“Alice!” She heard her named called out. At first she thought it was from soldiers on the ground, but it was too tall and smoky for them to see anything.
“Alice!” She heard again. It was coming from below and it was neither the White Rabbit nor the Cheshire Cat to be sure. She recognized the voice.
“Up here!” She yelled back. “I’m stuck on the roof!”
It was Jack. Alice smiled, realizing he had come for her.
Alice’s eyes lit up happily as she saw Jack pop his head up from the ladder opening. His face grimed with soot from the fire and his walnut colored hair was sopped with sweat.
“Jack!” Alice exclaimed. “I am so glad to see you!” She shifted towards him, “Sorry to say my leg’s broken.” She said apologetically as tears of happiness filled her eyes. Jack crawled from the opening, across the top of the siege tower and went to her, leaning next to her on his knees. Alice wrapped her arms tightly around him and buried her face into his neck. Overcome with emotions, she began to sob uncontrollably. Jack took a moment and held her as she cried.
“Hello, Alice,” Jack said kindly. “Come here often?” he joked. “I was hoping you were still alive.”
“You came for me!” she cried. “Oh, Jack, I’ve missed you. I didn’t think I’d see you ever again.” Then Alice pulled away with a fearful look in her eyes. “What of Rabbit and the Cheshire Cat? Did you see them? They were fighting, really tearing each other apart on the level below. I came up here to escape them, and the fire. Did you see them?”
“No not at all,” Jack shrugged. “Didn’t see them, much less anything else, the whole tower is on fire though.”
Jack turned and made his way back to the opening, looking down to check on the fire. Then he looked quickly back at Alice and said, “In fact we’d better hurry before it’s too late.”
A moment later, where Jack had been looking back down the hole and saw nothing but smoke and fire, an arm shot out from the opening and a burned paw grabbed Jack’s throat, lifting him off his feet as the Rabbit seemed to rise from the opening below. Taken by surprise, it was all Jack could do to grab at his arm in hopes of not having his trachea crushed by Rabbit’s iron grip.
“We are already too late!” the White Rabbit growled as he climbed out of the opening, choking Jack’s throat with his paw. Rabbit’s once tidy vest was burned and tattered, his fur was singed and burned off all about his body, leaving pink and blackened red charred skin that blistered with horrific burns. His cut face was streaked with ash, burns and dark, dirty blood. Rabbit tossed Jack carelessly across the top of the platform, sending him down the broken hole in the platform where Alice had fallen through before. Jack disappeared into the smoky flames that filled the level below them.
Alice screamed and stretched out to grab her wooden plank. Rabbit was quicker and planted his metal foot on the delicate skin of Alice’s inner forearm before she could grab the wooden plank. The heated metal of Rabbit’s prosthetic foot seared into Alice’s exposed flesh and she cried out in pain from the burning.
“It’s not fair,” he growled as he pulled his foot back, leaving a bright read burn in the shape of a rabbit’s paw on the inside of Alice’s right forearm. She recoiled with pain and held her arm.
“I loved you, Alice… from the start. I watched you grow up. I guided you; I gave you a lifetime to rule as queen. Why couldn’t you have loved me back?” the White Rabbit sobbed, the pain of his broken heart now being laid bare, a pain that hurt a thousand times worse than the terrible burns that racked his body. “All I wanted was your love.” He pleaded as he stepped towards her.
“Oh, my dear Rabbit,” Alice cried. “I am so sorry. I have loved you; you have been so dear to me for all of these years. But the kind of love you have for me…” She paused trying to choose her words. “I’m sorry,” was all she could say. Alice looked away, unable to bear looking at him.
“Why?” Rabbit bristled in frustration.
“I’m sorry… but one cannot choose who one falls in love with,” Alice replied. “No matter how hard you try. Dear Rabbit, I am so terribly sorry to see you go through all of this terrible time when I don’t... love you in that way. I don’t think I ever could.”
