Wonderland

by Marie O'Regan

  “I’d drop that if I were you,” she says and raises her Peacemaker. The man looks at her, sees the cold resolve in her pretty face, then sets his Colt Navy Revolver on the desktop.

  He’s maybe in his thirties, got thick blond hair, a neat goatee and moustache, and finely shaped eyebrows. He’s wearing a masterfully tailored suit in navy pinstripe, shiny shoes, and a bright red brocade waistcoat with golden dragons embroidered on it. Alice thinks it looks familiar but she can’t quite place the pattern. He looks flustered, as he probably should; a cigar is smoking in a crystal ashtray on his desk.

  “Good evening, Mr Gambit,” says Alice, for she was raised well before it all went wrong, and the girl remembers her manners. “May I ask where your staff might be this fine eve?”

  “Not here,” he answers. “At the moment.”

  “Don’t want them in on your little secret?”

  He doesn’t bother to answer that. “Who are you?”

  “Alice. Didn’t Mr Jack Hart mention me?”

  “He said only to be wary. Didn’t give any names.”

  “No, he wouldn’t. That should have made you wary.” She smiles. “Where did he go, when he left here?”

  “I’ve no idea.”

  Alice doesn’t even take a breath, just squeezes the trigger and takes off the little finger of his right hand. It’s got to hurt, she thinks, and after a moment when he finally realises he’s been shot, he starts to swear and scream. She just talks over him. “Now, he may not have told you, but he might. Probably not, but I just wanted to give you a taste of what’s coming if you don’t cooperate. But he’ll have left you bank details, I’d imagine, so you can make sure he gets his cut—and dear Rabbit does love his cut.”

  She can see in his eyes that he wants to ask about that name, but he’s too busy whimpering, holding his hand with a white silk handkerchief wrapped around it. It’s not so white anymore, of course, lots of red splotches.

  “So, I will ask again just one more time: where did he go?”

  “Seattle. Or at least that’s where the bank he uses is.” He grits his teeth, tells her the name of the institution. “Fuck you, little girl.”

  “You can dress as a gentleman all you like, but you’re still a sewer rat on the inside.” Alice takes a few more steps into the room, notices two feet sticking out from under the desk. Very still. She circles around, gestures for Gambit to move.

  It’s a woman in her forties, rotund, black hair shot with grey, white blouse, light-blue skirt. Her eyes are dark and open and staring at the ceiling, but there’s no breath in her. Alice doesn’t know her face but surely it’s Annabelle Foreman, the clothing’s the same as Alice saw this morning. The side of her head’s been stove in, there’s blood still sliding slowly down her skin. A rectangular grey marble bookend lies on the floor beside her head, one of its corners slick with gore.

  “What did she do?” asks Alice quietly.

  “Developed a conscience,” says Gambit, sneering.

  Suddenly there’s the noise of footsteps in the hall outside the library, and Alice moves again so she can see both the door and Gambit.

  “I do believe the cavalry has arrived,” says he with a smug grin.

  Alice feels a rush of ice in her belly. Not because of the idea of reinforcements, but because Doc Reine walks through the doorway, slowly, a rueful smile on her mouth. Alice thinks of her own words, uttered not so long ago: In my experience women fight harder to avoid consequences. Then she focuses and realises that Doc’s got blood dribbling down from a cut at the hairline, and bruising already coming up on the forehead and left cheek. She’s got empty hands, too, no sign of her shotgun and the big coat with all the scalpels in its pockets is gone.

  Mehitabel gives Alice an apologetic glance and shrugs. The barrel of a shotgun appears behind her, prods her in the back, and Jesse follows it. “You hush now, Doc.”

  Alice is the one who says, “You little shit.”

  “You shut your mouth! Coming here, making trouble. Now I hadta go and hurt Doc, all because of you and your interference! Drop your gun.” Jesse prods Mehitabel harder and Alice can see from her expression that it hurts a lot; despite his claim, it appears Jesse was enthusiastic in his subduing of Doc Reine. Alice lets the Peacemaker fall and Gambit swoops from behind his desk to grab it up.

  “Jesse—” begins Doc.

