It happened so quickly. One moment he was there, reaching for her, beak snapping. The next moment he was gone and there was only the jar lying on its side on the ground, the cork pushed into the top, a tiny white moth fluttering inside.
Elizabeth picked up the jar and brought it close to her face. The purple butterfly was almost gone now, slowly turning to ash. The white moth threw itself against the side in fury.
“There’s nothing you can do about it, so you shouldn’t bother wearing yourself out trying to escape,” Elizabeth said.
The moth unleashed a stream of curses that made Elizabeth tut at him.
“You shouldn’t use language like that around a child, you know,” Elizabeth chided. “Besides, if you’re nice to me, I might let you out one day. But if you aren’t then I can always leave you in there.”
The moth subsided, though it seemed his fluttering was rather sulky.
“You are quite an Alice, Elizabeth Violet Hargreaves,” a voice said.
It wasn’t just a voice, though, it was the Voice in her head, the Voice that had been plaguing her for most of the day. But it wasn’t in her head any longer. It came from only a few feet away.
There was a man there, small and neat and not much taller than Elizabeth herself. He wore a velvet suit of rose red and his hair was golden brown and curly. But it was his eyes that struck her—bright green eyes, emerald eyes, sparkling curious eyes that looked terribly familiar to Elizabeth.
“You!” Elizabeth said. “If you could turn yourself into a mouse and back again then you could have helped me, you know.”
The man shook his head. “No, I could not do any more than I did. You had to discover what you were worth yourself.”
That seemed like a very poor excuse to Elizabeth, who didn’t think letting a child come to harm was a good way to build character.
“Was this all a plan of yours, then?”
The man looked offended. “No, never. I would never have lured you into the Old City at so young an age. If you recall, I tried to warn you off and you didn’t listen.”
Elizabeth chose to ignore this, because she wanted to feel annoyed at somebody over her predicament and this person was conveniently at hand.
“Who are you, anyway?” Elizabeth asked.
The man bowed low and then presented her a rose—a very red rose, a rose that could never have come from nature. Elizabeth took it, turning it over in her hand, and as she did she saw a flash of something—a little cottage in the middle of this ugly City, all covered in the same sort of beautiful roses.
“Come and see me one day, Elizabeth Violet Hargreaves. When you’re older and wiser.”
He winked at her, and then he faded away, until all that was left was the sense that those green eyes were floating in the air, and then those too were gone.
“Well, that was less helpful than it should have been,” Elizabeth said, huffing out a breath.
She tucked the curious rose into one of her pockets. Her stomach rumbled as she peered up at the sky. Night was falling. Mama and Papa were sure to be in quite a state by now, a thing that Elizabeth was sorry for, though a small part of her felt angry and resentful that they had never told her about Alice.
She wondered how much of her story she should tell them, and what they would believe.
Elizabeth had a feeling that Alice had told too much of her story, and so they’d sent her away.
Elizabeth wasn’t going to let them send her away—not simply because she didn’t want to be, but because she didn’t think they deserved to always be safe and comfortable, to ignore what the world outside was really like.
She already felt older and wiser than she had been this morning, though not quite older and wiser enough to go and see the man who lived in the rose-covered cottage.
“But I will, one day,” she said.
I’ll be waiting for you, he said.
“Now,” Elizabeth said, lifting the glass jar up to her eye level. The moth landed on the side of the jar, waving its antennae at her. “You are going to tell me the safest way home. And if you’re very good, and don’t lead me astray, I might let you out when we get there.”
The moth said, “And if I don’t?”
“Well. You know what happened to your friend the Jabberwock, don’t you?”
Yes, you are quite an Alice, Elizabeth Violet Hargreaves, the strange little man said.
“I’m not an Alice. I’m myself,” she said, with a little tartness in her tone.
The man laughed, soft and knowing.
But I’d like to meet you one day, Alice, Elizabeth thought. One day we two girls will have tea and cakes, the loveliest tea party you can imagine.
(I’ll be waiting for you), Alice said, or maybe it was only something Elizabeth hoped she heard.
But she had a kind of vision then, of a cottage by a lake at the edge of a field of wildflowers, and Alice waving to her from the doorway.
I’ll come and meet you, Alice. When I’m older and wiser.
Alice woke from something that felt not quite like a dream but not quite a memory, either. She thought she’d been speaking to a little girl, a girl who looked almost exactly like she did when she was young, and that girl was in terrible danger and Alice had helped her somehow.
The dream-memory was already disappearing, like broken cobwebs drifting to the ground in the weak sunlight filtering through the trees. Hatcher was gone, though the blankets were still warm in the place where he’d slept. His rising might have even been the thing that woke her, though he surely had done it without making a sound. Even in sleep she could tell whether he was near or far.
Alice wished he were near, because she wanted to tell him about the little girl who looked so like herself. Not that he would necessarily have advice or wisdom to share on the subject. Hatcher wasn’t talkative at the best of times. But it was still a comfort to see his grave face across the fire, with that intensity in his eyes that told her he was really listening and not just waiting for his chance to talk.
