by E E Rawls
“A home? All my own?” Ugly asked.
The crowv nodded.
“Where is it? Oh please, do tell me!”
“Of course.” A dark smirk curled one corner of Oz’s lips. “I’ll gladly help you.”
...
The Present
ALICE HELD HER BREATH as Madnes’s footsteps drew near to their hiding spot.
Harrey’s mouth was stuck in the dirt but his eyes roved back and forth like a rabbit about to be caught.
The footsteps paused, and for a long second there was silence... Then the footsteps drew away. Madnes must be leaving.
Alice let out a breath in relief.
“What are you doing?”
“Eep!” Both she and Harrey jumped to their feet at Madnes’s voice, and he stepped from around the tree trunk, arms crossed, eyeing them suspiciously.
“Oh, Madnes! Hi! We’re just...um...not doing much. That is...” Alice stammered.
Harrey stepped aside and pointed an accusing finger at her. “She’s stalking you.”
Alice’s fist to his ribs staggered him sideways.
Madnes looked from one to the other. “Yeah. Sorry, Harrey, but Alice isn’t like that. Which means, this must be your doing.”
Harrey’s jaw dropped. “You wound me, brother! Why am I always the one who gets blamed for things? This was her idea!”
Alice tried to hide her reddening cheeks, turning her face away.
Madnes simply shook his head. “I thought I felt eyes following me. Now, come to find out, it was just my stalker friends. Thanks a lot.”
Harrey gave an awkward laugh. “Can you blame us? We know you’re up to something. You’re not your usual self, we’ve both agreed. The question is,” he leaned forward suspiciously, “what trouble is it you’ve gotten yourself into?”
Madnes clamped his mouth shut and backed up. “I told you: it’s my new job.”
“What kind of job?” Harrey crossed his arms and eyed him sideways with one eye. Alice stood beside him, also waiting.
Madnes looked from her to him. “It’s...it’s like a...” He thought quickly while they waited. “Like a town assistant.”
“A what?”
“You know, assisting the town, doing odd jobs, keeping things in check.” He gestured with his hands, like it was obvious.
Harrey squinted. “A bouncer?”
“No!” Madnes let out an exasperated sigh. He didn’t have time for this; he needed to find Ugly Duckling before the day ended. There was an uneasy pit in his stomach that Ugly might be in trouble. Plus, Cheshire wasn’t here to help.
“Look, I don’t have much time to explain. The town has this special duck—erm, goose. It’s gray and very important, and I have to find it. It got loose, and I’ve searched every pond and water source on this side of town and found nothing.”
“You’re looking for a town goose?” Harrey tilted his head. “Huh, I didn’t even know our town had one. That’s awesome! I mean, it makes no sense whatsoever, but it’s awesome!”
Madnes resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Alice was staring at him; he met her gaze and she looked away.
“So.” Harrey’s face puckered into his deep-thinking mode. “This is the case of the missing goose, eh?”
“You’re not Sherlock Holmes. Don’t even try that look.”
“If I were a goose, and ran away from my fancy town pen, I wouldn’t want to just go and live anywhere. No no no,” Harrey emphasized and shook a finger. “I’m obviously a snooty goose, and I would want to go live in an equally snooty place. The best of the best of ponds!”
Madnes’s stomach churned. “That’s what I was afraid of,” he admitted. “There’s only one place like that I can think of, too.”
Harrey and Alice flanked him to either side, looking off in the direction as he spoke the name of the place.
“The Sacred Pond.”
MADNES DASHED INTO a run, the tread of his boots scraping the pavement, his friends coming not far behind. If Ugly was going to the Sacred Pond, he could end up dead. Nothing living was allowed inside that pond. Any creature or bird who ventured into its waters was shot on sight.
But Ugly wouldn’t know that; he was young and wouldn’t know the rules of Oswick.
“Madness Solver!” someone shouted at him. Madnes almost lost his balance, head turning this way and that to see who’d shouted. “You still haven’t found my naughty Ugly?”