  The boy talks over the top of her. “I’m grateful, Doc, don’t you ever think I’m not. You’re always kind but he’s done more, promised me more, and kindness will only get you so far in this world. I’ve thrown my lot in with Mr Gambit here. Look at you: you’re a goddamned doctor but you’re still scraping for money. Hell, you take bread and eggs as payment! That’s no way of living. No, siree. You’re always wanting me to improve myself, well, that’s what I’m doing.”

  His voice is just as discordant as before, maybe more so to Alice, seeing him like this. Little rat, little traitor. She must say it aloud because the boy’s face hardens.

  “You think you’re better’n me?”

  Alice says, “Very much so.”

  That makes him angrier but no more articulate. Gambit must see something dangerous in the boy’s expression, in the spittle gathering at the corner of his lips, and the man soothes. “Now, Jesse, hold your temper. We’ve talked about this. You can have your way soon enough, but I need to make sure she’s not got anyone else coming for us. After that you can mark her up to your heart’s content. But you just be patient, my lad.”

  Alice has a scar on her right cheek, raised and healed white, and her nose was once broken and improperly set. She likes that it makes eyes slide away from her. Lessens her value. Makes people underestimate her.

  Gambit turns his attention to her. “Well? Is there? Anyone else?”

  Alice grins, answers obliquely. “Why do you think Mr Hart isn’t here anymore?”

  “Who? Who’s coming?” Gambit’s pitch goes up a notch.

  “Didn’t tell you about me, did he? Why would he tell you about the others?”

  Gambit shakes his head, though he seems to regret doing so, telling her more than he wants to. Alice doesn’t mention that, as far as she can tell, Rabbit doesn’t even know about her. He runs because there are others looking for him, others from across the divide between worlds. That’s what keeps him moving, making Alice’s task both more difficult and a little easier: she’s unexpected.

  Gambit says, “Now, Jesse, you’re going to have to persuade this one. Hurt Doc.”

  “But, Mr Gambit—”

  “Now, Jesse, can’t you see? She doesn’t care about herself—it’s in her face. But she cares about Doc. She cares about children she doesn’t even know.”

  Alice can see he thinks that caring about others makes her weak.

  “Mr—”

  “You hurt her now or I swear I’ll cut you loose! You’ll be in one of those boxcars, going to a new home and trust me, Jesse, you won’t enjoy yourself.”

  Alice speaks softly, quickly. “Jesse, did you know the woman at the mission?”

  The question is so unexpected that’s he’s surprised into answering. “Miss Foreman. Sure.”

  “Have a look behind his desk.”

  “Jesse, don’t.” Gambit’s tone, the desperate edge to it, tells Alice she’s hit a nerve.

  “Go on, Jesse, see how he treats his employees.”

  “Jesse, you don’t… she was going to betray me—us! Jesse, don’t—”

  But it’s too late. Jesse doesn’t like Alice but he’s got no reason not to trust her. He steps away from Doc, takes a few paces to the right so he can see the still feet, the light blue skirt, doesn’t bother to go any further ’coz he freezes. Afraid, indecisive.

  “Jesse, you shouldn’t have—” Gambit doesn’t finish the sentence. He brings up the Peacemaker and Jesse swings the shotgun around. They fire simultaneously, then fall at roughly the same speed. The left side of Jesse’s head is gone, but Gambit’s gut-shot.

  Alice scoops up t
he Peacemaker that’s dropped just out of Gambit’s reach. She stands over him, aims the gun at him, then reconsiders. “Doc?”

  “Much obliged, Alice.” And Mehitabel Reine slides the hidden scalpel from her boot and uses it to slice Lutwidge Gambit’s throat.

  * * *

  In the darkness of the railway carriage, sixteen children huddle on malodorous sacks and straw, most of them under ten, certainly none over. It takes a while to coax them out, but eventually they trust Doc’s face, Alice’s grin—maybe they recognise she’s one of them. Maybe they see she’s survived, and they realise they can too.

  “What am I going to do with them?” asks Doc, surveying the gathering.

  “The names and details I wrote down? Send a telegram and those folk will come.”

  “You trust ’em?”

