He was entirely at fault.
But between you and me, dear reader, I would dare to share my humble opinion that Oliver’s stupidity alone was flimsy reasoning for Alice abandoning her otherwise well-traveled, well-informed partner at such a critical juncture in the story. If Alice had any sense of self-preservation she would’ve waited for a safer moment (or a safer place) to have walked away; but Alice and Oliver had more in common than they realized: The two possessed passionate, rumpled spirits and they were both guilty of crimes committed of childish ignorance.
Alice had neither the maturity nor the self-awareness to wonder at Oliver’s ability to be such a consistently talented liar; she did not think his skills could be a symptom of some greater problem. So she couldn’t have known then that Oliver’s lies were motivated not by cruelty, but by fear. Fear of rejection, of abandonment, of interminable loneliness. There was very little she knew about his interior life, simply because she’d never asked.
Oliver, too, had made no effort to understand Alice. His young life had always been safe and boring and predictably comfortable; he’d never known the weight of grief or poverty. He did not understand that a broken heart long untended would eventually cease to beat. And Alice, whose heart had been badly broken for some years now, desperately needed a body upon which to unburden her pain. Tonight, she chose Oliver. In this moment, anger was a magic all its own: It gave Alice energy, adrenaline, and a distorted sense of self-righteousness that would, for a short time only, power her through a pair of unwise decisions.
Abandoning Oliver would be the first.
KEEP UP! THERE’S NO TIME TO WASTE!
Oliver Newbanks was equal parts terror and anguish. He’d dashed out of Tim’s home and was running around in a blind panic, checking under every lake and hill for a glimpse of his friend—but she was not to be found. If only Oliver had known where to go looking for Alice, he would have had no trouble finding her, as she was making no effort to disappear. In fact, she’d made quite a spectacle of herself when she thought no one was looking.
Alice was sitting on her bottom in the middle of the woods—her head dropped into one hand, her skirts bunched up to her knees—and was currently in the process of turning the entire forest an electrifying shade of blue. She’d changed the color of these woods several times now, but couldn’t decide which hue would do. And then, as she squinted up at the trees and allowed herself another brief, self-indulgent little cry, she thought, Oh, those leaves would look better in pink, wouldn’t they? and then turned the trunks pink, too. Playing with magic had always made her feel better.
Clever reader: I’m sure by now you’ve guessed it, haven’t you?
I know I’ve not kept it much of a secret—and maybe I should’ve done—but I’m glad you’ve guessed it, because I’d like to finally be able to say this honest thing: Despite her protests to the contrary, Alice’s gift was never to be a dancer. Her true magical ability was to be a living paintbrush.
Alice could change the colors of anything without lifting an eyelid. She could turn a person blue and a thing green and a place yellow and even though she should’ve been proud of her skill, she resented it. Hated it. Denied it so vehemently that she’d actually convinced herself it wasn’t a real talent. Because Alice—no-color Alice—could change the color of anything and everything but her own colorless self.
She was sure it was a magic that existed to mock her.
Still, the motions of making color always helped calm her heart, and when she’d finally had her fill, she dusted off her hands and dug through her pockets for the pamphlets she’d neglected to read earlier. She’d had enough of relying on Oliver to make all the decisions and to tell her where to go. She could figure it out on her own, she’d decided, especially now that she knew the basics of Furthermore. And besides, she had information right here, right in her hands; all she had to do was study it.
But Alice couldn’t focus.
Her hands were shaking and her thoughts were clouded and the truth was, she was scared. Alice had hoped to be brave—she’d hoped she was stronger than her fears—but Alice was injured on the inside; and though her anger kept her upright, it couldn’t keep her steady, and from moment to moment Alice would slip.
She was tired and she was worried and she was consumed by thoughts of Father, of what his life had been like these past years and how she’d ever reach him. He was in danger, she knew that now, but she also knew Furthermore would do its best to keep him from her. This would be no ordinary task, she was realizing, and suddenly the seriousness of it all was weighing down on her. She wasn’t sure she was strong enough to save anyone anymore, not even herself.
Alice ran absent hands across her face and rubbed at her eyes. She picked up her pamphlets, put them down, and picked them up again. She wanted to rest, but there was no time for that. She wanted to bathe, but there was no time for that, either. She felt tattered and dirty and she desperately needed a washing but there was Father to think of. Father whom she loved. Father who left when she needed him most. Father who got lost and couldn’t find his way back to her. There was never a day she didn’t think of him. Never a day she didn’t need him.
She missed him with a fierceness that crippled her sometimes. She missed everything about him, about them, about how they used to be. She missed the way they used to fight, she and he, every day.
He would tell her she was beautiful and she’d call him a liar and they would argue until she gave in. He never let her win, never let her convince him she was right. He fought harder for her than she ever fought for herself.
Alice closed her eyes.
“Enough,” Father said, shaking his head. He was pacing around the room. He was angry: His cheeks flushed, his eyes pinched, his brows furrowed. “I hate hearing you talk about yourself like this. You’re a blank canvas, Alice. No person is better primed for color than you are.”
