Playing Hearts

by W. R. Gingell

  “That? That means we’re going to be married?”

  “Exactly. Thankfully, not for some years yet.”

  I stared at him until I was certain he wasn’t laughing at me, then said firmly: “No.”

  Much to my surprise, Jack abandoned the subject without further argument. “I’ll make a distraction,” he said, rising. “But if that tinpot makes so much as one clank while I’m distracting them and it gets back to Mother Dearest that I’ve been colluding with idiots and inebriates–”

  “Hey!”

  “That, varlet, is grounds for a meeting!”

  Jack threw him a mocking look and sauntered back into the other room. I thought for a sharp, fearful moment that he was going to give us away for spite, but then I heard his voice slip into a soft, caramel purr. “It seems a shame to have such a renowned musician here and not take the opportunity of utilising his services,” he said. Or perhaps he sang it: there was a depth and roundness to his voice that made it carry across the whole room. “Hearts and Diamonds, your entertainer: Cat Cheshire!”

  His voice must have been well-known. I heard gasps of delight and clapping hands, then the whole of the party rustled and swayed their way to the left side of the room, clustering around the piano, Jack, and Cat Cheshire.

  Sir Blanc started to climb to his feet, but I tugged at his left gauntlet.

  “Not until he starts singing!” I whispered. Jack was right: Sir Blanc was entirely too noisy. Hopefully Cat Cheshire was a robust performer, or we were both going to be caught. Fortunately the piano began to play a sly, off-beat blues number with a backing of trumpets, quite loud enough to hide the noise of Sir Blanc’s sneaking, and I stepped lightly into the other room with the white knight right behind me.

  Through the glittering, shifting crowd I could see Jack. He was standing beside the black-skinned, blue-sequined man who was playing the piano, his eyes flickering around the room. I supposed he was there to make sure everyone was looking at Cat Cheshire, though why anyone would be looking away from him was the first thought that sprang to my mind. Cat Cheshire, in addition to his blue-sequined suit, had a blue-sequined hat and a pair of dark glasses. He also had a trick of twitching to the music that was eye-catching. I hoped it meant that he wouldn’t see Sir Blanc and I, and wished that he would start singing. Sir Blanc had a bad habit of clanging between blasts of the trumpets rather than while they were happening. But when the singing started, it was Jack’s voice that I heard: deep, smooth, and effortlessly breathtaking. More than that, it was mesmerising. I didn’t realise that I had stopped to stare, my mouth open, until Jack’s eyes caught mine and he smirked at me. Then I blinked a little, shut my mouth, and pressed onward to the heart door. It seemed wrong that such a beautiful voice belonged to such an annoying boy.

  I didn’t quite let out my breath until the red heart door closed silently behind us. The music softened, much to my secret disappointment, but I could still faintly hear the thrum of Jack’s voice and the purl of the trumpets. Around us was a red and white room with soft edges: plush carpet, plump furniture, and curved wooden shelving. I had the feeling that I could easily sink into it all if I wasn’t careful. Even Sir Blanc’s clanking wasn’t as bad in here.

  “All right, Sir Blanc,” I said to him. “Where are your wits?”

  Sir Blanc looked around vaguely. “Assuredly, they’re in the room. I feel them. I am certain I shall know them if once I have them in my hand.”

  I had to bite the inside of my cheek before I could say with any patience at all: “Do you want to go through all the shelves and pick up everything?”

  “An exceedingly good proposal!” cried Sir Blanc.

  “We’ll start with the ones in glass cases,” I told him, sighing. “Those will be the most valuable ones. And we’ll only pick up the ones that are made up of more than one piece.”

  A smile overspread Sir Blanc’s usually doleful face. “Forsooth! A clever ruse indeed; my wits numbering more than one!”

  “That’s what I’m hoping,” I said.

  There were so many glass-fronted shelves. We began by the heart doors, grubbing up the glass-fronted cabinets there with my fingerprints while I plucked every likely curio from the shelves and plopped them into Sir Blanc’s waiting hands. He giggled at some, cooed at others, and said “Forsooth!” every so often, but he didn’t seem to recognise any of the items. When we got to the wall opposite the doors there was a small gap between curio cases that featured a tiny, round table with a frosted-glass cover over it and a small, decorative grating peeking through its spindly legs. It was the opening we’d seen from the inside of the ice-vents: a small, brick-sized grating that hid a small, brick-sized opening back into the vent system. Cool air flowed from it, promising freedom that was impossible to get to. The wall was simply too thick.

