Alice

by Christina Henry

  Hatcher was never scared, except when he talked about the Jabberwock.

  “There’s no Jabberwock, Hatch,” Alice said, her voice low and soothing. She’d heard tales of the monster before. Not often, although lately it seemed to be on his mind more.

  “I know you don’t believe in him. But he’s here, Alice. They keep him downstairs, in the basement. And when he’s awake I can feel him,” Hatcher said.

  There was a pleading note under the fear, and Alice relented. After all, she believed in a man with rabbit ears, and Hatcher accepted that without question.

  “What can you feel?” she asked.

  “I feel the night crawling up all around, blotting out the moon. I feel blood running down the walls, rivers of it in the streets below. And I feel his teeth closing around me. That’s what he’ll do, Alice, if he’s ever set free. He’s been imprisoned here a long time, longer than you or me.”

  “How could anyone trap such a beast?” Alice wondered aloud.

  Hatcher shifted restlessly on the floor. She could hear him moving around. “I don’t know for sure,” he said, and his voice was quieter now, so that she had to strain to hear him. “I think a Magician must have done it.”

  “A Magician?” Alice asked. This was more far-fetched that anything Hatcher had said before. “All the Magicians are gone. They were driven out or killed centuries ago, during the Purge. This place is not that old. How could a Magician have captured the Jabberwock and imprisoned it here?”

  “Only a Magician would have the skill,” Hatcher insisted. “No ordinary man would survive the encounter.”

  Alice was willing to indulge his fantasy of a monster in the basement, but she couldn’t countenance this myth about a Magician. It didn’t seem wise to argue, though. Hatcher took no powders and had no injections, and sometimes he could get agitated. If he got agitated he might howl for hours, or beat his hands against the wall until they were bloody despite the padding.

  So she said nothing, only listened to his shallow breath, and the cries of the other inmates echoing through the building.

  “I wish I could hold your hand,” Hatcher said. “I’ve never seen you altogether, you know. Just bits through the hole. I try to put all the bits together in my head so I can see all of you, but it doesn’t look quite right.”

  “In my head you’re just grey eyes and a beard,” Alice said.

  Hatcher laughed softly, but there was no mirth in it. “Like the Rabbit, just eyes and fur. What would have happened if we met on the street, Alice? Would we have said hello?”

  She hesitated for a moment. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but neither did she want to lie. Her parents lied. They said things like, “You’re looking well,” and, “We’re sure you’ll be home soon”—things Alice knew were not true.

  “Alice?” Hatcher asked again, and brought her back to him.

  “I don’t know if we would have seen each other to say hello,” she said carefully. “I lived in the New City, and I think . . . You seem like you were from the Old City.”

  “Well, la-di-da,” Hatcher said, and his voice was hard. “Fancy girl wouldn’t soil her dainty hem in the Old City. Except you did. You got good and soiled. And now you’re here, just like me.”

  His words were like knotted fists to her gut, and all the breath seemed to leave her for a moment. But they were true words, and she would not pretend otherwise. The truth was all she had left. The truth, and Hatcher.

  “Yes,” she said. “We are both here.”

  There was a long silence between them. Alice waited in the darkness, the moonlight shifting on the floor. Hatcher seemed to be walking the knife’s edge tonight, and she would not be the one to knock him off.

  “I am sorry, Alice,” he said finally, and he sounded more like the Hatch she knew.

  “Don’t—” she started, but he cut her off.

  “I should not say such things,” he said. “You’re my only light, Alice. Without you I would have succumbed to this place long ago. But the Jabberwock is awake, and he makes me think of things I should not.”

  “The sound of a blade in flesh,” she said, echoing the memory of his words.

  “And warm blood on my hands,” Hatcher said. “I feel most like myself when I think those thoughts. As if that is who I really am.”

  “At least you have some idea,” Alice said. “I never had the chance to find out. I lost my way first.”

  She heard him shifting again on the floor.

