Once Upon a Blade, page 25
Alice frowned to herself and put the second half of the cake back on its plate. Her hand was stained red—when had her hands been this color before? It seemed so familiar, and yet …
“Do you want to know the truth, Alice? It’s a hard, cruel place, not bright or beautiful as it is here.”
The red on her hands was nagging her. It had something to do with that smell of kerosene and gas, something to do with the shadows and the teapot and the pocket watch. Somewhere deep down it was frightening, but the need to know was stronger than the dread.
“I do want to know.”
The cat’s grin widened. “That’s what I hoped you would say.” He turned, tail held high, and set off across the grass at a trot. Alice scrambled to her feet and followed after him, leaving the picnic and the red cake behind.
The cat led her towards one of the hedges. She hadn’t noticed from a distance, what with the butterflies and the willow tree and the fascinating cake, but as they got closer she realized there was a green door nestled amongst the leaves. It was just large enough for her to fit through if she knelt down and squeezed, and the knob shone bright and brassy, as though freshly polished.
“The right-sized door?” she asked, and the cat let out a purring chuckle.
“And the right key.” His tail vanished into thin air for but a moment before returning, a brass key hanging from a ring on the end. “Think carefully before opening it. Once you go through, there is no turning back.”
Gingerly, she plucked the key from his tail and considered it. If she went through the door, she would remember, but the memories would be terrible. If she stayed, it would be safe and pretty until the fit ended, but the events that brought her to where she was would remain a blank space in her mind, never to be understood, only suffered for, and the shadows would forever lurk in the dark corners of Wonderland.
She clenched the key tight in her fist, took a deep breath, and turned towards the door.
“I knew you wouldn’t disappoint,” the cat said with a pleased purr.
Alice inserted the key into the knob and turned. The lock clicked. The hinges made no noise when she pushed the door open, revealing only darkness ahead, so much like the rabbit hole she’d fallen down as a tiny child at a garden party.
She got on her hands and knees, only slightly cringing at what the Duchess would say about the dirt stains, and wiggled through the door.
At first there was only more darkness. Alice determinedly crawled forward, grinding dirt into her knees and her palms. She kept crawling until her back and neck ached and her stockings were torn. She was about to yell over her shoulder at Cheshire when she spotted a light ahead of her.
“About time,” muttered Alice under her breath as she hastened towards it.
When she finally emerged from the tunnel, it was to a small room, the walls and floor alike tiled with white and black marble like a chessboard. In the middle was a four-post bed, but it looked rickety, more like doll furniture than functional—it suited, as the two figures situated on it were clearly dolls despite being the size of Alice herself.
One was a girl in a blue dress, lying on the bed, with long black yarn hair that spilled across the bed sheets like twisting snakes. The other was a man in a top hat, a stethoscope hanging around his neck as he leaned over the girl. The joints were intricate, allowing the doctor to have one hand on the girl doll’s waist and the other near her articulated jaw.
Alice circled the room once, twice, but nothing happened or moved. The cat emerged from the tunnel and sat before the entrance with his usual smug smile. Once again, Alice was on the verge of snapping at him to explain when from above her head came a loud, mechanical click, followed by the whir of clockwork and a lilting tune. Looking up, she saw a ballerina figurine hanging from the ceiling like a chandelier, slowly turning as the music played, and the dolls on the bed began to move.
Set to the cheery tune of the music box, the doctor doll’s hand moved down from the girl doll’s waist, down towards her knee, then up under her skirt.
“What’s he doing?” she asked.
The cat vanished from his position in a puff of black and reappeared at Alice’s side. “Inducing the paroxysm.”
Alice tasted bile at the back of her throat. At the same moment, the girl doll moved for the first time. She turned her head, her mouth opening like that of a nutcracker, and bit down on the doctor’s hand. The doll reared back, hand now painted red, then the other hand came down on the girl doll’s face in a hard slap.
The music box slowly ground to a stop, and the dolls froze.
