Wonderland (Intergalactic Fairy Tales Book 1) (25 page)

"Yes, quite the persuasive fellow, that one," said Rabbit.

"I've no doubt."

“And he was kind enough to remove that pesky tracking device, so I’m truly free,” said Rabbit, as close to elation as she’d ever heard him.

Alice wasn’t sure if it was kindness that had prompted Cheshire to remove the tracker. It was more likely pragmatism, but she didn’t want to ruin Rabbit’s mood. “That’s wonderful.”

“Yes, and my first act as a free person is to hang around here risking my neck so I can rescue you lot,” he said with a sniff. The old Rabbit was back, though she thought she detected a hint of a smile in his tone.

“That’s quite charitable of you,” said Alice.

“I know,” said Rabbit.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The ride from Wonderland to open space was a bit bumpy to say the least. Somehow a couple of ships made it out of the docks, despite the mayhem Cheshire had caused. The White Rabbit proved his worth time and time again as he dodged the queens anti-aircraft guns, and their pursuers.

“Hold on, everybody,” said the ship, and then veered wildly to the left. “I don’t have any weapons, so I’m going to have to get creative.”

There wasn’t much need to hold on with the seats the ship had decked itself out with. Each person had a chair that was just the right size for them and fitted with a five point harness. The ship would have had to fall to pieces before any of them would have budged a centimeter.

Rabbit’s front and side windows gave Alice a good view of the artillery exploding around them. At one point he turned completely around and was headed back toward the planet’s surface. “We’re going to crash,” called Alice, gripping her restraint harness tightly.

“Hardly,” retorted The White Rabbit.

The ship zigged and zagged more times than could be counted before a ship loomed large in the front window. It disappeared a half a second later to be replaced with open sky. An explosion shook the ship so hard that Alice’s vision went dark. “Are you all right, Rabbit?” asked Alice.

“Never better. I can’t say the same for the two ships that were following us though. They seem to have had a rather unfortunate collision.” A rumbling sort of chortle echoed through the ship.

“I think I’m going to like this Rabbit,” said March. “He’s sure got some hare legs on him.” He thumped his foot on the floor with a resounding thunk to emphasize his point.

“I’ll thank you very kindly to not thump my deck again, Sir Hare,” said The White Rabbit.

“My apologies, it will take some time to get used to being inside a living creature,” said March.

“It took a couple of decades for me to get used to having living creatures inside of me,” said The White Rabbit. His statement came with a mental shudder. “So, where are we off to?”

“Nedra,” said Seamus before Alice could say anything.

“My apologies, sir, but I was asking Alice.”

Alice went about making introductions to put the topic of their destination aside for the moment. “White Rabbit, I’d like you to meet March, the hare, Seamus, sometimes called the Mad Hatter, and the brothers, Dee and Dum. Loyal friends of mine, each and every one of them.”

“And none of us equal to the lady who couldn’t be here with us,” said Seamus. He took off his hat, exposing even more of his puffy hair, and placed it over his heart. “May she rest in peace.”

“I’m saddened to say that I wasn’t able to retrieve her body so that we could give her a proper burial,” said Alice. Tears flowed freely from her eyes.

“But I was,” said Cheshire. He appeared next to a table that Alice could have sworn wasn’t there just a moment before. In his hand was a white handkerchief with a small lump inside just big enough to be the dormouse.

“Oh, Cheshire,” cried Alice. She clicked out of the harness and threw her arms around his neck. “You certainly are strange and wonderful. We never could have done this without you.”

“High praise from such a strange and wonderful girl,” said Cheshire. “Lyla died valiantly. The least I could do was take her off of that nowhere moon and allow her to be laid to rest in real soil. On Nedra.”

Alice pulled back from the embrace and scowled at Cheshire through her tears. “Not you, too.”

“Yes, I’m afraid I have to be in the majority on this one, as much as I despise it.”

“In the majority?” asked Alice. She turned and found Dee and Dum nodding their agreement.

“I’m the captain, I make the decisions,” said Alice petulantly.

“Aye, that you do, Alice,” agreed Seamus. “We just wanted to make our choice clear so our captain had all the information necessary to make an informed decision.”

Alice thought it through. She’d learned a lot on Wonderland, but she still had unfinished business at home. “Nedra is a good place to lay Lyla to rest,” agreed Alice, not ready to concede anything more than that. “Set a course for Nedra, please, Rabbit.”

“Very well, Captain,” said The White Rabbit.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The journey back to Nedra felt much shorter than the trip to Wonderland had been. It was a solemn trip, each of the companions lost in their own thoughts. They all spent a good portion of their time looking at the small white bundle sitting on the table and sighing sadly.

The hatter began to gibber to himself when they went into orbit around Nedra and licked the charged baton again. His hair was wilder than ever, but he calmed down. March, for his part, was mostly quiet in his madness, only occasionally flinching away from something that wasn’t there.

“Shall I land where it was we met, Alice?” asked The White Rabbit.

“It seems as good a place as any,” she said grudgingly.

They landed in the clearing a few moments later. It was night again, with a bright moon lighting their way. The field seemed such a foreign place after her grand adventure on Wonderland. So ordinary. It felt strange to be in a place that wasn’t perpetually lit by a neon glow with danger lurking around every corner. At least the tall trees surrounding them were somewhat foreboding. Or maybe it was just that her house and her parents were just beyond them.

“What a difference a few days makes,” Alice muttered to herself.

“I’m quite sure your parents feel the same way,” said Seamus. He stepped up behind her and placed his hands gently on her shoulders. Before she could argue, he continued, “I can’t imagine why you’d trade all this lovely greenery for the asphalt and concrete of Wonderland.”

