Alice

by Christina Henry

  These were very large rats. Very, very large rats. Rats the size of horses. The lead rat would be able to touch its nose to Hatcher’s chest. Their horrible furless tails dragged along behind their enormous bodies. Alice hated rats’ tails most of all. There was something primal and repulsive about them, serpentine and yet not. “There are more than three,” Alice said. There was something like a dozen or more, all moving steadily in their direction. She would never believe another thing Cheshire told her. In fact, she heartily hoped she would never encounter that strange little Magi cian ever again.

  “Yes,” Hatcher said, and raised his axe as they approached. “You can hardly kill them all,” Alice said.

  He smiled again, and Alice saw the longing inside him for blood and mayhem. “I’ll enjoy trying.”

  The lead rat stopped when it was a few feet from Alice and Hatcher. Alice wasn’t accustomed to crediting animals with emotion, but something about the rat seemed frightened. It shuffled its feet in the dirt restlessly, shaking its head to and fro. Alice noted the rat had a long white patch next to its mouth, almost like a scar from a knife.

  “Will you let us pass?” the rat said.

  Alice’s mouth dropped open. She couldn’t help it. She’d seen many strange things already, but never had an animal spoken to her before.

  “There’s nowhere to go,” Alice said, remembering her manners.

  “That tunnel ends at the Caterpillar’s house.”

  Hatcher’s hand dropped a little, and he stared at Alice, then at the rat. “Are you speaking to that creature?”

  “Yes,” Alice said.

  “And the Caterpillar’s house has fallen,” the rat said. “We know.

  Everyone knows. You must have been the one to do it, else you would not be leaving the wreckage.”

  “Who is ‘everyone’?” Alice asked.

  “All the creatures who live undertown, all of the men who use these tunnels for their own purpose,” the rat said.

  “Why are you running toward the Caterpillar’s?” Alice said.

  “Why go to a dead end?”

  The rat shifted again, its red eyes glancing behind. It moved forward, and Alice resisted the urge to flinch as it approached her.

  It would not do to show fear to something with teeth so large. “The Walrus is rampaging,” the rat whispered, looking over its hump as if it expected to see the man behind him. “The Walrus and Mr. Carpenter are at war. The Caterpillar and the Walrus were allied against their enemies, so the Walrus was able to hold his own streets and those he stole from Mr. Carpenter. Now that the Caterpillar is dead, the Walrus finds none to stand with him, for he has poached on their territories for too long. Those who did not intervene before, like the Rabbit, will now side with Mr. Carpenter, and the Walrus will be destroyed.”

  “Why did the Rabbit stay out of it before?”

  “Because the Rabbit was allied with the Caterpillar as well, so he agreed to be a neutral party. There is no more Caterpillar, and therefore no need to be neutral.”

  “But why do you run from a war in the streets?” Alice asked.

  “What does it have to do with you?”

  “The Walrus is rampaging,” the rat repeated.

  “I’m sorry; I don’t understand what that means,” Alice said. “The Walrus uses some of us to fight in his ring. He likes to watch fighting, rats and humans and whatever other animal he can find. But he is so angry now he is killing anyone he sees, even those who served him loyally.” The rat whispered again. “He’s sworn to eat and murder whoever removed the Caterpillar.” “You mean murder and eat,” Alice said.

  “No, I mean eat and murder,” the rat said. “I’d rather it the other way around, wouldn’t you?”

  “I’d rather it not at all,” Alice said.

  “So we are running and hiding where the Walrus will not find us, the place he would least suspect,” the rat said. “We have eight children in our nest, and I want them to live to bear my grandchildren.”

  Alice peered at the other rats huddled behind the leader. Several of them were smaller than he.

  “What is your name?” Alice asked.

  “Nicodemus,” the rat replied. “And this is my nest-mate, Asora.” He nudged one of the rats with his tail, and she came forward, bowing her head at Alice.

  “And I am Alice,” she said. “This is Hatcher.”

  Nicodemus looked at Hatcher’s axe and then at his face. “The

  Hatcher?”

