The Looking Glass Wars (10 page)

She described Heart Palace, the singing flowers in the royal gardens, the Crystal Continuum.

―And I don‘t mean to brag,‖ she said, ―but I have a powerful imagination.‖

―I‘ll say.‖

―You think I‘m making everything up?‖

Quigly didn‘t answer. Alyss saw a lone dandelion poking out of some mud. She stared hard at the flower and imagined it singing. It seemed to require more effort than it would have done in Wonderland, and it took longer. But then the dandelion‘s petals moved and from the bud at its center came a thin little voice.

―La la la la, la la la la, la la la la, laaaaaaah.‖

That was all Alyss could manage, but Quigly was impressed. He‘d heard about magicians who could ―throw‖ their voices, making it sound as if a person or object across a room were talking when it would be the magician himself standing right next to you.

―Nice trick.‖

―It‘s not a trick.‖ And then, sadly, just remembering, the exiled princess added, ―It‘s my birthday.‖

―Happy birthday, ma‘am.‖

Alyss felt her eyes water, sorrow weighing her down.

―Aw, no crying on birthdays,‖ Quigly said. ―You oughta meet some of my friends. They‘ll cheer you right up.‖

So they walked to a blind alley in the shadow of London Bridge, where a ragtag group of children ranging in age from five to twelve lounged around on old crates.

―Hear ye, hear ye,‖ Quigly announced. ―I bring a newcomer into our ranks.‖

The children looked at Alyss, uninterested. They had seen newcomers before. Fact was, the makeup of the group was always changing, some boy or girl entering into it one day, sharing their bread for weeks or months and then going off, never to be seen again, no one ever knowing if they‘d been arrested for stealing, stuck in a home, murdered, or what.

Quigly introduced everyone to Alyss. ―The big one‘s Charlie Turnbull. The one next to him with the mole on his nose is Andrew MacLean—he‘s an orphan too. That one there is Otis Oglethorpe—a runaway, but his mother‘s dead. And in the ladies, we‘ve got Francine Forge, Esther Wilkes, and Margaret Blemin—all of them orphans. Everyone, may I present you with Princess Alice of Wonderland. She‘s come to us through a puddle of water, and I suggest you be on your best behavior in front of royalty.‖

―Puddle of water?‖ Charlie Turnbull guffawed. ―Princess of Wonderland?‖

Quigly didn‘t bother to explain. He dug in a heap of what looked like rags and held up a pair of trousers, a blouse, and a man‘s coat for Alyss‘ approval. ―These should fit you right enough.‖

Where was she supposed to change out of her wet things?

―Sorry, Princess,‖ said Quigly. ―No private rooms for you here in the alleys of London.‖

She stripped, trying to act as if taking off her clothes in front of everybody wasn‘t unusual. The blouse fit her well enough, but the trousers and coat were too large. She added her birthday dress to the pile of clothes and blankets for anyone who might want it once it was dry. She slipped her feet into a pair of boots Quigly had rummaged up for her, discarding her Wonderland birthday shoes.

―Righty right, let‘s see what we‘ve got,‖ Quigly said to the others.

They pulled various coins and foodstuffs out of their pockets—a few pence, a mostly empty wallet, cheese, sausages, a chicken leg. Otis Oglethorpe produced a loaf of bread he‘d been hiding under his coat and Charlie Turnbull brought out half a meat pie from under his hat.

―What about you?‖ Otis asked Quigly. ―What‘ve you brought?‖

―I brought the princess right enough.‖

―We can‘t eat her,‖ said Charlie Turnbull. ―And that‘s another mouth eating what could‘ve been going into our bellies.‖

―I‘ll make it up tomorrow, when me and the princess‘ll bring plenty for all of you, don‘t worry.‖

Charlie glared at Alyss. Meeting Quigly‘s friends wasn‘t in the least cheering.

The food was divided evenly into eight portions. The cheese and sausage did not taste like their counterparts in Wonderland, the cheese somehow soggy, the sausage flavorless. The meat pie, Alyss thought, tasted like a stuffed old stocking.

After eating, Andrew, Francine, and Margaret—the youngest of the orphans—crowded together on the clothes heap and snuggled down to sleep. Charlie made a bed for himself by pushing three crates together and covering them with an old quilt. Otis simply went to bed on the hard ground, using his coat as a blanket. Esther Wilkes dozed off sitting up, leaning back against a wall, her legs sticking out straight in front of her into the alley.

Alyss couldn‘t sleep. She tried counting gwynooks. One gwynook, two gwynook, three gwynook. It didn‘t help.

