by Frank Beddor
His right cheek bleeding from the four parallel cuts left by The Cat’s claws, Dodge hunched over his dead father, sobbing.
Alyss, alone under the table, also started to cry. Tears had been wetting her cheeks from the beginning, but they’d seemed to belong to somebody else, not a part of her, as if her body were responding to the horrific scene before her brain could comprehend it. Now she entered into grief, shaking with the force of her sobs. Sir Justice dead. Dodge abandoning me. Why did Father ever leave? And where’s Mother? Where’s-
A face appeared before her: colorless, sunken eyes, ravaged and diseased-looking skin, matted hair. “Hello, niece.”
Alyss felt herself lifted out from under the table, held aloft by her long, black hair. “So you were to be queen, were you?” the woman snorted, unimpressed.
“Aunt Redd?” “None other.”
“Let her go, Redd.” It was Genevieve.
“Are you telling me what to do?” Redd sneered. “Look around. The time for giving orders is over.” “Please. Let her go.”
Redd became impatient. “You know I won’t. You brought this on yourself, Queen Genevieve. I can’t afford to leave any Hearts alive-except myself, obviously.”
“You can have me instead.”
“Stupid sister. I already have you. And by the way, if you’re still expecting your king, I regret to inform you that he won’t be returning home. Ever.”
Redd’s scepter issued forth a cloud of red smoke, in the middle of which flickered a series of images: King Nolan and his men ambushed as they approached Heart Palace, Redd marching up to the king and killing him with her sharp, knobbly scepter.
“Father!” Alyss cried.
“Oh, my sweet king,” Genevieve gasped and sent eighteen steel-tipped cones, each with a point as sharp as a dagger, zooming toward Redd, who lazily raised a hand; the cones froze in midair, then clumped on the floor. The heavy chandelier above Redd’s head came loose and fell toward her. Redd made as if to brush a gnat from in front of her face and the chandelier crumbled to dust.
“Is that the best you can do, sister?” Redd scoffed.
A series of double-edged spears cartwheeled toward her. She knocked them aside one by one, bored with her own strength, tired of Genevieve’s pestering.
“Playtime’s over,” she hissed.
Redd pressed her index finger against the ball of her thumb and Alyss started to choke; it felt as if her throat had swollen shut. It didn’t matter that her mother had failed, she herself had to think of something, to imagine something. But she couldn’t focus. A wheel of cheese rolled against Redd’s foot. A pair of slippers danced in the air.
Redd laughed. “You were to be queen with an imagination like that?”
Alyss thought she was going to explode from lack of air. She fumbled with the jabberwock tooth hanging on her necklace and jabbed the pointed end into Redd’s forearm as hard as she could. It stuck.
“Ah!”
Redd released her grip and Alyss dropped to the floor. Before she’d even sucked in one lungful of air, she and her mother were racing down a hall, their feet barely touching the ground. They charged into the queen’s private rooms, past the couches and overstuffed chairs, past the royal outfits hanging in the wardrobe, and headed for the bathroom, where-
The Cat stepped in front of them, lunged. It looked like the end for both of them, but something whirred past the princess’ head and-thomp!-into The Cat’s chest. The Cat fell at their feet. Hatter stepped over the beast and removed his top hat from the fatal wound.
“Take Alyss and go,” Queen Genevieve said, pointing at the looking glass. “As far away as possible.” “But, Your Majesty-”
“I’ll follow you, if and when I can. You have to keep the princess safe until she’s old enough to rule. She’s the only chance Wonderland has to survive. Promise me.”
Hatter bowed his head. His life’s mission was to protect the queen. So long as Genevieve lived, he should remain and fight the enemy. But he understood that Wonderland’s future depended on Alyss’ survival. The queendom was more important than any single queen. He lifted his eyes to Genevieve’s. “I promise,” he said.
Genevieve knelt down in front of her daughter. “No matter what happens, I will always be near you, sweetheart. On the other side of the looking glass. And never ever forget who you are. Do you understand?”
“I want to stay with you.”
“I know, Alyss. I love you.”
“No! I’m staying!” Alyss threw her arms around her mother.
A wall crashed down and there stood Redd with a platoon of card soldiers behind her. “Aw, how sweet. Let’s have a group hug,” she said, moving toward them, hardly looking like the hugging type.
Hatter grabbed Alyss and jumped into the looking glass. Genevieve smashed the glass with her scepter and turned to face Redd, unable to believe it when, in her peripheral vision, she saw The Cat, on the floor with a gaping hole in his chest, open his eyes. His wound healed and he jumped at her. It all happened in an instant: Genevieve conjured a white bolt of energy from her imagination and thrust it into The Cat, killing him a second time. The card soldiers stepped forward to attack the queen, but Redd stopped
them. She yanked the jagged bolt out of The Cat and twirled it like a baton. It turned red in her hand.
“Well, sister, what can I say? I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I’m tickled to death to see you go.”
