The boy laughed again, and his laugh was like the cry of the monster below—a knife-edged thing that pierced Alice’s ears and brain and heart and made her stumble forward, clutching her head with both hands.
He’s not really a little boy, Alice thought. It’s only the form he takes. He’s some kind of monster himself.
“Yes, they are my children, and like all good parents I have wanted to give them the best possible start in life. They age too quickly, you see. My firstborn—you met him below, I think, in the hallway—he’s lost his power far too soon. He is like an old man, ancient and bent, and he cannot fly any longer. And he was only born a month ago. That won’t do, you see. How can my beautiful children go forth to conquer the world if they die so soon?”
Alice tried to think, but it was as if the boy’s laughter was still ringing in her ears. The boy was coming to the heart of it, the reason she’d been led here, and she knew she needed to think, to destroy him, to escape. The laughter was inside her, though, terrible bells that wouldn’t cease their chime.
The boy laughed again, and it rolled over the echo of the first laugh and made Alice’s eyes feel like they were swelling inside her skull.
I can’t think with this noise Make it quiet make it quiet quiet quiet QUIET
Silence swept up in the wake of the laughter, rolled behind it like a wave. Alice felt her mind clearing as it did, felt the pain and pressure inside her head ease. It wasn’t because the boy had checked his mirth, though.
It was because she’d pushed back against his power, made it harder for it to affect her. She let her hands fall away from her head and straightened, savoring the feeling of emptiness.
The boy laughed, but the laugh didn’t go anywhere, didn’t chase around inside her. It stopped at her ears, the way it was supposed to—irritating instead of debilitating.
I still don’t understand how I stopped it, though. There has to be a better way to do magic than this.
The boy was talking again, clearly delighted to explain his plan and how Alice had fallen into his trap.
“. . . and then I realized I needed a Magician’s power to sustain them, a Magician’s blood to feed them.”
“Of course you did,” Alice said wearily, but the boy did not seem to hear her.
“And so when I sensed you approaching in the forest I knew just what to do. A storm is an easy thing to make, and it’s even easier to drive a fool into my net.”
He smirked at her, because he thought she was the fool in question. But Alice wasn’t stupid. She’d only been tired and cold, and need might make one act foolish but it didn’t make them a fool forever.
It was always the same story, always the same need. A person who had no power wanted some. A person who had some power wanted more. If you were a Magician, like Alice, then your magic was like a flaring candle that drew others to you. Alice needed to learn how not only to use her power properly but to keep her light hidden.
She sighed. So many things to learn. But now is not the time for learning. It’s the time for doing.
The boy was still talking. He didn’t seem to grow tired of hearing the sound of his own voice.
“. . . would have liked to have that half-wolf creature that runs beside you but he skirted away from me before I had the house in place.”
“So the house wasn’t here before, then?” Alice asked. She’d suspected this.
“Of course not,” the boy said. “I can take it wherever I like. It’s part of me, after all.”
Part of him, Alice thought. Yes, the house is alive, just as I felt.
“And Hatcher isn’t here? That wasn’t his voice downstairs?”
“I thought you might be deceived by that,” the boy said, his smile cruel.
He reminded Alice of a boy in a book she’d read once, a book about a boy who stayed young forever and never cared what happened to anyone else as long as he was pleased. Alice hadn’t liked that book.
“No,” the boy continued. “I don’t have your pet wolf, but it’s only a matter of time, isn’t it? He’ll come back for you. I heard your desperate declarations to one another in the snow.”
“Yes. He will come back for me. But the important thing is that I know he isn’t here.”
“Why?” the boy sneered. “So that you know your love isn’t caught in my net?”
“No,” Alice said. “Because I know he won’t be caught in mine.”
She didn’t think too hard on what she was doing or how to do it—she simply flung out her hand to one side and thought, Break.
The wall cracked in two from end to end, folding in on itself.
The boy cried out and slapped his hand to his face. A moment later his fingers came away bloody. There was a long cut in his left cheek that ran from under his earlobe to the bottom of his nose.
Alice didn’t wait for him to fight back. She threw her hand out to the opposite wall and thought, Break. That wall also cracked in two, and so did the boy’s other cheek. The ceiling above creaked ominously. Plaster dust showered down.
Don’t wait, Alice. Don’t wait for him to use his power on you. Break. Break. Break. Everything that makes up this house shall break and crumble and bleed and die.
The house rumbled then, the floor shifting beneath Alice’s feet. Another split formed, this time in the floor, and the boy screamed then, a high terrible scream like the monsters he’d created but it did not trouble Alice, for she was immune to his tricks now.
Break, Alice thought, and the boy screamed again but this time it was a cry of anguish. He grabbed at his white, white hair with his white fingers, and Alice saw blood running away from his scalp and over his pale face and tumbling in waterfalls (bloodfalls?) to his white clothing.
The boy dropped his hands to his sides and tightened them into scarlet-coated fists. Alice saw the intent on his face, the promise of revenge, but she wasn’t giving him any chances for revenge.
