Paramint had frozen solid with full words still stuck in his mouth. To his great credit, he thawed rather quickly, and said, “Is there something else I might offer you, your honorableness?”
Alice thought for a moment and said, “Do you have any tulips?”
“We . . .” Paramint looked a little confused, but mostly he looked terrified of disappointing her, which made Alice feel awful. “Well, your honorableness, we have, um, we do have a great many flowers, but none in bloom at this hour, I’m afraid.”
“Dear Paramint,” said Oliver, “please don’t concern yourself with the flowers. Alice is only teasing you,” he said, shooting her a swift look that said, Let me handle this. “Perhaps we’ll skip the main tasting this evening, and go straight for the desserts,” Oliver said. “It’s been a long journey, and something sweet sounds nice.”
“Oh, a fine idea, your honorableness!” Paramint was so excited he actually jumped in place. “A fine idea! I’ll bring out a great selection of cakes and pies and muffins for you to feast on!” He was smiling with every bit of his face, so eager to do anything to make them happy. “Is there any other good thing I might do for you, your honorablenesses? Perhaps after you’re done tasting, you’d like some time to dream?”
This last bit caught Alice’s attention, and she was nodding before she’d even asked for details. “That sounds wonderful,” she said. “I would dearly love to dream.”
“Very good, your honorableness,” said Paramint, beaming. “So very, very good. I shall return swiftly.” And with a bow and another smile, Paramint was gone.
Alice immediately turned to Oliver, overcome with excitement. “I’ve missed dreaming so much! I dearly love dreaming, you know. It’s my favorite part of sleeping.”
Oliver laughed. “I can’t believe you’re more excited about sleeping than you are about dessert.”
“Oh,” said Alice, distracted. “That reminds me. What is a filet mignon, exactly?”
Oliver froze, his mouth caught open in a neat little O. “Nothing you need to worry about,” he said hastily. “Nothing at all.”
Alice had never realized what a pleasure it could be to simply wake up in the morning. She and Oliver hadn’t stayed in any town long enough to enjoy the luxury of sleeping (or dreaming), and now, for the first time in what felt like a very, very long time, she blinked open bleary eyes and yawned her way into dawn, stretching one arm and two legs as far as they’d go.
She was muddled and foggy and still a little dozy, but she was happier than she’d ever been in Furthermore, and feeling ready to face the beginning of another endless day.
Alice sprang to her feet and headed to Paramint’s private toilets (which he’d said they might use) and splashed fresh water on her face, stopping to taste the few drops that fell on her lips.
Minty, she thought.
She’d dreamt all night long: topsy-turvy dreams no doubt inspired by her days in Furthermore. She’d been running upside down, her feet stomping along the ceilings of homes she didn’t recognize, chasing a man she thought to be Father. The problem was, every time she got close enough, Oliver would pop out of a window and rip her arm off, and she’d lose track of Father all over again. She’d had to remind herself three times already not to be angry with Oliver for being such a nuisance in her dreams, and just as she was reminding herself for the fourth time, she stepped out of the toilets to find him waiting for her.
“Good morning,” she said with a smile.
“Good morning,” said Oliver, but he looked awful. Half asleep and a little sickly. “Excuse me, Alice,” he said, and nodded toward the toilets. “May I? I’m afraid I’m not feeling very well.”
“Oh, Oliver,” she said. “Is there anything I can do?”
He made a weak effort to shake his head. “I think I’ll just rest here a while, and hope the feeling passes.” He rubbed at his face. “I vow I shall never eat a pie again,” he said, and tried to laugh.
Alice gave him a sympathetic look and nodded. While she’d taken only a few tastes, Oliver had tasted nearly half of everything Paramint brought them last night. She’d asked Oliver several times to take care—which is likely the only reason he hadn’t devoured all ten cakes, seven pies, fifteen muffins, and four puddings—and now she was glad to have guilted him so. She hadn’t known Oliver had such a fondness for these decadent things, though he certainly seemed sorry for it this morning. She patted him on the shoulder and let him pass.