“This is it, then?” Alice’s voice sounded rough even to herself as she tried to swallow the lump in her throat. “This is what happened during my fit?”
“Yes.” For once the cat lacked the edge of self-importance in his tone. “I’m sure you’ve noticed how the fits come when people touch you.”
“Not every time,” she protested, but the cat merely chuckled at her.
“No, that would be rather exhausting, wouldn’t it?”
“The cake …”
“Yes, that was the good Doctor’s hand you were biting into. I didn’t know you enjoyed the taste of blood so much.”
Alice just shook her head and looked down at the brown stains on her palm. “I daresay he deserved it.”
“He certainly did.”
“So, what now?” Alice’s eyes scanned the room for another door, trying to avoid looking at the dolls. “Another bit of theater?”
“No.” The cat walked to a corner and very purposefully put his paw on one of the black marble squares, which sank down at his press, as did the tiles around it, descending into a spiral staircase. “Now it is time for your next choice.”
Alice followed and peered over the edge of the floor and down the staircase. All she could see was more darkness and the faintest flicker of firelight. For some reason, a chill ran down her spine.
That light was familiar. Familiar like the blood on her hands. But it wasn’t really a choice, was it? She’d made her choice when she unlocked the door in the hedge. She’d made it when she asked Cheshire to show her what cast the shadows. When she went to Wonderland, again and again, and didn’t let it take her away into a pointless daydream.
Her stomach twisted up in knots.
“Be calm, Alice, or you’ll call the shadows,” the cat hissed at her. She couldn’t help or understand how her hands shook, but she fisted them into her dress and stepped down onto the first separated tile. Afraid or no, she wasn’t going to let the shadows get in her way this time. She wanted to know, and she wanted to know all of it.
She descended the tiles. She kept her eyes locked on her stockinged feet, unwilling to look at the light yet, until they rested once again on a solid floor, this time made of deep brown wood. The cat jumped down onto her shoulder, and one by one the tiles floated upward, disappearing back into the ceiling.
“What did the doctor say?”
That voice didn’t belong to Alice or the cat, or even the Doctor. It was a voice that she only faintly heard in her dreams, one she barely remembered: it was her mother’s voice.
She was at the table, arranging cups and saucers as her father read the newspaper.
Alice’s shoulder hit the wall as she staggered. Neither of them reacted to the noise. She was standing in the hall. She shouldn’t have been. It was past bedtime.
Her father sighed and folded the paper to set beside his cup. “He said it’s likely just a child’s vivid imagination, and she’ll grow out of it.”
Her mother scoffed. “I’ll believe that when she stops chattering about mad queens and hatters, which will be the same moment that hell freezes over and London Bridge comes down.”
“I don’t understand why you’re so concerned,” her father answered, pinching the bridge of his nose. “All children imagine things all the time.”
Thin white hands picked up the teapot, wreathed in sunflowers, trembling lightly in the woman’s grip. “It’s not natural. Other children run and play, but I’ve seen her sit completely still for hours, staring at nothing, and then she says she was taking tea in Wonderland!” She shook her head and tilted the pot, beginning to pour the tea into her father’s cup. “It’s all a bunch of non—”
The kitchen door banged open. Alice jerked back as her parents both jumped, but before either of them could move, a man the size of a factory crossed the space between door and table in one step and plunged a knife into her mother’s back.
The teapot fell and shattered. Her father cried out and leapt to his feet, but the intruder had three other men behind him that fell upon him in an instant. Blood dripped down the chain of his pocket watch, and Alice could see it all where she cowered in the hallway.
“Oi,” said one of the men, brandishing a club towards the hall. And, she realized with a sinking, cold dread, right at her. “Who’s that?”
The biggest man stormed forward again. He clamped a heavy hand on Alice’s shoulder and hauled her forward into the firelight. All four men, dressed in rags and rough caps, grew weasley smiles at the sight of her, and the scent of kerosene filled her nose.
