Other Alice

by Michelle Harrison

  I was aware I was staring, but couldn’t seem to stop. The girl appeared not to notice, barely glancing my way. She looked half in a daydream as she approached, passing the first boat and taking out a chain from around her neck. A silver key dangled from it. She lifted the key, then paused, noticing me. A flicker of recognition crossed her face. I moved closer to her. Sure enough, there it was, painted on the side of the boat: Elsewhere. Gypsy opened the notebook she was carrying and wrote something in it, then held it out to me.

  Did you find Alice?

  I looked into her eyes.

  ‘No,’ I mumbled, noticing a leaflet poking out of the pocket of her jacket. I recognised the library emblem. It was a list of opening times.

  ‘I’ve just been to the library, too,’ I said. ‘Looking for Alice. But I didn’t make it in time; it was closed.’

  I didn’t find what I was looking for anyway, she wrote.

  I saw an opportunity to get her to stick with me a little longer.

  ‘There’s a bookshop not far from here. I could show you where if you like?’ I offered.

  She stared at me just long enough to make me squirm. Why are you so keen to do a favour for a stranger? she wrote.

  For a moment, I faltered, taken aback, but a plan was forming in my mind.

  ‘Well, I’m going there now anyway, to look for Alice. She loves books, you see.’ I tried to read Gypsy’s expression, but it gave nothing away. ‘Plus, if I help you, perhaps you could help me in return.’

  How?

  ‘By pretending to be Alice.’

  The girl rolled her eyes.

  ‘I’m serious,’ I said. ‘This isn’t the first time Alice has . . . disappeared. If our mum finds out, she’ll be in big trouble. I need to find her, but our mum can’t know that she’s gone.’

  At this Gypsy laughed. Lookalike or not, there’s no way you’d be able to fool your own mother.

  ‘You think?’ I reached into my rucksack and took out the photograph of Alice from her purse. ‘You don’t realise just how much you look like her.’

  Gypsy snatched the photo, blinking. The smirk slid right off her face. Her fingers shook as she wrote two wobbly words.

  That’s impossible.

  ‘Now you can see why I thought you were her this morning.’

  But she looks just like me. She practically is me.

  I went to take the photograph from her, but her grip was too tight. I had the horrible feeling I’d blown it by scaring her, but as she looked harder at the picture some of the stiffness dropped out of her shoulders and she released it into my hand.

  She’s thinner in the face than me, and her eyes are blue, she wrote. Mine are green.

  ‘Well, yes. You don’t look exactly like her. That’d be impossible. But you look enough like her to fool Mum for a few minutes,’ I said. ‘That’s all it would need to be.’

  I suppose there’s no harm in that. She studied me again, watchful as a bird. My name is Gypsy Spindle.

  I nodded, pretending the name was new to me. ‘I’m Michael Pierce, but everyone calls me Midge.’

  Gypsy tucked the silver key around her neck out of sight. Come on then, Midge, she wrote. Lead the way.

  We set off, away from the towpath, and headed towards the town centre. As we walked, I heard Gypsy’s footsteps next to mine, heard her breathing, saw her shadow falling across the path, just as solid as mine. I remembered Alice speaking about characters from books and how real they were to her.

  I wondered if this was what she had meant.

  6

  The Likeness

  WE WALKED A SHORT WAY in silence. Partly, I supposed, as it would have been awkward for Gypsy to keep stopping to write in her notebook. I wondered how she had lost her voice. Somewhere in the notebook in my rucksack, it was likely the answer was written . . . but I wanted to hear about Gypsy from her. I wanted to find out how much she knew, without giving too much away.

  ‘Is it new, the book you’re looking for?’ I asked eventually. ‘Chapters has nearly all the latest releases.’

  Gypsy shrugged. I wasn’t sure if it meant that she didn’t know, or couldn’t be bothered to make small talk.

