Alice

by Christina Henry

  The Walrus stepped from the shadow into the light of the ring. His face was wide, with long whiskers that ran down his jaw, and the eyes were small and cruel. The whip dragged on the floor beside him, loosely clutched in one huge hand.

  A huge, gloved hand.

  (Huge hands in white gloves, slicing a large piece of cake and urging her to eat, eat more. A heavy, frightening laugh as Alice shoveled the cake into her mouth, not knowing how to stop even though she wanted to, even though her stomach hurt and her head spun in circles.

  The same dark voice speaking. Alice wasn’t supposed to hear.

  “You told me I could have her, that you bought her for me.”

  “And I did.” The second voice soothing. “But it is my right to break her first.”

  “She’s no good to me if you break her magic,” the first voice growled.

  And then Alice knew that harm was coming to her, and she tried to run, but the man with the gloved hands caught her, held her with in his giant grip, and the Rabbit smiled, stroking his hand over her hair, pulling her braid until it hurt.

  “Pretty little Alice,” he crooned. “Why do you want to leave the party so soon?”)

  The Walrus, the Grinder, whatever he was called—he was the other man at the party. Dor had sold Alice to the Rabbit, and the Rabbit had intended to give her to the Walrus to be— (eaten) It was even more horrible than being the Rabbit’s toy. The Walrus had meant to eat her, to take her magic away, to become a Magician himself and so stand as an equal with the Caterpillar and the Rabbit and Cheshire.

  Now Hatcher taunted the Walrus, and might be killed, all because she felt sorry for the poor rabbit forced to fight in the ring for the Walrus’ amusement.

  “Nicholas,” the Walrus said.

  His voice sent shudders of fear down Alice’s spine. It was a voice that had forgotten how to be human, how to love and care and fear the darkness. It was part of the darkness now, his heart mired in greed and desire and pain.

  “So you do remember me,” Hatcher said.

  The Walrus clenched his jaw. “How could I forget? Though I understand they don’t call you Nicholas anymore.”

  He gestured at the axe in Hatcher’s hand, and Hatcher nodded in acknowledgment. Everyone was silent and still, watching the Walrus and Hatcher.

  “Recently I sent some men across town to do some business for me,” the Walrus continued. “Some of those men did not return. They were found in a tavern, with axe marks all over their bodies.”

  Hatcher said nothing. Alice wished she could see his face. His body was relaxed, completely unconcerned.

  “A girl came to me. Just a little serving wench with only half a brain, telling me a story about a madman who killed all the men in one blow, a madman who was accompanied by a girl dressed as a boy.”

  The Walrus scanned the crowd behind Hatcher. Alice did not breathe. If the Walrus saw her, he would recognize her in a second.

  “There was something special about this girl who accompanied the madman, according to this little tale-telling fool,” he said. “Something I could hardly countenance, as a matter of fact. But then some of my men also spoke of a shadow, a monster that drank the blood of the dead. Do you know that some of my best soldiers wake up at night screaming now, scared that this creature will come for them? I knew then that the stories the serving wench told must be true, for only a Magician could raise such a creature.”

  Alice nearly laughed aloud. The Walrus thought she had raised the Jabberwocky, that she controlled it. As if she would ever want to do such a thing. As if such a monster could be controlled.

  The Walrus paced slowly in Hatcher’s direction. The men on the benches in front of Hatcher rapidly dispersed at his approach, causing a sudden stampede toward the exits. Alice was pushed against the wall, elbowed in the stomach and neck and face as men fought to escape before something terrible happened. There was a definite sense in the air that something terrible would happen, and that you did not want to be in its path.

  The skinny fighter slipped out of the ring, following the jostling crowd. The rabbit tried to crawl away from the Walrus, his paws inching across the dirty floor, his back bleeding from the strike of the whip.

  The Walrus kicked him, and the rabbit cried out.

  “Leave him alone,” Alice said.

  The last of the gamblers trickled out, though the sound of their passage—shouting voices, trampling feet—echoed back into the nearly empty room. All that remained was Alice and Hatcher, the Walrus and the rabbit.