  “Oh yes. I’ve known them a long while.” Alice pauses. “I’d stay, but I’ve got to get after him, after Rabbit.”

  “I know. I reckon if you raid the kitchen here you’ll find plenty to keep you going on the trail.”

  Alice nods. “You okay to get them back to town?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Anyone left to fear here?”

  Doc shakes her head. “Gambit, the priest and Dawkins are all gone. No one’s going to go asking questions.” She sighs. “Although I’d best make sure that Jesse buried the sheriff before he came after us.”

  “I’m sorry about Jesse, Mehitabel.”

  Doc shrugs. “What can you do? You can only teach them right from wrong, whether they choose the one or the other is anyone’s guess.”

  Alice pulls two cigars from her pocket-pouch—souvenired from Gambit’s desk—and Mehitabel lights them up. They smoke standing beside the boxcar, while the children sit on the grass and patiently wait.

  “Where to next?” asks Doc.

  “New York,” lies Alice. It’s not that she doesn’t trust Doc, but who knows what anyone might give up with the right leverage?

  Vanished Summer Glory

  RIO YOUERS

  ROSEMARIE

  I know this is irregular, and I feel just awful to have asked, but thank you, David. Thank you for seeing me. As a friend, of course. As Charles’s friend, to be more accurate. I just… I didn’t know who else to talk to.

  Yes, I’m comfortable. Thank you. This is a charming space, and that view. Is that Skeffington Hill? I thought so. Charles and I used to walk there, at the beginning, you know, when it was all new and exciting. Charles once climbed a most magnificent elm up on that hill and went so high that I lost him in the boughs.

  Oh, I’m blithering. I apologise. Do stop me, I shan’t be offended. Charles would stop me in a moment. “I listen to blithering all day,” he would say. “I don’t want to hear it from you.”

  Yes, he was often direct. But not unkindly so. He had a good heart.

  Has. He has a good heart. I’m not ready to refer to him in the past tense. That would be like shovelling dirt on an empty grave. Just because he’s gone doesn’t mean he’s not coming back.

  Or at least… oh, I’m sorry, David, I’ve always been quick to cry. Thin blood, that’s what my mother used to say. It’s funny the things you believe when you’re young. I sometimes wonder if the journey—the adventure—from childhood to adulthood is curtailed by our willingness to discount the make-believe.

  There’s something else I’ve been wondering, David. Nonsense, I’m sure, but such thoughts have a way of taking hold, especially in the small hours. And I must be careful how I phrase this, because of your profession. I intend only the greatest respect. But given Charles’s… condition, I feel it worth examining.

  I’m talking about influence.

  Yes, I can elaborate. I think so, at any rate. Give me a moment to collect my thoughts.

  Okay.

  If a person surrounds himself with liars, he is apt to deal in deceit. If a person chooses thieves for friends, he is apt to steal. Does the same rule not apply to psychiatry? Charles was a brilliant doctor, but he delved so frequently into delirium. Isn’t it possible that, after a while, he too…?

  Ridiculous, I know. I’m so sorry, David. Maybe this has been a waste of your time. And you’re right, he was grieving—desperately. He knew he was going to lose his sister and he was scared. Except… except…

  Okay, I’m reaching, I know I am. But isn’t that the point of talking? Isn’t that what you and Charles do? People sit in this chair, and they reach, and you help them to grab hold of something. There’s more to it, of course, but really, at its core, psychiatry is guidance.

  But what if instead of you guiding them, they guide you?

  Too fanciful?

  Forgive me. It’s just… well, grief is too convenient an explanation. I believe there was something else going on. In fact, I can state with some confidence that Charles started to fracture when he took on a certain new patient. I have nothing to go on but a wife’s instinct, but I can’t help thinking that the two are connected.

  No, of course not. Charles was a professional. He did talk about the man—often, in fact—but divulged nothing of a personal nature. He didn’t even use his real name.

  He called him Mr Rabbit.

  BEFORE

  Charles listened.

  Mr Southey—a regular for just over a year—sat primly, with his back straight and his hands folded in his lap, just like he always sat, and talked about how his mother devalued him, and how he crossed the road when he saw teenagers walking towards him, because teenagers intimidated him, and sometimes they said things.

