Queens of Wonderland, page 6
She put the mixture in a beaker and lit a fire under it. While it heated, she scraped some copper dust into it. The paste gave off a dim glow that could have been mistaken for a reflection of the candlelight. It released a clean smell, and her nose felt cold. It reminded Vanessa of being on a mountain. At the same time, she tasted wild berries. A single curl of smoke rose from the mixture. She dipped her finger in. In spite of the fire, the substance was so cold it burned. It felt soft, like fur. She withdrew her finger and dragged it across the rabbit’s fur. The body twitched, and Michael gasped. It opened its eyes but didn’t move after that. Vanessa looked into those eyes and a wave of cold washed over her. She realized she was breathing heavily and forced herself to calm down. Will looked worried, but Michael just stared at the rabbit.
“So?” he asked.
“I’m not sure,” Vanessa said. “It should have given me some kind of insight into how to use its powers.”
“Maybe it did,” Will said. “The rabbit had to dig, right? Maybe you do, too.”
Vanessa shrugged. “Transference doesn’t normally happen with a formula this basic, but it’s possible. When Michael first drank the dragon’s-blood potion, he had to hear animals before he could learn their languages. If something similar happened here, then we should hurry. Effects like this tend to wear off quickly.”
She reached for the rabbit, but before she could touch it, it went up in a flare of purple fire. A heartbeat later, there was nothing left of it, not even ash. Both Michael and Will had backed up, but Vanessa examined the area where the rabbit had been. She thought she sensed something, a tingling across her skin, but it was gone a second later.
“Well, that was unexpected.” She looked at her companions. “Let’s go.”
10
“Are you sure I can’t do anything else?” Charles asked as they stepped through the door of the manor.
“Dispose of the paste I made,” Vanessa said.
“Dangerous?”
“Inert. I didn’t intend it for long-term use, so I didn’t add anything to preserve it. It’ll probably start to smell before too long. I would have cleaned up after myself, but—”
He waved her off. “I’ve made a couple of divination potions in my time. I know that sometimes, you need to act right away. I’ll take care of it.”
“Thank you.” She hesitated. “We might have to dig up your garden a little.”
He looked at his neatly planted rows of plants and opened his mouth to speak. After a second, he huffed. “I probably don’t want to know.”
“No, you really don’t.”
“Fine. Try not to damage anything, and stay toward the north side of the garden. I don’t have anything too rare planted there. It was good to see you again.”
“You too.”
He closed the door. Vanessa looked up and down the street. There were a few people out, but she didn’t want any magic to dissipate. She knelt down in the dirt at the far end of the garden and used her dagger to dig a small hole. She looked over her shoulder to the window of Charles’s house, but if he was watching, he wasn’t doing it in an obvious way. Vanessa took a deep breath and searched within herself for the same feeling she had gotten from the rabbit. She felt a quiver within her and seized it.
She was in a dark forest. A wide grin appeared before her, but that was it. Just the grin. She felt something small crawling on her skin, and somehow she knew it was exactly three inches tall. An ax shone as it came down on someone’s neck. Vanessa’s head swam with images that made no sense. Flamingos swung at balls that were actually rolled-up porcupines, and birds swam in a sea of tears. It was too much. The magic felt like it was torn from her grasp. She found herself on the ground, gasping. Michael and Will were next to her.
“What was that?” Michael asked.
“You saw it?”
“I think we both did,” Will said.
“It was even stronger than the vision the White Lady gave me,” Michael said.
“I’m not sure,” Vanessa said. “I don’t think that was a vision, exactly. It was like we were everywhere at once. I think we passed partway into Wonderland. There wasn’t anything to concentrate our location, though.”
“What do we do about it, then?”
“Back to the park,” Vanessa said. “If I try again at the original hole, that might give me the focus we need to get all the way through.”
“You said the effect wouldn’t last long,” Michael cautioned. “Is there still enough for you to make it through?”
Vanessa closed her eyes and concentrated. Now that she had used the ability, she could sense it within herself. It was slowly fading. “I think so. There’s enough for one attempt, at any rate, as long as we do it quickly.”
“Lead the way.”
11
The hole had almost completely fallen in on itself. As Vanessa ran her fingers around its edge, she felt no magic, but when she reached into the hole, she felt a vibration. Something in the hole resonated with her. She plucked at it until she held it between her fingers. It was frail, and she knew it would rip if she wasn’t careful. She interwove it with the fading magic she had gotten from the rabbit.
A sudden whirlwind of energy whipped all around them. The color of her surroundings bled away, and she felt herself being pulled away from the park, from London, from the world itself. She was being drawn someplace else. Her companions were next to her, but everything else was a blur. Then they were falling down a great hole. She couldn’t see where they had fallen from or where they were falling to. There were shelves all around them, cluttered with all sorts of items. She even thought she saw the empty jar of orange marmalade that Alice had found so long ago. A room with a myriad of doors came rushing up to meet them. This was exactly how Alice had done it. It was going to work.