  “Ah, there you are, my Alice. I’ve been expecting you for so long. I could hardly believe it when that stupid serving girl told me you were alive,” the Walrus said. He gave her a long look up and down as she went to Hatcher’s side. “You’ve gotten quite skinny. Hardly enough meat on you to bother with.”

  He showed her his teeth, small and dirty and copper-stained.

  Alice gave him a cool appraisal in return. Inside she was trembling, her heart hammering away, but she would not show it. She would not give this monster what he wanted. “You’ve gotten quite fat. I doubt you’re fast enough to catch me, in any case. ‘The Walrus’ is quite an apt name for you.”

  The Walrus lashed out with the whip then. It might have struck Alice’s face, given her a mark on her other cheek to match the one from the Rabbit, but for Hatcher. He sliced the end of the whip cleanly away before it could reach her, the blade so close she felt the breeze made by its passing.

  The tip fell to the ground with a loud clatter, and Alice saw that the leather was edged in silver, so that it would hurt more when it struck. She gave the Walrus a look of disgust.

  “You think you’re quite a man, don’t you?” she said. “Torturing creatures weaker than you because you’re afraid of a fair fight.”

  “I fear nothing,” the Walrus said.

  A sudden thought occurred to Alice. “What about me?”

  His lips twisted in a smile of disbelief. “Afraid of a skinny girl? You’re nothing without your guard dog.”

  “Now, you know that’s not true, Walrus,” Alice said in a schoolteacher tone. “You said yourself your men returned telling tales of a monster made of darkness, and that some of them wake up screaming.”

  “Ruined, they are,” Walrus said, his voice bitter. Alice noticed he had been speaking very deliberately before, that his accent had been well-bred, and now it slipped away a little. “What am I to do with a bunch of mewling babies? I sent my best men out, and Carpenter’s soldiers were nothing but a lark to them. But you were there, with your illusions.”

  Alice couldn’t help it. She laughed. Hatcher gave her an odd look. The Walrus’ face registered surprise at her total lack of fear.

  “He thinks the Jabberwocky is an illusion,” she said, giggling.

  Hatcher laughed too, then, long and loud. The Walrus stared at the two of them.

  “You’re not telling me that it’s real?” the Walrus scoffed. “You don’t frighten me. It’s all talk, a show you put on to drive my men off.”

  “Well, you can think that if you like,” Alice said. “You’ll know better when he comes this way. He’s quite real, and he’s not attached to a leash.”

  Alice hoped the Walrus would think the Jabberwocky was her pet, but that she had loosed him for reasons of her own. She’d like it very much if he were afraid of her, she realized. She wanted him to quake and cry, as so many girls no doubt had before he’d finished with them.

  “I’ll believe it when I see it,” the Walrus said, but Alice thought she saw concern that hadn’t been there before.

  She stepped off the bench then and into the ring. Hatcher stayed where he was. Alice knew he would make certain the Walrus would not touch her.

  The big man shuffled his feet a little, not backing away from her, but unable to conceal his uncertainty at her behavior. She was not acting like girls usually acted in his presence, she knew.

  But she was not interested in the Walrus. The rabbit had continued its slow progress
toward the edge of the ring, panting with the effort. Alice veered away from the Walrus, deliberately turning her back to him.

  She had to trust Hatcher now. Without him the Walrus would try to take her, would have tried already. He was off balance from her behavior but he would soon remember that he considered her nothing more than a thing to be used and thrown away.

  The rabbit paused as it heard her approach, its eyes wide with fear. She held her hands up to show she meant no harm.

  “Shh,” she said. “Shh, I won’t hurt you.”

  “It’s only a dumb beast,” the Walrus jeered. “He thinks you’ll kick him like all the rest. He can’t understand you.”

  “Yes, he can,” Alice said, and smiled encouragingly at the rabbit as she knelt beside him. “What are you called?”

  She could see the disbelief mixed with hope in his expression. His mouth moved, at first making no sound. Then a surprising baritone emerged.

  “Pipkin,” he said.