There was Mother Goose. She pecked at his backside angrily, and he leaped away several steps, turning to face her.
“I’m getting him now! Don’t worry, madam—everything will be fine soon! Do keep your beak to yourself, please.” He hopped back into a run, and her beak frowned and hissed angrily after him.
Harrey shared a look with Alice as they jogged past the goose who, to them, looked like nothing but a tossed paper bag moving in the wind.
“Madam? Does he have invisible friends, or did he believe that bag was alive?” whispered Harrey. “He’s spiraling, Alice, I tell you. It’s all downhill from here.”
“Shut up and run, rabbit-brain.” Alice quickened her pace to reach the Hatter boy and his tilted top hat that somehow stayed on. “Madnes, if the goose is there, how will we get in to rescue him?”
“Yeah, cuz everything that nears its bank gets blasted into smithereens, duh!” added Harrey.
“There’s a live camera feed—part of a recent tourism attraction—outside the pond’s compound,” Madnes explained between pants, jogging uphill. “We can have a look at it and see if Ugly is in there or somewhere nearby. If he is, I’ll hop the wall and get him out before he gets shot...somehow.” Madnes kept his sight fixed ahead, wondering how he could pull something like that off if worse came to worst. And what if he was already too late?
“Why is the pond sacred?” Alice asked near his shoulder.
“It stems from an old story. One of Oswick’s myths,” he replied. “Long ago, a boy was dying from an illness. He saw the pond, and with his last strength he crawled until he reached the water, hoping in vain that somehow the water might heal him. It didn’t, of course, but he caught the attention of a being who rose from the water’s surface. Some say it was like a fairy or a great nymph. The being felt sorry for the boy and allowed her power to touch him—healing him instantly. He survived and spread the tale, and ever since then the pond became a sacred symbol of ancient power. But if you ask me, it’s more an attraction for tourists than anything else.”
“A nymph...do you think it’s true?” asked Alice.
Madnes gave an unsure headshake. What with all of Wonderland’s strangeness, he wasn’t sure if he could cast aside every Oswick myth as being false, anymore.
“I’m gonna go get my flying bike!” Harrey shouted at their backs.
“What?” Madnes frowned over his shoulder. “That thing doesn’t even work!”
“Does now. I fixed it! And we’ll be needing a get-away vehicle to pull off this stunt, right?” Harrey grinned eagerly and adjusted the work goggles perched on his head.
“We can’t wait for you!”
Harrey flapped his hand at them. “Don’t need you to. I’ll catch up with you guys in a flash!”
Madnes groaned as Harrey sprinted away. “I hope we won’t regret this...”
Chapter 15:
The Sacred Pond
THICK STONE WALLS ROSE around an oval plot of land—a pond of the purest blue water at its center, glistening like a liquefied jewel. The Sacred Pond.
Madnes and Alice finally reached the pond’s compound, both of them out of breath. Guards stood at every gate, and tourists flocked about with their gizmo cameras.
Madnes spotted a line of people waiting to get into the surveillance room: to get a peek inside the Sacred Pond via its live camera feed. They got in line, and he shifted from foot to foot. Time was wasting; why did there have to be a line today, of all days? If Ugly was already inside...
Something flew past in the sky.
Madnes’s whip
ped his head around. Ugly? Did he just fly over the walls?
“There’s no time for this!” he told Alice.
Madnes did the only thing that he knew would work, and which would embarrass his introvert self. He hollered at the top of his lungs and started moving people aside, shouting: “Fire! There’s a fire in the building! Run!!”
He hated fibbing. But a life was on the line, and there might be real fire soon enough anyway.
The crowd waiting in line stirred into a panic and dispersed, running this way and that to see if it was true. Madnes seized the opportunity and barged his way inside the surveillance room, Alice on his heels. They looked to the many monitors hung about the cozy tourist space.