Alice looked up at him, frustrated and exhausted. “Then when?” she asked. “When will I have color of my own? When will I look like you and Mother?”
“Darling Alice,” he said, reaching for her. “Why must you look like the rest of us? Why do you have to be the one to change? Change the way we see. Don’t change the way you are.”
“But how?” she asked, her little fists clenched around his fingers. She tugged him closer. “How can I do that, Father?”
“You’re an artist.” He smiled. “You can paint the world with the color inside of you.”
The memories tugged on her joints; her fists unclenched. Her heart ached.
It was a moment of weakness, and she allowed it. She felt she’d earned it. She’d decided long ago that life was a long journey. She would be strong and she would be weak, and both would be okay.
So she bit the inside of her cheek, let her chin fall against her chest, raked all ten fingers through her knotted, tangled hair, and she let herself feel weak.
But then—
Well, it was strange, she’d just realized, that she hadn’t thought much of her white hair at all lately. Certainly not as much as she used to. Before coming to Furthermore Alice could seldom move from moment to moment without being reminded of her nothing-hair and her nothing-skin. But not here. In fact, it struck her as silly now, to be bothered by her missing colors. What did it matter what she looked like when she had purpose?
She sat up a little straighter.
So what if Oliver was a liar? So what if she’d failed her Surrender? So what if she was lost in a strange land with no idea how to get home? Father needed her, and need didn’t care what nothing looked like. Alice had a proper mission now, and she would not back down. She would fight harder for Father than he could fight for himself.
Nothing would stand in her way.
Alice had only managed to take one step forward before the fox found her again.
He seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, suddenly sitting in front of h
er, proper paper tail wagging in the fading light. He looked calm and sweet and bowed his head every time Alice looked at him. She wanted to pick him up and take him home.
Alice could hear the ghost of Oliver’s voice in her head advising her to be careful. She could almost picture the fear in his face, the warning in his eyes. But Alice didn’t care about Oliver’s advice anymore and she was determined to prove she could make wiser decisions without him.
She bent down in front of the paper fox and scratched him (or her?) under the chin; the rough copper-colored paper felt strange and warm against her fingers. He seemed to like that, so she pet him between the ears and he nuzzled right into her hand.
“Hello, Fox,” she said.
Fox jumped back, bit her skirts, and crinkled his paper nose at her feet.
Alice laughed and felt the cracks in her heart mend, bit by bit.
She took it as a sign. Maybe the fox was the thing Oliver had missed. Maybe the fox was sent especially for her.
What if the fox was trying to lead her to Father?
Alice already knew what Oliver would say about her theory, and even his imaginary condescension made her angry. So she made a sudden decision.
“Fox,” she said. The fox yipped and its paper tongue lolled. “Fox, will you take me to my father?”
The fox nodded eagerly.
Alice clapped her hands together in joy. “Oh, you do know what I’m saying, don’t you?” she asked.
Again, the fox nodded.
“So you’ll help me?” she said. “Will you help me save Father?”
Once more, the fox nodded.
Alice cried out and wrapped her arms around the fox. “Thank you!” she said. “Oh, thank you!”
The fox jumped around and yipped again and was already bounding ahead of her through the forest, turning back every few feet to make sure she was following. Alice didn’t know what was waiting for her but she was excited to be taking charge and making decisions for once. She felt certain that this was right, that she would make her way through Furthermore in a way Oliver couldn’t. Oliver had never even made it to Father, so what did he know about saving him? She was sure that this fox was the key.
This optimism carried her through the next half hour.
Wherever the fox lived, it was far from where he found her, and the farther they went, the stranger the landscape became. Alice assumed they were still in Still, but she couldn’t be sure. For just a fleeting moment Alice caught herself wishing Oliver was around to tell her where they were headed, but she quickly checked the impulse and focused instead on her certainty that the fox would help her find Father.
But the truth was, she was beginning to worry.
The ground beneath her was losing its grass, becoming sparer and drier as they went. Night had tilted into day, and the sun swung back into the sky. Heat filled the gaps in everything, and though Alice felt her instincts prick, denial kept her from registering the warning.
Alice was in a daze by minute thirty-four, one foot following the other and neither knowing their way. She blinked once, twice, so many times before the horizon stood upright and everything slipped sideways. It was strange, she thought, so very, very strange, how her feet kept moving even when she didn’t want them to. Not only did she not want them to keep moving, she wanted them to do the very opposite of keep-moving, but there was no one to tell her feet anything at all, as her mind was always missing when she needed it most.
Her throat was awfully dry.
She licked her lips and the sky flew in and filled her up, so hot it stuck to her teeth. The earth beneath her was crisping at the edges, every inch fried sunny-side up.
Oh, it was hot.
Horribly, suffocatingly hot.
Alice ached for miles from heel to toe, wincing in the blinding light of what seemed an endless summer, and wondered, in a moment of clarity, if Oliver was worried about her.
She had no idea where she was.