―Restless, Princess?‖ Quigly asked, and offered to keep her company for a bit. ―We scatter about during the day,‖ he explained, ―to beg, borrow, or steal, as the case may be. Francine, Andrew, and Margaret work as a team. Two of them get a bloke‘s attention while the third picks his pockets. Some days one or another of us‘ll make the rounds of the shops, looking for stale food they might want to throw away. But every night we meet here and share what we‘ve got. I don‘t know if it‘s easier on us to make our way together, and Charlie doesn‘t always give up everything he gets in a day—he doesn‘t know I know, so don‘t tell him—but it feels better to most of them to be in a group. It can get lonely with no proper family.‖

―I‘m sure it can,‖ said Alyss.

―Well now.‖ Quigly curled up on the ground, using his hands as a pillow. ―Gotta get some sleep.

I made a promise to the others and tomorrow‘s gonna be something big, I can tell you. I got plans for us—you and me. G‘night, Princess.‖

―Good night, Quigly Gaffer.‖

It wasn‘t long before Alyss was alone with the steady, rhythmic breathing of the slumbering street urchins. Francine mumbled in her sleep and buried her face in the crook of Andrew‘s arm.

Charlie started to snore. Alyss turned her face to the sky, to the limitless expanse that, ever since she could remember, had served as a reminder of the wondrous possibilities open to her. Four gwynook, five gwynook, six. Now, starless and close, the sky just seemed empty. Seven gwynook, eight gwynook, nine gwynook, ten…

The last to fall asleep, Alyss was the last to wake, still rubbing the crust from her eyes when Quigly presented her with a white flower whose roots were tangled in a mud ball he cupped in his hands.

―You think you can do that trick again?‖

It took her a second to understand: the singing flower. ―It‘s not a trick.‖

―Yeah, but you think you can do it again?‖

―I don‘t know…I suppose.‖

―Do it.‖

It took longer than it did the previous day, required even more effort and concentration, but at last the flower chirped into song.

―Yeay-hoo!‖ Quigly celebrated, prancing around the alley.

―Where are the others?‖ Alyss asked.

―Already gone about their daily business, Princess. And it‘s time we went about ours.‖

He chose a busy corner. All Alyss had to do, he said, was sit on an upturned crate and make the flower sing when he gave her the wink.

―What‘s this, ladies and gents?‖ he cried, raising his voice to the Londoners hurrying past.

―Why, the world‘s only singing flower, that‘s what it is! The lass of the flower here has come all the way from Africa with as rare a flower as ever you saw! Oh, it looks like any common flower, I‘ll grant you that! But it is by no means common, I tell you! It sings! Who‘s for a bit of singing?

Come on now!‖

When enough curious people had gathered to watch, Quigly gave Alyss the wink and she made the flower sing. It wasn‘t for more than a few bars, but it was enough. The crowd thought it a wonderful feat of magic. Quigly made the rounds of the audience, convincing each and every person to drop a few pennies into his hat.

―Spare a few, ladies and gents, for it‘s not everyone that‘s witnessed the amazing singing flower from Africa. Come now, the passage from Africa ain‘t cheap.‖

Alyss managed four more performances, one every hour, each draining her more than the last.

She had to stop for the day. But by then, they had earned more money than Quigly had ever seen in one place. They headed back to the alley to meet up with the others, who emptied their pockets—a tinkling of pennies, a broken watch, cheese, a salami, a few boiled potatoes.

―And what‘ve you two brought us?‖ Charlie asked.

―Not much, I‘d say,‖ said Quigly, dumping the coins from his pockets.

The others couldn‘t believe it. Where had Quigly and Alyss gotten so much money? Quigly wouldn‘t say; he wanted to keep Alyss‘ talent to himself.

―But tomorrow‘ll bring us the same,‖ he said. ―Me and the princess got us a workable scheme now, that‘s all any of you need to know. Charlie, Otis—you come with me. Let‘s buy a feast we won‘t soon forget. Who wants what now?‖

When the others had gone to bed, Alyss told Quigly that they didn‘t have to stand on a street corner all day to earn money.

―I‘ll imagine however much we need,‖ she said.

―I‘ll be happy to spend whatever money you come by, Princess, no matter how you come by it.‖

So Alyss tried to imagine a pile of the different coins she‘d seen that day. She tried to imagine them weighing down the pockets of her coat. But she was still fatigued from her exertions with the flower, and before she could bring a single coin into existence, Quigly started laughing at her.