While Oliver locked himself in the toilets, Alice tidied up the rest of the house. She hoped it would be their last day here, so she wanted to do good by Paramint and make sure they left his home just as nice as it was when they arrived. She rolled up the dreaming-bags Paramint brought them (they were little sacks with pillows sewn all along the insides, very soft and cozy), and rearranged all his papers, careful to fold away the list they’d made for Father. She tucked the list into the pocket of her new silk gown (which, for a gown, had proven very comfortable) and then sat down on the pumpkin-orange couch, and waited for Paramint and Oliver.
Except she soon tired of waiting and decided to step outside.
It was a beautiful day, just as she’d expected. The sun had only barely begun to rise, and the land of Left was already in bloom. Its occupants scurried about, hanging freshly laundered clothes and buying freshly baked bread and stopping to chat with neighbors about one fascinating topic or another. The sight of it all made her miss home more than ever.
“Good day to you, your honorableness!” It was an eager and smiling Paramint, who seemed surprised to find her up so early.
“Good day to you, too, Paramint,” she said, smiling just as wide.
“Did you dream well?” he asked. “Did you enjoy the tasting?”
“Yes to both,” she said happily. Then, more quietly, “Though I’m afraid Oliver may have tasted a bit too much.”
Paramint’s eyes went wide for just a moment before he laughed a hearty laugh. “This is excellent news, your honorableness! I’m thrilled to hear he enjoyed himself.”
Alice didn’t have the heart to tell him that Oliver’s enjoyment was short-lived. “He certainly did,” she said. “Thank you again.”
“You’re quite welcome!” Paramint was bouncing up and down on his toes, bursting with excitement. “Well, I can’t keep it in any longer, your honorableness!”
“Keep wh—”
“We have GREAT news, your honorableness. GREAT NEWS!”
“Oh?”
“Yes, indeed, today will be the MOST excellent day, your honorableness. Last night we had the MOST exciting evening, and today we’ve had the MOST exciting morning. Such INCREDIBLE news!”
“How . . . lovely,” Alice said politely. She couldn’t articulate why, exactly, but Paramint’s eagerness was making her uncomfortable. “I do hope good things are in store for the land of Left.”
“They are! The best things! The very BEST things!”
“Well, that’s very nice. I better get back t—”
“You,” Paramint said, wagging a finger at her. “You have done a very bad thing, your honorableness. A very, very bad thing! But your bad thing has been the best news for the land of Left! The best news!”
Alice swallowed hard, forcing herself to speak even with the surge of panic seizing her body. “I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about,” she managed to say.
Paramint laughed and laughed. “You’ve broken the law! You’ve stolen time! Hours and hours you’ve stolen! We were notified just last night that we had a criminal in our midst.” He beamed. “The land of Left! Can you believe it? Our visitor—a criminal! Oh, you’ve made us famous, your honorableness. We’ve not been contacted by the Elders for fifty-six years,” he said, “and now, here we are, with a visitor who brings attention to our land! What a day, what a day!”
“Is that what you’re happy about?” Alice nearly c
ollapsed with relief. “Well,” she said meekly, “I’m certainly glad to be of service.”
Paramint lowered his voice and leaned in. “Now, we’re going to do our best to keep the Elders from arresting you, but we can’t hold them off for long. We’ll have to be quick about things! So come with me, come with me—lots to do!”
Alice refused to move. “What do you mean? Where are we going?”
“To prepare the feast, of course!” cried Paramint. “We wouldn’t normally plan the feast until the end of your stay,” he said in a low voice, “but now that we know you’ve broken the law, there’s no reason to wait. Besides, your getting arrested will only complicate matters,” he said, waving a hand. “But if we take care of things before the authorities arrive, everyone will be so pleased! The queens haven’t had a full meal in far too long, and you and your friend are sure to satisfy a large appetite. The twincesses will be thrilled!”
