Other Alice

by Michelle Harrison

  ‘Got it?’

  ‘Yesh. In teef.’

  ‘Good. Now get back here.’

  She appeared at the window far more quickly than it had taken her to make it to the back door. When the furry black head emerged from the window above, Piper was already in place as the key dropped and landed in his hand.

  He jammed it in the lock. There was a soft click and the door opened. Piper went in first and the rest of us followed into a large room that contained only boxes. There was no furniture and no curtains; yellow light from outside filtered through, casting shadows on the walls. The room was plain except for an old-fashioned fireplace that had a stack of newspapers and a basket of logs on the hearth. I looked at it longingly.

  ‘It’s colder in here than it is outside.’

  ‘It’s an old place,’ said Gypsy. ‘Probably hasn’t been used in a long time.’ She flicked the light switch. The bare bulb overhead snapped into life.

  ‘Is it safe to have the lights on?’ I asked. ‘What if we’re seen from outside?’

  ‘We ain’t got much choice,’ said Piper. ‘We can’t work in the dark, and the quicker we find this story the quicker we can get out. I’ll go upstairs and keep a lookout at the front in case we do attract any attention. Tabitha, you come and keep watch at the back.’

  For once, Tabitha did as she was asked without argument and the two of them slunk out of the room, each as silently as the other.

  Gypsy and I set to work, searching for boxes labelled with ‘G’. We found just one, which Gypsy began rifling through.

  ‘Make sure everything is put back the way it was, so Ramblebrook doesn’t know anyone’s been looking through all this stuff,’ I said. ‘If we don’t find it tonight, we might have to come back. I’ll check the rest of the place.’

  I left Gypsy and went to the hallway. There was one door between the room behind me and Ramblebrook’s office, and he had scrawled Room One on the door in chalk. I pushed it open to find a wide space with bare floorboards and a damp smell. There were no boxes. I moved on.

  Ramblebrook’s door was closed. I turned the handle and it opened soundlessly. I peered round it, half afraid he’d be waiting there in the dark, but there was no one inside. Nor were there any boxes, just paperwork laid out neatly on the desk. I leaned over it, holding one of the pages into the stream of light coming through the bare window. It was a handwritten plan of the museum, splitting the rooms up into sections:

  Room One – Reception, History of the Museum

  Room Two – Office

  Room Three – Unknown Writers

  Room Four – Published and Well-known Authors

  Room Five – Writers’ Belongings

  Room Six – Temporary Exhibition Space

  I put it down. There was other paperwork, stuff about funding and Arts Councils that I didn’t understand. I had a quick look in the desk drawers, but there was only stationery. I peered over the other side of the desk – and froze. On the floor in front of the fireplace was a thin mattress made up with blankets and a pillow. Next to it was a large suitcase.

  ‘I think we’ve got a problem,’ I said.

  ‘What?’ Piper called down immediately.

  ‘Wherever Ramblebrook is, he probably won’t be long. All his clothes are here and he’s obviously sleeping here, too.’

  A frantic scuffling of papers came from the back room.

  ‘Then let’s hurry up,’ said Gypsy.

  I left the room, remembering to close the door behind me, and went up the stairs. I felt jittery now. What if Ramblebrook came back and caught us? What would he do?

  It was cooler upstairs, and the grubby carpet gave way to a polished wooden floor. I tried to keep my footsteps quiet, but each one had its own little echo. At the top, it opened out into another hallway. Piper stood at the opposite end of it, silhouetted against the window.

  He glanced my way, then looked back through the window. ‘All’s clear.’

  I nodded. ‘I’m glad I’m not alone up here.’

  Piper flicked at a cobweb. ‘It’s pretty creepy. But I’ve been in worse.’

  ‘It’s not just the building.’ I stared through the door to the room facing the front. Boxes hulked in surly piles, like a square-shouldered army. ‘It’s everything that’s in this place.’

  ‘The stories?’

  ‘There’s something . . . wrong about collecting them. It feels sort of . . . haunted in here. Like these stories are all ghosts that can’t rest, because Ramblebrook won’t let them.’

  ‘At least someone cared enough to keep them. Some things are just . . . thrown away.’ Piper stared out at the empty street. ‘You’d better keep looking.’