  “Pity we can’t shrink ourselves,” I said regretfully, running my fingers over the glassy knob on top of the glass cover. At least we had Jack on the outside to get us back out, but I wasn’t looking forward to sneaking past that crowd again. Jack had stopped singing, too, which was a pity. It wasn’t something I’d ever tell him, but his voice was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever heard. You didn’t expect to hear a smooth bass from such a narrow, sharp-faced boy. More to the point, while he wasn’t singing, the crowd wasn’t distracted.

  “Eh?” said Sir Blanc. He was hovering over a crystal carafe of something that was sitting invitingly on a display table in the middle of the room. It even had a couple of glasses by it. More worryingly, it had a tag on it that read: Drink Me.

  “Never mind,” I said, lifting the frosted-glass cover I’d found.

  I knew right away that I’d found Sir Blanc’s wits. There were about six of them, and they looked like little beans. Well, little beans with...little shoes. And little feet in them, with little legs. I heard one of them squeak, and then they were off, tearing across the table and leaping to the floor. They were so quick that I could only catch one of them, its legs windmilling madly as it tried to catch up with the others.

  “Hah!” said Sir Blanc in some satisfaction. “They were ever quick wits! Post-haste, child! Seize them!”

  I thrust the frosted-glass cover at him, upside down and with the single captured wit in it, and chased after the other five. They were quick and nimble, and they had the advantage of being able to run under the furniture that I had to run around, but I was quick and nimble too. I captured another two of them when they made the mistake of crossing a rug that was even deeper than the carpet, and I was closing in on a third that was running for the door when someone thumped on the wooden panels. Sir Blanc and I both froze: it wasn’t a loud thump, but it was very distinct. It sounded as though someone had leaned against the lintel and accidentally bumped their elbow against the door. I motioned at Sir Blanc to be very quiet, but he was too busy playing with the three captured wits to notice, so I pounced on the one I had cornered and added it to his bowl before I crept back to the door. When I cracked it open just a little the first thing I saw was a sleek red jacket. I went limp in relief. It was only Jack.

  “What do you want?” I hissed.

  Jack barely glanced over his shoulder, which was blocking the other room from me as much as it was blocking me from the other room. “Are you finished? Mother Dearest won’t be long.”

  “I’ve got four of them, but the other two are hiding behind one of the cabinets and won’t come out.”

  “Well, hurry it up,” said Jack, peeling himself away from the door and straightening his cuffs. “She won’t be away forever.”

  I’d rounded up the last two wits with enough time to be impatient by the time I heard a soft knock on the door again. I’d even managed to stuff them all into my pockets, where they wriggled and squeaked and generally made me feel uncomfortable. I could have put them in my backpack, but I was afraid they would escape. I cracked the door open only to see Jack’s shoulders again, so I slipped my finger through the opening and poked him in the ribs.

/>   “Oi! We’re ready to go! Better start singing again.”

  He stiffened, but didn’t jump. “My voice is tired,” he said over his shoulder.

  “What do you mean?” I demanded, in deep suspicion.

  “I do wish you wouldn’t run at things like a bull at a gate!” complained Jack. “Where’s your subtlety, Mab? I’m clearly trying to extort something from you.”

  “Well, I wish you wouldn’t talk like a dictionary,” I said grumpily. “But I don’t reckon that’s going to change, so why should I? What do you want?”

  “I need something from you, you need something from me. How about a trade?”

  I gazed at his shoulders with an open mouth. “You waited until we were in here to bargain!”

  “Of course I did,” said Jack. “I’m not a fool. Are you ready to listen?”

  “Listen to what?”

  “My mother picked you out when I was a child–”

  “Picked me out? You mean kidnapped!”

  “–for the purposes of an engagement,” continued Jack, as if I hadn’t spoken. “That engagement is pretty widely known around Underland, and it’s as widely known that we’ll be married on my twenty-fifth birthday.”