Alice stood frozen, sick with fright, and nodded as best she could before Paramint—kindly old Paramint—darted away, expecting her to follow. Alice’s skin was clammy with cold sweat and sudden, horrible, slithering fear, and she could feel her throat beginning to close. Why she had ever allowed herself to feel safe in Furthermore she did not know, but now she knew there was only one thing left to do.
Run.
Alice flew back into the room as fast as she could, heart beating hard, hoping she could get to Oliver and out the door before Paramint ever came back. She pounded on the toilet door, shouting Oliver’s name several times, but there was no answer. She had no choice but to break a very important rule in Furthermore and open the door without permission.
Thank heavens she did.
Oliver was lying on the floor, half conscious, mostly limp, and extremely heavy. He looked half dead already. Suddenly her talk with Paramint put everything in perspective: This was no matter of overindulgence. Paramint had tried to poison them in preparation for the impending feast. He wanted them weak and pliant; he wanted them drugged. And it took every bit of strength she had to keep from panicking.
Instead, she slapped Oliver in the face.
He blinked his eyes open.
“Oliver,” she said (still trying—and failing—not to panic), “Oliver, please—please wake up, please wake up—”
“I’m sorry, Alice,” he said, breathing hard, “I’m afraid I’m not”—he swallowed—“not feeling very well.”
“Yes, yes, I know, dear friend, but you must get to your feet,” she said. “Please, please try to get to your feet, because we need to go. We must leave right this instant.”
“What?” Oliver blinked at her again. “Why, Alice? What’s the matter?”
Alice hesitated, terrified, then said, “They want to eat us.”
Oliver’s eyes flew open. He knew better than to waste time asking why. Maybe at another time, in a different state of mind, Oliver might’ve been able to persuade them out of this, but he was painfully sick and not himself, and she knew she couldn’t ask him to save their lives.
For the second time, she had to save him.
And somehow, even now, during one of the most terrifying moments of her life, she felt a rush of true affection for Oliver, because she knew he’d decided right then to put his life in her hand(s), and to follow her lead.
“Let’s go,” he said. And in an act of great determination, he pulled himself to his feet.
Alice slung his bag over his shoulder, his heavy arm over her shoulder, and allowed Oliver to lean against her much-smaller frame. And though at any other time this might have seemed impossible, their weights didn’t matter now; they were both adrenaline from head to foot, and moving on instinct.
Still, Alice felt like it took forever to reach the front door. In her mind their every slow movement brought Paramint closer, and every sudden sound meant Paramint was around the corner, waiting to pounce. In fact, Alice was so focused on outrunning Paramint that it hadn’t even occurred to her where they’d go to outrun him; not until they reached the door, and Oliver said,
“Where now, Alice?”
But she didn’t know.
She was in a real panic. She looked left, looked right: They were surrounded on all sides by the busy bodies making up the land of Left, and there was no other place to go, no other person to trust. Eggshell homes had been strung from nearly every branch as far as she could see, and there was no doubt in her mind that if they tried to hide here, they would too easily be found. For a moment Alice even considered turning everything black again—after all, it had worked on the foxes—but they were not on flat land, which made everything more dangerous. Alice and Oliver would be running across a series of treetops—it would be too dangerous to run blindly; one misstep and they’d plummet to their deaths.
But maybe—
Maybe they stayed put. Maybe they stayed here and bided their time, played nice with Paramint until they formed a real plan—until Oliver was feeling better and could persuade them to have someone else for dinner. Maybe they’d be able to think more clearly in a couple of hours. After all, Paramint wanted to plan a feast. They wouldn’t be eaten in the next five minutes.
Maybe Alice had gotten ahead of herself; she was too anxious and panicked; she was sure that was it. In fact, now she was sure they would do better to stay. Racing around with no rational plan couldn’t help them at all, she thought. So she exhaled a deep breath and glanced back at the eggshell home, ready to tell Oliver her new idea.