  I crept into the room nearest, the one stuffed with boxes. I went to the closest pile, stubbing my toe on something jutting out of the floor. I lost my balance and kicked something loose on the floor – a dropped coin.

  ‘Ouch!’ I steadied myself on the stacked boxes.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Piper asked.

  I wiggled my sore toe and winced. ‘I caught my foot on a nail sticking out of the floorboards.’ I listened as the coin rolled a little way before landing somewhere out of sight. Heads or tails, I thought automatically, and something shifted in my head. Almost immediately I realised what it was: the heads side of a coin was, of course, the Queen. The riddle! I pushed it from my thoughts. Right now I had to focus on finding Dorothy Grimes’s story.

  Looking at each box carefully, I quickly discounted the first eight stacks. Ramblebrook’s labelling made it easy work. Then, in the ninth, I found it.

  ‘It’s here,’ I said. ‘Grady to Grimshaw. Dorothy Grimes’s story has to be in this one!’

  I ran to the stairs and called down. My voice carried easily through the echoing spaces and, within seconds, Gypsy had raced up the stairs and stood next to me.

  She lifted the box down and, with her thumbnail, made an incision in the tape holding the lid on, slitting it from end to end.

  She pulled the lid off. ‘Midge, turn the light on.’

  I flipped the switch, but nothing happened. ‘The bulb must be broken.’

  ‘Here,’ said Piper. He fished his matches out of his coat and tossed them into the room. Gypsy caught them and struck one, holding it over the box and going through its contents with her other hand.

  ‘Grimes, Grimes, where are you, Dorothy Grimes?’ She flicked through the neatly packed files, each one with a printed label displaying the name. ‘Granger, Graves . . . Griffin, lots of Griffin . . . Grimshaw . . . wait, there’s no Grimes.’

  ‘There must be,’ I said. ‘Unless Ramblebrook’s made a mistake – but he doesn’t seem the type.’

  ‘Check again.’ Piper had left his post at the window and was leaning on the door frame, staring at Gypsy. ‘Maybe he put it in the wrong place.’

  Gypsy struck another match and held it up, carefully checking the box again.

  She looked up. ‘There’s nothing here by Dorothy Grimes.’

  ‘But there has to be,’ I insisted. ‘Why else would Alice put her in the story? It doesn’t make any sense—’

  My mouth dried up at the unmistakable sound of a key rattling in a lock downstairs and the front door swinging open.

  21

  Nine Lives

  THE FRONT DOOR SLAMMED AND footsteps crossed the hall. A light snapped on and papers rustled.

  ‘We have to get out,’ Gypsy whispered.

  ‘How?’ I asked. I fumbled with the lid of the box, replacing it before lifting the others back on top. ‘Our only way out is through the back door. We’ll never get past without him hearing us!’

  Piper took a quick look into the hall, then crept back to us. ‘We’ll have to create a distraction. The room where Tabitha got in has a key on the outside of the door . . .’ He frowned. ‘Where is that cat? I haven’t seen her since we got up here.’

  ‘Wherever she is, I hope she has the sense to hide,’ I said.

  Piper nodded. ‘There’s a
cupboard in that room. If I can hide in it and draw Ramblebrook into that room, I’ll lock him in and we’ll escape.’

  ‘But we can’t just leave him locked in,’ Gypsy said. ‘He could be stuck there for days!’

  ‘He won’t die. He’ll easily be able to call for help from the window.’

  ‘But the story—’ I began.

  ‘There is no story, not by Dorothy Grimes.’

  I nodded, bitter that my idea had failed. ‘Fine.’

  ‘All right then,’ said Piper. ‘Now hide, just in case he comes into this room first.’

  Gypsy and I crouched behind the boxes. Piper took a step towards the door . . . then tripped, lost his balance and fell. He hit the floor with a whack and rolled on to his back, swearing. His flute case clattered to the floor.

  ‘Caught my toe on that bloody nail!’

  Boots thundered into the downstairs hall, followed by a growling voice. ‘Who’s there?’

  Piper’s face was pinched with pain. ‘Hide!’

  Footsteps clumped up the stairs, each one a kick, a threat. I crouched next to Gypsy behind the boxes, peering through a tiny gap. My fingers met something cold on the floor: the penny I’d kicked earlier. I picked it up and slipped it in my pocket. We needed all the luck we could get. I saw Piper roll himself behind the door, clutching his knee. I felt sick. From the look on his face, Piper wouldn’t be running anywhere just yet.

