That morning, Alice had been learning Wait. Wait was short for wait-until-I-say-the-magic-word-before-you-eat. It was a measure of how clever Alice was that before the lesson was over she could wait for a slow count of five without falling upon the scrap of bacon I had placed before her. The magic word was Crunch. I thought this might be a useful thing for her to know, should someone offer her comestibles that would not agree with her. I hoped this would never happen, but there was no accounting for the vagaries of humankind, or so Uncle Bart frequently muttered while reading The Times over his breakfast eggs.
When I heard Mrs Manifold calling me I ran through the little passage, trying to tidy my hair as I went and hoping I would not be in trouble. Mrs M stood outside the dining room with a covered platter in her hands and a harried look on her face.
“You’re late,” she said, looking me up and down. “Your uncle has a visitor. Did you wash your face and hands?”
“Yes, Mrs Manifold,” I lied.
There followed a tedious luncheon during which Uncle Bart and his guest, a fellow scientist, discussed at length a paper on the topic of phrenology, which had to do with interpreting bumps on the head. I could not imagine why anyone would want to study such a thing, but I knew better than to say so. In fact, I said nothing at all, but worked my way through a somewhat better meal than usual, thanks to the presence of my uncle’s learned friend. It was not until I was finishing my stewed apple and custard that I realised I had left Alice in the ballroom on her own.
I set my napkin down and waited for a pause in the conversation. “Uncle Bart, may I please be excused from the table?”
“What lovely manners,” commented the learned friend with a condescending smile.
“Go, go, by all means, child,” said Uncle Bart, evidently keen to return to the topic of head bumps. I fled. Not through the little passage, since Mrs M was nearby, but the long way, out of the house, around the stone pathway, into the ballroom through the big door that did not quite close properly.
“Alice!” I called. “Alice, come!”
No reply. All was still.
I commenced a search. The ballroom housed a miscellany of old furniture, draped with protective sheets. I crawled under things, I climbed over things, I squeezed behind things. From time to time I called, “Alice!” I had not realised so many spiders lived in the ballroom. As I was pulling the last of the cobwebs from my hair I heard muffled barking. It was coming from the little passage.
I tiptoed over, not wishing to startle Alice into flight. When I looked in, nobody was there, only shadows. But the blue door, the door Uncle Bart had said must always stay closed, stood ajar. A cold draught came from within, making me shiver. Alice barked again. She was in there. In the place beyond the door.
There was only one choice. Alice was my dog. She was my responsibility, and I must bring her back. Courage, I told myself. It’s a rescue mission. An adventure. I walked up to the blue door, pushed it wide open and walked on through.
I had expected a hallway, a chamber or steps to a cellar. Instead, I found myself outside. But this was not the garden of Wraithwood Hall, though here, too, it was winter. Snow lay in drifts around towering trees, enough to make a monstrous snowman. Icicles hung from the branches, shining as if with their own light. I could hear a rustling, as if something was moving about up above, keeping an eye on me. I stared in wonder. This was a place from a strange fairy tale. It surely could not be real. Yet here it was, only one step from home. I had walked into a true adventure.
Alice, I reminded myself. Find Alice. There was no sound from her now, but across the carpet of snow was a trail of neat pawprints, heading towards a round bush, all prickles and berries. It looked somewhat like an oversized hedgehog.
“Alice!” I called. My voice sounded monstrously loud. The rustling from above ceased. “Where are you?”
The prickle bush lurched to its feet and began to move towards me. The feet were gnarled and knobby, and the gait was that of an infirm old man. This was becoming odder by the moment.
“Ah, a young person.” The bush had a voice to match its walk. “We are not often graced with such a visit these days. Welcome, welcome! Sit down, make yourself comfortable.”
I discerned beady eyes deep in the foliage, and perhaps a twiggy nose. There was nowhere to sit except on the ground in the snow. Fearing to offend my host, I sat. “Have you seen a little dog?” I asked. “Her name is Alice and she came this way. She is very young and will be easily lost.”