  “I feel like I’ve got bugs inside my skin,” he said. “Sing me a song.”

  “I don’t know any songs,” she said, surprised by this request.

  “Yes, you do,” he said. “You sing it all day long, and when you’re not singing it you’re humming. Something about a butterfly.”

  “A butterfly?” she asked, but as soon as she said this, it came back to her, and she heard her mother’s voice in her head. This sound was so painful, piercing her heart, this remembrance of love that was lost to her forever. She began to sing aloud, to cover the memory with her own voice.

  Sleep little butterfly

  Sleep little butterfly

  Now the day has gone

  Sleep little butterfly

  Sleep little butterfly

  Soon the morning will come

  Close your eyes and let the night go ’round you

  He’ll keep you safe and warm

  Sleep little butterfly

  Sleep little butterfly

  Soon the morning will come.

  Her voice trailed off, her throat full of love and loss and pain. Hatcher said nothing, but she heard his breath go deep and even, and she let her eyes fall shut. She matched her breath to his, and it was almost like holding his hand as the night closed in.

  Alice dreamed of blood. Blood on her hands and under her feet, blood in her mouth and pouring from her eyes. The room was filled with it. Outside the door Hatcher stood hand in hand with something dark and hideous, a thing crafted of shadow with flashing silver teeth.

  “Don’t take him from me,” she said, or tried to say, but she could not speak through the blood in her mouth, choking her. Her eyes were covered with smoke then, and she couldn’t see Hatch or the monster anymore. Heat enfolded her body, and then there was nothing but fire.

  Fire. Fire.

  “Alice, wake up! The hospital is on fire.”

  Alice opened her eyes. Hatcher’s grey one was pressed to the mouse hole, and it was wild with fear and anticipation. “At last!” he said. “Stay low, away from the smoke, and get near the door but not in front of it.”

  Alice blinked as he disappeared. The dream still clung to her brain, and her mouth was dry. Her shift clung to her body, and her face was wet with sweat. The odor of smoke finally permeated her nostrils and her fuzzy head, and there was another smell too— like cooking meat. She didn’t want to think what that might be. Alice turned so she was flat on her back, and saw a thick blanket of smoke just a few inches from her face. The heat beneath made the floor an agony to lie upon, but there was no way to escape it. The sounds filtered in then. The crack of flame, of heavy objects crashing to the ground. Horrible, horrible screams. And close by, the repeated grunts and pounding of someone slamming his body into the wall. Hatch was trying to break the door down in his room.

  The noise was terrible. Alice did not think it was possible. The walls might be soft, but the doors were iron. He would kill himself. “Hatcher, no!” she cried, but he could not hear her. There was a sound of something crunching, but Hatcher did not cry out, and then there was no more noise.

  “Hatcher,” she said, and her voice was soft and sad. Two tears leaked from the corner of each eye. There was no point in getting up then, if Hatcher was gone. The smoke and the noise told Alice that the fire was well under way. The attendants and the doctors would not bother to free the patients, especially when most families would be thrilled to be free of the burden of their mad relatives. So they would all burn.

  Alice found
she was not as distressed about this as she ought to be. Perhaps it was the powder in last night’s dinner, or the smoke that filled her lungs in place of air. She felt very calm. She would just lie there and wait until the fire came.

  Her eyes closed again, and she drifted away, away to a place she had never been in real life, a silver lake tucked in a green valley, wildflowers dotting the shore. There was no smell of medicine there, or harsh burning soap. There was no smoke and no pain, no heartache and no blood. It was the place she always went, the place where her mind hid when the doctors asked questions she did not want to answer, or her parents sighed in disappointment. Something grabbed her around the shoulders, and her eyes flew open in shock. It had been years since anyone touched her except to drag her to the bath. Hatcher’s face was close to hers, twisted in anger, and blood ran from a cut on the side of his head. “I told you to get near the door, you silly nit,” he said, dragging her up to sitting and then immediately pushing her down to her belly.

  “Follow me,” he said, crawling toward the door.

