Other Alice (27 page)

He paused again, squeezing his eyes shut. ‘Your mother brought her to see me a few times, but I did my best to keep my distance. To hide any feeling for them. When Alice was older, she
came looking for me a few times, mostly just watching from a distance. But once she spoke. That’s when I told her about the curse. All I’d said before was that if she was going to tell
stories then she must finish them, that only poor writers left stories unfinished, left their characters unfulfilled. I’d never mentioned the curse until that last time she came. I
hadn’t wanted to frighten her. So I told her, and then I told her to get away from me.’

‘But she told me about that day!’ I said. ‘Dozens of times: how you spent the day together, telling stories, catching fish in the river which you ate for supper, and your
promises to see her again. Promises you broke!’

Ramone shook his head in bewilderment, his face a mask of pain. ‘None of that happened. Not a word of it.’ He reached out as if to touch Alice’s cheek, but then withdrew his
fingers.

‘She came looking all right. I was so happy to see her, my girl . . . so happy . . . but I couldn’t let myself show it. I took her on the boat, sat her
down. She was shivering and hungry; she asked me to light the stove, but . . . . . .efused.’ He was nearly whispering now. ‘I said I had to save wood for
when it became properly cold. I gave her water while I drank hot tea, gave her cold beans from the tin as I told her about the curse . . . and then I asked her never to look for me
again. I walked her to the nearest town and phoned your mother to come and collect her. That was the last time I saw her, and that’s exactly how it happened.’

My throat tightened as I stared at my sleeping sister. ‘You’re saying that she . . . made it all up?’ I couldn’t bring myself to say the word
‘lied’. I didn’t want to think of Alice in that way.

‘She told you a story,’ said Ramone sadly. ‘The version she wanted it to be.’ He studied Alice’s face. ‘I wrote a story about a girl named Alice
once.’

‘The one you gave Mum when you first met her?’ I asked.

‘You know about that?’

‘Alice told me. Then, when all this happened, I found it.’

‘Your mother kept it all these years?’ Ramone finally looked away from Alice and up at me. His grey eyes were clouded with pain.

I nodded. ‘I didn’t read it, but I think Alice might have.’

‘I’d puzzled over the curse all my life,’ he said. ‘And I’d tried and tried to find out what “story born” meant, without success. When Alice came along,
I hit on an idea. I thought, perhaps, that if she was named after the girl in the story I wrote for your mother, and if I could influence her to become like that character – the one I’d
imagined – then it might mean she was “story born”.’ He shook his head. ‘It was a weak idea. She was nothing like that character. The only similarity was the
name.’

He smiled faintly. ‘Alice was too strong for that. She was always going to be her own person. It’s only now I know what “story born” really is.’ He looked at Gypsy
and Piper and the cat. ‘You.’

‘But, for the curse to be broken, then that means one of them has to . . . has to . . .’ I faltered, unable to say what I really knew.

‘Yes.’ Ramone’s voice was grave. ‘One of them has to take a life – either mine, or Alice’s. Obviously, there’s no way I’d allow Alice to die, so
it has to be me.’

‘Huh?’ Piper’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Don’t look at me! I’ve done some dodgy stuff, but I’ve never killed no one!’ He looked to Gypsy in alarm. Her
expression mirrored his, and she shook her head violently.

‘You can count me out, too,’ Tabitha drawled. ‘I draw the line at rats. Besides – the curse is the whole reason we’re here. Without it, we’re nothing, just
paper and ink.’

‘So where does that leave us?’ I asked. ‘We’re as stuck as Alice is! There must be another way?’

‘There is,’ Ramone said quietly. ‘We stop writing, for good.’

I shook my head. ‘Alice will never stop writing. Even if she did, what if she has children someday? The curse would still go to them, wouldn’t it?’

Ramone’s silence answered me. I thought of Dolly Weaver. She wanted Alice dead and was prepared to do it. There was a chance, the smallest chance, that the curse could be broken that way
– and then, if I became master of the cat, I could bring Alice back by using one of Tabitha’s lives . . . but I couldn’t voice that thought, or even bear to keep
thinking about it. It was just too huge a risk. If it went wrong, Alice would be gone for ever.