He bent over, wrapping his arms about his head and hid his face in anguish. “Why couldn’t you just love me like you loved Jack?”
Alice quickly grabbed the plank and struggled to her feet. “Jack? Is this what this is about? Are you jealous of Jack?”
“This is all Jack’s fault!” Hunched over, Rabbit hissed through his tears, “Twice I had the chance, I should have killed him.”
Pulling his arms away from his face, Rabbit looked up. He saw Alice standing in front of him balanced on her good leg, her face was stern, as she readied the wooden plank over her shoulder like a bat.
“No, Rabbit, it’s no one’s fault but your own!” With all of her strength and her anger at the White Rabbit, Alice swung the wooden board as hard as she could, striking Rabbit against his head, and sending him sprawling across the floor, right to the edge of the siege tower. Her swing brought her off balance on her one good leg and she fell, arms forward.
“I never would have killed you, Alice” he whispered. “I had the chance…I could have,” he admitted. “But… I just... couldn’t have. For all of those many years before I couldn’t imagine my life without you in it,” he said as he lay on his side looking directly into her eyes.
“I’m so sorry, Rabbit,” Alice quietly replied as tears filled her eyes. She lay on the platform looking at the White Rabbit, in pain from her leg and afraid to move.
“But now I can’t imagine living … knowing you were with someone else,” said Rabbit weakly as he offered a defeated smile. “Please…if you think of me, remember the better days; not like this.”
Then with a gentle push from his paw, he rolled backwards and slipped from the edge of the tower.
Alice in tears and shock, called after him. “NO!” she cried and despite her broken leg crawled to the side just in time to see Rabbit falling with a look of acceptance on his face. His body was swallowed by a roll of black smoke from the burning tower. Alice sobbed when the smoke cleared moments later and she could see the ragdoll-like form of the White Rabbit dead on the ground next to the siege tower.
“Alice,” Jack called out weakly, choking on the smoke as he climbed back to the roof. “Are you okay?”
“Rabbit is dead,” said Alice staring numbly downward. “He’s gone, the White Rabbit, all of my friends are gone,” she muttered absently as another black billow of smoke drifted across, obscuring her view.
“I’m sorry; I know you two had a long history together,” he said. “But we’ve got bigger problems. From what I just saw, the lower levels are completely on fire. We can’t get down that way. We are trapped up here unless we get some serious help. Alice?” Jack called out to her again. “Can’t you summon a gryphon or something?”
“From up here? No. The smoke obscures us. The roar of the fire would drown out our loudest shouts. Plus, no one is looking. Everybody is in retreat, following my orders. What about your boots?” Alice asked. “Aren’t they magical?”
“You mean jumping down?” Jack confirmed Alice’s thought. “Doesn’t work like that. They are mostly for running. I can get a decent leap out of them if I really need to. We couldn’t survive a hundred foot drop though,” he said shaking his head. Adding “Now if it was a twenty or thirty foot drop… maybe,” which did not help Alice feel any better.
Alice pushed herself away from the edge and lowered her eyes at him in a serious manner. “If we are stuck up here, then I have to know. I found out that the White Rabbit had been in love with me for all of these years. I have to know Jack; did you really come back for me?”
Jack looked at her “You want to talk about this now?”
“If I’m going to die here, I deserve to know the truth,” she said sternly.
“I came back here to try and stop a war against my land, and fr
om stopping a plot to have you assassinated,” Jack answered dutifully. “I came back for you, yes. It’s the truth. But I don’t plan on dying up here…”
“But did you come back because you wanted to be with me? Because you loved me?” Alice asked in earnest.
Jack was quiet.
“Did you, Jack? Yes or no?” Alice pressed.
“It’s not that simple, a yes or no…” Jack started.
“Yes, it is,” said Alice.