  Ramblebrook had reached the top of the stairs, breathing heavily. ‘Who’s in here?’ he demanded again. His boots slapped across the wooden floor, moving away from us. A door creaked at the opposite end of the hall. He was in the room with the open window.

  ‘He’ll come in here next,’ Piper mouthed. ‘I’ll stall him and you can escape!’

  My chest felt tight from being too afraid to breathe. Ramblebrook’s shadow appeared before he did, looming in the doorway and stretching across the floor. He moved into view. Light spilled across his sharp features as he turned to see Piper sprawled across the floor.

  His face twisted in surprise. ‘You again! What are you doing in here?’

  Piper lunged for him, wrapping his arms round Ramblebrook’s legs. ‘Run!’ he yelled.

  ‘What?’ Ramblebrook roared. He turned, losing his balance, and fell, hitting the floor hard. Piper grabbed at his ankles, but cried out as a swift kick from Ramblebrook snapped his fingers back.

  ‘Go!’ Gypsy yanked me out from behind the boxes. We fled, brushing against Ramblebrook, who was already clambering to his feet.

  ‘What’s the meaning of all this?’

  His voice echoed off the walls as we raced to the stairs. Gypsy leaped for the steps, taking them two at a time. Footsteps pounded behind me and fingertips brushed against my hair. My eyes bulged as my collar was seized from behind and I came to a halt like a dog on a choke lead. I grabbed at the banister, coughing and gasping for breath.

  Ramblebrook twisted me round to face him, his beakish nose almost touching mine. ‘Got you!’

  ‘Midge!’ Gypsy shouted, frozen on the stairs like a cornered animal deciding whether to fight or run.

  ‘Let him go,’ she said. ‘Please. It was just . . . a dare. A silly game. We haven’t touched anything and we won’t bother you again.’

  Ramblebrook twisted my collar more tightly. ‘Now why don’t I believe that? Could it be because you were all here earlier today, sniffing around? See, what I think is this: you saw something you fancied was valuable and decided to come back and steal it.’ He shook me, making me bite my tongue. My eyes watered and I tasted metal. ‘Is that it, boy?’

  Gypsy ran at him, delivering a swift kick to his shins. ‘Let him go, you bully!’ she cried.

  Ramblebrook staggered back, but kept hold of me. I touched my fingers to my mouth. They came away red. Behind me, Ramblebrook gasped, releasing me.

  ‘Did I do that . . . ?’

  ‘Yes,’ I mumbled, wiping blood on my trousers. ‘You did.’

  ‘I . . . I never meant to hurt you . . .’ He blinked, then pulled a crumpled tissue from his pocket. He pushed it at me with cold, fumbling hands. ‘Here.’

  I pressed it to my mouth.

  ‘No one’s ever called me a bully before.’

  ‘Well, that’s what you are.’ Piper emerged from the front room, limping towards us. ‘You shook him like a dog with a rabbit.’

  ‘You’re trespassing,’ Ramblebrook said, his voice hollow. ‘I was angry. I – I panicked.’ He sagged against the wall. ‘Oh, go,’ he said. ‘Just . . . go.’

  I edged to the top of the stairs, not taking my eyes off him. Piper came after me, his head bent, hair across his face.

  We’d taken only a couple of steps when Ramblebrook spoke again.

  ‘You may as well tell me what you were looking for,’ he said. ‘I know you were after something.’

  ‘We told you,’ Gypsy said icily. ‘It was for a dare.’

  He gave a wry smile. ‘Then can you explain why two of the boxes in the room you were in were not in the places I left them?’

  ‘No.’ Gypsy nudged me forward. ‘We’re leaving, right now.’

  ‘Wait.’

  Something in Ramblebrook’s voice made us pause. He leaned over the banister, eyes sweeping over us. ‘I didn’t pay much attention to you earlier, but now I look at you all I see there’s something going on. You’re like three little ragamuffins, with those dirty clothes and frightened faces. Tell me what it is.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Gypsy.

  ‘You’re obviously here for a reason,’ Ramblebrook answered. ‘Perhaps I can help you.’