That was how most conversations went, in Alice’s experience—people didn’t listen but only waited for their turn to speak. Not that she had so much experience, really, having spent the better part of her adulthood in a hospital with a wall between her and her only companion. But she’d spent a lot of time watching other people since she and Hatcher left the Old City, watching how the people in all the doll-sized villages behaved with one another, and she’d collected some interesting impressions.
The morning was cold, cold enough that her face felt a little raw. There had been a winter festival at the last village Alice and Hatcher passed through, and Alice had purchased a heavy knitted cap in grey wool and a thick sweater to match. Hatcher had consented to a sweater but wouldn’t have the hat—he said it would cover his ears and he needed them.
The woman selling the knitted goods had looked at him askance and Alice had paid for their items and hurried Hatcher along before he started talking about turning into a wolf. Not that he would wear a knitted hat when he was a wolf, but his hearing was a great deal more acute than it used to be and he didn’t like anything to impede it.
That he did turn into a wolf wasn’t a subject Alice liked to bring up with regular folk. It tended to make them nervous, because they thought Hatcher was mad (he was, but that wasn’t a thing Alice liked to talk about over dinner, either) or they believed in wolf-men and that belief frightened them.
If it was the latter, then the rifles and cold eyes would come out and they’d be chased from the place and of course Alice didn’t want that. It was a lot of trouble to escape (it had only happened the one time, but the rumours had dogged them for three villages after that and they’d had some trouble restocking their supplies as a result) and it was never easy to keep Hatcher from killing anyone who threatened her.
Really, it was better if Hatcher did as little talk
ing as possible in mixed company. He just wasn’t capable of dissembling, even for his own good.
Their path was leading them ever northward, and the farther north they went the colder it got. Add the regular progression of the seasons, and Alice felt a constant nagging worry about the weather, like a pea under her mattress. She wanted to find a good place to settle for a few months, so they wouldn’t have to constantly hunt about for food and warmth and shelter.
Hatcher never seemed to mind sleeping outdoors or spending their days on the move, but Alice was beginning to find it wearisome. She was not as wild as he was, a force of nature barely civilized. Alice preferred a soft bed over a tree root and she liked her food served on plates.
Someday I’ll get to my cottage by the lake (the one I’ve always dreamed of, the one I’m still searching for) and my mattress will be the softest thing imaginable, so squashy that I will lie down upon it and sink into it so far that no one will be able to see me. And then I will cover myself up with the thickest, warmest blankets and sleep and sleep and sleep as much as I want, and never worry about a stranger coming upon me in the night.
Alice lay there for a few moments, imagining the wonderful sense of security that came with being surrounded by four walls. It was a thing she’d taken for granted for a long time.
Though I don’t want anyone but me to lock the door that leads outside, thank you very much. She’d had quite enough of that in the hospital. If there was any locking to be done it would be by her, from the inside.
She was getting colder every moment now, aware of the chill creeping up from the ground and the lack of heat now that Hatcher was gone.
“I’ll be warmer if I move,” she muttered, and so she forced herself to get up and put on her boots and stamp around until her blood was flowing and everything felt less stiff.
Then she collected some wood for a fire, started it, and set water to boil for tea. They had only tin mugs and no proper teapot, but Alice wasn’t moving an inch without a cup of tea. She would have liked a little honeycomb or a lump of sugar to drop into it but it wasn’t easy to carry such things about and anyway, the price of sugar was very dear this far from the City.
Elizabeth likes sugar in her tea, too, Alice thought as she toasted a piece of bread over the fire. And then she tilted her head to one side, because she wasn’t entirely sure who Elizabeth was but felt that she knew her.
Perhaps I knew her as a child and have forgotten. Alice had a lot of memories like this, half-fragmented things that swirled around, jigsaw puzzles that didn’t fit into the larger picture. It usually didn’t trouble her, because there were too many to bother about, but this one did. There was a little pain in her heart, like she shouldn’t have forgotten this girl.
Hatcher returned while Alice was eating her second piece of toast and sipping at the too-hot and very bitter black tea. His hair was wet and his face was shiny.
“Did you go swimming?” Alice asked.
He nodded, holding his hands to the fire. “I wanted a wash.”
This was code for I killed something large and bloody and didn’t want to come back with the proof on my face.
Alice confirmed this by asking, “Toast?” and got a head shake in reply. He might have eaten a whole deer, for all she knew. Sometimes he brought back animal bits for her to roast over the fire, but there was nothing today.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said.
He looked up at her and waited.
“I’d like to find a house where we—or at least I—can stay for the next few months.”
He nodded. “I’ve been thinking on that, too. The winter’s going to be too hard for you if we sleep rough.”
“But if we stay in a village it won’t be too good for you, unless you can . . .” She trailed off, for she thought it might be indelicate to say “control yourself.”
He grinned. “Avoid eating the villagers?”
“You don’t eat villagers,” Alice said. “Although you might take an arm off if they offend you.”
“Only if they offend you,” he said. “I can take any insult to myself, but never to you.”
