Red Queen (20 page)

“Here you are, Alice,” Nicholas said, holding the cup toward her.

She reached for it, but as she lifted it to her lips she realized it was filled not with lemonade but with blood. The cup slipped from her nerveless hand, splashing all over the grass and the hem of her skirt, nothing but harmless lemonade after all.

“Oh, that was foolish,” Alice cried. “It just slipped out of my hand.”

“That's all right,” Nicholas said, but his eyes didn't match his easy tone. He seemed annoyed. “I'll just get you another.”

“No,” Alice said hurriedly. She didn't think she could drink anything now without gagging.

“What about an ice, then?” Nicholas said. “Something cool
to take the edge off the sun? Or perhaps a lovely bit of cake? We could have tea in one of the shops and sit in the shade.”

“You seem awfully eager to feed me up all of a sudden,” Alice said.

(like the Rabbit)

(like the Walrus)

Who on earth is the Walrus? White gloves,
she thought staring at the white gloves on her own hands.

White gloves pressing a plate of yellow cake toward her, pushing forkfuls into her mouth. And he wanted her to eat and eat so he could eat her.

“Alice?” Nicholas asked. “What's wrong? You're white as death.”

Death,
Alice thought.
Yes, death, that's what you will bring me.

Why had she never noticed before how cold his eyes were, grey and frozen like a winter morning? And why had she never noticed how hard his hands gripped her, how they pushed and bruised?

But Hatcher would never hurt her, not on purpose.

“Who's Hatcher?” Alice gasped. “Who is he? He's not you?”

Nicholas stared at her. “Alice, I do believe you're right and your brain was rattled by that fall. What are you babbling about?”

Alice rubbed her forehead. There was something not right here, but she couldn't put her finger on it. Perhaps Nicholas was correct. Perhaps she was more shaken from her fall than she thought.

“Let's just sit on the bench over there,” Alice said. “I'm certain I'll feel better after a little rest.”

Nicholas took her arm again, but it wasn't comforting any longer. His arm seemed to be holding her in place rather than holding her like a lover, as if he wanted to ensure she didn't get away from him.

But that's silly, Alice,
she thought. She shook her head, trying to shake away anything that didn't make sense. She loved Nicholas, and he loved her, and they were to be married soon. Nicholas wouldn't hurt her.

(But the other did, oh, yes, he did, and she put a knife in his blue-green eye and marked him forever, but he marked her too, so anyone who saw her would say, “You belong to the Rabbit, so off you go, my girl, back to him what owns you.”)

Alice placed a hand on her left cheek, her fingers feeling for a hard ridge of tissue, a scar that ran from her ear to her mouth. The skin there was perfectly smooth and untouched, a fact apparent even through her glove.

“I don't belong to anybody but myself,” she whispered.

Nicholas settled her on the bench and then sat beside her, saying, “Eh?”

“Nothing,” Alice said. “I feel very strange today, not at all like myself.”

“I still believe you should have something cool to drink,” Nicholas said doubtfully. “It is quite hot out today.”

Alice glanced at him, and whatever it was that she'd thought had been in his eyes was no longer there.

Of course not. It's only some strange fancy of yours. The sun is too hot. This is Nicholas and he loves you.

“I just need to rest,” Alice repeated, and closed her eyes for a few moments. The warm breeze blew on her face, and the smells of the trees and grass and smoke and Nicholas filled her nose.

Nearby a man guffawed loudly, followed by the polite twitter of a woman with an irritating high-pitched voice. A (
mother? governess?
) scolded a wailing boy for hitting his sister, who was also wailing. The two seemed to be in competition to decide who could make the most noise. Underneath it all there was something else, something out of place.

Alice cocked her head to one side, trying to catch it. It was almost like a
tick-tick-tick
. A watch? But Nicholas didn't carry a pocket watch. She strained to listen. There it was again.

No it wasn't a
tick
. It was a
drip-drip-drip
, like droplets falling in a lonely pool of water.