  “That’s a lovely name, like the name a mother gives its littlest one,” Alice said, stroking the rabbit’s paw. The fur was matted and grey.

  “I was the smallest of my litter,” he said. “Not that you would know it now.”

  “Do you think you could try and sit up, Pipkin?”

  The rabbit shook his head. “My legs are broken.”

  “In this fight?” Alice asked. She had not seen the skinny man strike such a blow; nor had the Walrus’ whip touched Pipkin’s legs.

  “Before this,” he said. “They have been broken for three days, but the Walrus has forced me to fight for him anyway, and whipped me when I was unable to stand. He was angry that the rats escaped, so angry.”

  “Why didn’t they take you with them?”

  “I was already broken,” Pipkin said. “I couldn’t run, and they had their children to think of.”

  “What’s he saying?” the Walrus demanded. “You understand all that squeaking?”

  Alice ignored him. “I wish I could do something for you, Pipkin. I wish I could help you stand again.”

  A little breeze whistled past her ear, and she thought it sounded like, Wish granted.

  And then, even softer, so soft she was almost entirely sure she imagined it: Remember, a wish has power.

  A small violet bottle appeared in her left hand. On the label was the face of a smiling cat. A tag attached to the neck read, “For Pipkin.”

  She could only hope it would not harm the rabbit further. Cheshire clearly watched over them, but Alice was unsure why. His help wasn’t always helpful either. She was still irritated about the maze and the creature that had nearly eaten Hatcher.

  She uncorked the bottle and told the rabbit, “Drink this. It will make you better.”

  “Where’d you get that?” the Walrus said, then caught a glimpse of the label. “That damned Cheshire. Damned interfering little pipsqueak.”

  Wind rustled through the room again, and it sounded like laughter. Cheshire was the one who’d given the Walrus the potion to make rabbits and rats large in the first place, and so it was only right, in Alice’s mind, that he provide the cure.

  Pipkin opened his mouth so Alice could pour the mixture in. He swallowed, closing his eyes and placing his head back on the ground.

  Alice waited. Pipkin groaned, his body contorting in pain. Still she waited. The rabbit’s body went stiff and straight as a board, his face a rictus of pain. Then Alice saw his tooth, the broken tooth, grow to its proper size again and match its mate.

  All of Pipkin’s fur fell off his body suddenly, as though someone had sheared him, and fresh new white fur grew in just as fast, covering the scars on his back. His left foot tapped the ground in a rapid tattoo, and then he burst up in a tremendous leap, soaring high above Alice and landing before the Walrus. He rested on all fours like a proper rabbit instead of one playing at being human. He was suddenly very beautiful and, Alice thought, very fierce. She had never noticed before that rabbits had such very sharp claws. Alice stood and went to his side. It was like standing beside an enormous polar bear (she’d heard a story about polar bears once, though she couldn’t remember where), glossy and dangerous. The Walrus did not appear very much like a monster now. He looked like a child who’d been caught doing wrong and knew his punishment loomed.

  “How long have you been here?” Alice asked, rubbing her hand into Pipkin’s ruff. The fur was so soft she wanted to bury her face in it, but that probably was not polite. She’d only just met this rabbit, after all.

  “I don’t know how long in human time, and I couldn’t see the moon to show the passing of the seasons, but I am much older than I was when I first arrived,” Pipkin growled. “The Walrus took me from my mate and children, from a place in the country, far away from all the filth and stink of this City. He brought me here, and fed me potions, and made me large so he could use me to fight. Some people were, apparently, getting tired of watching rats and wanted more exotic creatures. There was a cat too, and a horse and three dogs.” “What happened to them?” Alice asked. She was watching the Walrus very closely. He was cornered now, and cornered animals will behave unpredictably.

  “They died,” Pipkin said, and snarled in the Walrus’ face.

  The big man took a step back, then two; then his legs knocked against the first row of benches around the ring. The Walrus glanced from Alice to Hatcher to Pipkin, and his face said he did not like his chances.

  “I thank you for helping me,” Pipkin said. “And it seems as though you have some history with this man, and came seeking revenge.”