  “I fantasise about hurting them,” he said. “Maybe dragging one of them into the bushes and giving him a right good kicking. Or slapping one of the girls. They’re all bitches at that age, you know.”

  He talked about his philistine neighbours and a woman at work who pulled out a tooth while he watched and a stray cat that frequented his back step, and how he sometimes put down a saucer of milk even though he’d heard that cats were lactose intolerant—that you should give them water, not milk, and what kind of world was it when you couldn’t give a cat a saucer of milk?

  Charles listened, completely and blissfully. He filled his head with Mr Southey’s anxieties and insecurities, to the extent that they consumed everything else, including his own woes. For those forty-five minutes, his brain was full, but his heart was empty.

  It was sublime.

  “I see progress,” he said towards the end of the session. “But I would like you to strive for those common bonds with your mother.”

  “She’s seventy-nine years old,” Mr Southey remarked, his nose slightly aloft. “And quite beyond change.”

  “But you’re not.”

  His three o’clock had cancelled, and Charles thought he might use that newly open time to have a good cry (he’d found such little time for crying recently). But no sooner had he scratched the appointment from his book than the telephone rang again, and a quick, troubled voice inquired as to his availability. Charles was about to explain that he was not taking on new patients, then considered the sanctuary of another man’s travails. I’ll cry another time, he thought, and revealed that he had an opening at three o’clock, and that his office was best reached via the back garden of his house on Havilland Avenue. It was only after he hung up the phone that he realised he hadn’t got the new patient’s name. A small concern, of course; his name, and his troubles, would be known soon enough.

  Charles showed Mr Southey to the door, then checked his watch. 2:47 p.m. He had a little time, so sat at his desk and looked at the framed photograph of him and Alice, the one taken in Daresbury Wood when they were twelve years old. How they’d loved those woods. How often they’d played there, and the wonders they’d imagined.

  It will always be our special place.

  “Yes, Alice,” Charles said to the photograph, and lost himself for more than a moment, remembering the games they’d played, the fantasies they’d indulged. Nothing was too outlandish.

  Reflecting on their c
hildhood, it was sometimes difficult to determine the real from the make-believe. Their imaginations—sharp as cats’ claws—had left marks. And those marks had remained brilliant throughout childhood, into adulthood. Even when Alice had revealed her devastating news, he had responded with all seriousness, “You must eat tumtum leaves and lucent berries, they’ll make you better,” as if such flora existed.

  His reverie was broken by a loud knock at the door. Charles jumped up. “Oh,” he gasped. “Yes. I’m coming.” He set down the framed photograph and glanced at his watch. 3:11 p.m. Somewhat flustered, he straightened his hair and his tie, and answered the door.

  Nobody there, not at first glance, then Charles registered movement closer to his feet. He looked down, and there on his doormat stood a white rabbit with glittering pink eyes, dressed in a natty waistcoat.

  “Dr Lewis,” the rabbit said, and fished an ornate watch from the pocket of his waistcoat. He flipped it open and glanced at it with a frown. “My apologies; I do believe I’m late.”

  ROSEMARIE

  He was distant, to begin with. No, not physically. Emotionally. And that was not like Charles. He fervently maintained that a healthy marriage needed only two qualities: honesty and conversation. In all our years together, he had never shied from sharing things with me. I assumed, obviously, that it was because of Alice, and so gave him space. He’d sit in his armchair for hours, not speaking, or he’d wander the rooms of our house with a faraway look on his face. I’d always known him so stalwart. It was heartbreaking to see.

  How long was he like this? Oh… weeks, probably, beginning when he first told me that he’d started seeing Mr Rabbit, and deteriorating from there. And yes, David, deteriorating is the right word. You might choose something kinder, like “manifesting” or “advancing”, but you didn’t live with him.

  Again, I’ll elaborate.

  He trapped a sparrow in a birdbox and made a tiny hat for it. A darling thing, really, made from velvet, with a rubber band for a strap. He was quite proud of that hat, having no appreciable needlework skills, and thus grew irritable when the sparrow wouldn’t wear it. Now I ask you, David, does that sound like Charles to you?