered in midair. The ladies shrieked and shrank back, clawing at their eyes, as tens of thousands of colorful threads fell from the sky and wove themselves across the land, creating a beautiful and terrifying barricade.
Alice couldn’t believe something so simple had worked. She also wondered where Oliver had gotten so much magic, and how much more he had left.
Oliver collapsed.
“Alice,” he said, “oh, Alice, you were ex
cellent. That could’ve gone so badly,” he said. “But you did so well.”
“That could’ve gone badly?” Alice was staring at him in shock, even as she crumpled to the ground. “You mean it could’ve gone worse than them nearly killing us? Oliver, have you gone mental?”
Oliver shook his head. He was on his hands and knees, trying to breathe. “You have no idea how much worse it could’ve been,” he said. “The first time I met the ladies of Still”—he laughed, wheezed—“I tried to be charming.”
“Oh, Oliver,” Alice said, cringing. “You didn’t.” She coughed twice and prayed for her legs to stop cramping.
“I did,” he said, sitting up. His breathing was a little better now, still broken, but evening out. “And it was a most thorough rejection. I did my best, but it proved impossible to persuade such a large number of ladies to believe anything I said.”
“So how did you get through?” she asked, as she, too, pushed herself up into a more comfortable position.
“Well, the first time I only broke free by accident. I was very nearly done for. They’d had me strip down to my underpants and climb into a pot over the fire—”
Alice gasped and covered her mouth with both hands.
“—because it had been a long time since they’d had any dinner, you see.”
“They were really going to eat you,” she cried, dropping her hands. “I still can’t believe—”
“Yes,” Oliver said, “but”—he held up one finger—“while they were busy trying to light the fire, one of the ladies tripped over my clothes and stepped on a few stoppicks that’d tumbled out, accidentally releasing their magic.” He waved his hand with a flourish. “They went mad. They were thrilled. All they want is magic, after all—it’s the central reason they want to eat us—but I hardly had time to be relieved before they were demanding more. More magic. Everything I had. They took me for every fink they could find and it still wasn’t enough. So they were going to eat me anyway.”
Alice was shaking her head in horror.
“Luckily, all their procrastination gave me time to form a better plan. I had one last stoppick tucked behind my ear, and I decided to put it to good use. I was outnumbered and would’ve been completely useless in any kind of battle; and as I had only a single stoppick—which isn’t enough magic to do much damage—I had to think quickly. A temporary barrier seemed like just the thing to help me get away.” Oliver nodded at the woven wall he’d built. “This will fade, eventually, but it’ll keep for at least several hours or so.” He laughed. “Good grief. Getting in and out of Still has proven a highly expensive endeavor, hasn’t it? Though I do hope I can say with some confidence that our lives were worth it,” he said, still laughing. Oliver was thrilled, grinning from cheek to cheek, feeling far too triumphant to notice the careful narrowing of Alice’s eyes.
Using magic to solve a problem felt like cheating. After all, not everyone had spare stoppicks just lying around, and it made Alice angry—now that she thought about it—to know that she’d need more than just courage to survive in Furthermore.
She pressed her lips together.
Alice had been considering Oliver’s finks and stoppicks for some time now, often wondering at his casual use of magic and his practiced skills in conjuring and manipulation. These were skills Alice never had access to, and not for a lack of wanting. She had, of course, taken basic classes on the harnessing and transformation of contained magic, but that was all theory. She’d never interacted with much raw magic, and when she did have a few finks her in pocket, they were very precious to her; she used them carefully and thoughtfully. Alice had never known anyone who could throw money around the way Oliver had in the last few hours, and she couldn’t imagine what that kind of luxury was like.
Thinking about money made Alice unspeakably sad. She still had much to learn in life, but she’d seen enough to know that money mattered, and though she didn’t understand the whole of it, she did understand that a few extra stoppicks in a pocket often made it easier to live. A thousand times Alice had wondered whether having money would’ve helped her find Father sooner, and thinking about it now put a pinch in her heart.
Alice bit her lip as she looked Oliver over, taking care to really notice him now. She squinted at the simple clothes he wore—the ones she’d so carelessly dismissed earlier—and this time noted the careful stitching, the heavy fabric, and the expertly tailored fit. She noticed his hands, smooth and unblemished, his nails clean and short and buffed. Her eyes roved over his shiny hair, his glowing brown skin, the healthy brightness in his blue-violet eyes. Alice was beginning to realize something about Oliver that she’d never realized before.