  “Not on purpose,” Alice said. “We hadn’t intended to come here at all, but since it happened, Hatcher thought it best to finish the job he started so long ago.”

  Alice knew the Walrus could not understand the rabbit, but he certainly could understand her.

  “Hatcher, as you call him, hasn’t a chance of finishing me,” the Walrus said, but his voice was not as steady as it should have been.

  “I don’t think I’ll have to now,” Hatcher said softly, exchanging a look with the rabbit.

  Pipkin nodded at him. “I thank you for your consideration. I have witnessed too many atrocities here to leave without avenging them.”

  Alice did not translate this for Hatcher. He seemed to understand.

  “Before you do that, I wish the Walrus to tell me something,” Alice said. “Where is the Rabbit?”

  The Walrus’ eyebrows raised. “Going to do him in, are you? Knock us all down one by one like a falling house of cards? First the Caterpillar, then me, then the Rabbit?”

  “My business is no concern of yours,” Alice said. “You can tell me where to find him, though it will not redeem what you would have done to me.”

  “You were supposed to be mine,” the Walrus said through his teeth. “The Rabbit promised. And somehow you got away, and I haven’t been able to find another Magician since, though I’ve eaten all the girls I could find, hoping I might stumble on another who didn’t know her own power.”

  For a moment she felt sick, sicker than when she’d seen all the stacked girls in the storage room. All these years, all these lives lost because the Walrus was searching for someone like Alice. All those girls died because Alice had not. She wanted to weep, but the time for weeping had passed.

  Something hardened inside Alice then, a piece of her heart that would forever be cold and untouchable. One day, long ago, she’d gone seeking an adventure and found terror instead. That day had changed the course of her life, and left her hands awash in blood. It was not her fault, but this was how it must be. She understood that now.

  “Tell me where the Rabbit is,” Alice said.

  The Walrus laughed, and it was not a pleasant laugh. “I should. I should send you right to his doorstep, and let you both take what’s coming to you. In this deck of cards he is the King, and even with your butcher at your side you’ll find you won’t knock him down so easily.”

  “I did before,” Alice said. “I was drugged, and he
raped me, and I was terrified. But I still took out his eye. I still got away.” “You surprised him,” the Walrus said. “That won’t happen again.”

  “You needn’t worry about it,” Alice said. “You’ll be dead in any case.”

  “Yes,” the Walrus said. “I will. So there’s no reason for me to make your job easier. Find the Rabbit yourself.”

  Alice glanced at Hatcher, wondering whether it would be worth trying to force the information from the Walrus. Hatcher shook his head. She went to Hatcher then, and they turned to leave.

  “He’s yours, Pipkin,” Alice said.

  She did not hear the rabbit lunge, but she heard the Walrus scream. Alice did not look back. It was enough to know the monster was dying, and would soon join the ranks of women he had destroyed.

  Alice did not know what happened to the soul after death, but if there were any justice in the world, then all those dead girls would haunt the Walrus until the stars exploded and time came to an end.

  She and Hatcher exited the ring and entered the passageway at the top of the arena. It was nothing but plain wooden walls and a dirt floor, and it showed the passing of many feet. There was a staircase at the end, and Alice presumed it led into the street. She imagined the Walrus would not have wanted common gamblers to see the rest of his operations.

  Hatcher started for the stairs, but Alice stayed him. Something had occurred to her.

  “What if there are other girls here?”

  “Alive ones?” Hatcher asked.

  She nodded. “We ought to ask Pipkin if he knows.”

  They returned to the ring, where the Walrus was now many small and unrecognizable pieces. The stench was horrific, though it did not seem to bother Pipkin. He turned toward them as they returned, with a quizzical look on his face. His muzzle was coated in fresh blood, very red against his white fur.

  “Pipkin, are there any others imprisoned here?” Alice asked. She removed her coat, placing the knife in the rope that held up her pants. “May I?”

  Pipkin nodded, and Alice wiped the blood from his face with her jacket. “Very handsome,” she said.