Then they hit a wall.
There was no other way to describe it. The room was below them, but they had hit an invisible barrier. It still felt like they were falling, and her hands could move freely through the air below them, but they didn’t fall.
“So what do we do now?” Will asked. “We’re not going to be stuck here forever, are we?”
“I don’t think so,” Vanessa said. “Maybe if we were actually in Wonderland, that would be something we would have to worry about.”
“If we’re not in Wonderland, then where are we?” Michael asked.
“Where were we when we were sailing from Neverland? We are in the space between worlds.”
Michael managed to turn enough so that she could see his face. He narrowed his eyes. “We didn’t all study under the Lady, Vanessa. What does that mean?”
“If we don’t find a way to make it through quickly, we’ll be pulled back.”
“How quickly?”
Suddenly, there was a rush of wind. They flew up the hole more quickly than they had fallen, so quick that she couldn’t see any of the items. The next thing she knew, they were ten feet in the air. She barely had time to cry out before crashing down onto the park’s muddy ground. She bit her lip before her mouth opened, and she tasted blood and mud. She groaned as she got up and felt her face redden when she saw at least a dozen people staring at them. Beside her, Michael struggled to his feet. He brought his hand to his head. For a moment, he looked like he would fall over, but Will helped him to stay up. In spite of being the newest of their number, he had handled the ordeal better than they did.
“What happened?” Michael asked.
Vanessa looked around and gave him a level look. He seemed to notice the people for the first time. He closed his eyes and shook his head. The Court wouldn’t be happy about this. Fortunately, nothing too extravagant had happened, as long as you didn’t consider three people shooting up into the air extravagant. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be too big of a mess for the Knights to clean up.
“The safe house?” he asked in a low voice.
“No, Michael, it’s time.”
“Time for what?”
“Time that we admit that we can’t do what we need to do to finish this. We need to see the Lady.”
He paled and shook his head. “Vanessa, no.”
“This isn’t up for discussion, Michael.” She was having a hard time keeping her voice low enough that the crowd wouldn’t hear. “We’ve been on enough wild goose chases.”
“I don’t want to involve the Court.”
“Let me put it this way, Michael.” She shook mud off her hands. “I am going to see the Lady. You are welcome to come with me, but if you don’t, the Lady will know that you have disobeyed orders. She won’t stand by you then, and you’ll be expelled. Not that being in the Knights will do you any good anymore. We have no other paths open to us.”
Michael frowned. Will nodded behind him, which was a relief. She hadn’t been quite sure who he would end up following, though given that Will had been a navy man, it made sense that he respected the chain of command. Though Michael didn’t turn to look, he seemed to understand. He motioned for her to lead the way. She resisted the urge to smile, worried that if she gloated, he would change his mind. The crowd parted for them. They couldn’t walk very quickly, and the fall had hurt them all in one way or another. Vanessa’s right leg hurt if she put too much weight on it. She sighed. Just when she had recovered from the ghost attack, too.
They hired a taxi. After seeing how muddy they were, the driver didn’t want to take them at first, but once Vanessa offered him triple his normal rate, he became much more agreeable.
“Jane was happy to see you,” Will said once they were in the car.
Michael smiled, something that had become far too rare in the past year. “I’ve missed her.”
“You should come visit more often,” Will said.
“I haven’t had time,” Michael said.
“We make time for what is important, Michael. I lost a lot because I went away to fight in the war. I’m still not sure it was worth it. Don’t throw away what you have in us.”
Michael looked out the window but didn’t say anything the rest of the way. They were dropped off a few blocks from the headquarters and limped to the old building. As tired as they were, the magic defending the place almost sent them running. Vanessa had to stop three times just walking the path before she finally made it to the door.
As before, it opened before she touched it. This time, rather than creaking, the door spoke in a high-pitched voice: “Hello.”
Vanessa drew back. She looked back at Will and Michael, but both men looked as surprised as she felt. She examined the entrance, but it was the same old thing that had always hung here. When she peered inside, she resisted the urge to gasp. Instead of the old building that the illusions had so often projected, the hall was filled with fog. It was so thick that she couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead of them.
“What do we do?” Will asked.
“We go in,” Vanessa said. “Whatever the illusions are showing us, this is still the headquarters of the Knights, and we are welcome here.”
She took a step and the fog swirled around her. She had the momentary sensation of being strangled. Michael followed and gasped, his hands going to his throat before realizing the sensation was artificial. “Are you sure?”
“Okay, I know that wasn’t particularly pleasant. But after all you’ve been through, you hesitate before a little fog?”
“I don’t surround myself with hostile magic if I don’t have to.”
“What about when you surrounded yourself by ghosts and wisps in the middle of a graveyard?” Vanessa asked.
“That was necessary.”
“Well, so is this. Now, come on.”
The fog grew thicker as they walked until they couldn’t even see the walls on either side. Behind her, Michael cursed. She turned around. He was standing on one leg and gripping his shin. He knelt and picked up a metallic outline of a rooster.
