Alice Games

by Michelle R. Reid

  My tail twitched. “I thought the Alice chose the next Queen.”

  The hyena snorted. “That’s stupid. You don’t live here. Why should you have a say? The people should choose, and they chose me.” He motioned to the animals below and beamed when they started to cheer again. “Besides, it doesn’t matter how the Queen Candidate is chosen if I have that red brat’s wand and the sword. Then I’ll show them what real power is.”

  What sword? I knew that Ace wanted to get Blood out of the Emerald Castle. Did Blood have a sword?

  I was jolted out of my thoughts when Hatter swung my cage again.

  “You’re supposed to be more interesting,” he whined. “You’re taking this too calmly. Be like all the other Alices, and cry.”

  My ears perked up as a shock went through me. “Other Alices?”

  He nodded. “I tried to befriend some of them, but it became a hassle. I only got my hands on two of them, though. It’s taken me a couple tries to figure out how to get in the Emerald Castle.” He hummed to himself. “You might have lived if I had gotten the Artifact. After all, I reward those who serve me.”

  My stomach knotted. I’d been so distracted with my thoughts of self-pity, that I spaced the situation for a minute. But hearing those words brought it all back. “I doubt that.”

  “But now I have to find a new way into the Emerald Castle. Only something from the other world can enter that place.” His head cocked to the side, all pretense disappearing. “And the only thing I have from the other world is you.” He wasn’t looking in my eyes anymore; he was looking at my body.

  “What are you saying?” My voice was steadier than I felt. Luckily the cage had stopped moving, even if my stomach was still rolling.

  Hatter didn’t clarify immediately. He actually disregarded me entirely and started to talk to himself. “Carrying her body around would be annoying. Even carrying an arm or leg would take up too much room.”

  He is really contemplating this earnestly, I thought with disgust with how seriously he was dismembering me in his head and trying to figure out how my body would be convenient to him.

  “I could just take her blood,” he concluded brightly. “If I wear it on myself—that should be enough. With it smeared on my skin, I won’t need to hold onto her.” He nodded.

  My mouth almost dropped in shock. “You’re kidding.” How could he think of something so twisted so quickly? Like walking around in someone else’s blood was fine. This took the term “mad” to a new level. No wonder Oz was rejecting him and his people.

  He jumped, remembering I was still right in front of his nose, and giggled. “Oh, I mean it.” His head cocked to the side. “But she doesn’t have enough blood in that cat shape. And what if it’s tainted right now?” he mumbled to himself. He nodded slowly and raised his voice, like he meant to be heard now. “You’re lucky, Alice. You get to live until dawn.” Hatter turned and promptly ran into Shirley the sheep.

  She stumbled and fell down.

  Hatter staggered back. He shook his head furiously, the movement displacing his hat, and glared. “What are you doing here?” he demanded. “Get back down where you belong!”

  She scrambled to her feet with a small bleat of fear and ran down the stairs. Animals bumped and snapped at her as she merged with the crowd.

  Hatter sneezed after her. He gasped when he realized his hat was stuck to his cheek. “Hat!” he howled. “Hat!”

  A female baboon and a hyena jumped out of the crowd and hurried over to him. They looked at each other and immediately started to snap at the competition while their prize continued to holler about his hat. The crowd burst into cheers and encouragement. The baboon finally landed a hard bite on the hyena’s scruff and shoved her off the platform, causing the crowd to cheer louder.

  The baboon proudly adjusted the hat back onto the center of Hatter’s head.

  He immediately calmed down. “Silence!” he yelled and turned to the baboon. “Get down.”

  She hurried down the stairs.

  A growl rumbled from my throat.

  “You’re boring,” Hatter whined. “Why aren’t you funner?”

  “More fun,” I corrected.

  He didn’t hear me. He brightened. “Or do you think someone’s going to save you? That brainless lion or the stuffy hare?” He giggled. “Which is it?”

  The crowd erupted into laughter, high and manic.