  Hatcher didn’t reply, which Alice thought was very rude. She had never imagined she would be having a conversation with a rat, much less one so large, but there they were. She answered for him, giving him a little frown.

  “I suppose,” she said. “I only know one Hatcher.” “The Walrus is looking for him, and you,” Nicodemus said. “Because of the Caterpillar?” Alice asked. She couldn’t conceal her surprise. How would the Walrus know they had anything to do with the Caterpillar’s death?

  “Because Hatcher—if it’s the same Hatcher—was once called Nicholas, and he fought a man called the Grinder in the ring,” the rat said. His eyes willed Alice to understand.

  Alice pointed at Hatcher. “He fought the Grinder.” “The Grinder never fought again after that day,” Nicodemus said. “The Grinder is now the Walrus.”

  “He wants revenge,” Alice said.

  “What’s it saying about the Grinder?” Hatcher asked. “You heard him,” Alice said.

  “I heard him, but I didn’t understand him,” Hatcher said. “Only you.”

  This must have something to do with magic, Alice thought, but there wasn’t time to think about the whys and hows. Besides, there was a more important question.

  “I’ll explain later,” she said to Hatcher. Then, to Nicodemus, “What is the Walrus’ interest in me?”

  “Do you know a girl called Dolly?” Nicodemus asked. “Dolly?” Alice asked, her face blank.

  “Dolly?” Hatcher said. “That silly serving girl? The one you made me give money to?”

  “Oh, Dolly,” Alice said, and remembered the flash of cunning she’d seen on the girl’s face. “She went straight to the Walrus and told him I was a Magician, didn’t she?”

  “Yes,” the rat said. “Although it didn’t do her any good. The Walrus took a liking to her right away.”

  Alice shuddered, for she knew what that meant. Dolly had met the fate she had so feared.

  “The Walrus very much desires the flesh of a Magician. He knows so many but has no such power himself.” Nicodemus gave Alice a meaningful stare.

  Alice decided then and there that she would ask Hatcher to take her head from her neck before she would be brought before the Walrus.

  “How is it that you know so much?” Alice asked. “The Walrus speaks freely before us, for to him we are only dumb creatures, exotics for his ring,” the rat said. “Most humans do, so we hear many things. Our smaller kin know every secret, for they live inside the walls and under the streets and men do not hide their worst actions from us.”

  “May I ask . . . if it’s not impolite, may I know how it is that you are so much larger than others of your kind?” Alice didn’t like to say “rats.” They might prefer to be called something else. “Magic, of course. An elixir sold to the Walrus by the Caterpillar.”

  But not, I think, made by the Caterpillar, Alice thought. That was Cheshire’s magic, a cake to make you small and a drink to make you tall.

  “What would you have done if I were not a Magician and could not speak to you?” Alice wondered aloud.

  Nicodemus flashed his teeth at her, and it was not a smile. “If you did not speak, we would have fed you to our children.” Alice was very glad that Hatcher could not understand the rat, for she was certain he would have taken the rat’s words as a threat. “Thank you,” Alice said, nudging Hatcher to one side. He went, but very reluctantly. “Thank you for warning us of the Walrus’ intentions. I wish you and your family well.”

  The rat bowed his head at Alice. “I
hope you do not cross paths with him. He is not so kindly as the Caterpillar.”

  The Caterpillar was not kindly at all, so Alice took the remark in the spirit it was meant. The Walrus was worse.

  Alice and Hatcher pressed against the cave wall to allow the rats to pass by. The passage was so narrow that several animals brushed against them. Alice held her breath, trying not to smell the musky animal scent of them, trying not to shudder at the swipe of their fur and their tails.

  Finally, they were gone, their chittering and claw scrapes fading in the distance. Hatcher gave her a questioning look. Alice sighed, and started walking in the direction the rats had come from. As she walked, she explained what she had heard. “The Grinder is the Walrus,” Hatcher said. “That’s not good for us at all. I made certain, the night I fought him, that he would never grind anybody ever again.”

  “What did you do to him?” asked Alice.