“Is that a weather vane?” Will asked.
The fog swirled around them. Tendrils of it reached into Vanessa’s mouth and nose. She gagged and heard the others doing the same.
“Oh, you should not have said that,” a dull voice said. “It doesn’t like to be called that.”
Vanessa looked around, but she didn’t know who had spoken. Michael was staring at the rooster in his hand.
“Who said that?” she asked.
Michael indicated the rooster. Vanessa cocked her head.
“That wasn’t very polite,” the rooster said. For a second, she could only stare. It turned to look at her, squeaking as it did. “You should probably apologize.”
“Apologize for what?”
The tendrils of fog wrapped around her neck. She had the sense it was angry, though she couldn’t feel the fog. Will looked like he was completely tied up, though the mist didn’t seem to actually inhibit his movements.
“You called the fog vain,” the rooster said.
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did, unless you were calling some other kind of weather vain. I don’t see anything else, so I’m pretty sure you were talking to the fog.”
“No, I meant you.”
“Me? How could you possibly mean me? I’m neither weather nor vain.”
“No, I mean—”
The fog grew even thicker until she couldn’t see the others. Water droplets formed on her forehead. When she reached up to wipe them away, the fog thinned again, and the weather vane was gone.
“Well, that was odd,” Will said.
“I’ve never seen the spells like this.” Michael moved one of his hands back and forth, causing the fog to swirl around his fingers.
“Me neither, but it does seem familiar somehow.”
Will looked around. “If you say so.”
She kept walking. The ground beneath her became softer, like soil. She touched it and found that it was grass. The fog obscured the walls of the passage, and when she groped for them, she couldn’t find them, which was more than a little disturbing. She thought she heard running water and headed in that direction. After a few seconds, they came to the flowing water. The fog didn’t allow them to see very far, so she couldn’t tell if it was a stream or a river. She walked along the shore until she found a squat stone building. She exchanged glances with the others. Will walked up to it and touched it before looking to her and shrugging. There was a single wooden door. She pushed it open and went in. The fog was just as thick inside as out, and they couldn’t see any detail of the interior.
“Vanessa, where are we?” Michael asked.
“If I’m right, we’re in a river bank.”
Michael blinked. “You mean we’re in a building on a river bank.”
“Not here,” Vanessa said. “We’re in a river bank.”
“Indeed,” someone said from just beyond their sight. The voice was distorted, almost like it was heard from underwater. “How may I help you? Would you like to make a deposit or a withdrawal?”
Vanessa could just make out a large desk, though the fog was too thick to determine what it was made of. She sat down next to it and motioned for her friends to do the same.
“That depends,” Vanessa said. “Are you just a river bank or can I deposit other things?”
“There are a number of things we can store,” the voice said. “What did you have in mind?”
“Fog,” Vanessa said.
“Ah yes. We are a fog bank as well. How much would you like to deposit?”
“All of it.”
Vanessa thought she could see the outline of a humanoid figure. It bounced. “Oh, miss, that is wonderful. Yes, we can accommodate you.”
“Thank you. Can you do so immediately?”
“Yes, of course. We will start right away.”
Instantly, the fog vanished, and they found themselves in an empty building. Marble pillars lined the walls, and there was a row of desks with a printing calculator on each one. There were no people, though. Even the person they had been talking to was gone. The desk in front of them had a single slip of paper, which Vanessa took. She read it aloud, her voice echoing in the cavernous chamber.
“Five million cubic feet of fog.”
“Vanessa, none of this makes any sense,” Michael said. “It’s like the world has gone insane.”
“Right,” Vanessa said. “That’s a good sign.”
“How is it a good sign?”
“If you can’t handle this, then you have no business in Wonderland,” Vanessa said.
Michael paused. “Have you been there?”
Vanessa pursed her lips. “No, I told you. No one has been to Wonderland since Alice herself.”
“Then, how is it you know so much about it?”
“This really isn’t the best time,” she said. “Come, without the fog, we might be able to see the way we should go.”
“Would it really be that easy?” Will asked. “Just deposit the fog in a fog bank and then go outside?”
She got to her feet and headed toward the door. “You’d be surprised how often problems like this have a simple solution.” Michael scoffed, and she gave him a level look. “We tried your way, and it didn’t work. Besides, you know as well as I do, that once we get into this house, it determines where we will go. You won’t be able to get out of this place until the house lets you.”
“Why didn’t we just wander through the fog until we found what we were looking for, then? It would have been exactly the same as wandering through hallways.”
“Call it a hunch.”
They stepped out of the bank and found themselves in a sparse forest that smelled heavily of pine. Birds chirped in the branches overhead; the river gently lapped on the shore. In the distance a hill rose up, and they saw a figure standing atop it. Vanessa gave Michael a pointed look and headed in that direction. It only took her a few minutes to recognize the robed figure of the Lady. She approached her mentor and inclined her head.