  ‘Why would you want to?’ Piper asked suspiciously.

  ‘Because there was once a time when I could have helped someone and didn’t.’ His face reddened and, for a moment, he looked young, like a schoolboy that had been hauled in front of the head teacher.

  Gypsy and I exchanged looks, then glanced at Piper. He shrugged, and eventually Gypsy nodded, although it was accompanied by a meaningful look which said, Don’t tell him everything.

  ‘We were looking for a story written by someone called Dorothy Grimes,’ I said. ‘I thought it was here. But we must have made a mistake.’

  Ramblebrook’s eyebrows crouched over his hooked nose. ‘Grimes . . . Grimes . . . why do I know that name?’ He trailed off, his expression changing, becoming grave and then a little frightened. ‘Yes. I know the one.’

  ‘Then why couldn’t we find it?’ Gypsy asked, unmoving. ‘We searched a box in that room. According to how you’ve organised them, it should have been in there.’

  Ramblebrook nodded, stroking his chin. ‘My dear, if you know about that story, then you must know that I’m not supposed to have it. For that reason, it’s kept somewhere . . . a little safer.’ His eyes darted over each of us. ‘May I ask why you want it?’

  For a moment, no one answered. I took the tissue away from my mouth. It had finally stopped bleeding. ‘We think she’s looking for it. We wanted to get to it before she did.’

  ‘Looking for it?’ Alarm crept into his voice. ‘How can she be when she’s been locked up for life?’

  ‘We’ve got reason to believe she’s escaped,’ said Gypsy. ‘And we need her to do something for us. The story is our bargaining chip.’

  ‘You mean blackmail?’

  Piper shrugged. ‘Same thing.’

  ‘I see,’ said Ramblebrook. He adjusted his glasses. ‘If that’s the case, then I think the best thing I can do is get rid of it before anyone comes to any harm.’ He paused. ‘You do know who Dorothy Grimes is, don’t you? You must have read about the awful things she’s capable of? You don’t want to get mixed up with her.’

  ‘We don’t have a choice,’ I said. ‘Please – you said you wished you’d helped someone once. That’s what we’re trying to do now. Let us have the story.’

  Ramblebrook chewed his lip. ‘Are you sure you want to read it? It’s dark. Disturbing. In fact, it’d probably give you nightmares.’

  ‘Please,�
�� I repeated. ‘Someone’s life depends on this.’

  He stared at us a little longer, then finally nodded. ‘Very well. Follow me.’

  He led the way to the room at the back, the one through which Tabitha had got in. He stopped by the darkened doorway. One by one we joined him outside. I hung back, suddenly on edge.

  ‘This room is empty.’

  ‘It isn’t.’ He pushed the door wider, pointing.

  There in a dark alcove were several boxes, plus a large safe. They were so well tucked in that I’d missed them the first time I’d looked.

  He flipped the light switch, before realising that there was no fitting, just a tangle of wires hanging from the ceiling. ‘Bother,’ he muttered. ‘That should’ve been fixed.’

  He walked towards the safe, his shoes clipping the bare floorboards, and dug into his pocket, removing a set of keys. ‘It’s kept in the safe, for obvious reasons.’

  We filed into the room and stood by him in silence as he fumbled with the keys. ‘You can take it downstairs and read it . . . if I can ever find the key. I need some light . . .’ He shuffled back to the door, still fumbling.

  Piper had gone ahead of us and was kneeling by the safe, his fingers on a large dial. ‘Hang on.’ He stood, his voice sharp. ‘Why would you need a key for a combination—?’

  The door slammed shut and the key turned, locking us inside the dark room, with Ramblebrook on the other side of the door.

  ‘. . . .ock,’ Piper finished, and kicked the safe with all his might.

  Gypsy ran to the door and pounded it with her fists. ‘What are you doing? Let us out!’ She turned to Piper, speaking urgently. ‘Piper, your flute. Could you play something? Make him open the door?’

  ‘I could if I still had it, but I dropped it back in the other room when I fell.’ Piper booted the safe again, then turned his back to the wall, his head in his hands. ‘I can’t believe I fell for such a simple trick,’ he fumed. ‘I knew I should have waited outside.’ He limped to the door, rattling it. ‘Open this door before I kick it down!’