Stiltskin (Andrew Buckley) (2 page)

The pair stopped at the last door. A pale, skeleton-skinny face with deep, sunken eyes of the lightest brown stared out of the tiny window. The man’s lips were thin and blood red. His brown hair hung in greasy strands across his face, and he grinned the grin of a man who should be locked in a cell. The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on anyone.

The Troll walked back up and down the corridor telling the inmates to
shrrup
and
knock er off
until what could only be described as semi-silence drifted through the Tower.

Jack leaned against the stone doorframe. The pale man’s tiny pupils followed Jack’s eyes. Jack steeled his nerves against such stares; it was what he was used to. He looked around the corridor at nothing in particular. Some things had to be played carefully.

“Nice night tonight, isn’t it, Hatter?” said Jack as he turned to meet the man’s eyes.

Lightning was generally an atmospheric discharge of electricity that typically occurred during a storm. In the world that Jack currently occupied, lightning occurred whenever it damn well felt like it, especially during ominous moments such as now.

Lightning flashed across the sky.

The Mad Hatter stared at Jack and grinned a maniacal grin.

“I want my hat, Jack, my head’s cold without it. Do me a favor and run and get my hat, Jack.” The Hatter’s sing-songy voice rang around the corridor like a deranged children’s storyteller.

“You called me here, Hatter. You said you had information. Important, life-threatening information. Now, are you going to waste my time with games or do you want to get to the point?”

“The point, ahh yess, the point, the point of the pen or the sword. They’re both mighty, you know. You never come to my tea parties anymore, Jack, why is that?”

Jack turned to leave.

“Wait! The Dwarf is afoot!” The Hatter’s pale spindly fingers gripped the small bars with such ferocity and he pushed his mouth as far through the little opening as possible.

Jack turned back. “You’re going to have to be more specific than that,” said Jack, “I can think of seven I know well. Which dwarf?”

“The evil one, which one would I be talking about you idiot? The evil one! The magic one, the biting, spitting, treacherous one, the tricky one. You know, you know!”

“If we’re both talking about the same evil Dwarf, then we both know that you’re lying because he’s a resident here in the East wing. Which means you dragged me here to this cursed place for no good bloody reason!”

“You don’t believe, Jack, that’s your problem. Too much time in the Othaside is rotting your brain. Check the cell! Check the cell and then bring me my hat, dammit! I miss the mouse, I really do. That damn cat.”

Jack eyed Hatter up and down for just a moment. He’d known the Hatter for centuries and his fall into madness had gone on for what seemed like an eternity. He was mad, no doubt, and Jack had been there when the madness turned psychotic. Once, he was amusingly mad and had entertained in the finest courts for royalty and the highest of society. And then it all fell apart. Jack didn’t like the Hatter. But he knew something else about him, too. The Hatter didn’t lie.

“Check the cell,” Jack barked at the Troll.

“Ee’s not gone anywhere. I woulda noticed.”

“Check the damn cell!”

The Troll padded off down the corridor with a waddle that would make a goose blush. Jack turned back to the Hatter.

“Do you remember why I put you here Hatter? All those years ago?”

The Hatter grinned and tipped his head to the side. “You ruined my tea party.”

“Try again.”

“You let that infernal cat eat the mouse.”

“Do you remember the woman?”

“I remember, you took my hat. The rabbit ran, the mouse was eaten, and you brought me here.”

“I did. But I often wonder if you remember why,” said Jack.

The same shrill scream that Jack heard earlier sounded again from above. Hatter looked up at the ceiling and frowned.

“The witch is restless. She knows.”

“C’mon, Hatter, you remember, I know you do.”

“Why is what, and when is where. If only I had my hat. We could have a tea party again, Jack.” Sincerity and calm crept into the Hatter’s voice. “But I suspect you’re going to be far too busy from here on out.”

“Eee’s gone! The Dwarf, eee’s nor in is cell,” yelled the Troll as he ran back down the hallway. This wasn’t entirely inaccurate as Trolls never ran; the legs moved, there was breathing and drooling and they made it from one place to another just a little quicker than when they were walking.

“That’s impossible. No one gets in or out; the moat creatures would’ve taken him.”

“His cell’s still locked up n solid, no oles I can see, nothing. E jus vanished.”