  ‘Well, if it’s old, there’s a good chance they’ll have it, too,’ I continued. ‘There’s a huge section of second-hand books on the top floor. Alice spends hours in there.’ I sneaked a sideways look at Gypsy, to see if the mention of Alice sparked any interest in her, but it was difficult to tell. I continued talking anyway. It made me feel closer to Alice, somehow, speaking about our life together.

  ‘One Christmas Eve, we were shopping and we lost Alice. Mum was frantic, running back to all the shops we’d been into and showing them the picture of Alice in her purse. Alice was about eight then. I was so little I can’t remember it, but Mum tells us about it every Christmas. In the end, she found her in Chapters in the children’s book section. She’d wandered back there when she couldn’t find us and had fallen asleep in the reading tent.’

  Gypsy gave a slight nod, but her face was still blank. She didn’t seem interested in hearing about Alice. Did she really have no idea about their connection, or was she just hiding it well? We walked in silence until we reached the next corner, then turned into Cutpurse Way. ‘It’s just up here,’ I said. We wove round people in a stop-start dance to reach the doorway of the old bookshop. I hung back behind Gypsy as she went in, past the new releases on the tables at the front, past maps and the cookery section. The whole place smelled deliciously of new books. Gypsy went straight to the counter, waiting in line until a fair-headed woman called her over.

  I followed, hovering behind her awkwardly. The woman behind the counter had a friendly face, and the name on her badge said SARAH. Gypsy opened her notebook, then laid it on the counter and tapped the page. I couldn’t see what it said from where I stood, but I didn’t want to look nosy by moving closer.

  Sarah peered at the notebook. ‘I’m pretty sure I don’t have that,’ she said. ‘And I don’t recognise the title, but let me check.’ She typed some words into a computer. ‘No, nothing. Do you have any other information? The name of the author perhaps?’

  Gypsy shook her head.

  ‘Are you sure the title’s correct?’

  At this, Gypsy nodded, but the bookseller looked unsure.

  ‘It could be tricky to track down with only the title, especially if it’s not quite right. Just a minute.’ She slipped out from behind the counter and vanished into the warren of bookshelves, returning a couple of minutes later. ‘It couldn’t be either of these, could it?’

  Gypsy took one of the books from her. It was called The Museum’s Secret and it had a nice cover, with illustrations of gleaming, blue-black beetles crawling over it. Gypsy shook her head and handed it back.

  ‘What about this?’ Sarah asked. The second one was called The Museum of Spells and Sorcery. It occurred to me that this sounded just the kind of book I’d like to read when the familiarity of it struck me, and my breath caught in my throat. At the same moment, I realised that Gypsy’s notebook was still open on the counter, and she had moved aside a little to look at the books.

  I stepped closer to the counter and looked at what was written. There it was, in Gypsy’s perfect script:

  My head spun. Gypsy was searching for the story Alice had written. The story to which she belonged and which had somehow brought her to life.

  Questions crashed into my head, rolling over each other like waves.

  Did Gypsy know she was a made-up character in someone else’s story? What did she want with it – a glimpse of what was in store for her? If so, how could she know her future if it was only half-written? And what would happen if she discovered that the very thing she was looking for was right under her nose, stashed in my rucksack?

  ‘There’s nothing else coming up that’s similar,’ Sarah said apologetically. ‘But we have lots of old books on the top floor, and not all of them are catalogued on our system. There’s a chance it could be there.’r />
  Gypsy nodded her thanks and picked up her notebook.

  ‘Are you going upstairs to look through the old books?’ I asked. I could barely meet her eyes, I was so afraid she would see the truth in them, but she was too distracted to notice anything different. She sighed, nodding.

  ‘Where shall I meet you later?’ I asked. ‘For when . . .’ I paused, moving closer to her. ‘When you pretend to be Alice?’

  She dropped her gaze and a sick feeling seeped into my stomach. She didn’t want to do it.

  ‘You said you would.’ My voice came out harder than I meant it to, and I stared at her until she was forced to look at me again.

  I’ll be here, at the bookshop, she wrote. Come and find me when you’re ready.

  ‘You’ll be here?’ I said. ‘Promise?’

  She nodded. Gypsies don’t break promises.