‘What I don’t understand is why Alice is in this dream state,’ Ramone muttered. ‘It makes no sense if her characters are here to pester her and give her no peace as the
curse claims.’

Quickly, I told him about the balled-up paper I’d found on the hearth. ‘She wrote herself into the story. And I think it’s linked to the fortune cards.’

‘Fortune cards?’

I showed him the Sleeping Beauty card. ‘Alice was holding this when we found her. I have the rest in the pack over there.’

He recoiled from the card as if it might bite him. ‘What on earth was she doing with these? They were your mother’s!’

‘I – I think she was using them to plot the story,’ I said, scared by his reaction. ‘The way the cards can be read to tell a fortune could also be a story outline. And
some of the characters, too.’ I glanced quickly at Piper. ‘The Pied Piper . . . a black cat. It’s like she took some of the ideas straight from the pack.’

‘This is bad,’ Ramone murmured. ‘Fortune cards are an old, deep magic. They shouldn’t be meddled with.’ He scratched his shaggy head, lost in thought.

The card began to feel damp in my fingers. I placed it on the floor, not really wanting to touch it. ‘Are you saying the cards have made things worse?’

‘They certainly haven’t helped. Tell me, has anything like this happened before? Has Alice ever spoken about not finishing a story?’

‘Last year,’ I said. ‘She saw people – characters. They were following her. I thought she had a fever at first, but then I saw one of them, too.’

‘What happened?’

‘She destroyed the story and they went away.’

‘Destroyed it?’ Piper’s eyes were wide with alarm. ‘Then what would happen to us? It’d be like we never existed—’

‘Destroying the story isn’t the answer,’ Ramone interrupted. ‘Not this time. Not with Alice like this. It won’t bring her back.’ He nodded to the fortune
card. ‘Not now these are involved.’

‘What makes you so sure?’ I asked.

‘Because the cards are made to play out in sequence. They have to be seen through to the end.’ He paused. ‘The way the cards were made to work together means the characters
will be drawn together, too. Like cards in a pack, or magnets.’

I thought of how Dolly had approached Piper to steal the notebook. She couldn’t have known who he was at that point, and hadn’t known until she’d got the notebook in her
possession and read it. Then, out of everywhere Piper could have stashed the pages he’d ripped out, he’d found his way to Ramblebrook. What Ramone said was true: the characters had been
drawn to each other, like the story was telling itself. Quickly, I filled Ramone in on all this, and everything else that had happened.

‘So what do we do about the missing notebook?’ I asked.

‘Forget it,’ said Ramone. ‘It’s worthless. You have something far more valuable.’ He gestured to Gypsy and Piper. ‘The characters themselves. What can the
notebook tell you that they can’t? They know what they want. Now you have to figure out how to get it.’

What about Alice?
Gypsy wrote.
Isn’t she the one who has to finish this?

‘Not any more.’ Ramone stared at the fortune card. ‘It was Alice’s story to begin with, but by not finishing it she brought you here. She made it real. Here, now, all of
us . . . this
is the story.’

I felt as though my heart were galloping away from me.
Us? We were the story?

‘But it’s not just us,’ I blurted out. ‘There are other characters, too. A man named Ramblebrook, who collects unfinished stories for a museum, and another character in
the story notes . . . a writer in some sort of hospital for the criminally insane. She’s called Dorothy. From what we’ve read, there’s a story of hers she wants to
get back. I think . . . I think Ramblebrook has it.’

‘But she was in a secure hospital?’ Ramone asked, frowning.

I nodded.

‘Then perhaps we needn’t worry about her just yet. But we have to be wary . . . she must have some part to play.’

‘Ramblebrook seemed pretty harmless,’ said Piper. ‘A bit nutty perhaps, but not exactly dangerous.’

Perhaps it’s not him that’s dangerous
, Gypsy wrote.
But what he has.

‘What do you think he wants?’ Ramone asked. ‘What’s his goal?’

‘To set up this museum,’ I said. ‘It’s all he cares about.’

‘And presumably he doesn’t know that he’s part of an unfinished story himself,’ said Ramone. ‘Interesting. How about you, Gypsy? And Piper? What is it that you two
want? What will finish your stories?’