BREAK NOW, she thought. She threw her arms forward, pushing all the magic she had behind her will.
The boy fell to his knees, mouth open, but no sound issued forth. His red eyes burned into Alice, burned in hatred and fear.
Then his red eyes were no more. They exploded out of the sockets.
His mouth drew open, wider and wider, too wide to possibly be real, and then the jaw fell away from the rest of the skull, tearing the skin around it like paper.
His nose crumpled and caved into what remained of his face and then the ears shriveled into dried-up husks. The boy’s legs split from his ankles and his arms split from his wrists, tearing an open seam that ran up to his torso before the limbs fell away.
Alice watched in horror, for though the boy had been terrible this was also a terrible thing she had done—something far worse than she could have imagined.
The house rocked beneath her, and only then did she realize she’d made the whole thing crumble but the trouble was that she was still inside it.
Oh, Alice, she thought, and ran.
The creatures in their egg-sacs began to scream together, and the sound pierced through the floor and made Alice stagger. There were too many of them, and there was too much, and she was tired now from breaking the boy who’d thought he could break her.
She stumbled to the doorway and onto the landing, past the people whose flesh had fed the monsters, past what remained of the boy who thought himself so clever and cruel. Her hands pressed against her ears in the vain hope that she could block the screams, but it did nothing.
I’ll never get out of this house before it collapses, she thought as the house leaned to one side. All around her the walls were cracking and breaking and bits of the ceiling fell away. The windows that lined the front portion of the house shattered, glass crashing to the floor below. A tremendous gust of wind and snow rushed in.
The cold helped clear her mind, if only for a moment.
There
’s no need to try to work your way out of this labyrinth of a house, and there’s no time anyway.
One of the boards beneath Alice’s boot cracked. Soon the landing would collapse.
The creatures’ screaming reached a fever pitch.
No, there isn’t any time.
She ran for the window.
Don’t think about what you’re about to do.
She ran, trying not to consider what might happen to a human body if it crashed to the ground after falling a full story.
I’ll break my legs. I’ll break my arms.
(or I could die)
I’ll definitely die if I stay in this house. I’ll be crushed beneath the weight of the collapsing walls.
And indeed Alice heard the crunch of splintering wood and the thud of falling plaster behind her, but she did not look. She kept her eyes focused on the window and the opening made by the shattered panes and she sped up so that she wouldn’t have time to stop and think.
Alice pushed off the landing with her left foot, leaping forward with her right, and tucked her arms in so they wouldn’t catch on the frame. A jagged bit of glass swiped across her right cheek just before she cleared the window, and she had a moment to wonder if it would scar and give her a mark to match the one on her left cheek.
Even if it does, it’s my scar. I earned it. I saved myself.
Her body was free from the house and in midair. For one wonderful moment it seemed that she was floating, suspended in a gust of wind.
Then Alice was falling, falling, falling with a terrible quickness but all she could see was white, for the snow was still blowing in every direction. She tried to turn her body in midair so she could land on her side instead of her legs but she didn’t have any real sense of which way was up or down when all she could see was snow.
The falling ended sooner than expected, for a moment later Alice crashed into a snowbank, sinking about a foot into the soft, wet powder. All the breath went out of her body in a rush. She struggled for a bit, flailing to find purchase in the snow, and finally managed to roll over and sit up and dust the snow off her face.
Good thing this snow was here, though my cloak is inside that doomed house, she thought, and just then the storm abruptly ceased. The clouds rolled away like they were being chased by a hunter, and a thin pale sun emerged.
There was a tremendous crashing behind her, and Alice twisted around to see the house folding in on itself as the upper floors broke and pushed into the lower ones. After a few minutes it looked like a giant had stepped on it.
Alice tried to stand in the snow, but she couldn’t find her balance and she realized this was because the snow was melting away beneath her feet. She stumbled forward, trying to find solid ground as water pooled and then rushed around her ankles. It soaked through her pants and into her boots.
She couldn’t escape the water (and her socks were already wet through) so she planted her feet in the muddy ground and let it rush around her like a river. Some of it was soaking into the ground but there was far too much quantity for all the water to do this.
Something moved in the corner of her eye and Alice turned just in time to see the packs she’d abandoned in the snow floating past. She sloshed forward and plucked them out of the water. Any provisions inside would be ruined but the other things would dry.
And I haven’t lost Hatcher’s axe. That’s the most important thing.
A faint, mewling cry came from the remains of the terrible house. Alice gave the ruins a hard stare. Surely nothing could have survived that.
A white hand, strange and long fingered and tipped with claws, pushed out of the rubble.
No, Alice thought. Let it all burn. None of it can live.
The house, despite being soaked through with water, immediately became a bonfire so hot that Alice had to back away lest her face be burned.
The white hand in the rubble curled its fingers and sank away into the flames.
A great plume of black smoke, polluted and stinking, rose into the sky.
A shaggy grey wolf appeared at her side, and then the wolf was Hatcher.