“It is customary to begin a conversation with introductions,” said the creature. “My name is—it is—oh dear. It has been so long since I had a visitor that I cannot remember.”
“Oh, how sad,” I said, wondering how long it might be before Uncle Bart started to forget his own name. I must make sure I called him by it at least three times a day. “Would you like a new name? I could give you one.”
If a bush could blush, this one did so. The edges of his leaves turned pink, and his berries glowed. “Oh, yes!” he said in tones of such awe that I might have been offering a chest full of pirate treasure or The Complete Works of William Shakespeare in a collector’s edition. “Oh, that would be very fine indeed!”
A name was quite a responsibility. It had to contain the essence of the individual’s character, which meant something like Prickly would not do at all. “I’ll need to ask you some questions first,” I said. The snow was soaking into my skirt, all the way through my undergarments to my skin. I could not hear Alice at all.
“Ask away.”
“What is your job here? What is your responsibility in this—this interesting place?”
“I guard. I protect. I keep watch. Small folk hide in me or shelter under me. My fruit keeps them alive in the long winter.”
“And in summer?”
The creature sighed; all his leaves trembled. “In summer I rest, so I will be strong when the winter comes. Tiny folk rest in my shade.”
This was a very important personage. Clearly the small folk could not survive without him. Such a being could not be given an ordinary name, such as John or Cedric or Charles. “I think your name could be Trusty,” I said. “Would that be acceptable?”
“Rusty?”
“No, no—Trusty with a T. Because everyone trusts you, or they would not hide in you or shelter under you or eat your fruit. You are the guardian of the woods.”
“Trusty with a T. That is an excellent name. I thank you.” The creature seemed to bow; his leaves all tilted a little in my direction.
“Trusty, could you help me to find my dog, Alice? She is about this big”—I motioned with my hands—“and her fur is three colours: white, black and russet. She has long ears and a plumy tail.”
Before Trusty could respond, a terrible shrieking broke out, the high-pitched cry of a small animal in deathly peril. I whirled to see an enormous owl seated on a branch nearby. The bird’s great eyes were most curious. In one I could see the face of a clock, with a full set of Roman numerals, and in the other was a pair of scales in perfect balance. There was no time to reflect upon this oddity, for the bird held in its beak a tiny struggling creature. It had a tri-coloured coat, long ears and a plumy tail. It was no bigger than a mouse.
“That’s Alice!” I cried. “Oh, please don’t eat her!” The owl blinked solemnly, making no attempt to reply. If it had opened its beak to do so, I could have dashed across the clearing and caught Alice as she fell. I turned towards Trusty. “Why is she so small?”
“Your little friend has more curiosity than is advisable in one so young,” said Trusty. “She has eaten two of my silver berries, and as a consequence has diminished quite considerably. Indeed, she is now too small to furnish a satisfactory dinner for an owl. Let her go!” This command was intended for the owl, and the bird was startled into obedience. Alice plummeted towards the ground; I dived and caught her, rolling to land in a pile of snow. My shoulder hurt, but Alice was safe. Or as safe as a creature the size of a mouse can be. Those
silver berries were indeed powerful. I must make sure my dog ate no more of them or she would be shrunk to the proportions of a flea.
Holding Alice between my cupped palms, I took a closer look at Trusty. The silver berries were all on his left side. On the right were berries of rich deep purple. “What happens if someone eats the purple berries?” I asked.
“A foolish question.” The owl’s voice was undeniably female. “Use your powers of logic and deduction, infant. Tut, tut, whatever do they teach children in school these days?”
“I don’t go to school. I have a tutor.” I failed utterly to keep the wobble from my voice as I spoke these words. Froggy would be back tonight, and I still had no lock on my door.
“This tutor has not taught you much,” said the owl. “Why not feed your animal a purple berry and observe the result? That way you answer your own question.”
“Because I love Alice, and I would rather have a mouse-sized dog than a dead one. How do I know those are not poison berries?”