  The hair on my body rose and I glared. I wanted more than anything to say a name, any name, but honestly, I didn’t have enough faith that anyone would come. I was left with nothing but being the butt end of joke. One of my own making. After all, I was the one who wandered away from Lional and got captured—all because I thought I was special to Ace, that he’d come to see me one last time. And Lional can’t come into Hatter’s Domain during the Alice Games unless he’s invited to. I highly doubt Hatter’s going to let him in.

  Honestly, I deserved to be laughed at.

  “Oh, that was good.” Hatter stopped laughing, and the crowd slowly followed suit. “Stop laughing,” he yelled the few still going. He sniffed and looked at the people. “Go away. I want to sleep.”

  The crowd immediately began to disperse.

  Hatter paused. “Shirley! You stay here!”

  Angry chatter erupted in the crowd. From the center of it, Shirley pushed her way out of the agitated animals. Her prideful strut was marred by a newly acquired limp.

  “Stay with the Alice.” Hatter nodded towards my cage. “If anything happens to my property, it will be on your head.” He turned and walked off the platform with Boon, my abductor baboon, following behind.

  Shirley bent her knees and bowed her head low. The last person shut the door, and we were the only ones left in the room.

  Feeling too stupid to be pitiful, I lay down, curling my paws up under my chest. It was oddly comfortable and relaxing, as if I curled up tight enough to protect myself from everything. Of course, that was all in my head, but I was content to lie to myself for a little while longer. My tail curled around me and flicked. Needing a distraction, I gazed at the daft sheep below.

  If she was gone, I could figure out how to open the lock. It wasn’t even padlocked—it had to be simple enough a baboon could operate it. And it was at nose level, right in front. Perfectly accessible to a cat’s nimble paws. No one would know until dawn when I would be safe with Lional and Hareson. But if I opened it now, Shirley could hold it closed or call for help. Even if I ran, I was sure I would be caught. The idea of going through the physical pain they would be sure to inflict wasn’t very appealing.

  Shirley looked around the deserted room. I wasn’t the best at reading sheep thoughts, but her human-like body language implied she found the now empty and messy room slightly distasteful. She brushed at the ground in vain for a second before she gave up and lay down on the dirty ground. She glanced at me, then jumped when she noticed I was staring at her.

  “Why are you here?” I asked.

  She jolted at my voice, then recovered and scoffed. “Lord Hatter told me to. Remember?”

  “No. Why are you here, in this Domain and not at the Ruby Castle? You must be one of the maids who changed me when I first came to Oz. And you led me back to Red Queen after I came out of the Cheshire Forest.”

  She gave a mean laugh. “The Ruby Castle? You mean back where I’m just one of the many faces? There are thirty-one other maids who look just like me. Same face, same clothes. Here, I’m one of a kind. There’s no one else like me here.”

  My eyes rolled. “That’s because they’ve already eaten all the others, I’m sure.” I shook my head. “Is this what you meant when you told me there were other choices? You can tell that it’s not safe here. These people want to hurt you.”

  “That’s not true.” Her voice wobbled because she knew I was right. I’m sure her leg was still smarting.

  “And you weren’t limping a minute ago, either.”

  She leapt to her feet. “I’m special. Lord Hatter says so!�
��

  One of my ears flopped back. “Of course he does. You’re his mole in the Ruby Castle.”

  She cut me off. “I’m a sheep, not a mole.”

  “I meant you’re his spy. He’ll say anything to get want he wants, and what he wants is your blind obedience. But as soon as he doesn’t need you, he’ll toss you to the carnivores.”

  “I’m special,” she said, voice almost desperate. “When he becomes the Queen, he’ll make me his wife. Then what will they say? No one can call me one of the crowd or useless. I’ll be the only Queen’s wife. The most important woman in Oz.”

  “Wife? That’s rich. No, he wants a slave. If he does pick a wife, it’ll be someone flashy or with big assets. Not a little maid.”

  She looked away, like I’d hit a soft spot. “Why does it matter to you, anyway? You’ll be dead in the morning.”