  The open door.

  She followed automatically, keeping his filthy bare heels in sight. She wanted to ask how he had gotten out, how he wasn’t battered and dead. But he was moving along with surprising quickness into the hall. He paused after a few moments so she could catch up to him. There was no one except the two of them, and the frantic pounding of other patients still trapped in their boxes. It was then she noticed that his right arm hung at an odd angle and he was using only his left to pull his body along. “Hatch, what happened?” she asked. She was out of breath from just that short period of exertion.

  “It came out when I broke the doorframe,” he said. “I’ll fix it later. We have to go. The floor is getting hotter, and he’s almost out.” “Who?” Alice asked.

  He started along again. “The Jabberwock.”

  “Hatch,” she said, trying to keep up with him. Her lungs and throat were burning. “We’re going the wrong way. The stairs are behind us.”

  “The stairs are on fire,” Hatch said. “I’ve already checked. We’ve got to go out this way.”

  “But, Hatch,” Alice said, shaking her head from side to side to clear it. The smoke was getting to her. “We’re on the third floor.” “We’ll go out the back to the river. Just keep up, Alice.” “The river?” she said, and a faint alarm sounded in her head.

  There was something about the river, but she couldn’t recall exactly what it was.

  Just then they passed the door of a patient who was repeatedly throwing himself against the iron and screaming. The cloud of smoke above them blocked the small viewing window, so Alice was fairly certain the man could not see them escaping. She felt a tinge of guilt all the same as they went by.

  “What about the others?” Alice asked. “Shouldn’t we let them out?”

  “There is no time,” Hatcher said. “And they would only be millstones in any case. They’ve no sense. We’d have to lead them from here like children. And then what? Would we take them with us? No, Alice, it’s best to leave them as they are. We must get away before he’s free.”

  It was a cold thing he said, but true. Not the bit about the Jabberwock getting free, but the other part. She and Hatcher would not be able to safely lead the others to freedom without endangering their own lives.

  Hatcher reached the end of the hallway before Alice did. He came to his knees, and she noticed he held a small ring of keys in his left hand.

  “Where did you get those?” she asked.

  “From the attendant at the top of the stairs. How do you think I opened your door?” he asked as he methodically fitted first one key, then another, then another.

  “There was nobody in the corridor when we came out,” she said.

  “I took his keys and threw him down the stairs. That’s how I knew the steps were on fire,” he said.

  The fifth key clicked, and Hatcher pushed the door open, waving her inside the room.

  A cloud of smoke followed them in before Hatcher was able to close the door behind them, but it dissipated quickly as the far window was open. The heavy, seething air of the City, hardly fresh, poured into the room. Still, it had been years since Alice had smelled anything but the rank asylum—unwashed bodies, laudanum, chloroform, vomit and blood and burning soap over it all. By contrast the soot and refuse outside seemed like a burst of clean country breeze.

  Suddenly a head appeared in the window from outside. It was one of the attendants, a ginger-haired man with only half a nose.

  His eyes widened when he saw Hatcher and Alice in the room, and he started to climb back inside.

  Before the man could get any farther than throwing one leg over the sill, Hatcher was upon him. He punched the man in the face hard with his left hand, twice, three times. Then he kicked the man in the side so hard Alice heard ribs break. Finally he pushed the now-unconscious attendant out the window, looking out after the falling man to follow his progress to the river below. He nodded in satisfaction before turning back to Alice. “I was the one who bit half his nose off. He was coming back to make sure we couldn’t get out—do you see? He would never have let us leave.”

  CHAPTER

  2

  Alice nodded. She did see. The smoke must have gone up in her brain because everything seemed soft at the edges.

  “There’s a ledge out here,” Hatcher said.

  He went to the wall next to the window, grabbed his right wrist with his left hand, pushed his hanging right arm against the wall and did some kind of maneuver while Alice watched. When he turned back to her, his right arm appeared normal again. He flexed his fingers as if to ensure they were still functional. Throughout all of this he never made a sound, not even a hint that the process was painful, though Alice was certain it must have been. He held his hand out so she could join him by the window.

