“An appointment about what?” Alice asked.
“I do not know.” The Rabbit chewed on his bunny lip nervously. “All I know is that I must be there or it’s off with my head!”
“Perhaps I could go with you? I could protect you?”
The Rabbit seemed to consider this. “No, she will smell you from a mile away and then she will have us both killed. I must go alone.”
They were getting closer to the shore.
“Can you at least tell me how to find her?”
The Rabbit shook his head. “I have said too much already. It is blasphemy to speak of the Queen when she is not present. I have said enough to get me killed already.”
“So you can’t help me out at all?” Alice asked.
The Rabbit shuffled nervously back and forth, hopping in place. “She lives in a palace, I can tell you that.”
Alice was about to object that this wasn’t much information – that she had already guessed as much – when the Rabbit added, “And the palace is where all trials and executions are held, and they are held almost every night after sundown.” He lowered his voice. “But I shall tell you a secret. The verdict is always decided before the trial, and the verdict is always the same – ‘Off with his head!’”
Alice wondered how this cheery piece of information was supposed to be helpful. So the Queen didn’t believe in giving her citizens a fair trial? Big shock. Then the Rabbit continued, “You know how vampires get when they are in the presence of human blood?”
Alice nodded.
“The Queen is immune to that. She does not get punch drunk. She maintains her composure. There is only one time when she is drunk enough with bloodlust to be rendered weak – it is when she has ordered a beheading.”
Alice took in all this information and stored it gratefully. So that was it; her one chance to strike would be during the trial tonight.
“Thank you,” she told the Rabbit. As they reached the shore, they agreed to part ways and never discuss this conversation again.
“Don’t you want to know what I am planning to do tonight?” Alice asked.
“No,” The White Rabbit said, shaking his head vehemently. “The less I know, the better.” And with that, he scampered off out of view.
Chapter Three: Advice from a Caterpillar
Once Alice reached the shore, she hurriedly made her way up the beach and past the row of rocks that stood tall in the distance. The Rabbit hadn’t given her directions to the palace, but she knew it was somewhere back where she’d come from, and judging by the position of the sun in the sky, she needed to head West.
But much to Alice’s shock, she discovered that once she’d crossed the other side of the rocks the landscape was entirely different. Where there had been beach, there was now a lush forest full of trees and flowers and many beautiful mushrooms.
One large mushroom in particular caught her eye. Alice couldn’t figure out why, but there was something about it that was special. She stretched herself up on tiptoe, and peeped over the edge of the mushroom, and her eyes immediately met those of a large caterpillar, that was sitting on the top with its arms folded, quietly smoking a long hookah, and taking not the smallest notice of her or of anything else.
The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in silence; at last the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth, and addressed her in a languid, sleepy voice.
“Who are you?” said the Caterpillar, staring at her accusingly.
This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, “I—I hardly know, sir, just at present—at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.”
“Explain yourself!” the Caterpillar demanded.
“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” said Alice, turning to walk away.
“Come back!” the Caterpillar called after her. “I've got something important to say!”
Alice decided to hear him out. She turned on her heel and walked back to him.
The Caterpillar stared her up and down for a very long time, and then said, “Keep your temper.”
“Is that all you wanted to say?” asked Alice, swallowing down her anger as well as she could. She did not have time to waste on this nonsense. It would be nightfall soon, which only left her a few hours to find the Blood Queen’s palace. Since she had lost all of her hunting tools, that meant she would have to find wood that was suitable for carving into stakes.
“No, that is not all,” said the Caterpillar.
For some minutes it puffed away on the hookah without speaking, but at last it unfolded its arms, took the pipe out of its mouth again, and said, “I know who you are.”
“You do?” she asked skeptically.
“You are the slayer.”
This took her by surprise. She didn’t know whether she should tell him the truth. Could she trust him? She decided the answer was “no.”
“Alice,” he said, pausing to take a big puff from his hookah. “I believe that’s your name.”
Now she was downright startled. She had not told him her name. How could he know this? She still wasn’t sure if trusting him was the right decision, but trusting the White Rabbit had ultimately proved helpful; she decided to take her chances.
“My name is Alice,” she admitted.
“I thought so,” said the Caterpillar. “Tell me this, Alice. Why on earth did you come here?”
“I – ”
“It is wrong from beginning to end,” said the Caterpillar bluntly, and there was silence for some minutes.
The Caterpillar was the first to speak.
“You will surely get yourself killed,” he said. “I know that, too.”
“Well don’t you just know everything,” Alice said, agitated.