“Well,” Alice said briskly, trying not to feel pleased about it. She shouldn’t encourage the violence that was always just under the surface of his skin. “Do you think you could avoid eating villagers for a few months? Or intimidating them with your axe?”
Hatcher rubbed his face, clearly considering. For a while he’d kept his cheeks clean-shaven but since the air had gotten chillier he’d let his beard come in. It was thick and mostly grey with bits of black, the opposite of the hair on top of his head—which was still mostly black with bits of grey.
“I don’t know if I can spend that much time around other people,” Hatcher said finally.
Alice sighed. She’d half expected this answer. “So you can’t be in a village for that many months and I can’t be out in the woods for that many months. What are we going to do, Hatch?”
The simplest solution would be to let him roam free while she settled down somewhere, but Alice wasn’t that keen on the idea. She didn’t worry that Hatcher wouldn’t return to her—he would, no matter how far he roamed—but rather worried about his mental state if he was off on his own for that long. He might forget how to be a man altogether if Alice wasn’t there to remind him.
If that’s what’s best for him shouldn’t you let him be? Isn’t it selfish for you to keep him as a man when he’s got a wild thing’s heart?
She didn’t know where that thought came from but she pushed it away just as quick as it had bubbled up. Maybe it was selfish for her to want Hatcher to be a man, but she was going to try all the same. She loved him, and love wasn’t always patient and kind and selfless. It wasn’t always the warm glow of tenderness.
Love was, she was learning, sometimes grasping and greedy. Sometimes it was a fierce and hollow burning at the base of her throat, a bright hard thing that made her choke and stutter. Sometimes it frightened her just as much as it pleased her.
Alice didn’t want to live without Hatcher. If he always stayed a wolf then she would have to. If he went away from her for the duration of the winter he probably wouldn’t bother being a man in all that time and might even forget how to change back when he returned to her. Therefore, she had to come up with a solution that would keep both of them happy.
It wasn’t as insurmountable as defeating a goblin or a pale enchantress or stopping the Jabberwock from slaughtering everyone in sight, but it felt like it.
That girl. The Jabberwock.
“It was something to do with the Jabberwock,” Alice murmured.
“What was?” Hatcher asked.
“My dream. I dreamed about a little girl named Elizabeth. And I helped her, somehow, and it had something to do with the Jabberwock. Except I don’t think it was really a dream.”
“But what does that have to do with me living in a village for the winter?”
“It doesn’t. I was just thinking about it again. Never mind.” Alice stood and dusted off her trousers. “There’s no point worrying about it just now. Maybe a solution will present itself.”
Hatcher shrugged. “Sometimes they do. And sometimes you have to hack and smash about until you make one that suits.”
That, Alice thought, is the trouble. The hacking and the smashing.
They put out the fire, collected their things in their rucksacks and started off. They’d rarely seen another person in the forest in all the days that Alice and Hatcher had been walking since they left the cursed village where the White Queen had stolen the children (but Alice had gotten them back, she’d gotten almost all of them back and so she needn’t feel ill when she thought about that place).
This made sense when they’d been walking in the burned blight that stretched from the City almost to that village, but they’d passed through many seemingly normal and un-cursed places sinc
e then. Alice thought they would have seen men out hunting or healing women gathering herbs or even scampering children out trying to outrun their household chores.
But it was never so. It was always only Alice and Hatcher and the wind and the scurrying little animals and the lumbering large ones. On one occasion they had seen a shaggy brown bear in a clearing—it was a huge thing, twice the size of Hatcher and thick with its winter fat.
Alice had seen a bear only once before then, in the City, and that had been a sad thin creature, dancing in the street for the whim of its keeper. She’d marveled at the size and power of the bear in the woods, but her awe had been cut short when she realized Hatcher was watching it and growling through his bottom teeth. If she hadn’t grabbed his face and forced him to look away she was certain he would have transformed into a wolf right then and attacked it. That was the first time she truly realized that Hatcher was just a hairsbreadth away from forgetting he was a man altogether.
Yes, it was a problem. And the approaching winter was a problem. And Alice didn’t know what to do about it, unless they came upon a handy cottage in the woods where Hatcher could come and go freely.
Cottages in the woods aren’t necessarily the best solution, either, though. Those little houses are the secret-keepers for witches and haunts and other beings not readily accepted by close-minded villagers.
Then she thought, Just like you and Hatcher, then.
All she was doing was thinking in circles so she decided not to think about it. Hatcher loped along beside her, his grey eyes giving away nothing. He quietly took her hand and squeezed it.
She resolved not to worry for the rest of the day. Perhaps when she woke up tomorrow she’d find that her brain had done all the work for her in her sleep and their troubles would have a simple solution, after all.
Then it started to snow.
* * *
It didn’t seem like anything to be concerned about, not at first. Alice actually had felt a little bubble of delight when she saw the first flurries swirling down, a remnant of that childhood joy associated with Christmas and snow. There was something so pretty about a few flakes of snow, like being touched by an enchanted sky.
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