She tried to look around but the moment she turned her head she was flat on the ground. She was pancake thin, plastered to the earth; she was physically impossible. She was suffocated by her eyes, her lips, the length of her face, the impossible weight of her bones and the skin that zipped her in too tightly. She was too human, too many dimensions for this world, and she only realized her eyes were closed when she decided it would be wise to wrench them open.
Sheer force of will pried her eyelids apart. She gasped and wheezed, her eyesight flattening at the edges, and when she blinked again, once more, and three and four times after that, she found herself staring upside down at a bright paper sun stapled to a spinning, glittery thread. She couldn’t have known it at the time, but Alice had just come upon the village of Print, a two-dimensional town that could not sustain her.
Alice sat up slowly, reaching one arm forward to steady herself, and heard the crunch and rustle of something very wrong; her eyes shuttered, broke open, and focused on a world made entirely of paper everything. Paper clouds chugged alongside a paper sun, their bottoms taped to the tops of red-and-white-striped straws. A crumpled, folded-and-refolded half-moon was pinned to the blue construction-paper backdrop. Paper trees stood tall and not, and fat and not, and animals hop-walked around parallelograms of pasture. Homes were rectangles and triangles stapled together, chimneys puffing swirls of smoky tissue straight into the sky. Hills were pasted, one on top of the other, in different shades of green, and stick-figured people stomped around flat and sideways, an entire dimension of being snipped right off.
It was confounding. Astounding. She was out of breath with excitement. Amazement. Alice had no idea she was in danger—how could she? Eagerly, she leaned into her arm to push herself up and onto her feet, but fell forward, her arm now limp where a limb should be. And when she looked down at herself, she felt the strangest sensation.
She heard the strangest sound.
Alice was very likely screaming, though if you ask her about this today, she denies it, and I don’t know why. Pride, I suppose. I’d not guilt her for screaming had she done so; her histrionics would have been for good reason. The fox, you will remember, was still with her, except that he now had Alice’s arm in his mouth, and was very desperately trying to tug her sideways into his paper world. Alice was on the cusp of entering the village of Print, and she was still suffering the effects of being just close enough to a village that could collapse her. She was now moments from being dragged inside and made two-dimensional forever, and she was fighting for her life.
It was Fox against Alice.
Alice tugged and tugged, but it was difficult to know how hard to fight, because in so many ways she felt nothing. Part of her felt half real. Paper-thin. She could only sort of feel the pain of being pulled in different directions, because some part of her had suddenly become something else, and she didn’t know what that was. She hadn’t realized that the fox had managed to pull one of her arms all the way through to the two-dimensional town, and it wasn’t until she heard a great roaring rip that she understood how tremendously wrong all this had become.
Technically, she won the fight.
The fox was scampering away, so Alice must’ve won the fight. Why, then, was Alice screaming so much louder now? (Again, she denies this.) What was there to shout about? And while we’re asking questions, I’d like to wonder, why, in that very same moment, was Alice feeling so much regret?
Well, I will tell you what I think.
I think Alice was wishing she’d never run away from Tim and Oliver. I think she was wishing she’d never left Ferenwood at all. I think she was wishing Furthermore had never existed and that she’d never had a twelfth birthday and that she’d never Surrendered the wrong talent.
Oh, I think Alice was filled with all kinds of regret.
She ran blindly, wildly, charging back down an impossible path of impossible gravity, one foot pounding harder than the othe
r in the blazing heat of an impossible sun.
Alice was sorry.
She was sorry for everything. She was sorry Mother didn’t love her and sorry Father had left her and sorry for ever thinking she could save him. Alice ran until she tripped, until she fell to her knees and her face hit the ground, until she felt tears falling fast down her face. Only then did Alice understand true loss.
Only then did she discover she was missing an entire arm.
She wasn’t bleeding, and this was the first thing Alice noticed. The second thing she noticed was that her right arm had been ripped off at the shoulder, and as she was only now beginning to regain the full use of her mind, the third thing she noticed was that she had been partly turned to paper.
Where blood should have been there were instead wisps of tissue, and where bone should have been there was instead a strange breeze. And though she felt the inclination to bend her arm, to make a fist, to shake herself out of hysteria and tell herself to stop crying—(It’s alright, I’m alive, I’ll survive, she would say)—she could do nothing but stare at the space where something important once was. And then, dear friends, the fourth thing she noticed:
Her bangles were gone.
The loss of an arm and an entire arm’s worth of bangles (the latter, of course, being the greater loss) was too much to digest, especially like this. Like this: her head aching from the hit, her legs cramping from the run; still climbing to her feet and stumbling to stay upright, still moving, now panting, two short legs trying not to trip; her two feet pounding the earth, hard hits like heartbeats against the cracked dirt beneath them. She was off balance, unsteady with only one arm but she wouldn’t stop, she wouldn’t think, she refused to acknowledge any of this, not even for a moment, not until the dirt turned back into grass and the sun fell over sideways and night climbed over day and she was back where she started, forever moving forward just to move backward in time.