(
In a cave
) she thought, and opened her eyes. The whole scene melted away for a moment, like chalk paintings in an afternoon rain, and beneath the streaks of paint there was wet stone, like a cavern in the heart of a rocky mountain.

Then Nicholas grasped her hand, and the paint slid back into place, and everyone around her was having a lovely time on a lovely summer's day again.

“Alice,” Nicholas said, and his tone made her look at him. His gaze was very earnest now and he was slightly pink around the ears. “You know that I wish to marry you, and I believe you wish it also.”

She said, “Yes,” and smiled a little at his blushing ears (
like the insides of a furry white rabbit's ears
).

The thought made her smile fade, but Nicholas did not seem to notice, intent as he was. “I know it's terribly forward, especially as we are not formally betrothed yet, but would you allow me to kiss you, Alice?”

She felt her own face warm. No one had ever kissed her before. No one would have had a chance to do so. She was always watched over carefully, except when she was out with Dor. She and Dor always had such adventures, not really dangerous, but they
felt
dangerous.

Like this. Nicholas was asking to kiss her, in full view of everyone in the park. It was a little scandalous, she reflected, but really very safe. It wasn't as though he would ravish her out here in the open—not that she knew in the least what it meant to be ravished. She only knew it made the housemaids giggle, so perhaps it was nice.

(Except it wasn't nice; he would lay on you and hit you and make the insides of your legs bleed.)

Alice's breath drew in sharply. Nicholas, who'd inched closer to her, hesitated.

“Are you unwilling?” he asked, unable to keep the disappointment out of his voice.

“No,” Alice said, unable to explain. “I just . . . I don't really know what's going on in my head today.”

“Then close your eyes,” he said, and smiled.

Alice did so, but she immediately felt fidgety and restless and wanted to open them again. She peeked under her lashes, but all she could see was Nicholas' chin getting closer.

Her eyes opened wider, and she saw Nicholas' were also open, and when his lips were a hairsbreadth from hers she saw the flare of triumph and that his eyes were not grey at all. They were black and pupilless and endless.

Alice's hand flew out in panic to push his face away. She expected to feel the hard resistance of muscle and bone, but instead her hand sank into Nicholas' face as if it were made of mud. The skin peeled away and folded around her hand, holding her fast.

She screamed and screamed and tried to escape, for the face beneath the mask was that of the goblin and he was so close to her, too close, and his long fingers were wrapped tightly around her own. All around them the park melted away, the people and the food and the sunshine and the carousel and the grass, running in rivulets down the wall of the cavern Alice had walked into, all unknowing.

She screamed again, or maybe she had never stopped screaming, and tugged to get her hands free but they wouldn't come. Her face was wet with tears and she couldn't break loose, he had such a hold on her. His face, that long, horrible, stretched-out,
wrong
face was right there, too close, and her heart slammed in her chest so hard she was sure it would burst through her rib cage.

“Alice,” the goblin said, and the voice was wrong too, a sibilant hiss such that a snake might make if snakes could talk.

That voice slithered up her spine and crawled over her scalp and tried to slide under her eyelids, but she shook her head from side to side in a panic and kicked out at him.

Her boot made contact with his body, but like her hand it sank into him, as if the goblin were not made of flesh at all. Alice couldn't think, couldn't plan. Her mind repeated only one thought over and over—
get away, get away, get away.

“Alice,” the goblin crooned, and his free hand stroked her cheek. “Lovely Alice of the golden hair. Don't deny me, my lovely Alice. Don't push my love away.”

Her skin shuddered where he touched it and her eyes were almost blind with tears and now she thought,
Love? Love? This monster thinks he loves me?

The screaming panic in her brain didn't quite go away but it subsided enough that she could try to think, to plan, to escape. She must escape.