“Not everything. But of this I am certain – as I certain as the sky is blue and the grass is green. Except when the sky is green and the grass is blue.”
Alice was starting to find him to be really annoying.
“How can you possibly know what will happen to me?” she asked, losing her patience again.
The caterpillar continued smoking. “You fell into the rabbit-hole, did you not?”
“I jumped,” she admitted.
“Even worse. So you chose this. Well, now, I have lost all sympathy for you.” He returned to his pipe.
Alice said nothing. She wasn’t sure whether to swat him away like the simple insect he was or hear him out.
“You chose this,” the Caterpillar continued.
Alice felt rage building inside her. “Maybe so, but what other choice did I have? I’m a hunter, you know that, and I was merely following my prey. I was trying to find the queen.”
“You made a choice,” insisted the Caterpillar. “You could have stayed where you were.”
“And let the evil queen go free?” Alice replied.
“How do you know she is evil?” asked the Caterpillar.
This stopped Alice in her tracks. How did she know that? She was merely going by assumptions, basing it off the name she’d heard the White Rabbit call her by.
“She’s not evil, then?”
“Oh, no,” said the Caterpillar. “She is very evil.”
“Then why are you scolding me so much?” asked Alice. And she thought to herself, Why are the creatures here all so temperamental and difficult?
“Because you are no match for her,” he said. “When you try to kill her, you will fail. And you will make her very angry in the process, and she will take that anger out on all of us.”
“But what if I succeed?” Alice asked.
He puffed on his hookah and exhaled. “You won’t,” the Caterpillar said. “I am certain of it, Alice.”
“How do you know my name, anyway?” Alice asked.
“Everyone in Wonderland knows your name,” the Caterpillar said. “You are a legend, the one great slayer, the only one the Queen has ever feared.”
&n
bsp; Alice blushed at the unexpected compliment. Then the Caterpillar said:
“How wrong she was, though. As we can all now see you are not the great slayer they made you out to be. You could not even find your way out of a simple maze. You had not the sense to avoid the shrinking potion. You jumped down the rabbit-hole and then made one mistake after another. That’s how I know you will die. I know you will die, because the legend of you being a great slayer was wrong.”
Alice bristled. She was unsure of how to respond to this. She wanted to strike back – both literally and figuratively – but part of her feared he was right.
“You are not even as good a slayer as the one who came before you,” the Caterpillar continued. “He lasted three days in Wonderland before he made the mistake of drinking the potion, whereas you barely lasted three hours.”
Alice’s mind was reeling. There had been another slayer who had come here – to this strange place deemed Wonderland – before her? And a male slayer, at that? She had never in her life heard of such a thing. As far as Alice knew, only women could be slayers. Surely, the Caterpillar was mistaken.
“There are no male slayers,” Alice said. “Only women.”
“So you believe,” said the Caterpillar, “but you are wrong. There is a male slayer. His name is Tobias – was. He may be dead now for all I know.”
“What happened?” Alice asked.
“Same as you.” Puff, puff. “Came here to kill the Blood Queen, but failed. Only he lasted a little longer than you did. As I see, you’ve already lost all of your weaponry. He came to battle fully armed, and still failed.”
Alice swallowed hard. This was getting worse by the minute. Her only hope was the Caterpillar was wrong. How could he know all of this, anyway? Just because he knew her name, didn’t mean he was the expert on slaying vampires.
“How do you know so much?” she asked.
“I know everything, my dear Alice,” said the Caterpillar. “For I speak to everyone. The trees, the birds, every insect and animal in all the land. I am the best man to ask if it is knowledge you seek.”
He was hardly a man, but she let it slide. She was grateful for the information he had provided, even if all it did was confuse and horrify her.
If only there was a way to get my weapons back, Alice thought, At least that would give me a fighting chance.
“You cannot get your weapons back,” said the Caterpillar, as if she had spoken aloud – which disturbed her, for Alice knew she had only thought it. “For they were washed away in the same flood of tears that took you out to sea. But I do know a way for you to get new weapons if you would like.”
“What is it?” Alice asked.
“You may not like it,” said the Caterpillar, and it put the hookah into its mouth and began smoking again.
This time Alice waited patiently until it chose to speak again. In a minute or two the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth and yawned once or twice, and shook itself. Then it got down off the mushroom, and crawled away in the grass, merely remarking as it went, “One side will make you grow weaker, and the other side will make you grow stronger.”
“One side of what? The other side of what?” Alice asked.