“I didn’t trade all of this for Wonderland. I didn’t even know that I was going to end up in Wonderland when I hopped on board The White Rabbit. I traded all of this boring sameness for the possibility of adventure. And that’s what I found. It wasn’t always great, and it wasn’t always fun, but it was exciting and I made lots of new friends.”

“That sounds like a perfect description of any life lived without fear,” said Seamus.

Alice crossed her arms and scowled up at Seamus and his brilliant amber eyes. “No, it’s not. My life could never be like that here.”

“Why not?”

“Because my parents—”

“Would try to keep you safe?”

“Exactly,” said Alice, feeling distinctly like she was being led into a trap.

“Of course they will, but didn’t Dee, Dum, Lyla, and the rest of us try to do the same thing?”

“Well, yes,” admitted Alice.

“And yet you still had adventures.”

“Because none of you tried to stop me. You just gave me advice.”

Seamus nodded and then gave her a mischievous grin. “Just try to think of your parents’ punishments as advice on how to live your life.”

“But advice doesn’t have to be taken. Their punishments do,” groused Alice.

“Yes, but it’s up to you what lesson you learn from their ‘advice’,” said Seamus. He sighed and turned slowly away. “I can’t keep you from coming with us and I won’t try. I just have one of my special feelings that you should stay here and ripen a bit further before you take on the queen.”

Alice took his arm and turned him gently back toward her. “You really think that some day I’ll defeat the queen and free Wonderland like in your vision?” asked Alice.

“I do.”

“And you think that staying here on Nedra is the best way to achieve that?”

“For the time being, I do.”

“Very well then,” said Alice. “I shall take your advice and stay here on Nedra. That doesn’t mean I’m going to take all of my parents’ advice though.”

“Nor should you,” agreed Seamus. “Now that that’s settled, let’s go say goodbye to our friend Lyla.”

They walked back over to the gathering of their friends who had dug a small hole in the earth in the center of a ring of mushrooms. Her mother had told her once that a ring like that was called a fairy ring. They were a good omen that meant fairies had blessed the ground by dancing in a circle there. It was a perfect place to bury a beloved friend.

Dee and Dum sang a sweet, sad song for Lyla in beautiful harmony that would have seemed strange coming from such big brutes had she not gotten to know their gentle hearts. March recited a poem that made little sense because half of the words were made up, but even still, it told the truth; that Lyla was an amazing hero who had slain the vicious Jabberwock.

Alice tried to speak, but was too overcome to say much more than, “We miss you already.”

Seamus closed the funeral with a sweet speech about Lyla and her devotion to her family. Alice had assumed when Lyla talked about her family that she had been married and had children; that they were the ones lost to the Jabberwock. Instead, she had been the oldest child in her family, though not yet grown, when the Jabberwock had taken them. It was her brothers, sisters, and parents who had been taken from her. She’d grown up alone and fighting for her life. It had taken her years to learn to fight as fiercely as she had, but she’d done it all with the conviction that she would avenge them, and she had. In the end though, he said that the family she had died for were the people standing around her grave, her friends.

It brought Alice to tears again, which she found very unbecoming of someone who wanted to be a pirate. Then again, maybe she didn’t want to be a pirate. They tended to kill and plunder for selfish reasons. She had found she didn’t have the stomach for that. Perhaps there was something in the world for her to do that would give her a sense of pride and accomplishment, rather than make her feel like a selfish child. Something she could tell someone as noble as Lyla about with a glint of pride.

Dee settled the small bundle of Lyla’s body into the hole and pushed the dirt in to fill it. She was so small that it took almost no time at all. “Strange how someone so small could change so many lives so drastically,” said Alice.

“It is indeed,” agreed Seamus with a knowing grin.

“Where will you go?” asked Alice.

“Oh, here and there,” said Seamus.

“If I don’t know where you’re going, how will I find you again?”

“I suspect you’ll find us in the last place you think to look,” said Seamus sagely.

Alice found herself nodding at the cryptic advice for several moments before she saw the ridiculousness of the statement. When it dawned on her, it must have been easy to read on her face, because the hatter howled with laughter. It was a contagious, mad laugh that soon spread to their entire party. It was just the thing to lighten the mood of a funeral, and soften the ache of saying goodbye.

Each of her friends hugged her and wished her well, even The White Rabbit, whose tendrils somehow managed to feel comforting instead of like being squeezed by a hundred tiny snakes. “You take care of them,” said Alice.

“As long as they don’t get it in their heads to order me about like an inanimate object, I promise not to jettison them into space,” said Rabbit.

Alice giggled. “Close enough.”

“The hatter says we’ll meet again.”

“Yes.”

“Not soon enough,” said The White Rabbit.

Alice smiled and nodded. She patted his tendrils and walked away before she started to cry again.

Dee and Dum simply gave her massive, bone-crushing hugs and stalked off to pretend they were busy getting the ship ready to leave.

March hugged her leg and reminded her that tea time was the only time worth keeping track of. It seemed like sound advice for passing the time between seeing friends without going completely mad, so she took it to heart.

Her hug with Seamus was longest of all, and he was the one to break it. “I want you to take Snicker-snack with you,” said Alice. He tried to object and she placed a finger over his dark lips. “She’s a great weapon, but the longer I hold her, the more everyone starts to look like an enemy. If there’s one thing you all have taught me, it’s that I’m going to need friends if I’m to survive. I’ll never make friends if all I’m prepared to do is fight.”

Seamus nodded and took the sword and her scabbard from her outstretched hands. “You have grown very wise, Alice.”

“I’m sure I just read that in a book somewhere,” said Alice, doing her best to imitate his grin. “I really just want you to take her because Mother and Father would never let me keep her.”