Kerosene. The factory. Her father had been an overseer at a factory that made kerosene. These men must have worked there. But why would they—
“It’s that mad girl of theirs,” said the man holding her. She was both small and large, both a child frightened out of her mind and a woman stunned out of hers, and all she could do was shake as the man’s grip tightened. “Did you hear ‘em talking?”
Her eyes flickered back towards the table. She wanted her parents, but once her eyes found them, she couldn’t bear to look at the glassy eyes and the red spattering the tablecloth. Instead they fell upon the folded newspaper and the bold headline printed at the top: LOCAL FACTORY FIRES MORE WORKERS; FACES CLOSURE.
Her adult mind put the pieces together easily now that she had them. The men had been fired, and they blamed her father, their supervisor, for it. Her child mind simply wailed as the men jeered over her.
“‘Ere’s an idea,” drawled the man who had spotted her. “What if we bloodied ‘er up, give ‘er the knife—she’s mad, people’ll think she’s the one that did it.”
One of the other men snorted. “No one would believe that, look at ‘er!”
“It’s worth a try,” said the man whose grip was leaving bruises on her thin shoulder. Grabbing Alice’s arm in his other hand, he thrust it forward against her mother’s back, and the blood smeared thick and wet over her hand.
Blood, thick and wet. A much larger hand curling hers around the handle of the knife. She was released, and Alice fell to her knees.
The leader fisted his hand into her long hair and pulled until she cried out. “Don’t you tell nobody nothing,” he growled. All she could smell was kerosene and blood. “Nobody would believe you, anyhow. Your own parents think you’re mad.”
“Thought,” said one of the other men, and they all laughed.
They were right, weren’t they? Mother had said it herself, it wasn’t natural. And who would believe the word of a mad little girl …
“Come on, let’s get out of ‘ere ‘fore the coppers turn up.”
There was the heavy tramping of boots as the men rushed past Alice, farther into the kitchen and out the side door. Even when the men left, their shadows remained, dancing against the wallpaper in the firelight. The only sound was the slow tick—tock—of her father’s bloody watch.
“Cheshire.” It was her adult voice coming from a throat far too small for it. “How do I leave this place?”
Soft fur pressed under her empty hand. “You’ve done it,” the cat said with a purr. “You’ve done it, Alice. All you have to do now is wake up.”
“I don’t know how.”
“Then I’ll help. Just don’t stab me with that thing.” Sharp teeth pierced the skin of her hand, and with a cry, the whole world spun around her into a spiral of wood and fire and shadows and broken china.
Her eyes opened to the canopy of her bed. The room was dark, and she was alone, except for the pair of yellow eyes peering at her through the window.
For a long time she just lay there, panting to the canopy.
She remembered. It wasn’t her. She didn’t kill her family. She was innocent.
It was far too late to convince anyone else of that, but Alice didn’t care. She knew, and that was enough to bring happy tears to her eyes for the first time since that night.
Suddenly the cat poofed into existence in front of her, resting all of his weight on her chest. “Alice,” he hissed, bringing his face close enough to hers that she felt the tickle of whiskers.
“Cheshire, I remembered.”
“Yes, and I’m very happy for you, but you have another problem.” His paw batted at one of her wrists that rested somewhat uncomfortably above her head, and all at once sensation flooded back into her. She was sore, hungry, thirsty, her cheek throbbed, and when she tried to move her hands, she got only the bite of rough fibers as a reward.
A very unladylike curse fell from her lips as she glared up at the ropes holding her wrists to the bedposts. Of course, she had bitten the Doctor, and now that she had disrespected him directly, all pretense of cordiality had evaporated. The Duchess must be throwing a ball in the kitchen right now.
“You must leave here,” continued Cheshire. “He will only hurt you, that madman.”
Alice couldn’t help laughing at the irony. Cheshire glared at her.
“I cannot imagine what you would find funny in this instance.”