“Of the mushroom,” said the Caterpillar. “The one I’ve been sitting on. One side will give you special powers – the speed and strength of a vampire. And the other side will have the opposite effect: to make you very slow and weak. I should advise you to eat one half and take the other with you. If you can get close enough, you can grind it up and slip it into the Queen’s nightly meal of boiled blood. This will help weaken her and slow her down, so that you may stand a fighting chance when you attack. ”
Alice looked curiously at the mushroom for a minute, trying to make out which were the two sides of it; it was perfectly round, and both sides were identical. However, at last she stretched her arms around it as far as they would go, and broke off a bit of each edge with her hands.
“Okay, now which is which?” she said to the Caterpillar.
He paused for a very long time, as if trying to figure it out himself. Then he said, “The side you are holding in your left hand. That is the side you wish to eat. The side in your right hand is the one you wish to give to the Queen.”
“Are you sure?” Alice asked. He didn’t look so sure. And after her experience of drinking the potion earlier she was very hesitant to eat anything unless she was absolutely positive what the effects would be.
“After all I have told you, you will not trust me!” said the Caterpillar angrily, rearing itself upright as it spoke (it was exactly three inches high).
Alice decided to trust him. He seemed decent enough, but mostly, what other choice did she have?
With great trepidation, she nibbled a little of the left-hand bit to try the effect: the next moment she felt a violent blow underneath her chin. The blow was so powerful it knocked her to the ground. She struggled mightily to stand back up, but her body felt as though it weighed a thousand pounds.
You have given me the wrong side! She tried to scream, but the words would not come out. She could barely move her mouth against the agonizing pain.
“Help!” she managed to gasp, and the Caterpillar looked at her in a state of terror. When she glanced back up, he was out of sight.
There was no time to waste; she was losing strength rapidly. She set to work at once to eat some of the other bit. Her chin was pressed so tightly shut, it was almost impossible to open her mouth. But she did it at last, and managed to swallow a morsel of the right-hand bit.
“I’m going to be okay!” said Alice in a tone of delight, which changed into alarm in another moment, when she found that she was frozen stiff. She tried desperately to move her body, but no result seemed to follow, except a little shaking in her limbs.
As there seemed to be no chance of getting herself up, she collapsed deeper into the soft grass, feeling herself grow weary.
She had just succeeded in snuggling down into the warm, lush field when a loud, distinctive snarl made her draw up in a hurry. There, in the distance, stood an enormous blondee-haired vampire, fangs protruding, charging rapidly in her direction.
“I found her!” screamed the bloodsucker.
“Grab her!” another voice called out.
Much to her horror, Alice could see that there were not one, but two, oversized vampires coming her way.
“Slayer!” screamed the first vampire. “One move and I’ll slice your head off.”
As if she could move if she wanted to.
“Slayer,” repeated the blonde vampire, who was now upon her. “At last, we meet. Oh, how I’m going to enjoying sucking the blood out of you, until you’re dead dry.”
Alice was glad her body was frozen, because she was afraid she might start crying again.
“Yes, you will be delicious,” the vampire said, licking his lips in anticipation. Alice could see the familiar bloodlust setting in. He was drunk from the scent of her, high off anticipation. This was when they were the most vulnerable. She was pleased to see that the vampires in this strange land – despite being far larger than the ones back home – could still be rendered weak when in the presence of human blood. At least that was one thing that was still predictable.
The vampire crouched down beside Alice and leaned forward until his lips were grazing her body. This was the closest Alice had ever been to a vampire without being able to retaliate; it was infuriating! She felt her stomach rolling over, waves of nausea rising deep inside her body as she lay powerless beneath him. The vampire rubbed his nose against her skin, inhaling deeply. “You smell,” he breathed deeply, “like Heaven.”
Fitting, Alice thought, for I’m pretty sure my initial calculations were wrong. I think I landed in Hell after all.
He opened his mouth wide, his fangs, fully extended, razor sharp and ready to strike.
“Stop it you imbecile!” his friend screamed, grabbing him by the arm and throwing him into the air. He went flying backward and
hit the ground with a loud thud.
“We can’t drink her, Maxmillian!” he said. “She belongs to the Royal Court. You’ll get us both beheaded.”
“And I was planning to deliver her, exactly as instructed.” The blonde, who appeared to be named Maxmillian, said, standing up and dusting himself off. His fangs were still drawn. He began darting his tongue out between them, like a serpent flicking his tongue. “But there is nothing wrong with having a quick bite first. Slayer blood is the tastiest of all.”
Alice in Wonderland: The Vampire Slayer Page 3