He looked at the burning house, and then at Alice. “Did you do this?”
“Yes,” Alice said.
He tilted his head to one side, giving her his quizzical-dog look. “That was a silly thing to do, Alice. You could have sheltered there from the storm. Though I suppose making a giant bonfire out of it is just as good, if you were very cold.”
Alice laughed, and then suddenly found herself sobbing into Hatcher’s shoulder. He patted her back like she was a child.
“It’s all right,” he said. “I came back. I told you I would come back.”
“Yes,” Alice said, wiping her eyes. “And I’m glad that you did. But I’m also glad to know that I didn’t need you to. I saved myself.”
“You’ve always saved yourself, Alice. I don’t know why you should be surprised by this.”
But she was surprised, though she probably oughtn’t have been. She’d stabbed the Rabbit in the eye, after all. She’d run from him and held herself together even when everyone thought she was broken.
“You’re right,” she said. “I didn’t know.”
“Well, you can tell me about the house as we go. I’ve found a good place for you, a place where you can stay the winter. It’s not far,” Hatcher said.
It wasn’t very far, though it took longer than it should have since everything was wet and muddy and that made the walking more of a hard slog than it should have been.
“But why did you take so long, then?” Alice asked.
“I got confused in the storm,” Hatcher said. “I ran right past this place. When I decided to circle back to you I found it.”
Soon enough they were at a snug little cottage in a clearing, a cottage made of stone. The last of the summer flowers had been placed in bright boxes at the windows, and Alice saw the remains of a kitchen garden at the side.
The front door opened before they reached it, and a slender, green-eyed woman stood there. Alice wasn’t sure how old she was, for though her hair was long and silver her face was young. She was certain, however, that this woman was a Magician, as sure as Alice was herself.
She didn’t feel the same quailing fear she’d always felt in the presence of other Magicians, though. There was no predatory seeking, no desire for more. There was only a warmth that welcomed Alice.
“I’ve done very well, haven’t I?” Hatcher said as the woman smiled at them and held out her hands to Alice.
“Yes,” Alice said as she put her hands in the other woman’s grasp. Their power touched, light recognizing light.
Yes, this will be a good place to spend the winter, and to learn what I do not know, so that when I call my magic it will heed me.
“You’ve done very well, Hatcher,” Alice said, and thought, and so have I.
Alice was asleep, but Hatcher was awake.
The weak winter sun filtered through the window and made the yellow of her hair gleam like spun gold, or at least that was what Hatcher thought when he saw it. He reached out to touch it. Her hair was baby-fine and smooth and just long enough to brush against her cheekbones.
Her scarred cheek lay against the pillow. The skin of her face and neck was golden brown from these months out in the open, but below her shoulders she was pale as milk. His hand ran from her hair down to the slim, strong arms, brushed against her hip bone, stroked up over her stomach and then between her breasts until it reached the hollow of her throat. His hand rested there for a moment, feeling the pulse of her blood, feeling the life and warmth that was Alice.
She was a miracle to him, and he knew he didn’t tell her this often enough. He never thought he’d be anything but a blood-soaked blade after Hattie died, after he changed from Nicholas to Hatcher. But Alice made him human again. Alice loved him, even when he did
n’t deserve it.
I should have been there for her in that terrible house, he thought. It was hard not to think this way, even though he knew his Alice was capable—hadn’t she destroyed the damned boy on her own? Hadn’t she burned down the structure and all the monsters within? But he still thought he should always be there, always be ready to stand in front of her and keep her from harm.
This, he knew, was because he hadn’t been able to keep his wife or his daughter from harm, so long ago. When he thought about that time, the things that happened and what he did afterward—everything inside him would start swirling and writhing and his brain would fill with blood and shadows and sometimes it was hard to see, hard to know anything except the way he felt when his axe was in his hand and he was hacking, hacking, hacking at the flesh and bone that gave way beneath his fury.
Alice was the only thing that ever cut through the contortions inside him. She was the only person who made him feel like he could still be good—not just the mad Hatcher, but Nicholas, somewhere deep down.
Not that he’d been such a good man when he was Nicholas.
No, and not even a man, either, he thought. Nothing but a boy, a boy who strutted like a rooster and thought he could never lose until he lost everything.
“But I’m not that boy anymore,” Hatcher said. “I know better now.”
“What do you know, Hatch?” Alice asked.
Her eyes were still closed, her voice a murmur.
Don’t think on those days now. There are better days ahead, days with Alice.
His hand moved from the pulse at her throat to the swell at the top of her breast, hesitating there. He leaned in close to her mouth so he could breathe her in.
“I know that I love you,” he said. “Even when I’m a wild thing, a wolf running in the woods, you’re my only star, the star that brings me back home.”
Her eyes opened then, soft and welcoming. “Hatcher. Yes.”
She took away his shadows for a while. After a time she slept again, though wrapped up in his arms, all her skin touching his skin so that he knew for certain she wasn’t a dream.
Looking Glass Page 13
