Red Queen (3 page)

What, then? Something that would pack up easily in Hatcher's bag, and not spoil in this bleak, hot landscape. It was very hot, Alice realized. Beads of sweat had formed on her forehead and upper lip and trickled down her chest. The tunnel they'd left was cool and dark. Now the full scorch of the sun made the shirt and jacket and heavy trousers Alice wore cling to her skin, which resulted in her being more cross and more uncomfortable than she already was.

She took the jacket off, transferring the little knife she always carried to the belt of her trousers. She put her hands in front of her, palms down, though it felt a little foolish to do so. Alice had an odd idea that the magic would come out of her hands. She closed her eyes and focused hard on what she wanted.

“I wish for . . . six meat pies,” she decided. “And a dozen apples. And a jug of fresh milk.”

She opened her eyes and peered under her hands. Nothing. Only fine grey ash, and the hot wind lazily blowing it in little swirls and eddies.

Alice frowned. Now, why hadn't that worked? She kept her hands in her lap this time, and repeated the words, staring at the blank space in front of her intently.

Again, nothing. She realized Hatcher had ceased his frenzy of activity and peered over her shoulder.

“I don't think it works like that,” Hatcher said. He sounded almost normal, like the fever that seized him had passed.

“What do you know about it?” Alice snapped. She felt a little embarrassed, like she'd been caught being naughty.

Hatcher shrugged. “As much as you, I suppose. Or probably less.”

“Then why do you think it wouldn't work?” Alice asked.

“You're trying to make something out of nothing,” Hatcher said. “When you wished the Jabberwock into the jar as a butterfly, you were using the Jabberwock himself to start with. When you broke the connection between you and Cheshire, you were breaking something already in place. You didn't start with nothing.”

Alice frowned. “And what about when I pushed the Jabberwocky away from you? I made something out of nothing then.”

Hatcher shook his head. “No. You used your own fear, your own love, and you pushed it toward the Jabberwock.”

“I'm hungry and thirsty,” Alice said. “Why can't that make food, then, if love and fear can chase away a monster?”

“You're the Magician,” Hatcher said, and he waited to see what she would do.

“Something from something,” Alice muttered. “So many rules, always, no matter where we go. What's the good of being a Magician if you can't help yourself now and then?”

“I'd say all the Magicians we've known have done nothing but help themselves,” Hatcher said. He cocked his head to one side. “Do you hear that?”

“What?” Alice asked. She was busy scooping ash and piling it into little mounds, each about the size of the meat pies she wished for.

Hatcher stood, gazing off in the direction of the City, his hand shielding his eyes from the sun. “Something buzzing.”

Alice heard it then—a low, whiny sort of buzz, not the kind an animal would make, but a machine. She abandoned her ash project and stood next to Hatcher, mirroring his posture. There was a black blot in the air just above the City.

“What is that?” Alice asked, trying to make sense of the shape and the noise.

Hatcher shook his head slowly. “I don't know, but it isn't natural. No insect makes that kind of noise.”

“No insect should be that large either,” Alice said. “Unless it's magical.”

“Cheshire?” Hatcher wondered aloud. “But why such an obvious display?”

“Yes, it seemed he preferred to keep his power under wraps,” Alice said. “He likes to operate in secret.”

Perhaps there was another, unknown Magician in the City. This was certainly possible, even probable. The very existence of the Magicians that they had already encountered proved the City government had been unable to drive them all out.

The buzzing grew in volume despite the distance of the object. As Alice and Hatcher watched, the black blot broke into several smaller blots.

“A flying machine?” Alice asked.

“I've never known of one so small,” Hatcher said. “You saw them from the window in the hospital.”

“Yes,” Alice said.

The airships were always large and silver and slow-moving, and the passing of one had seemed as thrilling as a parade, given how infrequently they flew over the skies of the City and the lack of excitement generally in the hospital. Entertainment, as such, was limited to the days when the workers would try to take Hatcher out for a bath. Alice amused herself some days by counting the number of noses and fingers Hatcher managed to break before they gave in and left him in his cell.

There was a flash of metal from the approaching objects, and the buzzing that preceded them ground in Alice's skull. She covered her ears just as Hatcher tugged her toward the tunnel entrance. She gave him a puzzled look and removed one hand long enough to hear his answer.

“Whatever it is, we don't want to be out in the open,” Hatcher said.

Hatcher ducked inside the tunnel, pulling Alice after him. She would have rolled down the incline again if he wasn't gripping her upper arm with a strength that bruised. Alice dug her elbows and toes into the packed dirt, pressing her hands hard against her ears. Beside her, Hatcher had the eye-rolling look he got when he was agitated. The noise had set him off again. He was shaking all over, a fine trembling like clenched muscles about to release.

And just when he'd settled down, too,
Alice thought. She
didn't mind his fits as much as she probably ought to, but he could be very impulsive when he was in this state. Part of her feared that he would leap out of the hole in the ground and attract the attention of whatever approached.

The noise penetrated the mouth of the tunnel, seemed to seep into the earth and through the flimsy cover of Alice's fingers. She felt like a worm, returning to the earth for safe haven.

“My jacket,” she said, remembering she had left it out in the open on the side of the hill. And she also remembered the complicated pattern Hatcher had carved in the ash. Whatever creature approached, Alice hoped it would not notice the signs of their presence.