  She approached him, and gasped in shock when his hand closed around hers. It seemed like an electric current ran from their joined hands up into her heart, which hammered in her chest. His grey eyes sparked, and he squeezed her hand tighter for a moment. When you are in an asylum, no one ever touches you in kindness, and Alice knew the shock was as great for him.

  He said nothing as he released her. He climbed through the window and onto the ledge, and Alice followed him, because that was what she was supposed to do.

  She swung her left leg over the sill. Her shift rode up, exposing her skin to the morning chill, and she shivered. She supposed it wasn’t so terribly cold out, but after the furnace of the burning hospital, the outdoors seemed frigid.

  Alice ducked her head under the sash and saw the ledge Hatcher wanted her to reach. Below it, too far below for comfort, was the river, grey and putrid. Now that she saw it she remembered what she had forgotten before.

  Hatcher moved on the ledge behind her, and his hands were at her waist, guiding her out until they stood side by side, their backs pasted against the brick exterior of the hospital. The ledge was barely wide enough to admit the length of Alice’s feet. Hatcher’s toes curled around the edge as if that grip could save him from falling.

  His expression was fierce and exultant. “We’re outside, Alice. We’re out.”

  “Yes,” she said, and her thrill at this prospect was much tempered by the sight of the river. Now that she was away from the smoke, her mind was clearer, and this plan seemed riskier than trying to climb down a set of burning stairs. The stench of the water reached her then, and she gagged.

  Hatcher grabbed her hand to keep her from stumbling forward into the empty air. “We jump into the river,” he said, “and swim across to the opposite bank. We can disappear into the Old City after that. No one will look for us in there. They will think we’re dead.”

  “Yes,” she agreed again. “But we’re not supposed to go into the river. It will kill us. All the factories dump their waste there. I remember Father speaking of it. He said it was an outrage.”

  “Neither can we stay here,” Hatcher said. “If the fire does n
ot consume us, then they will catch us in their nets and put us back in our cages. I cannot go back, Alice. I cannot spend the remainder of my life as a moth beating its wings against a jar. I would rather perish in the mouth of the Jabberwock than that.”

  Alice saw the truth of this, and felt it in her heart as well. She did not want to go back inside the box they had made for her. But the river was so far below, churning with poison. What if their skin was seared from their bodies? What if they swallowed the river water and died writhing on the shore as the foul substance coursed in their blood?

  As these thoughts occurred, a burst of flame caused a nearby window to explode outward, startling a huddle of soot-coated pigeons that had taken foolish refuge on the same ledge Alice and Hatcher perched on. The birds took flight, squawking in protest, and Alice looked at Hatcher, knowing he saw the fear in her eyes.

  “Now we must fly,” he said. “Trust me.”

  She did. She always had, though she didn’t know why. He squeezed her hand, and the next thing Alice knew she was falling, falling away into a rabbit’s hole.

  “Don’t let go,” Hatcher shouted just before they hit the water.

  His grip on her fingers tightened painfully, and she cried out, but he didn’t let go. Which was a very good thing, because as soon as the horrible muck coated her head, she reflexively loosed her hold, and if Hatcher hadn’t been holding her that way, she would have drowned.

  He yanked her, coughing and gagging, to the surface, scooped an arm under her ribs and began paddling toward the shore. “Kick your feet.”

  She fluttered her ankles weakly in the water. It felt thick and strange, with none of the fluid slipperiness water was supposed to possess. It moved sluggishly, the current hardly enough to push them a few inches off course. A noxious vapor rose from the surface, making her eyes and nose burn.

  Because of the way Hatcher held her, she couldn’t see his face or the opposite shore that they approached. His breath was smooth and even, like he was unaffected by the miasma floating above the surface of the river. He pulled them both along with smooth, sure strokes as Alice floundered in the water, trying not to cause them both to go under.