Except that when she glanced back, there stood Paramint, hovering just to the side of his own front door, smiling at her in a way that she no longer trusted. He carried in one hand a very large linen sack. And, in the other, a very large butcher knife.
Something inside of Alice screamed, but she didn’t say a word.
Paramint’s eyes were locked on to hers, and when he next spoke, his voice was suddenly too high, too happy, all wrong. “Where are you going, your honorableness?”
At any other time, they might’ve been able to dash past Paramint and head back from whence they came, but Oliver could barely stand, much less sprint. Alice scanned the forest floor for options and found little solace in the thousand-foot fall below them. Oliver had said that falling in Furthermore was too anticlimactic to be deadly, but Alice felt certain that this drop would be an exception. After all, if it were safe to fall so far, why was the seamstress pushed off the branch?
All these thoughts rushed through Alice’s mind in only a snip of a second, but this last question reminded Alice of something she’d nearly forgotten. It was something Ancilly had said—something she sang.
I fell into the sky one day
And it didn’t hurt at all
I fell into the sky one day
But I didn’t fall at all
Was it possible? Was Ancilly trying to tell her how to escape?
Well, Alice had no idea, but trusting Ancilly was her only option at the moment, as Paramint was still holding a butcher knife within slicing distance. Alice was out of options and fully tapped of time but she’d not yet lost her hope. So she took a deep breath and whispered,
“Fall, Oliver, fall.”
And they did.
She and Oliver clung to each other as they fell, and in her mind Alice was already apologizing to him for being the reason he died. Alice was half hope, half horror, split vertically down the middle about her chances at survival. She wanted to believe there was merit to Ancilly’s song, but how could she? She was currently plummeting to her death. Worse still, this didn’t feel anything like flying. This felt like dying. Though at least this death, Alice thought, would be a less brutal one. Alice had no interest in being eaten.
So there they were: falling to their deaths.
Neither one of them screamed (as it seemed to serve no purpose), and all Alice saw were Oliver’s eyes, wide and scared and sad, so she closed her own, wrapped her single arm m
ore tightly around his, and prayed for a quick, relatively painless exit from these worlds. But no matter how dramatic they tried to make the moment—muscles tensed, whispering quiet good-byes to the ones they loved—their imminent demise was running a bit late.
Eventually Alice opened her eyes and found that Oliver had, too. They were indeed still falling, and there was indeed a ground coming up beneath them, but something strange was happening, too: The farther they fell, the slower the fall, and soon they weren’t rushing to the ground at all, but floating; floating, gently and steadily, all the way down.
They landed on the forest floor with their feet flat on the ground. She and Oliver were so surprised to still be alive that they spent the first few moments just staring at each other.
“Are you alright?” Alice finally said. Oliver was standing on his own now, and he looked wide awake. “Are you feeling okay?”
Oliver nodded. “I think that just scared the sick out of me.”
“Well, thank heavens for small presents,” Alice said, now feeling weak in the knees. She sank to the ground.
“You don’t think they’ll jump after us, do you?” said Oliver.
Alice looked up, startled. “I don’t—”
“They might,” said a voice she didn’t recognize.
Alice jumped straight up and back and hit her head against Oliver’s chest. His heart was beating as hard as hers; he steadied her shoulder against him, and they both looked toward the stranger.
The voice had come from a woman, the likes of which Alice had never seen before—except perhaps in a mirror. She was pale as moonlight and exceptionally tall, and she wore a cloak made entirely of golden leaves: vibrant yellow, dingy mustard, lemon and honey and saffron and sunlight. The leaves layered together looked like a collection of slivered wings, creating the illusion of something both monstrous and beautiful, all at once.
The lengths of the stranger’s robes dragged beneath her, swallowing up her arms and legs; only her hands—paler even than Alice’s—could still be seen. The hood of her cloak, also created from leaves, did not mask her face; she wore her hood only halfway, and the long, impossibly yellow locks of her hair—nearly indistinguishable from her hood—fell to her shoulders, and her face, ghostly white, was lit only by a pair of matching golden eyes.