The goblin had tried to trick her (again), tried to force her compliance through an illusion as he had in the cottage in the woods. This was a theme in the White Queen's doings. Why? Because he couldn't claim her, couldn't harm her unless she agreed or broke some rule. She'd figured out that much at least, but oh, she needed to get away; she needed him to stop touching her.

“Alice, Alice,” the goblin said, petting her hair like she was a truculent cat. “As soon as I saw you I knew you must be part of my collection. That hair. That beautiful golden hair. Though it is very short. It would be more beautiful if it were long, long, long, and I could wrap it around my hands.”

That would be too terrible, if the goblin could grab her and hold her by her hair (
as the Rabbit had
) and Alice vowed never
to let her hair grow past her chin again, if only she could get away from here.

She glanced around the cavern, searching for a way out, a weapon. Her pack and cloak lay a few feet away. She had no doubt dropped them when she'd stumbled into the room (
when you thought you dropped your parasol
).

Her eyes drifted from the things on the floor to the things on the wall and she screamed again, because it was the only defense she had.

“Yes, yes,” the goblin said, “aren't they lovely, my lovelies? All of my lovelies.”

Alice screamed and struggled and tried not to see, for the walls of the cavern were lined with heads. Heads of women (and some girls, and Alice's heart wept), perfectly preserved, like a lepidopterist's collection of pinned butterflies.

Yellow-haired and dark-haired and red-haired, lined up by the color of their dead hair, their eyes wide-open and glossy and all of them smiling. Row after row after row of white smiling teeth in smiling mouths, like every one of them had died happy, knowing they would be placed on that wall.

Alice fought and kicked but the more she fought, the more she sank into the sticky miasma of the goblin, but it just couldn't be. He had a body and it was solid; he was stroking her hair with his terrible hands and they didn't sink into her, so why did she sink into him?

Then stop fighting, you nit,
a voice sounded in her head. She'd expected Cheshire, but this one sounded like Hatcher.

I'm going mad for good now,
she thought hysterically.
They're all living inside my head, talking to me, and everyone knows voices are a sign of madness, and you really ought to know; you've been mad before.

Whatever form the voice took, it
was
right. Struggling wasn't helping. Alice stilled, and the goblin's eyes widened in pleasure.

“What's this?” he asked, his hands still stroking all over her head. “What's this? Will you stop denying me, my Alice? Will you be a part of my collection?”

Alice drew in her breath, drew up everything she knew about magic.

“Never,” she said, and put all the force of her terror and anger behind it. “I will never belong to you and I will never yield to you.”

It wasn't a wish, more like a promise, a magical promise.
I want to be over there,
Alice thought, looking at a far corner of the cavern. And suddenly, she was. Her hands and feet were no longer submerged in the goblin's treacherous body.

Her limbs felt strangely light, like they weren't attached to the rest of her, but they were and she was free and part of her just couldn't believe it.

You must believe it,
and it was her own voice for a change.
You must believe it because if you don't you will never escape.

Alice had surprised the goblin, but he was still dangerous and she didn't understand all the rules yet and she must somehow avoid breaking them.

The goblin rose up from the cavern floor where he had crouched over Alice, his black eyes narrowed.

“Oh, no no no no, my Alice. That is not playing fair at all. Nobody said that you were a Magician. You came from the City and all the Magicians are gone from there long ago so you should not be; you should not have magic even in your little finger.
She
didn't tell me you were a Magician, and
she
ought to know.
She
knows everything that goes on in her kingdom.”

“Perhaps,” Alice said, her eyes moving around looking for a weapon, for an escape, “she knew and she didn't tell you.”

The goblin moved toward her, his stride strangely fluid, almost as if he slid across the floor instead of walked. He hissed at Alice and black spittle flew from his mouth.

“
She
always tells me everything.
She
knows I am her very best and most loyal servant, for I am the only one who came to her by choice.”

“Choice?” Alice said, her voice rich with contempt.
Perhaps I can throw him off balance, make him angry and take him by surprise again.
“Who else would have you? No respectable society would allow a creature like you among them.”