Gypsy mouthed two words.
My voice.

‘I want to help Gypsy,’ said Piper. ‘And for her to forgive me – it’s my fault she lost it.’

‘Guilt is a heavy burden,’ Ramone murmured, taking Alice’s hand again. ‘That leaves Dolly Weaver and the cat here.’ He looked at Tabitha expectantly.
‘Well?’

‘Yeah,’ said Piper. ‘What about you, puss?’

‘To be human again,’ the cat replied huffily. She narrowed her eyes until all that was visible were two golden slits the size of a couple of grains of rice. ‘And not to be
called “puss”, if you don’t mind.’

‘Fair enough,’ said Ramone. ‘And Dolly?’

‘We don’t know,’ I said. ‘Whatever’s written about her is in the section she has. She told us she’s the villain, and that the ending Alice was planning for
her wasn’t one she was going to let happen. She said she didn’t want Alice to finish the story, that she’d be better off here. In our world.’ I stopped, noticing that
Ramone’s grip on Alice’s hand had tightened. ‘Dolly wants to kill Alice.’

Ramone swallowed noisily. ‘Then she must think Alice still has some control over the story.’

‘You just said she doesn’t,’ I said. ‘That the characters are in control now.’

‘They are.’ Ramone’s voice was quiet, but I could hear the fear bubbling beneath the surface. ‘For as long as Alice is in this dream state. If she wakes up and starts
writing the story where she left off, then it becomes hers again. She takes control. Dolly knows our aim will be to save Alice. She won’t want to risk that.’

‘So, if Alice never wakes up, that’d suit Dolly, too,’ I said.

‘It seems that way,’ said Ramone. ‘Which means that, if Dolly can’t get to Alice to kill her, then she may try to kill us instead.’

A
SHOCKED SILENCE FILLED THE
air, so still that the water lapping at the sides of the boat was the only thing that could be
heard. Then everyone began talking at once.

How do we keep Alice safe?
Gypsy wrote.

‘How do we stop Dolly?’ said Piper.

‘And get Twitch back?’ I asked.

Ramone held his hand up for silence. ‘I’m thinking,’ he said. ‘But one thing’s for sure. Alice isn’t safe on this boat, or even mine, with it having the same
name.’

‘We can’t take her home, either,’ I said. ‘Dolly’s already been there once. She could come back.’

‘We need to take Alice somewhere that Dolly can’t get to her. Where could we take her? Who do you trust that wouldn’t ask questions?’

I stared at him helplessly. ‘There isn’t anywhere.’

‘We’ll keep her on my boat then, and at least one of us must stay with her.’ He rubbed his chin, brooding. ‘You know, it’s odd that Dolly has offered you the
notebook, plus the return of your cat, in exchange for such a small section. It’s too . . . generous.’

‘You think she’s planning something?’ I asked.

‘Why would she be decent enough to do a swap on the one hand, and on the other openly admit to wanting to kill Alice?’ Ramone’s expression darkened. ‘It makes no
sense.’

‘She must be plotting something else,’ said Piper.

‘Sorry to interrupt,’ said Tabitha, ‘but is anyone else hungry?’

‘No,’ I snapped. ‘Do you ever think of anything but your tummy?’

‘Ouch,’ said Tabitha. ‘That was . . . catty.’

Piper rounded on her. ‘Why don’t you keep quiet unless you’ve got anything useful to say?’

‘That doesn’t usually stop her,’ I said. ‘But, thinking about it, you haven’t said much.’

Yes
, Gypsy added.
Why is that?

‘Because I’ve been listening,’ Tabitha answered. ‘Besides, it would have been almost impossible to get a word in between all your yapping.’ She yawned. ‘But,
now you ask, I do have something to say.’

‘Let’s hope it doesn’t involve tea,’ I muttered.

Tabitha ignored me. ‘I was going to say that if you no longer need the notebook, then there’s no need to meet Dolly as planned.’

‘Yes, there is,’ I said at once. ‘She has our cat, and she said she’d kill her, too, if we don’t show up. Or had you forgotten that?’