“Oliver,” she said quietly. “Are you very rich?”
Oliver blinked fast. “What?”
“Do you have a great deal of money?” she asked, valiantly ignoring the heat blooming in her cheeks.
“A great deal?” he said, eyes wide and surprised. “No,” he said. “I don’t think so. Not any more than most people, I imagine.”
Alice bit the inside of her cheek and swallowed back all the things she nearly said. Much more than me, she nearly said. I’ve never touched a stoppick in all my life, she nearly said.
“Oh,” was what she actually said.
Oliver wore a pained expression, his cheeks warmed by a truth neither one of them wished to acknowledge, and Alice was surprised to find that his discomfort bothered her. Embarrassed her, even. So she changed the subject.
“The town of Still seems so small compared to Slumber,” she said, staring at the colorful barricade Oliver had built. “Where are we now? Why isn’t anyone trying to eat us anymore?”
“Right! Yes!” Oliver said too loudly, relieved to be discussing something new. “Well! The villages in Furthermore are all built differently.” He nodded. “Some are big, some are small, some are very, very tall. But Still isn’t a proper village—and it’s not meant to be. Still is only home to one person.”
“One person?” said Alice. “But what about all the ladies who just tried to eat us?”
“Ah, well—the ladies of Still are just a security measure,” Oliver explained. “They’re here to protect the land from unwanted visitors. But the person we’re here to meet has no interest in eating anyone. In fact, he’s one of my few good friends in Furthermore.”
“Who is he?” she asked. “Who are we here to meet?”
Oliver met her gaze, the moon glinting behind him.
“Time.”
Alice sat there a moment longer, waiting for Oliver to tell her he was joking, when he tugged on her braid and said, “Narrow-mindedness, Alice, will do us no good.”
Alice scowled and slapped his hand away from her hair. “I’m not narrow-minded,” she said. “It’s just difficult for me to believe that we are actually about to meet Time.” She nearly rolled her eyes.
Oliver gasped—and very loudly.
His eyes were wide and horrified, and he dropped his voice to a whisper. “Listen closely,” he said. “Do not let those words leave your lips again. You do not disbelieve in Furthermore. Do it enough times and you’ll end up there.”
“End up where?”
“In Disbelief,” he said, and shuddered. “It’s a horrid town.”
Alice was afraid to ask him why, so she only nodded and said nothing more, keeping her disbelief to herself.
After their lungs had rested awhile, they walked on tired legs into the Still night, where birds were free to sing and crickets were free to dance and frogs would happily croak. They walked through grass that grew up to their knees and ponds that kicked quietly at their shores. Oliver stomped on and smiled at nothing in particular, while Alice distracted herself by peeking into the dark woods that crept just beyond, wondering all the while where everyone had gone, or if anyone had ever been, and what Time would look like, and would Time be nice, and what would happen i
f Time grew old? What would they do if Time died? And then she had a thought that wasn’t relevant at all, because she was reminded in a quiet moment that she’d been hungry—very hungry—not too long ago. Strange. She didn’t feel it at all anymore.
She mentioned this to Oliver.
“That’s not strange,” he said. “Eventually you’ll stop being hungry ever again.”
“Really?” she asked him. “But why?”
“Because the longer you stay in Furthermore, the farther you get from Ferenwood.”
“I don’t understand,” she said.
Oliver hesitated. Tilted his head.
“Back home in Ferenwood,” he explained, “we have to sleep every night and eat frequently throughout the day, don’t we?”
Alice nodded.
“Right. So, life without those two things,” he said, “would be impossible.”
“But not in Furthermore?”
Oliver shook his head. “In Furthermore you sleep for the dream and eat for the taste.”
Alice hesitated, considering his words.
“So when they eat people,” she said, “they do it only for the taste?”
Oliver was so caught off guard by her question that he laughed and coughed at the same time. “Well—no,” he said. “Not exactly. I have heard that humans have a very particular taste, and that the magical ones give the meals an extra kick”—Alice shuddered at the thought—“but,” Oliver said, holding a finger up in the air, “they eat people because their souls are empty, not their stomachs.
“Here, hunger and exhaustion don’t exist the way they do back home. The infrastructure of Furthermore was built with so much magic as to make the very air we breathe work differently—it makes it so food and sleep are no longer a necessity, but a luxury. It was an irreversible decadence that magically bankrupted the land. Now people can indulge in dinners and dreams only in the pursuit of pleasure. Because doing so for any other reason,” he said simply, “is considered a waste of—”