Something moved past one of the screens: a gray bird landing in a tree beside the pond.
“It’s not a goose,” Alice observed beside him. They watched as, within seconds of landing, red lasers flashed crossed the screen and the bird was vaporized.
They stood there, slack jawed.
“They really will kill anything...”
“I see a goose!” Alice suddenly exclaimed, and he jumped in his boots.
“Ugly? Where?” He tried not to panic, searching the screens.
But wait, Ugly was a Wonderlander. So how could Alice see him?
Yet there he was: a gray goose in flight, steadily approaching the high walls of the oval compound.
“Ugly! Turn back, you birdbrain!” he wanted to shout through the screen. Instead, they both scrambled to get back outdoors and head for the walls.
“Every door is securely locked and guarded,” said Alice. “How are we going to get in and save him?”
“I told you.” Madnes veered left and screeched to a halt before a section of the high wall. He backed up. “It’s this new job. I can do things, now—unusual things.” He focused, and inside his mind he called out to the power. ‘Fairy, lend me power—just a touch...’
Before Alice could ask what sort of things he meant, he crouched and sprinted into a run at the wall.
He heard her exclaim. Just before hitting the wall, though, Madnes jumped and the tread of his boots caught and scraped against the stone as he ran up the wall’s side—the power’s momentum and strength carrying him up the vertical surface.
INSPECTOR COOLETTE was minding his own business, enjoying his day off work, and visiting the Sacred Pond compound.
He liked to make sure that things were in proper order—that’s what days off work were good for! A chance to see that everybody was behaving and doing their job to perfection, and that no criminal was lurking about unpunished.
He had just taken his lunch bag over to a bench, where he could eat while observing the compound’s walls, when someone sprinted past him at an abnormal speed. And that same person, unbelievably, scaled up the wall—not with hands but with running feet!
Coolette pulled out his weapon: the chomper, to halt and apprehend the daring criminal. “Stop in the name of the law!” he shouted, and then fired.
PA-CHOMP!
Something struck the wall inches from Madnes’s right side: a metal skull with snapping jaws open wide, connected to the end of a coiled metal spring.
The chomping jaws drew back, coiling away from the wall face, then sprung at him a second time. Pa-chomp!
Madnes lurched away, but in so doing lost his foothold and balance. He plummeted.
The skull chomper recoiled back to its owner, the metal spring condensing until it became a staff with a skull head in the hands of an eyepatched officer.
Madnes pulled himself off his sore backside where he landed on the pavement.
A pair of wings on the man’s eyepatch fluttered—Oh, Madnes had seen those before. “Inspector Coolette.” The man who thought himself to be the coolest thing since cucumber sandwiches; if only he had brains to match the all-knowing persona that he tried to emit.
The inspector’s one eye went wide in recognition, then narrowed to a slit. “Hatter boy.”
Just then, the flapping and whistle of wings passed by overhead.
It was Ugly!
“Sorry, no time to chitchat!” Madnes turned back to the wall, running up it once more.
The inspector raged, and the skull weapon chomped after him again. “Law-breaker! You dare breach the Sacred Pond? You are under arrest!”
Pa-chomp-chomp!
“Stop, this instant!” His thick eyebrows writhed as Madnes dodged each strike and reached the wall top. “Idiot boy, you’ll get yourself killed!”
Alice watched helplessly from the ground. Madnes spared one look down at her, just in case it was to be his last, and then he jumped.
Timing his momentum, and with both hands raised, he came up underneath the gray gosling as Ugly descended into the pond compound.
Fingers caught goose legs, and Madnes pulled Ugly Duckling to himself.
Together they fell to the trees surrounding the Sacred Pond.
Madnes used his body as a shield, preparing himself to be vaporized.
Chapter 16:
Trapped
HONESTLY, HUMAN, DO I have to do everything for you? spoke the fairy inside his head, her purple gossamer wings flicking. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were annoyingly suicidal.