  “Engagement,” I said bitterly. I still had nightmares about that night. “She took my blood. People don’t swap blood when they get engaged. They swap rings. Why did she mix our blood, anyway?”

  Jack shrugged easily, his shoulder briefly revealing and then obscuring the room again. “Just an old tradition. Nothing important. But it does mean something to her. She’s determined to see us married.”

  “You don’t have to do what she tells you to do,” I said. “You’re almost grown up.”

  “The rules are the rules,” said Jack. “I have to follow the rules. What I do with the rules, now: that’s a different matter entirely. We’ve got a better chance if we join forces. You promise that you won’t disappear, promise that you’ll come back to marry me when it’s time, and I’ll make another distraction so you can get out before Mother Dearest comes back.”

  “You said we could run,” I said. “I remember. That first time, when she mixed our blood, you said that we had a lot of time for running.”

  “I was wrong,” said Jack, with something of a grimness in his voice. “There’s no future in running. Literally. Mother Dearest’s Mirror Hall was quite...clear...on that.”

  “What if I want to marry someone else?”

  Black-flecked eyes came to bear on my face. “Who do you want to marry?”

  “I don’t know, I’m only twelve!”

  “Well, then! Promise!”

  “No,” I said. “You’re not very nice and if I break my promise later on that means I’m not very nice.”

  “I’ve never been very nice and I’m not likely to begin now,” said Jack. “It’s best if you give up on that. I am very good at staying alive, however, and that should count for something.”

  “I’m not going to promise,” I said in dislike.

  “Well, I’m not going to get you out,” said Jack, shrugging elegantly. “You’ll have to find your own way out.”

  “I will then!” I hissed, pulling the door sharply shut. I heard the slight thump and Jack’s exclamation as he was pulled off balance, and smiled. Serve him right.

  Sir Blanc, who was watching me with some anxiety, said: “Dear child, I am very much afraid that I’ve led you into a very sticky situation.”

  “Can we put your wits back in?”

  “I regret to say that we cannot. It requires someone in possession of a competent hand with a needle: perhaps a dressmaker.”

  “What, sew them back in?”

  “It is the only way,” said Sir Blanc simply. “A method tried and true for shadows, wits, and reputations.”

  “What about a hatter? Could a hatter do it?”

  “Forsooth, were it The Hatter, certainly.”

  “All right,” I said, thinking very quickly. It wouldn’t be long before the Queen joined the party, and Sir Blanc and I couldn’t still be here when she arrived. “So we just have to get out of here first.”

  “Indeed,” sighed Sir Blanc. He sat himself down desolately on the Queen’s coffee table, gazed soulfully around the room, and gave every sign of breaking into a sad song at any moment.

  “I have an idea,” I said quickly. I had found myself in front of the tiny ice-vent again. “But you’ll have to be very quiet. It’s trying to wriggle away and I need to grab it while I can.”

  Sir Blanc looked mildly hopeful. That was good. The more cheerful he was, the less likely he was to burst into doleful ditties. And I really did have an idea—or at least, part of one—that was doing its best to wriggle away between the cracks of my mind. Wriggle? No, ripple. That was what my mind was catching on. I had watched the Hatter and his ripply hat somehow change things in Underland, and I had changed things myself. Somewhere at the back of my mind was the idea that if I could See Things Differently today, too, perhaps I could use the ripples to change things again.

  “I need water,” I said to Sir Blanc.

  “I myself am a little parched,” he said. “Unhappily, I see no water here.”

  “What about that?” I asked, pointing the crystal carafe of Drink Me.

  Sir Blanc’s brow creased. “I caution against indulging in that libation dear child. Dear me, no! It declares: ‘drink me’. I have not all my wits about me, but that is a risk I am not willing to chance.”

  “I don’t want to drink it,” I said, pouring a measure of the clear liquid into a smooth, transparent glass. I thought I saw Jack’s face briefly in it, but the swirl of liquid did away with it quickly. I carried it carefully over to the ice-vent and nestled it into the red carpet while I tore off the grating with my fingertips.

  “I hesitate to point this out, my child, but I fear that you are marginally too large for such a mode of egress.”