―Your face!‖ he said. He tried to imitate her expression, her face scrunched in dogged effort.

Alyss wasn‘t amused. ―Never mind then,‖ she said. ―I‘m not imagining a pile of money for you, ever.‖

―Aw, Princess, c‘mon now. I wasn‘t teasing you. We all look funny sometimes. Some of us look funny all the time. You go ahead and imagine what you will.‖

But Quigly couldn‘t stop himself from laughing, so Alyss didn‘t attempt to imagine a pile of money again that night or any night thereafter. We‘ll do things the hard way since that‘s how he wants it.

They spent their days on street corners, she making the flower sing while he collected money from the audience. But every new day seemed to weaken her ability with the flower and her performances became less frequent. The more time Alyss spent in this wet dreary city, the less she believed in her imagination.

It‘s not as strong as Mother thought. Probably never was.

At least twice a day, between flower performances, she tried to imagine Hatter‘s whereabouts.

Inevitably, she saw nothing. Imagination‘s eye? She hadn‘t had enough training. Eventually, she had the strength and will to bring about only one flower performance a day, so Quigly made sure it‘d be when they could attract the largest audience—at dusk, the streets especially crowded with people on their way home from work.

Every night, after the meals afforded by Alyss‘ performances, Andrew, Margaret, and Francine would ask her to tell them about Wonderland.

―Please, please, please,‖ they‘d say.

Imagining themselves in the bright, crystal world Alyss described, with heart palaces, walrus-butlers, frog-messengers, and giant, pipe-smoking caterpillars, they were able to escape for a short while from the poverty and squalor and daily scrounging of their own lives. Otis, Quigly, and Esther didn‘t enter into Alyss‘ tales of Wonderland as fully as the younger orphans, but they enjoyed her stories enough to listen to them in wistful silence. Charlie Turnbull, on the other hand, made it clear he didn‘t believe a word she said.

―Nothing but bleeding nonsense,‖ he‘d say.

She told Andrew, Francine, and Margaret all about Hatter Madigan and how awful it was to have lost her bodyguard because he was so accomplished at fighting. If she‘d had the Milliner by her side, she said, she would never have met Quigly or any of them. To show what a man like Hatter could do, she described the injured card soldiers writhing on the floor of Heart Palace, hands pressed against their wounds and blood pulsing out between worrying fingers.

―Do you really know a man who can fight so many people?‖ Margaret asked.

―I do.‖

―It‘s a lie,‖ said Charlie.

―But it‘s Dodge Anders who‘s going to be the greatest guardsman Wonderland‘s ever had,‖

Alyss went on. ―He‘s handsome and brave and kind and intelligent. He‘ll grow up to be almost as good a fighter as Hatter. I help him practice his swordsman drills sometimes. I hold shields with different colors on them and when I call out a color he has to jab his sword at it while I shake and move the shield and make it as hard as I can for him. He‘s my best friend and…no…I mean, was.‖ With a look around the alley: ―He was my best friend.‖

―Go on, Alyss,‖ Andrew said after she‘d been silent for a time.

―No,‖ said Alyss, her voice hushed. ―I don‘t want to talk about Wonderland anymore.‖

Then came the day her imagination failed altogether. It was dusk, the usual time when Quigly, ever the showman, rounded up a crowd of Londoners curious to see the singing African flower.

Quigly gave Alyss the wink and she envisioned the flower petals opening and closing like lips, the bud gathering its voice and singing a few bars, a lullaby maybe, or—

But nothing happened. She strained, groaned. Some of the onlookers thought she was going to be sick.

Sing, flower!

Seconds passed. A full minute. Alyss began to sweat through her dirty, ragged clothes.

Sing, flower, sing!

With grumblings and curses, the crowd started to disperse.

―She needs encouragement is all!‖ Quigly cried, upending his hat and begging for money. ―Two pennies apiece and I guarantee that African flower‘ll sing like you never heard!‖

No one threw money into the hat. One gentleman threatened to call for a policeman. That was all Quigly had to hear; he grabbed Alyss‘ hand and they ran off, leaving the flower and crate behind.

―I‘m sorry,‖ Alyss said, once they were safe and had stopped to catch their breath.

―What happened?‖

―I don‘t know,‖ she said. It scared her. It was like losing her hearing or her sight. ―Maybe the longer I‘m away from Wonderland…maybe the less my imagination works.‖

―Hmm,‖ Quigly said, unbelieving.

―I‘m sorry, Quigly.‖

―I‘m sorry too, Princess.‖