“Don’t be such a dolt, cat. Your claws and teeth are sharp enough, so why don’t you—”
The knob on her bedroom door jiggled. The cat vanished in a puff of black smoke.
“Coward!” Alice hissed at the empty air before the door slowly opened, so slowly the hinges didn’t even creak.
To her surprise, it wasn’t the Doctor who slipped into the room. It was Maryanne.
For a moment the two of them just stared at each other. Even in the dark, Alice could see how tight Maryanne’s jaw was and how her body shook.
“What on Earth—” she began, only for Maryanne to dart forward several steps, desperately shushing her.
“Hush, hush, don’t make a sound or they’ll hear!”
“Why are you here?” Alice whispered back.
Maryanne gulped and stepped to the head of the bed. From her apron pocket she produced a dinner knife.
Stupid, was Alice’s first thought. Killing me would be a lot easier with a proper knife.
The silver knife glinted in the moonlight as Maryanne shifted her grip. To Alice’s surprise, she didn’t bring it down towards her; instead she leaned over to the headboard and began to saw through the ropes that kept her bound.
“What are you doing?” she asked again. Maryanne’s mouth pressed into a thin white line.
“I heard them talking. They mean to send you back to the asylum.”
Alice’s heart sank, but: “That doesn’t answer the question.” Why should Maryanne care what happened to her?
The first rope frayed, making it loose enough for Alice to tug her hand free. Maryanne quickly circled the bed and went at the other one.
“My mother wasn’t even mad.” Her voice was hard, her eyes glittering with cold determination, her knuckles white around the knife, even as her hands visibly shook. “My father just wanted her out of the way. God would damn my soul to hell if I let the same thing happen to you.”
“But I am mad.”
Maryanne grimaced and bared her teeth. “I don’t care. No one deserves the things they do to people in those places.” On that, the two of them could agree.
The second rope came undone. Alice lowered her arms, wincing at the soreness that lanced down them, and gingerly rubbed at her wrists. Maryanne’s face was pale as a ghost.
“Where will I go?” Alice ventured to ask.
“There’s a halfway house three blocks east of here. They won’t ask too many questions.”
Lord help her, Alice was almost more afraid of that than the asylum. It was a terrible place, yes, but she knew how it worked. She knew the rules, where she could push and where she couldn’t, and what would happen if she pushed too hard. She’d been there more than half her life. What would she even do at a halfway house? She would have to earn her keep, she imagined, but she didn’t know how to do anything. The asylum wasn’t exactly having trade classes.
What if she failed? What if she was too mad to be of use to anyone? Would they throw her onto the streets? Compared to the idea of endless cold and hunger, the suffocating walls of the asylum and the loneliness of the snow-covered room almost sounded enticing. At the asylum, she didn’t have to wonder about her future any further than how painful the next “treatment” would be, if they bothered. Even the concept of a future was baffling.
But Maryanne looked so determined. She was risking her job for this, and if she was fired, the Duchess surely wouldn’t give her a good reference. It was her livelihood.
So Alice took a deep breath, and for the hundredth time in the last week, she told herself to be brave.
“Alright.”
Maryanne offered Alice a hand to help her up. “Come on, I’ll let you out the back.”
Together the two of them crept out into the hallway. The floor moved under Alice’s feet as the house-beast slumbered, but Maryanne was sure-footed and quick as she led Alice down the stairs, silently pointing out where to step and which places would creak. It was black as pitch without the electric lights humming away. Thankfully Maryanne seemed to know where everything was and didn’t let Alice bump into anything.
They went through the kitchen to reach the back door. From her apron pocket, where she had tucked the knife away, Maryanne produced a small key that she must’ve taken off of the Duchess’ key ring. Alice had a half moment to marvel at her bravery before Maryanne pushed the door open. Ahead was a short flight of stone steps leading up into the yard.
“Remember,” Maryanne whispered to her. “Three blocks east.”