  “I know,” I said, and went back to my glass. If I lay on my side in the carpet and looked at the vent through the liquid, it looked much larger. Perhaps if I could See it differently, it would be different.

  “Go through the vent, Sir Blanc,” I told him, my eyes steadily on the enlarged vent. There was a series of clankings behind me as he stood again, then a tiny armoured Sir Blanc was climbing into the vent in front of me.

  “Astounding!” he said, his moustaches quivering with excitement. “Who could have imagined!”

  “I’ve seen Hatter do it,” I said, pink and gruff with embarrassment. “It’s nothing special. Keep going, Sir Blanc; I’m coming.”

  Everything went a bit wobbly when I got up. For a sick-making moment it was impossible to tell whether everything had gotten bigger or if Sir Blanc and I had simply gotten smaller. I seemed to walk past a giant glass of liquid to climb into the vent, and the carpet was huge and lumpy behind us; but when we dropped back into the main vent system from the smaller outlet it was no larger than it had been before. The wits, on the other hand, were still wriggling as vehemently as before, and their squeaks seemed to echo around the vent as loudly as Sir Blanc’s clangings. This in turn made Sir Blanc shift uncomfortably, so I sent him on ahead to see if the mechanical horse was still waiting for us and explored the vents a little more thoroughly while I was at it. It had occurred to me that with Sir Blanc’s wits still not available to him, I would have no one to take me to the Hatter and Hare. It was my fault, of course. I’d assumed that Sir Blanc’s wits would be able to go right back in—though now I came to think of it, I did wonder how, exactly—and that he would be able to lead me to Hatter and Hare. Instead, he would need Hatter just to sew his wits back in, and neither of us had the slightest idea of where to find Hatter. Jack, on the other hand, almost certainly knew where Hatter and Hare’s tea table was in relation to the Castle, so I spent some time shuffling about in the vents until I found his room. The grating I found would be a little more challenging to get out of: it looked down on the room from a rather high ceiling. It wasn’t exactly a room,
though– it was a whole lot of rooms. Jack had a whole suite to himself. It was bigger than most of the foster homes I’d stayed in. I had a certain amount of satisfaction in thinking that to exit I would have to bounce down on Jack’s perfectly made bed. I gazed at it enviously from behind my grating, taking in the black and white marbled floors, the white rugs throughout, and the heavy blackness of the plain rectangular bed. There wasn’t a flash of red to be seen in the entire suite.

  A card man came in while I was still gawking and made me jump, but he was only there to run a bath, which seemed like a good thing. If Jack was having a bath run, it wouldn’t be long before he showed up. I’d better return to Sir Blanc while I could. If I could be sure he was in a safe place, wits and all, it would be easy enough to wait here until the party was over and Jack returned to his suite. Accordingly, I made my way swiftly back through the ice-vents, making turn after carefully remembered turn until my feet were on the rungs of the ladder that led back down into the ice chamber. Sir Blanc greeted me happily, and as happily agreed to wait for me outside both castle and city streets. We had left his horse at a small way-station about half a day’s journey from the gates. It wasn’t much more than a roof and a bit of straw but it had been comfortable enough to spend the night in, and both of us knew where to find it again. I repeated my instructions to Sir Blanc twice anyway, just to be sure, and tucked his recovered wits into the pocket at the front of his gambeson.

  “Don’t let them out!” I said. “Not even if they squeak.”

  “I shall not,” said Sir Blanc solemnly. “How will you escape, child?”

  “I have another way out,” I told him, hoping as I said it that it was true. I helped him back onto the mechanical cart just before the horse began to move, and hoped that no one would notice the dripping ice-water that showed its cargo was still on board.

  I climbed more quickly this time, sure of my way. It wouldn’t help to remember the way after today, of course: the Queen would make sure no one entered the castle by the ice vents again when she discovered the missing wits. But I found myself reinforcing the memories anyway, counting off the turns and the ladders as I went. Jack’s bedroom suite caught up with me even more quickly than I expected, and soon I was looking down on his bed again, calculating the jump in my mind. The card servant was gone, which was convenient: it meant that I could rattle the grate free without being overheard. I wanted to be ready when Jack came back. When the grate was out I put it carefully beside me in the vent, rubbing my hands against each other to ward off the chill in the air. Then I waited.