  I left her and rushed out of the shop into the cold air, aware of how hot my cheeks were all of a sudden: hot with guilt.

  I was the only one who knew the truth: Gypsy’s search was pointless. She would never find what she was looking for there, or anywhere else. Only one copy existed in the world, and that was the half-written version bumping along in my rucksack. Until I figured out what Gypsy wanted with the story, the best thing I could do was keep my mouth shut. I needed to think about what to do next, but the hugeness of it all felt too much. I wanted Alice, to help me and tell me what to do. But I was alone. It felt like another one of Alice’s riddles . . . only this time none of it made any sense and there was no hope of solving it.

  I moved away from the shop, following the trickle of people towards the town square. Things were getting busier now, more crowded than an ordinary Saturday. A bandstand had been set up at the top of the steps to the town hall, and street vendors had sprung up in every direction. At the centre of the square was a towering mass of wood. Even as I watched, people were heaping more on: branches, garden cuttings, broken furniture. It made me think of Sleeping Beauty: of all the spinning wheels in the kingdom being burned after the wicked fairy had spoken her curse. But this bonfire was for the Likenesses to burn on.

  ‘Don’t you just love a good fire?’ a voice said nearby.

  I looked round to see a lady standing close to me. Her smile startled me, for her mouth was bright and shiny with the reddest lipstick I’d ever seen.

  I shrugged. ‘Bonfires are fun, I guess.’ I looked at the clock tower. It was time to head back home soon. I started to move off, but the red-lipped woman spoke again.

  ‘You’re Alice’s little brother, aren’t you?’

  I turned back. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Oh, thank goodness I found you.’ She stepped closer, lowering her voice. ‘Alice sent me.’

  My heart leaped. ‘You’ve seen Alice? Where is she? Is she OK?’

  She shook her head and her glossy, black hair swished at her jawline. ‘She’s in trouble. She asked me to bring her something.’

  I felt a stab of fear. ‘What kind of trouble? Wait – who are you?’

  The woman smiled wider, her lips stretching over her teeth. Her mouth was so red I could hardly look away from it, but when I did I saw that she was more of a girl than a woman, perhaps a bit older than Alice. Her clothes made her look more grown-up. She wore a neat suit, with shiny, pointed, black shoes that had little red bows on.

  ‘I’m a friend of Alice’s,’ she said.

  ‘Are you?’ I asked. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Dolly.’

  Why was she still smiling if Alice was in trouble? I didn’t like it and I didn’t like her eyes. They were blue, but not blue like a summer sky, like Alice’s. They were blue like a frozen lake, icy and staring, with no warmth in them.

  I heard Alice’s voice in my head, a memory of last year.

  If anyone ever approaches you, Midge, anyone you don’t know that asks you about me, don’t trust them. Do you hear me? They’ll say anything . . . just get away from them . . .

  Could she be another one of them? Another character from Alice’s story? Before I knew it, I’d taken a step back. I tried desperately to remember the names of the other characters that were written in the notebook, but my mind had gone blank with fear.

  ‘I know all Alice’s friends,’ I said. ‘She’s never mentioned anyone called Dolly.’

  ‘Surely you don’t know all her friends?’ Dolly’s voice was sweet, but those eyes of hers still chilled me.

  ‘I’m pretty sure I do,’ I said. ‘She doesn’t have that many.’ I took another step away, my heart thudding.

  ‘Look, you know she’s in trouble,’ Dolly hissed, her smile gone. ‘Do you want to help your sister or not? She told me she could count on you. Was she wrong?’

  I froze, like I’d been slapped. The sudden change in her manner had caught me off guard. My gut was telling me to run and yet . . . What if this girl was genuine and there was a chance to help Alice? I’d never let Alice down . . . but her warning echoed in my mind. The only way to know for sure would be to set a trap.

  ‘What does Alice want?’ I asked.

  Dolly smoothed a strand of hair with a gloved hand. ‘There’s a notebook containing a story she’s working on. She wants me to take it to her. Do you know where it is?’

