Red Queen (12 page)

And yet there was no fear in Alice, only a sense of waiting. She wanted to see what the Queen would do next.

“Alice?”

That voice, that dear voice. Hatcher.

Fists pounded at the door. “Alice, I know you're in there. Let me in.”

It was as if the Queen had reached inside Alice's body and was squeezing her heart, tighter and tighter in her cold white fist.

It couldn't be Hatcher. How would he find her? How could he know she was within these four enchanted walls? She hadn't
walked here, but been carried. He couldn't have tracked her footsteps, and if Hatcher had seen her being carried by a giant, he certainly would have done something about it.

No, it wasn't Hatcher. She was sure it wasn't Hatcher. It was another trick.

A wolf howled out in the forest, and then another.

“Alice? Enough of this—let me in,” Hatcher-Not-Hatcher said. “There are wolves.”

“Hatcher isn't afraid of wolves,” Alice said, and now her voice sounded small, as small as Dor's had, like she was a little girl in a pinafore hiding from the monster under the bed. “Hatcher isn't afraid of anything.”

She said this because it was true, and because she needed to believe it. Because otherwise she was standing on this side of the door while the one person in this world who cared about her was on the other side with the howling, barking, snarling wolves that were getting closer every moment.

“Alice, open this door. They're coming,” Hatcher-Not-Hatcher said, and now he sounded scared, and that was when Alice was sure, just absolutely sure that it wasn't him, because Hatcher never sounded scared, not ever.

(But he might if there were wolves. If he thought he was going to be eaten by wolves.)

“It's not him,” she said. “It's not.”

The wolves and their screaming drew closer, and Hatcher-Not-Hatcher's pounding continued. He kicked with his boots and he banged with his fists and he shouted and shouted and
then suddenly there was a yelp, and the sounds of Alice's beloved crying out her name as wolves rent his flesh from his bones, as their canine teeth tore him limb from limb.

She covered her ears and crouched down to the floor and put the blanket over her head, rocking to and fro and whispering, “It's not him, it's not him, it's not him.”

Outside the wolves barked and growled and tore and ate, and Alice pressed her fists into her ears and wouldn't hear them.

After a long time it seemed like the noise had stopped but she didn't want to look; she didn't want to hear; she didn't want to know. She stayed under the blanket all night long, and hoped that it wasn't because she was a coward.

When she saw the first shafts of sunlight through the thin weave of the blanket, she lifted the cloth from her head. Her pack was still by the fire, imprinted with the shape of her head. The food on the trays no longer gave off its tempting smells. As Alice looked, one of the tray covers seemed to move, almost as if something alive was beneath it.

She would not look. It was another trick, another kind of temptation. Alice knew well, better than anyone, the dangers of curiosity. If she lifted that tray, there would be a plate of squirming maggots instead of a roast chicken and a nest of spiders instead of bread. She would not look.

And she thought, with just a touch of contempt, that the White Queen was really quite predictable. Or perhaps it was simply that Alice herself was no longer helpless, and that she had become better at negotiating the dangers of this world.

She slowly repacked her bag, then glanced at the charred wood in the fire. She'd promised herself she would replace it, but Alice didn't think she would want to reenter this cottage once she'd left it.

Her own magical ability was something she hadn't spent very much time thinking about since her rather pathetic attempt at making food out of sand. But she didn't want to change one thing to another here, just turn the wood from burned back to unburned.

She knelt before the fire, and touched the scrap of wood there. “Make a wish, Alice,” she whispered.

(I wish that you would come back to me, Hatcher.)

(Come back to me.)

(Come back to me.)

“Come back to me,” she said aloud, and to her wonder and surprise the charred bits in the fireplace seemed to grow before her very eyes, to become something they had not been a moment before—whole, and untouched. As they grew, the air inside the cottage seemed briefly to grow as well, to puff up like a balloon, to fill all the space more than it had before. Then it abruptly stopped, like it had been popped by a needle, and there was a sound like an angry exhale.

The trays on the table rattled in earnest for one moment, and then were silent.

Alice placed the tip of one finger on one of the logs, just to be certain it wasn't an illusion. A splinter slid beneath her skin, quick like the strike of a snake, and she yanked her finger back, sucking at the sore place.

“I suppose it's real enough, then,” she said, and felt a little glow of pride.

She had done a spell, real magic like a real Magician, and she had outlasted the Queen and her horrors in the night.

A drop of blood from Alice's finger stained the splinter protruding from the wood.

Don't leave that.

It wasn't her own thought but a voice that wasn't quite there, floating in the room, a whisper that should not be.

Alice felt a flash of anger, anger that Cheshire was still following her somehow despite the connection she'd snapped between them, anger that he was still trying to interfere. She stood, shouldering her pack, determined not to do anything
he
wanted her to do.

Don't LEAVE that!

The whisper was now annoyed. The voice clearly said it was annoyed at her behavior, at her stupidity, and this was her last chance not to be a silly nit, as far as the voice was concerned.

I'm not stupid.
Alice stared at the bloodstained splinter, wavering between an admittedly childish desire to deny the voice what it wanted and a sudden understanding of why it was dangerous to leave some of her blood behind.

Blood was a little bit of yourself, a little piece that someone with magical powers might be able to take and use. After spending a long night resisting the assorted enchantments on this place, it would be very foolish indeed for Alice to walk through the door without the splinter.

She carefully tore a small strip of cloth from the bottom of her shirt and wrapped it around her fingers. Then she pulled off the bit of wood. It grew much larger than the initial splinter as Alice peeled it off until she had something more like a wooden dagger than a splinter. Still, there was none of her blood left in the fireplace. She shoved the piece of wood into her pack and finally left the cottage.

