“Did it work?” said Penny. Her eyes blinked open. Right away, her shoulders sagged in disappointment.
“You only got the boots because that’s what you most desired,” David said. “Think about Alicia – all of her. She doesn’t have to be like she is in the book.
It’s how you picture her that matters.”
So Penny tried again. After a stutteringstart, Alicia’s body grew upwards out ofher footwear. Penny had constructed herthe way she was drawn, except for onething: the colour of her hair.
“Well done,” David said (adding in anarm that Penny had missed). “Why the redhair?” The white rabbit, he noticed, hadpicked up a few strands to admire it.
“When I grow up I want hair like Mum’s.” Penny’s, at the moment, was agrainy blonde.
David nodded and imagineered the restof the scene: the doors in the hill; more
hills fading to nothing behind them. “‘
Oh dear,’
” he read, in the character of the rabbit. (It began to hop about in front of the doors.) “‘
I’m late! I’m late! And I don’t know which door I’m supposed to take!’
”
Penny giggled. “Is Alicia going to help him?”
“Mmm,” said David, reading on. “‘Alicia stepped forward. She spoke politely, with her hands behind her back.
Why don’t you take this door?
she said, pointing to the one on the left. Rather helpfully, a sign appeared upon it saying ‘THIS’.’”
“I can see it,” laughed Penny. It was hanging off the knocker by a piece of string.
David ran his finger down the text and
continued. “‘The rabbit, who was still in a fluster, patted its brow with a handkerchief.
Are you sure you don’t
mean that door?
he asked, aiming his paw at the door on the right. A sign saying ‘THAT’ had now appeared there.
No, I’m quite sure I meant that door
, Alicia said, still pointing to her original choice. The rabbit danced from foot to foot.
But that’s
THIS
, he argued, scratching his nose.
Idon’t think you know what you mean atall. You don’t know your THIS from your THAT in my opinion
. Hearing this (or wasit that?), Alicia stamped her foot.
Oh!
sheexclaimed.
I’ve had quite enough of this – or do I mean that?
And to simplifymatters, she marched up to both doors andturned the signs over. Immediately, thedoors disappeared.’”
“Hhh!” gasped Penny, watching them go. “Now what’s going to happen? The rabbit can’t get in without a door.”
“‘
Now look what you’ve done!’
” David
read on. “‘The rabbit was furious. His
whiskery white cheeks were growing quite pink.’”
“He’s crossing his ears, look,” Penny said, laughing.
“‘
Now we’ll have to use the OTHER door
, it said.
And I don’t know WHERE that goes to
. Alicia played with a strand of her hair.
Where is the other door?
she asked. The rabbit started to run again.
On the OTHER side of the hill, of course
.’”
Penny clapped as the rabbit hurried up the hill and over it. Once again, Alicia went in pursuit. But as they began to come down the other side, the plain grass gave
way to clustered stones with fine plants growing in between them. The characters stumbled to the bottom and looked back at the slope as they dusted themselves down. Penny sat up in surprise. “That’s Mum’s rockery,” she said.
Not only that, David noticed, but Alicia and the rabbit were standing in front of the arched door he had imagineered there. He closed the book softly.
“Are we finished?” asked Penny.
“This part isn’t in the book,” said David. “Shall we see what happens if we open the door?”
“Yes,” said Penny, breathy with excitement.
So, after a bit of polite bowing and afew ‘After you’s’ and ‘No, after you’s’, Alicia stepped forward and opened the
door. Into the rockery the characters went. Immediately, they slipped and lost their footing and both began to tumble down a deep, dark well (it made Penny feel a little queasy to watch it). After what seemed like a very long fall, they landed with a bump (thankfully not a splash, for the well was perfectly dry) at the end of a rather spooky-looking tunnel. Neither character was hurt, and the rabbit had already set off at tremendous speed towards a window at the far end of the tunnel. Alicia ran after it as fast as her
kicker boots would take her. She caught up very quickly but did not overtake, and for a time it seemed there was no time at
all, and that the characters were running but not really moving. Then, whether it was a jolt of David’s imagination or
whether it was real or whether this land of new wonders they had entered had finally decided to make itself known to them, Alicia and the rabbit arrived at the
window and peered through it.
Penny and David leaned forward instinctively, to see what their characters could see. It was a bedroom, not at all unlike their mother’s, but the common features (the bed, the wardrobes, etc.)
were something of a blur in the background. Alicia and the rabbit were focused instead on a dressing table right in front of them. They were standing behind the table, looking through its mirror.
“Look… ” said Penny, her mouth falling open. She pointed, just like Alicia was doing.
On the table were three small creatures,
all of which seemed to be solid sculptures, though David suspected they were actually quite real. Two of them were dragons, quite kindly-looking and nothing like the pictures he’d seen in the books or on the ceilings of the librarium, though definitely cast in the dragon image. They had their eyes closed and were holding paws, as if they were waiting for something to happen. And yet, intriguing as these sculptures were, it was the third one that raised David’s pulse rate a little. Standing just in front of the dragons was an elegant creature he had never seen before and yet he somehow felt he ought to recognise. In general body shape it was not unlike Boon, though its legs and neck were very much longer and its head was far more graceful than the katt’s. The
creature was white all over and did not have a blade of hair upon it, except for a mane down the back of its neck and an equally impressive tail. What really drew David’s attention, however, was the twisting horn that grew straight out of the animal’s forehead. He could see a
familiar pattern on it – a wavy three-lined mark, spiralling outward from its base and repeating all the way up to the tip. He jerked back with a sudden realisation. It was the code he’d used to open the door to Floor 43, the one that translated in dragontongue as ‘sometimes’.