  It wasn’t so scary when she said it. How interesting. “Maybe. But then the Game will end and White Wizard will automatically win. Hatter won’t have time to make it to the Emerald Castle, and you’ll be stuck as a sheep in a swarm of predators waiting to eat you over and over again. Every day until the next Alice Games begins.”

  Her breath sucked in sharply. “No. That’s wrong. Lord Hatter’s plan is flawless.” Her breath was faint, like she just realized what I’d said was actually a possibility. It would be a fate worse than death.

  Her doubt was encouraging. It was just the reaction I was waiting for. “His plan is crazy and made of wishful thinking, not fact. And you’re going to take the fall when it doesn’t work. He’s playing you.”

  I’d gone too far, too fast. Her defenses came back up. She bleated a laugh. “That’s impossible. Everything you’ve said is a lie.”

  I shifted and focused on the problem at hand. “No, it’s not. You should get out of here now. Before it’s too late.”

  Shirley shook her head. “So that’s what this is all about. You’re just trying to escape.”

  I’d lost her. Like a balloon with a small hole, I let the air out of my body as a sinking pit formed in my stomach. I should have kept going with the failed plan and her taking the blame bit. Well, next time I’d know better. If there was a next time. This was why I hated dealing with emotional people. It was too hard to pound logic through their thick, easily bruised skulls.

  “No, I’m trying to get you to escape.”

  She laughed. “Don’t lie. There’s no reason for me to escape. I’m not the one in bars.”

  “At least I can see my cage,” I said and put my head down, shifting until my back was to her so I didn’t show her my disappointment.

  Now to figure out a new plan. This one might still work, but only time would tell. She might bolt in the middle of the night, but I didn’t have high hopes for that. Red Queen had already explained that no one could enter a Domain without permission during the Alice Games, so the odds of Hareson and Lional charging through those doors were slim to nil.

  The only person I’d ever seen in a Domain outside of the designated Role Player was Ace. Depression filled me. Ace wasn’t going to come and rescue me, he already had what he wanted from me. I was on my own.

  After a couple hours, I still hadn’t come up with a good plan. Everything I started to think of fell apart because of some obvious reason or another.

  The only thing that would maybe work was trying to talk Hatter out of killing me in the morning. I could point out that if he did, the Alice Games would end and White Wizard would win. I had to convince the Hatter that he needed to kill me in front of the Emerald Castle so the Games wouldn’t end. That way, he’d have to take me outside of his Domain alive, where hopefully Red Queen and the army she’d collected could stop him.

  I took a breath, committing to the idea. I’d have to try to convince another emotional crazy person. The score was zero to one, not very encouraging, but it was worth a shot. Right now, it was my only shot.

  The night was too long. I didn’t sleep well because my mind was going wild with horrible thoughts of what might happen in the morning. After I finally got those under control, the cage started to swing as I shifted, jolting me awake again.

  It was comforting, at least, to know that Shirley got as little sleep as I did. Every time I looked at her, she was shifting or pacing the ground. But she still didn’t leave the room.

  I’d just gotten to sleep when a huge bell went off somewhere at the top of the building. I jumped up, hair on end and hissing on reflex. Then I covered my ears with my paws, trying to block out the sound that echoed horribly through the building and my body. After the bell finished ringing, I sat up and looked around, finally able to see the thin windows on the stone wall.

  The sky was in a pre-dawn navy blue state. It wouldn’t be long before the sun breached the horizon. Since I slept through yesterday morning, I could only assume that sunrise was the time when people turned back to their human state.

  Just looking at the lightening sky made my heart race. Not just because of Hatter’s gross plan, but because today was the day. In four or five hours was False Dawn. I needed to be at the Emerald Castle if I wanted to go home. If I wasn’t, then I’d—what did Ace say?—wink out of existence and get stuck between Oz and Earth. And I was currently locked in a cage, who knew how far away.

  Shirley was on her feet, hurrying to brush off the ground’s dirt the best she could.

  A door opened with a loud squeak and shut with a thud behind me. I turned to see Hatter and Boon walk onto the platform. My pulse started to hammer faster, but I wasn’t going to let him see how worried I was. Instead, I tried to give an imperial look that cats are normally so good at.