She'd half expected to discover the ragged bones of a person torn apart by wolves, but of course there was nothing. The sun filtered weakly through the trees, never seeming to really brighten the forest floor.

It always seems to be almost-night here,
Alice thought. She longed to feel the sun full on her face—though not the way she had while crossing the burned plains, she considered. There must be some step in between scorching and shadow.

As she pulled the cottage door closed behind her, Alice noticed deep scratches on the wood, as if made by long fingers scrabbling all night long.

The goblin,
she thought. He'd been the one outside while she huddled inside. He'd been the one pretending to be Dor and Hatcher and a pack of wolves. The goblin, with his long, long fingers reaching for her hair. She shuddered and moved away from the little building, tumbling down again now that she was no longer in it.

But why,
Alice wondered,
was he not able to enter the cottage? Why try to draw me out?

There were so many things Alice didn't understand about this forest. In the City there had been guides and guideposts, Bess and Cheshire and the other Magicians. There had been a clear beginning and a clear end to their journey. Now she and Hatcher were supposed to be looking for Jenny, but they'd both gotten lost in the woods. All she wished was to find Hatcher and to be free of this place, and sometimes in her very secret heart she wished not to look for Jenny anymore, either. She wanted to rest, to find a place where terror was not always at their heels.

Alice struck out east—at least she hoped it was east—toward the mountain. She didn't want to spend one more moment than necessary in this forest, where she felt the goblin and his grasping hands might appear at any moment. If she found Hatcher on the way, all the better. If she didn't . . .

You will find him,
she told herself, although her thoughts didn't seem very sure of themselves.

Once Alice had passed out of sight of the strange little cottage, she felt her heart lighten. All around her the scampering of the small animals and the tweets of birds filled in the silence, making the place seem more friendly than it had ever appeared to her before.

She walked for perhaps an hour, and was just thinking she might take the rest of her bread out and eat when she heard someone crying. Someone very, very large and rumbly, crying like his heart was broken.

Alice frowned. “Pen?”

She hurried toward the noise, hoping it was in fact Pen and not Cod or the other one (
Gil?
), hoping that she wasn't running toward another trick.

That thought made her slow just a bit, made her cautiously consider. The goblin could pretend to be anyone, it seemed, so why not pretend to be a distressed giant? Why not try to attract Alice's attention this way?

Soon enough you won't trust anything, Alice, not your own ears or your own eyes or your own heart.

As she thought this, there was another huge wail from somewhere ahead. The sound was in her path. Wandering around it would only make her lost, and perhaps that was the intention? To have Alice stray from the path, and straight into the hands of the goblin?

“You can't be afraid of everything, Alice,” she said, and went toward the sound of weeping.

She didn't see any sign of the giant, and then suddenly he was just
there
, crouched beside the path, his face covered by his tremendous hands.

Alice was fairly certain it was Pen, but she didn't want to approach him until she was
completely
certain, so she paused several feet away and called, “Pen?”

The giant didn't seem to hear her, too consumed by his weeping. Alice repeated his name more loudly, then again, then once more. Finally Pen sniffled and looked over the tips of his fingers.

“Miss Alice? You're alive?” he asked, and dropped his hands to his sides. His eyes went wide in astonishment.

It was then that Alice noticed his face and body were covered in soot. His great green eyes looked like freshly watered leaves in a mass of blackened skin.

“Yes, of course I'm alive. Why wouldn't I be?” she said briskly, though she didn't feel brisk. She remembered how her governesses would force her out of a crying fit by being firm and practical, and she thought that tack might work on Pen.

Except it didn't. The very fact of Alice standing before him, whole and somewhat hearty, seemed to set him off again.

Alice blew out one frustrated breath. What to do? Continue on her way and leave the giant crying here? That might be the best course. After all, what could she do for the fellow?

And yet . . . it seemed cruel to ignore a creature in so much distress.

Really,
Alice thought,
you have quite enough to get on with, don't you? You don't need the troubles of a weeping giant.

Alice edged around Pen, moving down the path, feeling more than a little heartless. After all, the giant had saved Alice from being eaten by his brother.

She paused, and blew out a hard breath, and went back to Pen. Standing beside him made her realize just how enormous he was, something she'd not really been aware of when being held in his hand because she couldn't see all of him then.

Alice's head only just cleared the top of the giant's foot, and
she was an exceptionally tall girl. Unfortunately, standing this close also brought Alice into contact with the revolting reek that wafted from his skin. There was also the smell of ash and smoke to go with Pen's soot-covered face, and Alice had an idea what might have happened, and if she was correct, then it was very dreadful indeed.

“Pen,” Alice said, placing a hand on Pen's horny foot. “Were your brothers hurt? What happened?”

“
Him. He
happened,” Pen said, lifting his face from his hands. “He burned the village, the one you stopped in. And Cod and Gil, too, just like he's burned everything else from the forest to the City. And all because of her.”

Alice was startled by the venom in his voice. Yesterday, when Pen told Alice of the Queen's curse on him, there had been resentment and fear, but no heat. Now there was anger, the kind of anger that made one foolish and led to foolish actions, the sort of actions you would regret later if only you survived.

“And she could stop it anytime she likes,” Pen said. “He's made of fire but she's made of ice. She could bank his fires, stop the burning, but she won't. She could have stopped him burning my brothers alive, the way she wouldn't let me die when I cut my own throat. But she won't give him the attention he wants, and now my brothers are dead. And
he
takes everything he can, bit by bit, and still she pretends not to notice him doing it. Soon he'll set the whole forest alight, scorch all the ground right up to the door of her castle, and then she'll have to take note of him or burn herself.”

“Why?” Alice asked, and there were so many questions in that “why.” She didn't understand all the details, but she understood enough to know that somehow she'd gotten snagged in a struggle between Magicians, just as she had done in the City.