“No, it isn’t,” Jack answered back sharply. “Love isn’t that simple” he insisted. “Alice, if I had met you first in my life, then it would have been an easy answer. But I owe it to the one person that came before you to find out if I should move on or not. I owe it to her to find out for her sake and mine… and yours. If I didn’t care for you do you think I would be up here fighting for my life and yours? Believe me, nothing about love is a simple yes or no. It’s not fair who you fall in love with; it’s not fair the questions about love be that easy, either.”
Alice heard in Jack’s words, the same words she had told to Rabbit not being able to choose who you fall in love with. As painful as it was to hear, Alice hated to admit to herself that she understood what Jack was saying.
There was a deep rumble that interrupted any further conversation. From their vantage point on the top of the siege tower Alice saw something on the distant horizon toward the mountains.
“What is that?” Alice asked, distracted from the conversation, focusing on the distant mountain range. “That’s back by the temple,” she said.
Jack looked around; he saw a grey cloud of smoke rise from one of the distant mountains.
Jack suddenly remembered. “That’s right… the Caterpillar left one last message. A warning that with the destruction of the Grand Looking Glass and his death, the Wonderland temple and its portal would be destroyed too— the whole mountain.”
Then there was another larger explosion in the distance. There was a pause and then a strong tremor shook the tower violently beneath them; even from this distance they could still feel the ground tremble and shake. They heard shouts of panic and confusion from the battlefield and even from the soldiers on the wall of Castle Marchenton.
“There were people back in that temple,” Alice lamented. “With the temple destroyed how are we to get anyone back to Wonderland? I have a Looking Glass in my tent still, maybe that—”
“All the looking glass mirrors have gone dark. Even yours,” Jack said somberly. “There’s no way back.”
“I can’t go home?” Alice asked, the reality of the situation began to sink in.
“Alice, you are an offlander. Wonderland was never your home,” Jack said.
“I’m not so sure, anymore,” Alice whispered vacantly.
Everyone watched awestruck as the distant mountaintop where the temple was exploded with a dark and powerful cloud rocketed upwards and a furious billow like a powerful, erupting volcano.
“We have to get out of here,” Jack said, not taking his eyes off the horizon. The rushing shockwave traveled quickly outwards, racing over the landscape, it ccovered a great distance in a few short moments. As it struck Wonderland’s forces it raced through, knocking every soldier to the ground, ripping canvased tents from their stakes and blowing over racks and boxes in a racing cloud of dust as it devastated the battlefield.
The shockwave blast rattled the siege tower to the brink of collapse; both Jack and Alice were rocked off their feet. Alice fell backwards from the platform, helplessly sliding down the steep sloping face of the tower’s equine shaped front.
“Jack!” She screamed.
Jack instantly leapt without a moment’s hesitation after her. Sliding down face first on his stomach he managed to grab a hold of Alice’s franticly reaching hands and quickly tried to slow their decent, trying to grab hold to the riveted metal plates. Reaching out with his other hand, he was able to grab hold of some loose plating, just as Alice slid off the edge and her body slammed hard against the tower’s side, sending a few metal plates falling to the ground a hundred feet below. Jack lay awkwardly, sprawled head down on the tower’s sloped roofing. Strained against the weight with a grunt, he held Alice’s hand tight with both hands and his boot wedged precariously in between some of the pulled metal plating.
“I got you!” Jack shouted.
“I’m slipping! Pull me up!” Alice said. Jack had his hands around her armored bracers and her arm was slipping from it. Jack shifted his grip and tried with all his strength to pull Alice up.
“I can’t… can’t … pull you up!” Jack said as he struggled to hold on, his face contorted with grimace. Desperately, he tried again but Alice dangled precariously from the edge, her legs kicked freely in the air, unable to get a foothold. Jack had both arms hanging over the side, holding onto to Alice. Jack had to keep his foot where it was or they would both fall but he did not have the strength or leverage to do much more than hang on to her. He could feel the plating pull away as he tried to shift his weight.
“Don’t let me fall!” she begged, “do something, I can’t hold on much longer.”
The strain on his arms grew, burning as he fought to hold on. Jack looked down at her as she struggled to readjust her slipping grip on his wrists. Jack was staring and thinking for a moment.