She slammed the bolt into the floor. Dozens of black roses sprouted from the point of impact, their thorny stems wrapping themselves around Genevieve, pricking her skin and binding her fast. The rose petals opened and closed, toothy mouths eager for a bite of royal flesh.
“Off with your head,” Redd ordered, pulling the energy bolt out of the floor.
“No!” Genevieve struggled against the stems of the roses. Her people would be abandoned to Redd. And Alyss…just a child.
Redd swung the bolt hard. Genevieve’s head went one way, her body another, and her crown rolled along the floor like a dropped coin. Redd picked up the crown and put it on her own head.
“The queen is dead. Long live the queen…me.” The platoon of renegade soldiers cheered.
Redd kicked The Cat where he lay on the floor, tongue lolling in his mouth, the picture of death. “Get up! You still have seven more lives.”
The Cat’s eyes fluttered open. “Find Alyss and kill her.”
With a wave of her hand, the looking glass was once again whole. The Cat jumped through, in pursuit of the only living Heart besides Redd.
CHAPTER 11
C RYSTAL TRANSPORT, also known as looking glass transport, was not unusual in Wonderland. Most looking glasses served as portals to the Crystal Continuum, a network of byways that enabled any and every Wonderlander to enter through one looking glass and exit from another. Focused looking glasses led to specific destinations (like the corner of Wondertropolis Way and Tyman Street). Unfocused looking glasses allowed travelers to choose their own destinations, provided that there were
looking glasses at those destinations out of which they could be reflected. In Queendom Speramus states: “As a body underwater tends to rise to the surface, a body entering a looking glass wants to be reflected out.” It took practice to stay inside the Continuum and master basic navigational skills. An inexperienced traveler might enter a looking glass in his own home, thinking to pay a visit to a friend across town, only
to be reflected out of a looking glass at his next-door neighbor’s house.
The traveler might then enter his next-door neighbor’s looking glass, only to be reflected out at the house next door to his next-door neighbor, and so on and so on until he reached his friend across town. Given time and experience, he would be able to make the trip with fewer stops. Covering long distances in the Crystal Continuum was tough, nearly impossible for all but the most experienced traveler. But short trips were within the skill range of everyone.
The looking glass in the queen’s private
rooms, however, was not linked to the rest of the Continuum. It was a focused glass, to be used for emergencies by the royal family and their intimates. It deposited the traveler deep in a forest. The exit glass was well camouflaged by a tight-lipped shrub.
Having entered the Continuum, Alyss glanced back to see the wavering image of her mother growing progressively smaller among the brilliant, crystalline surfaces along which she and Hatter traveled. Her
mother exploded into a thousand fragments, jagged bits of Genevieve fluttering separately-“Mother!”-and then there was nothing but blackness. It seemed like the end of everything. A black void rushed up behind them, as happened when a focused looking glass was destroyed, its path to a specific destination obliterated.
Where was she being taken? Where, where, where?
Closer and closer the void came, gaining on them, and then-
She awoke, still in Hatter’s arms, her cheek bouncing against his shoulder. Portal Sleep was a side effect of looking-glass transport among the young and inexperienced. Alyss and Hatter were no longer in the Continuum; they raced through a pitch-dark wood. Alyss could see nothing ahead of her or behind, and she wouldn’t even have known they were in a wood if she hadn’t heard the whispering voices of the trees all around. It started to rain, to thunder and lightning. The wind picked up. How could Hatter see where he was going?
From overhead she heard the sound of screaming, pain-riddled banshees. “Seekers,” Hatter said, more to himself than to Alyss.
Yes, seekers alerting whoever was following them of their location. Because someone or something was definitely following them. Hatter could hear it speeding toward them through the underbrush, breaking branches and splashing through puddles in its headlong pursuit.
After what felt to Alyss like a lifetime, the Whispering Woods opened onto a wide expanse and they came to a precipice. It took her a second to realize where she was: the cliff overlooking the Pool of Tears, where she and Dodge had stood only a short time earlier. How she wished Dodge were with her now. The water was dark and roiling. All at once she understood.
“No one ever comes back,” she said, looking forlornly into the pool. “But you will,” said Hatter. “You have to.”
Which was when The Cat burst into the clearing and sprang at them, his arms extended. Hatter jumped. The Cat snagged the sleeve of the princess’ birthday dress, tearing it off with his claws, but that was all he got. Alyss Heart, holding tight to Hatter Madigan, plummeted toward the surface of the water below.
CHAPTER 12
“P OINT YOUR feet down!” Hatter shouted, holding himself as straight as he could. He knew that if he and Alyss didn’t hit the water with as little impact as possible, it would be like landing on a sheet of diamond and they’d be killed.
Alyss barely had time to do as he instructed before they shot deep into the pool. She lost her grip on the Millinery man. He reached for her, but she panicked, flailing, and then she was out of reach. Falling deeper underwater, she opened her eyes, saw nothing but foam and a rush of bubbles, and shut them again, not wanting to face the unknown. Just when she thought that she couldn’t hold her breath any longer and would drown in the depths, she stopped and reversed directions, heading up toward the surface with the same force and speed as her descent.