“Did you not name me Trusty with a T?” It sounded as if the bushy creature was smiling. “Feed her one purple berry, as the bird suggests. You may require two, since she took two of the silver. She can eat them safely.”
Alice was shivering hard. She’d had a terrible fright. I could only hope this would teach her a lesson. I plucked one purple berry and set the tiny fruit before her on my palm. “Wait,” I said, and counted to five. “Crunch!”
“Oh, very good!” exclaimed Trusty, as Alice snatched up the berry on command and devoured it as if she had not been fed for weeks. She was immediately larger. But not big enough; she had grown only to the size of a small kitten. I waited a little, wanting to be sure a second berry was necessary. It seemed it was. I put it on my palm. To do so, I had to move Alice to my other hand. I kept her within reach of the fruit.
“Alice, wait.”
“One, two, three, four, five,” chanted Trusty and the owl in unison.
“Crunch!”
The berry was gone, and Alice was back to her normal size again, the size of a puppy just old enough to leave its mother and go to a new home. “Thank you!” I said, curtseying first to Trusty and then to the owl. “It has been good to meet you. I had best take Alice back to… to the place where we live.”
“Oh, so soon?” The owl sounded mournful. Yet she had given no sign of taking any liking to me. I eyed her, wondering what life would be like in this world beyond the blue door, and what parting gift might be appropriate for a bird whose meal I had, in effect, snatched from her jaws, or rather, beak. I wanted to leave my new acquaintances on good terms.
“May I know your name?” It had worked before; perhaps it would again.
“My name is Madame Eye.” The owl spoke in a grand tone, as if she had been reading too many dramatic plays.
“That is unusual,” I said. “But then, your eyes are quite remarkable.”
The owl turned her large orbs on me. “I for Inevitability. I am Inevitability J. Moon-Fleet.”
“Oh! That is a magnificent name! Does the J stand for Justice?” With the scales in one eye and the clock in the other—is not the passage of time inevitable?—this seemed likely.
An owl cannot smile, but I sensed a softening in Madame I’s expression. “That was well deduced,” she said.
There was a silence. Both of them were looking at me, expecting something. After a little, the owl asked, “And what is your name?”
I really had forgotten my manners. “Dorothea. It means a gift from God. Only… sometimes I think God has forgotten to watch over me. Maybe He has fallen asleep.” I held back the words that wanted to spill out. How could these two possibly help? “I must go now. I must take Alice back.” My voice trembled.
“Dorothea,” said Trusty, “I see tears in your eyes. Why are you afraid?”
The owl shifted on her branch, staring down at me. “Trust. Inevitability. Justice. Now is the time to speak, child.”
So I did. About Froggy—Master Frederick—and the strange pictures he showed me late at night when he came tapping on my door, and his clammy hands, and what he had said he would do when I was a big girl of eleven, and how I couldn’t tell Uncle Bart or Mrs Manifold or anyone because I couldn’t make myself say the words. And how even if I had a lock for my bedchamber it wouldn’t be enough because I had lessons with Froggy every day, and sometimes in the middle of a lesson in French or Mathematics he would say something that made my flesh crawl. When I got to the end, I wiped my eyes and said, “Thank you for listening. But there’s nothing you can do.”
“You could stay here,” said Madame Inevitability. “Unless this Froggy is a very small man indeed, he could not fit through our door.”
I would have been happy never to see Froggy again. But I would miss William, and I would miss Uncle Bart. And Uncle Bart would miss me. He would be lonely. “I don’t think that would do. I need to go back, and so does Alice. Is there any other way?”
“Wait,” said Trusty, stretching out his twiggy hand to pluck a small harvest of his own berries: five of the purple ones and five of the silver. The owl flew down with a large dry leaf in her beak. Trusty dropped the berries carefully into the shallow receptacle. “This task is for you, Dorothea.”
“But how…?” I imagined growing so large I would be unable to get out of my bedchamber, or so small that I would fall down a crack in the floor and never be found. That would be a terrible fate, but almost better than waiting for Froggy’s tap on the door.