Madnes’s eyes popped open, and before he could think of a reply, his body moved on its own—rolling off the tangle of branches he’d landed in and tumbling down to a ground thick with vegetation that made up the Sacred Pond’s encircled space. Burning lasers struck the tree within a breath after him.
Thick ferns cushioned his fall, and he laid there on his back, steadily breathing, holding Ugly tightly to his chest. Thankfully, the young bird had sense enough to keep quiet. Maybe seeing the death lasers had startled him. Or maybe it was the strange lump of ashes on the ground nearby, remnants of a laser’s work and some poor creature’s remains.
Fern leaves swayed across his vision and he tried to gather his bearings. They were inside the forbidden compound now, and if they were detected, the lasers would find them. They had to keep low.
K-chnk, k-chnk.
“S-something’s in here looking for us,” Ugly murmured, his feathers trembling against him.
“Yes...” It did sound that way. “Keep your head down.”
Madnes set Ugly beside him and twisted his body around so that he lay on his stomach and could peer between the ferns. The noise was clunky and metallic, and with horror he realized it came from more than one source.
He crawled around carefully, searching for a better view. The pond’s surface shimmered pure azure a dozen feet from where they’d landed.
Loud cranking and spinning gear noises came from robotic sentries. They were positioned in a circle around the compound’s enclosure, and having detected an intruder lurking inside, they were now moving as one, like a net closing in.
Gears and spokes stuck out like clockwork machines, and their mouths opened with ready lasers. Metal heads turned this way and that as they clunked forward in their search. As far as Madnes could tell, there was no way out, unless a secret door had been blended in somewhere.
It wouldn’t make sense not to have a door for emergency purposes, to upgrade the sentries or put out a fire or whatever else. But if it did exist, how was he going to get past those robots? One mistake, and a laser would be the last thing he ever saw.
Madnes’s wrist started burning in pain and he glanced down at it. The inked clock in his skin had moved its long handle a tick.
He bit down a shout. ‘I should’ve moved faster on my own, instead of letting the fairy take control of me!’
Pinions tapped the side of his head.
“Uh, mister, how’re we getting out of here?”
He faced a large goose eye, his own reflection staring back at him. “Oh, so you’ve finally realized this place is dangerous, huh? A little late, don’t you think?”
Ugly blinked back at him.
Madnes sighed and shifted his attention to the sentries. ‘I’m going to have to
use up more of my life again, aren’t I?’ Even if there was a door, no doubt there’d be trouble waiting for him on the other side of it. Best to run back up the wall, same way he’d entered. ‘But can I outrun the sentries’ fire power?’ That was the life-or-death question.
“I don’t have a choice.”
“What?” Ugly asked, his long neck cocked.
Madnes didn’t bother answering. Instead, he scooped up the gray bird in one arm like a football and rose into a low crouch. Ugly honked in surprise, and robotic heads swiveled and creaked their way.
“Oh crud.”
A volley of red lasers fired their way, and his legs filled with a burst of speed as the power took over him again. His body zigzagged this way and that, swerving in impossible ways and barely avoiding the hot beams streaking past them.
Alarms reverberated off the walls, rattling through his skull, and Ugly cried out just as loud. The robots moved at a creaking trot toward them.
Uh-oh, the fairy sighed. Looks like you’ll need more power than this. But it’s going to cost you...
Madnes didn’t have time to think. He only knew that the power was his only way of staying alive and saving Ugly.
‘Do what has to be done, then!’
But just as he thought it, a strange cry came: “Wo-uu-o-uu-o!” like something you’d hear from a jungle man. Madnes looked up. There in the sky, coming down into the compound, was a strange flying contraption—a bicycle with propellers, to be precise. And its driver grinned and gave a solute.
Some of the sentries’ attention shifted to the contraption, and searing lasers flashed.
“Harrey! Watch out!!”
There was nothing Madnes could do. He ran towards the bike as it lowered, but he wasn’t fast enough to reach it before the lasers made contact.