“Where is this?” said Penny. “What are we looking at?”
“Another world,” David muttered, thinking about the time rift and his father’s words about other dimensions and a force
too powerful for David to control. Then, as if a conduit had somehow opened, the image of the black firebird entered his mind and he felt a tremendous pressure in his head. He fell sideways, holding his hands to his temples. The book slid off his lap and clattered to the floor. His body began to shake as if it was no longer his to control.
In that instant, Penny screamed.
Alicia and the rabbit had both turned
round and peered back down the tunnel. Even though the light was poor, something could be seen flying at tremendous speed towards them. Bare teeth. Fearsome talons. A savage eye, perhaps. There was no real time for detail. The thing was coming with an awful screech and clearly intended to do them harm.
“David, stop it!” Penny wailed. She was backing up against her headboard as Alicia was backing up against the mirror.
Then, in a scene that truly was something from a land of wonder, the white horned creature tilted its head and a bolt of violet light passed through the mirror. It struck, not the beast, but the shuddering rabbit. Right away, the rabbit fell down and turned itself into something new. A strapping white animal with thickset paws and a body so burly that it almost filled the width of the tunnel. It
reared up and flashed its paws at the attacker, which hovered to a halt in front of this creation, spitting and hissing and fearful and
dark
. And there the chapter ended and the pictures went away. For the door to Penny’s room had suddenly burst
open and David had been pulled off the bed onto the floor, with a pair of strong hands cradled round his head.
“Let it go. Let it go,” the intruder was saying.
And Penny was squealing, “Who are you? Who are you?”
And then Eliza Merriman was there as well, with calming gestures and reassuring words. “Penny, it’s all right. He won’t harm David. He’s a friend.”
And the man held doggedly onto herbrother until the convulsions had ceased
and he was calm. Only then did the stranger speak to the girl. “Forgive me, Penny. I had no time to introduce myself.”
“Who are you?” she said again, drawing up her blanket.
“I’m a Counsellor – and an outlaw,” he
said with great charm. “My name is
Thorren Strømberg.”
9
As a result of the incident in Penny’sroom, David once again fell into a deep,slow sleep, which this time lasted forapproximately two days. He awoke,peacefully, in his bedroom, with hisanxious mother in a chair at his side and Boon purring softly on the bed, at his feet.
Eliza was over him at once, feeling hisforehead and gripping his hands. “Oh,thank goodness. Are you all right? Howdo you feel? I’ve been so worried.”
“I feel fine,” he said, though he lookeda little bleary. He pushed himself uprightagainst a stack of pillows. His motherimmediately imagineered another.
“How long have I been… ?”
“Two days. Two and a half.” She poured a glass of water. He drank it down in one.
“Where’s Penny?”
“Upstairs.”
“She OK?”
“She’s fine. Just a little shaken by what she saw. How much do you remember?”
David frowned and shook his head. “I was reading. That’s it. Everything else is… a blur.”
“Well, Penny remembers,” his mother
said. “But she refuses to talk about it to
anyone but you. Were you aware that Counsellor Strømberg was here?”
“Strømberg? How?”
“He’d been tracking the movements of the firebird you saw.”
“The black one?”
“Yes. He burst in when he heard Penny screaming. It was him who calmed your auma and carried you to bed. He helped Penny, too, before he left.”
“Is he coming back?”
“No. Not here. He says it’s too dangerous for him to stay in one place for too long. He wants you to meet him on Bushley Common.”
“When?”
“Any evening. Just turn up. He’ll find you, he says.”
David glanced at the sky. Still light, but the dusk was closing in. He threw off his covers and swept out of bed.
“David, wait.”
He paused, one sock half on.
“Please think about this. They might be watching you.”
“The Aunts?”
“Them or their agents. If you go to meet Strømberg you’ll be aiding a fugitive. That might be all they’re waiting for – enough reason to send you the way of your father.”
David continued to dress. “If I don’t go, I’ll never know what this is all about.”
Eliza gripped his arm and made him look at her. “It’s about them keeping control. That’s the way it’s always been. The Higher. The Aunts. The Grand Design. Your ec:centricity frightens them.”
“Then that’s how I’ll defend myself from them,” he said. And he pulled on his other sock.
Ten minits later he was in the kitchen
when Penny came in and leaned back against the door frame. She was wearing a pair of red kicker boots.
“Like them?” she asked, stretching out a foot. “Mum imagineered them while you were asleep.”
“They suit you,” he said. Laces untied, just like Rosa’s. His heart pinged.
Penny held his gaze a moment and waited. “You don’t remember, do you?”
“Remember what?”
She marched across the floor anddropped
Alicia in the Land of Wonder
onthe table.
He blinked a couple of times andpicked it up. Oh, yes. The book. Aliciawore kicker boots.
Penny pulled out a chair. She sat downwith one foot tucked under her bottom.
“You were reading this to me and showing me the characters having an adventure. Alicia and the rabbit went down a tunnel and looked through a mirror at another world.”
“There were dragons,” David muttered, beginning to remember.
“There were lots of things,” Penny said. “Were you the rabbit?”