“It’s a hundred foot drop,” Alice said trying to anticipate what he was thinking. “We wouldn’t survive,” Alice reminded him.
“I know,” Jack replied. Then an idea flashed in his mind. “Let’s make it a twenty foot drop instead,” he flashed Alice a quick smile. “I have a souvenir from Wonderland for you.”
As Alice clung desperately to Jack’s right wrist, Jack quickly reached down into the gauntlet and pulled out a small pouch.
“Wonderland mushroom, Caterpillian,” he explained in a grunt. With his thumb and forefinger he hastily pulled the magical fungus from the pouch. “If you eat this piece you’ll grow big—”
“I know how it works, Jack,” Alice shouted.
“But it wouldn’t be a hundred foot drop for you, only about twenty or so,” Jack reasoned. “You’ll better survive that than a hundred. Take it!” he tried to hand it down at her.
“I can’t!” Alice cried desperately, too afraid to let go for even a second, “I can’t hold on with one hand like you, I’m not as strong. I’m slipping.”
“Open your mouth then,” Jack replied loudly. “ The effect won’t last long, I only have a little bit left. It’ll be just like tossing grapes into each other’s mouths,” Jack stared at her with grim seriousness. “You have to catch this.”
The fire and the subsequent shock wave damage were beginning to take its toll on the wooden framework, amid the dull roar of the flames, the loud cracking of weakened support beams could be heard giving way. The tower shuttered throughout as it stood on the verge of collapse. Alice shrieked in fright.
“You always hit me in the eye with the grapes. You have horrible aim,” Alice shouted nervously. Alice looked at Jack as she held on to his arm, her hands slipping down his sweaty wrist. “I love you, Jack, even if you don’t feel the same about me, that’s okay,” Alice said quickly.
“Save it for later when we’re out of this mess. We only get one shot at this!” Jack said.
“Don’t miss,” Alice replied, locking her eyes with his. Then like a hungry baby bird about to feed she snapped open her mouth as wide as she could.
“You’ll be okay, Alice,” he reassured her in a suddenly calm voice, “you are not in Wonderland anymore.”
Jack took aim and tossed the piece of mushroom at Alice’s mouth. Alice cocked her head to try and catch the mushroom in her mouth just as her grip on his wrist broke and she fell away. Her eyes widened in terror.
Just before she started to grow incredibly tall.
Then the tower began to tilt away as it collapsed over.
She saw Jack hanging off the side of tower’s edge as he watched her fall, making sure she was okay. It was the last time sh
e would see him, as the tower began and to buckle and crumble listing to the side as it finally toppled over disappearing in an arc of dark smoke and flame, collapsing in a fiery heap cloud of cinders.
If Jack was nimble and quick, he could have used his shoes and leapt to safety, perhaps at the very last minute, she hoped. For Alice, the deadly hundred-foot fall quickly turned into a twenty-foot drop. She tried her best not to land on her broken leg, but there was little she could do to avoid the shock of the landing. The excruciating pain caused her to black out when she landed. It was a small price to pay as Jack had saved her life.
CHAPTER 52
PATIENCE
Marchenton Castle, The Following Day.
“Excuse me sir, are you Henry?” The two blonde haired children, Day and Morning, asked of the old man in the crowd. Just as Snow White had described him, a regal-looking man with a formal frown, Henry was setting the staff to tasks in an effort to return the castle to normalcy; a monumental effort that did not benefit from interruption.
“We’re here to give a gift to a girl named Patience… from the Fae Gaia herself,” said Day.
“It’s important,” Morning pleaded.
“Who are you to implore such demand of me? And you are not children here at the castle?” Henry hardly acknowledged them, barely giving them a glance as he directed his staff. “Things are far too busy, we’ve a lot to clean up and get the castle in some semblance of order. Do you need something to clean?” he asked.
Shards Of The Glass Slipper: Queen Alice Page 33