  I stared at her, heart pounding, hesitating a heartbeat too long. ‘No.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  I nodded, then, as her eyes strayed behind me, realised too late that my hand was resting protectively on my rucksack. I let it drop. ‘I – I could go home and look for it,’ I said at last. ‘But you tell me where Alice is and I’ll take it to her.’

  Dolly shook her head. ‘No can do. She told me not to let you – she doesn’t want you getting mixed up in all this. I’m the one who has to take it.’

  ‘OK,’ I said, thinking hard. ‘But Alice warned me something like this might happen. So she set a riddle and only the people she trusts know the answer to it.’

  The girl looked at me, her face unreadable.

  I swallowed. ‘Take half of free, and all of end, with I in the middle, on me you depend.’

  ‘Oh, yes. I remember her mentioning it.’ I saw her lips moving silently as she repeated the verse to herself. ‘The answer is friend,’ she said brightly.

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘The thing is, that wasn’t Alice’s riddle. It was one I made up. So you’re lying.’

  Dolly stared at me wordlessly, then grinned again. This time her teeth were tinged red. At first, I thought it was lipstick, but then I wondered if it might be blood. Had she bitten her cheek in anger, now I’d tricked her?

  ‘Listen,’ she said softly. ‘Why don’t you come with me?’ Her eyes darted from side to side. ‘You’re alone, right?’

  I didn’t answer. A jittery feeling was bubbling up inside me. I badly wanted to run.

  ‘Come with me,’ Dolly repeated in a friendly voice. ‘I can see you’re worried – I’ll take you to Alice . . .’

  ‘NO!’ My voice came out forcefully, and I was aware of people turning to look. ‘I’m not going anywhere with you!’

  Dolly’s fake smile froze on her lips. Suddenly, it didn’t look anything like a smile at all. It just looked as if she were baring her teeth at me. Without another word, I turned and fled through the crowd, weaving this way and that, glancing over my shoulder. Twice I ducked and doubled back, checking to see if she was behind me, but there was no sign. Heart thundering, I hid behind the bandstand and tried to slow my breathing. After a minute or two, I felt calmer. She hadn’t tried to follow, and I was sensible enough to know that she wouldn’t try to grab me or drag me off with all these people around.

  I was convinced now that Dolly – if that was her real name – didn’t know where Alice was at all. She’d lied, simply to trap me. But why? Was she looking for Alice herself, or did she want the notebook? Or both?

  I thought about how I’d caught her out. It was Alice’s doppelgänger story that had given me the idea, where the boy had saved himself with a rid
dle. The one I’d used wasn’t too difficult, not when it was written down anyway. But Dolly had solved it in her head and quickly. She was smart.

  Something brushed against my ankle and a lazy voice drawled up at me.

  ‘What is all this fuss about?’

  I looked down to see Tabitha sitting at my feet.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I gasped. ‘Are you following me?’

  ‘Only for the last few minutes,’ Tabitha replied. ‘I thought I recognised you, and it’s not like I know anyone else here.’

  I eyed her suspiciously. All the questions I had about Gypsy, and now Dolly and how much they knew . . . the same questions applied to the cat, too. Did Tabitha know about the story? Or was she being truthful about not knowing where she was?

  ‘Why are you following me?’

  ‘I thought I just explained that,’ said Tabitha, narrowing her golden eyes. ‘You’re the only person I know. And, well . . . I’m hungry. I’ve nowhere else to go. I waited at your house, but your cat’s a greedy beast. She gobbled up all her disgusting food and didn’t leave a thing, although I suppose I should be grateful.’

  I bent down and lifted her into my arms. ‘Come here,’ I said. ‘There are too many people about; you’ll get trodden on if you stay down there.’

  She nestled in the crook of my arm, paws on my shoulder and whiskers tickling my cheek. ‘So what is all this?’

  ‘The Summoning,’ I said softly. ‘It’s sort of a custom of Fiddler’s Hollow. Some kind of old magic. A bit silly really. It’s never worked before, not for me.’