  “I broke his hands,” Hatcher said. “And his wrists. Someone— the Rabbit, I think—told me later that they never healed right, that the bones are knotted and twisted under his skin. You can talk to animals.”

  “I suppose I can,” Alice said, not in the least surprised by the sudden change in subject.

  “That’s a useful gift,” Hatcher said. “Without it we would have had to fight those rats.”

  “And we might not have survived.”

  “We would have survived,” Hatcher said. It was not arrogance, just assurance. Hatcher knew he would always find a way out. “I wonder if they would have liked to return to their normal size,” Alice said. “We could have given them some of Cheshire’s cake.”

  “We could have except that the cake is no longer in my pack,”

  Hatcher said.

  “Oh, that’s right,” Alice said. “Still, the Walrus must be very frightening in his current state to scare creatures like that so badly that they would hide in a dead-ended tunnel.”

  “He was not a pleasant fighter,” Hatcher said. “He would cheat if he could get away with it, carry things like nails and pincers in his palm to use when nobody was looking. He had no honor.” “And now he eats people. Girls,” Alice amended.

  “And Magicians.”

  “Can it be that all the territories are controlled by Magicians?”

  Alice asked. “All except the Walrus’?”

  “I don’t know that all of them would be,” Hatcher said doubtfully. “Bosses rise and fall. Anyone with magic would rise without falling, unless another Magician removed him. And the Old City is large, larger than the New City. Most of the streets are controlled by petty criminals, men who own a few streets and have a few thugs to enforce their will. No, they can’t all be Magicians. But the ones who have a lot of power, a lot of territory—they are Magicians.”

  “I wonder if Mr. Carpenter is a Magician,” Alice said. “Even if he is, he won’t like us. We killed two of his sentries,”

  Hatcher said.

  “He doesn’t know that,” Alice said. “And he’s the Walrus’ enemy.” “We’re not going to get involved in a war between the Walrus and Mr. Carpenter,” Hatcher said.

  “I think we may already be involved,” Alice said. “I would rather take my chances with Mr. Carpenter than face the Walrus.

  Hatcher, don’t you think it’s strange that everyone we’ve met has known who we were before—before the hospital, I mean.” Hatcher appeared unconcerned. “We drew the attention of important men, before and after. Our paths keep intersecting with theirs. And, though I know you dislike to hear it—that scar on your face was put there for a reason.”

  “So that anyone who saw me would know what the Rabbit had done. So that I would never be able to hide from him,” Alice said, touching the long ridge that ran down one side of her face. She’d hated the scar at first because it made her ugly. Now she hated it because it revealed her story to everyone she met, everyone who knew of Alice and the Rabbit. Even after the Rabbit was dead and gone she would still have his mark. She would never be able to forget him.

  But he was never able to forget you either. You marked him too. She wished she could remember all of it, remember sinking the knife into that blue-green eye. She wished she could remember the pain she’d given him and not only the pain he’d given her. Alice was thinking hard on that memory, trying to recall, so she wasn’t really paying attention to where she was going. She stopped when her nose struck wood.

  She blinked, stepping back. Hatcher was frowning. “Well, Cheshire did say there would be three,” he said.

  CHAPTER

  14

  Before them were three wooden doors, all painted in pink and white candy stripes like the creature’s house on the island in the maze. There was no indication where the doors might lead.

  “One goes to the Rabbit,” Alice said. “The Caterpillar told us that. One must go to Cheshire, because the mermaid said she was taken this way when she was first traded to the Caterpillar. What about the third?”

  “The Walrus?” Hatcher guessed. “The rats had to come from somewhere.”

  “The rats. Right,” Alice said.

  She peered at the ground, looking for signs that the extra-sized rodents had entered through one particular door. But the dirt was scratched and mashed by the passage of many feet, and there was no way to tell from which door they might have come.

  “I’m not comfortable with guessing,” Alice said. “The wrong door would take us straight into the Walrus’ arms.”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps not,” Hatcher said. “We don’t know exactly where these passages lead. They may lead to underground entrances to the Rabbit’s and the Walrus’ and Cheshire’s lairs. Or the tunnels may lead us to the streets, close to them but not directly to them.”