The sound reached its crescendo long before the objects passed overhead. Alice actually thought for a moment that the blots had gone by and she had somehow missed them.

Then there was a flash of silver, followed by another, and another. They seemed like a weird school of fish in a stream, miraculously lifted to the clouds. Alice realized what she was seeing were flying machines, as she'd initially thought, but not like any flying machine she had seen before.

Instead of the huge, stately airships with their giant balloons and large propellers, these were slim pods, perhaps the length of a tall man. Each pod had a small propeller at one end, though Alice could not see how the tiny things made the pods move or how they would have managed to get off the ground without the assistance of magic. Each pod was ridden astride by a man in
strange black clothing—clothes that clung tightly to their bodies and covered their head and faces.

Mother would call those clothes indecent,
Alice thought.

She glanced at Hatcher and noticed his lips moving. He silently counted all the ships until they disappeared, sweat running down both sides of his face as he fought for some measure of control. The fliers had not appeared to notice the hole in the side of the hill, the pattern carved in the ground or Alice's jacket.

They clambered out of the tunnel again, peering after the pods that gradually shrunk and disappeared into the horizon.

“I don't like this,” Alice said. “I thought that once we'd escaped the City, we would also escape the reach of the City.”

“Why would you think that?” Hatcher asked. “Cheshire and the others went out of the boundaries. It only stands to reason that those in power would too.”

“Yes, of course,” Alice said, but she was troubled. Troubled by these machines that she had never seen before, and by the mysterious figures that rode them. Troubled by the thought that they might be pursuing something or someone beyond the borders of the City. Could someone—a minister, a Magician, a doctor—have discovered that Alice and Hatcher survived the fire? Were they being hunted?

She said nothing of this to Hatcher. He would scoff and say that they weren't that interesting to the doctors or her family. Or else he would tell her that of course they were being pursued, and
make her feel silly and naïve for not considering it in the first place.

Alice realized she stood before the pattern Hatcher had so carefully carved in the ash. She squatted on her heels to get a better look.

It was a five-pointed star, encircled by six smaller stars. Five of the stars were of equal size, but the top one shone very large and bright. As Alice stared at the star it seemed to shift in the sand, to glow in a way that could not be possible without magic.

Alice stood up quickly, and the star returned to its original state.

“What's all this?” she asked Hatcher, gesturing toward the drawing.

“It's the sign of the Lost Ones,” Hatcher said.

“Who are the Lost Ones?” Alice asked, glancing at him.

Hatcher seemed surprised. “I haven't a clue.”

Alice sighed. “A vision, then. Something else we will have to see or do later.”

She bit back the comment that his Seeing might be more useful if it were more specific. She wasn't exactly a competent Magician, and therefore not in a position to criticize Hatcher's abilities.

“It might have something to do with Jenny,” Hatcher said, and he could not disguise the hope in his voice. He'd forgotten his daughter and remembered her again, and now he was clutching for any hint or hope of her.

Alice put her hand on his shoulder. He gripped her fingers
with his opposite hand so that his arm crossed his body, like he was holding tight to keep from flying apart.

“Let's see if I can't make some pies out of ash,” Alice said gently, pulling her hand away. “It seems we have a very long way to go.”

After several attempts Alice managed to produce two small pies (though the pies were inclined to be greasy and the gravy was not very good), four pitiful-looking apples, and some milk that was so curdled they immediately dumped it onto the ground.

“At least you were able to make food,” Hatcher said philosophically as he chewed on his pie. Something crunched between his teeth and he fished out a small bone.

Alice tried telling herself that something was better than nothing, but the pie was barely edible.

“I wonder if it doesn't taste good because I made it from ash,” Alice said, and again thought longingly of frosted cakes and hot tea. It would be lovely to even have plain water to wash away the gritty taste of the pies.

They packed away the apples, not knowing whether any decent food would be in the offing, and began to trudge in the direction the pods had flown. The only clue they had to Jenny's location was that she was in the East. The City was to the west, so they went the opposite way.

Alice tried not to worry about the men who had flown out of the City on the strange machines. She tried not to worry about
the fact that they were horribly exposed in this landscape, and that they had no way of knowing what types of weapons those men carried. She tried not to think about the gun that Hatcher had hidden in his coat, the gun with one bullet for him and one for her, just in case anyone tried to capture and return them to the hospital.

She tried, and failed.

In the distance were a few features, small hills like the ones that they had emerged from. Alice wondered if they also had tunnels within, and if so, where those tunnels might lead.

“Look,” Hatcher said suddenly, and pointed at the ground.

Imprinted in the ash was the distinct paw print of a rabbit. A very, very large rabbit.

“Pipkin!” Alice said. She'd half forgotten the rabbit they'd saved from the Walrus, and the band of girls who'd joined him in escaping the City.

How disappointed they must have been,
Alice thought sadly,
when they left the tunnel and discovered this blight instead of the green land they were promised.

Alice knew her own disappointment could have been nothing to those girls, those girls who had been locked away in bedrooms with men they did not know, and some of them locked in cages to be eaten by the monster who'd captured them.

“I wonder how far ahead they are,” Alice said.

“Can't be that far, if the print is still clear in the ground,” Hatcher said. “It's not so windy.”

Alice peered ahead, hoping to see figures moving on the horizon. There was nothing but blank sameness, and they themselves were the only living creatures in sight.

She resigned herself to another long and tedious walk, and let her mind drift away as they trudged through the ash.