Jack thrust an arm through the narrow opening of the Hatter’s cell door and grabbed a handful of his grubby shirt and pulled him against the door.

“How the hell did you know he got out? Where did he go? How did he do it?”

The Hatter scrabbled skinny limbs against the door, to no avail.

“Questions, so many questions, my dear Jack.” The madness so apparent in his voice before was now gone. Instead, in its place, a smooth, cold, void of a voice remained, dark and menacing.

Jack pulled the Hatter’s shirt and slammed him against the interior of the door. “No games, Hatter. What’s going on?”

“Let go of me, fetch me my hat, and let’s talk.”

Jack’s answer was simple. He slammed him into the door again.

“All right, all right,” said the Hatter, “or we could talk now. The Dwarf got out; he’s gone looking for something. He’s looking to cross over to Othaside. He wants only to finish what he started.”

“He can’t cross over, he doesn’t…”

“He has the power to do so if he has reason to use it. He doesn’t even need the White Rabbit’s help.”

“Who would give him reason?” Jack breathed hard.

The Hatter glanced over his own shoulder at the wall behind him. “We share a wall.”

The grin that cracked the Hatter’s face was worse than maniacal; it was satisfied. Jack slammed him into the door twice. Blood began to trickle down the Hatter’s face.

“Time’s short, Jack, he’ll be over by now, it wouldn’t take long, so you’d best run. If I tell you where he’s going, you might stop him in time. But of course, what do I know? I’m mad.”

“Where is he going?”

The Hatter laughed a cold laugh. “To pay a visit to my blood.”

Jack dropped the Hatter in a heap in his cell and turned to the Troll. “Search the Dwarf’s cell; I want to know how they’ve been talking.”

Jack stalked off down the hallway ignoring the shouts and screams as the inmates broke into a frenzy.

“The Dwarf’s free!”

“What happened? Someone got out?”

“The Dwarf, the Dwarf!”

“
Rowr
!”

“He owes me money!”

“Where’s your cow now, Jack?”

“Guess his name, guess his name!”

“Run, Jack, run!” screamed the Hatter.

The voices faded behind him as Jack crossed the courtyard and all but ran through the gate back into the rain. He pulled out a small black rock the size of a golf ball, held it to his lips, and whispered the word, “Veszico.”

The rock became fluid and unfolded itself; tiny black wings unwrapped and shook themselves as the Fairy got to its feet. The miniature shape of a woman with dark hair and eyes of pure black blinked at Jack.

Jack spoke to the little creature with urgency. “Veszico, I need you to find Lily and the others. Tell them the Dwarf has got out and he’s going for the Mad Hatter’s son. We don’t have a reason yet. It’s going to take me a while to find a door. Tell Lily to find the son and tell everyone else that the Dwarf, Rumpelstiltskin, has escaped! Go now.”

Veszico gave a little nod, twitched her wings, and a bright blue light emanated from her as she rose from Jack’s hand. The faster her wings beat, the brighter she shone until she was a floating ball of light. She took off like a bullet in the direction of the bridge and was soon lost from sight.

Jack broke into a run across the long bridge away from the Tower. The rain blew against him, somewhere high above a scream was lost on the wind, and on either side of him the moat creatures stirred and writhed beneath the tempestuous waters.

In his cell, the Hatter sat leaning against the wall licking the blood that dripped from his forehead to his lips. The Hatter giggled, then laughed, then chortled, then guffawed; he tittered, he snickered, and he chuckled, and then screamed at nothing. High above the Tower, lightning splintered across the sky.

obert Darkly was miserable. And not just miserable; he was really miserable. His right pant leg was soaked up to his crotch, which was fast becoming uncomfortable and this only added to his miserable state. The rain poured in London’s East End, which caused puddles that large vehicles simply couldn’t resist driving through, hence the soggy pant leg. Some would ask what the problem was as Robert had already walked three blocks in the rain without an umbrella and was already suitably soaked.

The reason Robert had no umbrella was because he had left it at work. The main problem there was that Robert no longer had a job due to a recent incident that involved Robert and his boss and a stern firing. His umbrella, which had been given to him by his adoptive mother as a twenty-seventh birthday gift, was one of the things he’d forgotten to grab on his way out as his brain grappled with what had just happened.