Madame Inevitability passed me the leaf. “The solution is in your hands,” she said. “Use your powers of logic and deduction. And take care not to drop these on the way.”
I balanced my burdens carefully: Alice supported by one hand, the leaf and berries cupped in the other. In my mind, an idea began to form itself. “You mean…”
But the owl had flown back to her perch and was using her beak to tidy her feathers, and Trusty said nothing.
“Goodbye. And thank you. I am very grateful.” The idea was getting bigger. It was getting monstrous.
“Don’t mention it,” Trusty said. “Just as well your dog is a tidy eater.”
* * *
Froggy did not come back until the rest of the household was abed. I was watching from my window, with a candle alight on the old chest, and when I saw him come through the gate I took out the berries. The silver ones were in a small china bowl and the purple ones in an eggcup. There must be no confusion in the dim light.
He let himself in by a side door; Uncle Bart had given him a key. When I heard his footsteps on the stairs I spoke to Alice, who was hunkered down on my bed.
“Alice, wait.” A count of five. “Crunch.” And again. After the second berry, I moved Alice into the shadowy corner near the wardrobe. “Alice, wait.” I counted. “Crunch.” And twice more. The five purple berries were gone.
A familiar tap on the door. In my stomach, a familiar sinking dread. I blew out the candle. In the faint glow from the banked-up fire, I sat down on my bed and wrapped my shawl around me. “Alice, ssh,” I murmured. “Wait.”
The door creaked open, and there was Froggy. “Sitting in the dark, my little scholar? You must be lonely all by yourself.”
He closed the door behind him, then took two steps forward.
“Crunch!”
Alice came out of the dark. Master Frederick’s mouth opened wide, but she gave him no time to scream.
The old sheet I had spread over the carpet absorbed much of the blood. When I had bundled it up, along with various oddments of tweed, hair and leather, Alice gave the place a thorough going-over with her large tongue. I stowed the sheet in the wardrobe. In the morning, before anyone was stirring, I would take it outside and bury it in the stack of rubbish James had ready for burning. When all was to rights, I fed Alice the five silver berries. “Good dog, Alice,” I said, giving my little friend a special pat. We snuggled into bed together and were soon fast asleep.
* * *
For a short while,
Master Frederick’s disappearance was the subject of local conjecture. He was known to have attended his examination and set out for home. A heavy snowfall overnight had obliterated any clues as to his later movements. The constabulary came to Wraithwood Hall and spoke to James, who was tending his bonfire. They questioned Mrs Manifold and Uncle Bart. But nothing came of it.
I have a governess now. Her name is Miss Flora Buchanan. She speaks four languages and knows lots of games. In her free time she writes stories about monsters. Miss Flora is nineteen years old, but she is a small person: only a little taller than me. I think she might enjoy escapades.
And Alice? She is growing a great deal, but no more than is usual for a King Charles spaniel. She has learned to roll over and to shake hands. I always knew she was clever.
The Hunting of the Jabberwock
JONATHAN GREEN
’Twas brillig, and the sun hung low in the sky as the youth came within sight of the tumbledown tower. It stood alone, isolated atop a rugged crag, as if standing sentinel over the deep, dark forest that filled the wide valley below.
On the far side of that forest he could see smoke rising from the chimneys of the town nestled in a bend of the river. He doubted he could get from here to there before sundown, and considering what dwelt within that tulgey wood—all manner of slithy toves, borogoves and mome raths, and they weren’t even the worst that lurked within the wabe—he didn’t fancy spending the night within its shadowy depths after nightfall.
And so, following the worn path to the door of the tumbledown tower, he knocked upon the dark wood of that portal three times.
The door was opened by a stooped figure; a scrawny old man with a shock of filthy grey hair, an unkempt beard, and a gawping peg-toothed leer. His simple robe was as filthy as the rest of him.
He peered up at the youth through one bulging eye, while the other was no more than a twisted squint.
Wonderland Page 9