  Today the hyena wore a black velvet top hat. Around the brim was a tarnished golden crown. Hatter first checked the cage to make sure I was still there, then looked at the sheep below. “Well done, Shirley. Go open the doors.”

  She trembled with excitement at the compliment and ran to push open the door.

  It took some time because they were a lot bigger than her, but eventually the huge, wooden doors cracked open. The instant they were cracked, baboon hands reached in and pulled the doors all the way open. She had to jump out of the way or be trampled by the animals rushing in. Alarmed, Shirley scrambled up to make sure she was in the front of the loud crowd.

  When all the animals were in, Hatter lifted his head. “Shut up!” he yelled. The room went quiet. “Well, my wonderful subjects.” Hatter beamed around. “Welcome to the event of the century. With the blood of this Alice, your beloved ruler is about to become the most powerful Queen ever!” He tossed his head in the air.

  The crowd cheered.

  “It’s not going to work,” I said, glad that my voice was even. It wasn’t hard to figure out that Hatter loved panic and chaos.

  Hatter flinched at the sound of my voice and turned to me. “What did you say?” He walked over and pushed my cage with his nose. “What are you talking about?”

  “Stop that.” I hissed at him and clawed at the bottom of the cage as it swung. “I said, your plan is not going to work.”

  He let out a high hyena yip. “Of course it’s going to work. My plan is flawless.”

  “No, it’s not. Whenever an Alice dies, White Wizard automatically wins. If you kill me right now, the game will end, and the Emerald Castle will close. You won’t get in that way, even if you have all my blood.”

  “Impossible!” he roared. “You’re just trying to keep me from killing you.” He calmed down. “I already know how I’ll do it. You’ll be strung up, and Boon will chop off your feet. Then all your blood will drain into a bowl under you.”

  I stared at him, barely able to breathe. That would ensure that he’d collect all my blood. It would only take me a couple of minutes to bleed to death. A couple of very painful minutes. Stay calm, I ordered myself. “So you’d have my blood and no throne. You’re in the wrong location. The choice has to be made in front of the Emerald Castle, right? The only way you can kill me and not have the Game end immedia
tely is if you do it in front of the Emerald Castle.”

  I never thought I’d see the day when I would explain to someone where to kill me. This was bizarre.

  Hatter hesitated.

  Hope started to build inside me.

  “Lord Hatter!” someone yelled from the back of the room. “Lord Hatter!” A male hyena pushed through the crowd to the front. “There’s an army!” He let out a peal of terrified laughter.

  Hatter’s ears flattened against his skull and he looked over his shoulder. “What are you talking about?”

  “There’s an army out front. It’s led by Sir Lional and Sir Hareson! They want the Alice back!” the hyena panted, wide eyes rolling.

  My ears perked up, impressed with how awesome that made Lional and Hareson sound. They really brought an army with them to come and get me? Unfortunately, they still couldn’t enter yet, but it was definitely enough to scare the people holed up in this mad Domain. Then again, Red Queen was in charge of all Oz. I bet once morning came, and she returned from the moon, she could come in and bring whoever she wanted.

  Hatter sucked in a breath. “Hurry!” he yelled. “Boon! Hurry! We must finish before they get through the barrier around my Domain! Get the chains! The bucket! Now!”

  The hair stood up as my back arched. Any control I had on my emotions broke. My breathing came so fast, my chest hurt. A fine tremble shook my body as panic set in. How was I going to get out of this now?

  People started to run every direction, grabbing things. Vultures I hadn’t seen before appeared and started to string up chains from the rafters. Shirley pulled a bucket from a baboon’s hands and ran with it up to the platform. She positioned it under the chains, checking it twice.

  Boon walked over to the cage. He opened it and grabbed me out.

  I curled around his hand, trying inflict enough damage to make him let me go. All it did was make the baboon shake me so hard I got dizzy and had to stop.

  “Hurry,” Hatter snapped. “We need to have her ready to be chained as soon as the sun peaks.” He started to shuffle his feet in excitement.