  “I’d still rather not take a chance,” Alice said. “As long as the Walrus knows he is looking for a tall girl with a scar on her face, I’m at risk.”

  “I told you, I won’t let him take you,” Hatcher said.

  Alice sighed. “Even you can be taken by surprise, Hatch.”

  She reached for the knob of the middle door. Hatcher positioned himself next to the doorframe with his axe in his hand, flattened against the cavern wall. If anyone tried to rush through when Alice opened the door they would not have an opportunity to regret it.

  The entrance swung open to reveal . . . nothing. On the other side there was simply a continuation of the same kind of cave they’d passed through already. Alice was disappointed. She’d hoped for some indication of the passage’s destination.

  Her nose twitched as she reached for the handle to pull the door shut again. “Roses,” she said. “Cheshire is this way.”

  Hatcher sniffed the air. “Yes. Roses.”

  “I never want to smell another rose again,” Alice said, closing it hastily.

  They checked behind the other doors, but there was no sign to tell where they might lead.

  “Use your magic,” Hatcher urged.

  Alice stared at him. “I’ve no idea how. What am I supposed to do, hold my finger out like a divining rod and hope it sends us in the direction of the Rabbit?”

  “You’ve got magic inside you,” Hatcher said. “You talked to the rats. You set the roses on fire.”

  “I did those things without thinking.”

  “Then don’t think now,” he said.

  That might be logical to Hatcher, but it didn’t make much sense to Alice. Still, she walked in front of the left-hand passage and did the only thing she could think of to do. She put her hand on the door, and thought of the Rabbit, the picture of him that she had in her head. The long white ears, the blue-green eyes (eye, she corrected), the tall hat.

  “A hat!” Alice exclaimed. “He always wore a tall hat.”

  “Who?” Hatcher said.

  “The Rabbit,” Alice said, narrowing her eyes, trying to picture his face. “I remembered. He was tall too. Tall like you.”

  “We’re a lot of giants,” Hatcher said. “You are the tallest girl I’ve ever known. The Caterpil
lar was bigger than both of us. And the Walrus, well—if he is the Grinder, then he’s bigger than you and me and the Rabbit all put together.”

  “Hatcher,” she said, realizing something. “You’re a Seer. Why don’t you try?”

  “Seeing’s not like that,” he said. “Visions just come to me without my thinking about them.”

  “Then don’t think now,” Alice said tartly.

  She hadn’t gotten anything from touching the door. The image of the Rabbit had emerged from concentration on the past. Still, she tried the same method on the other door, with no results. She sat cross-legged in the dirt before the three choices and looked at each in turn. Hatcher joined her, tracing patterns in the ground with the handle of his axe.

  “What’s that?” Alice asked, pointing at a coiled symbol he had carved in the ground. It looked like the pattern of a snail shell, spiraling inward.

  He drew four stars around the spiral, one at each point of the compass. Something about the symbol was familiar to Alice, though she couldn’t remember where she’d seen it. She touched the center of the spiral with one finger.

  And suddenly she was not there in that cavern with Hatcher. She was in the top of a high tower, and all around her potions bubbled and dusty books sang with knowledge. Her hands were not her own anymore, but the hands of a man much, much older than she. He held a blade as long as Alice’s forearm, and just as wide. It shone silver in the firelight, and the handle was glittering and black. Just under the hilt was the coil with four stars around it. She stared at the blade, and her heart was heavy, for she did not want to do that which she must. She did not wish to destroy her friend. But he was no longer her friend. He was the Jabberwock now, keeper of dark magic, and dark magic had no place in this world.

  “A lice?”

  Hatcher’s voice, coming from far away, like he spoke to her through a tube. She’d played that game when she was young, talking to her friend (Dor, but Dor wasn’t her friend anymore) through a long hollow piece of wood they’d found after a violent storm. It made their voices strange, gave them heft that their girl-chirps didn’t ordinarily have.