Whoosh!
She was out of the water and in the air, cannonballing out of a dirty puddle in the middle of a street where
a parade was taking place. People dressed in various shades of dull, with strange, anonymous faces, were crowding the pavements and applauding her.
All these jumping and spinning and juggling people. And…are those soldiers? She had been mistaken for a member of a gypsy troupe tumbling and twirling and performing magic tricks alongside a marching regiment.
“Bravo! Bravo!” the crowd applauded.
Five bowler hats, an ivory-tipped cane, a pair of tortoiseshell eyeglasses, a rolled-up newspaper, a potato, and two plates of steak and kidney pie took to the air and circled overhead. The rolled-up newspaper smacked into a boy sitting on his father’s shoulders. One woman ended up with pie in her face. Dazed, Alyss didn’t even realize it was her imagination that had caused the objects to take flight. She was keeping her eye on the dirty puddle, hoping Hatter would appear. Then a gilded open carriage pulled by eight horses decked out in jeweled harnesses splashed through the puddle and she caught a glimpse of a woman-a queen, surely it was a queen!-inside, waving to the crowds.
“Mother?”
It was possible. Genevieve might have arrived in this world before her. If anyone could do it… And maybe being a queen in one world meant you were recognized as such in another? Alyss forgot about the dirty puddle and chased after the carriage, at which point the bowler hats, eyeglasses, cane, potato, and steak and kidney pie dropped to the ground.
“Mother! Mo-ther, wait!”
She weaved her way through the parading soldiers toward the queen’s carriage. The soldiers bumped and elbowed her.
“Get lost, brat.”
“Away with you, dirty urchin.”
She hardly noticed. She was gaining on the carriage. Her mother would see her, order her lifted up onto the equipage’s plush cushion, and they would be reunited. It had been a test, Genevieve would say, Alyss’ first test as future queen and nothing more.
She was within a hundred feet of the carriage when, having reached the end of the parade route, it abruptly turned into a side street and picked up speed, the entrance to the street blocked by a line of soldiers to prevent anyone from following. With as much pride as she could muster, armed with a firm belief in her own entitlement (she was a princess), Alyss approached the soldiers standing guard.
“Where is that carriage going?”
No answer. Maybe they hadn’t heard her? She was about to ask again when one of the soldiers deigned to look in her direction and, judging by the look on his face (as if someone had shoved a smelly radish under his nose), he was not impressed by Alyss’ rough-and-tumble appearance. Alyss glanced down at her dress, torn by The Cat and wet from the Pool of Tears. She looked far from regal.
“To Buckingham Palace. Where d’ya think?” he said.
But Alyss wasn’t thinking, events still following too closely and too quickly one after another for her to make much sense of them. Buckingham Palace was simply the place where her mother had gone.
“And where is the palace?” she asked.
“You don’t know where Buckingham Palace is?”
“If you don’t tell me, I can make life difficult for you.”
This amused the soldier. “That right? And why should I tell you where the palace is? Like as not, you’re after doing the queen some harm.”
“I am Princess Alyss Heart. The queen is my mother and-”
“Your-? Well, well.” The soldier turned to the fellow standing next to him, who had overheard everything. “Heh, George. This girl here says her mother’s the queen.”
“You don’t say?” said George, turning to the soldier next to him. “Timothy, you hear that? This little girl’s mother’s the queen. You and me’d have to die protecting her, I suppose.”
“All hail the royal lady,” Timothy said, bowing. The soldiers laughed.
Nothing was worse than imagination used in the service of anger, Alyss knew, but these soldiers were too disrespectful. It may have been the distorting properties of her anger, or the muck of this alien city, but when she imagined the soldiers’ mouths sewn shut, their coats and breeches tore at the seams instead.
Thinking they had split their uniforms from laughing so hard, the soldiers laughed even harder.
Alyss’ anger drained out of her, leaving her sad and doubtful. Could it be that her mother hadn’t been in the carriage? Hadn’t she seen her mother burst into a thousand fragments, leaving only blackness, nothingness in her place? And why had her imagination failed her?
Without realizing it, she walked away from the soldiers. “Hatter?” she called.
But th
ere were only strangers, clots of them conversing on the pavements, others hurrying on their way to who knew where. There was only the grime and soot and horse-dung stink of the streets.
“Hatter!”
She had to get back to the puddle that had landed her in this world. It could reunite her with Hatter, maybe even return her to Wonderland. She retraced her steps. But the street was mottled with so many puddles. What if she’d gone too far and passed it? Everything appeared equally unfamiliar. Could she have covered so much distance while chasing the carriage? What if she never found the puddle? What would happen when the sun broke through the clouds?
If she stopped to think about what she was going through…No, don’t. Her father murdered. Her mother most likely dead. Sir Justice Anders’ throat torn open. And Dodge, her best friend…But don’t think about it. Don’t! Stuck in this alien place. Alone. Don’t-
