The Looking Glass Wars (11 page)

It was the first time she‘d ever seen him angry. She had failed him. She had failed Francine, Margaret, Andrew, Esther, Otis, and Charlie. She had never before failed anyone who was counting on her, and she didn‘t like the way it made her feel.

In silence, she and Quigly walked back to the alley to meet up with the other orphans. Along the way, they stopped in at the Kettle o‘ Fish and the Grizzled Seaman pubs, hoping for a little charity. All they got was a bag of crusts.

―We was thinking of having duck tonight,‖ Andrew said, running up to her as she and Quigly turned into the alley. ―With orange sauce and stuffing. Me and Francine and Margaret and Otis never had duck before.‖

Having reached the end of the alley, Quigly flashed Alyss a look, summoned a lighthearted tone, and declared duck to be perfectly awful. ―You ain‘t missing much, I can tell you. It ain‘t a coincidence ‗duck‘ rhymes with ‗yuck.‘ But I suppose this is as good a time as any to tell you…looks like we‘re back to the old ways for a time, each of us having to get what we can get during the day and bringing it here to share.‖

―What‘re you saying?‖ Charlie asked.

By way of answer, Quigly turned out his empty pockets, pale linen tongues of poverty.

―So…what we got?‖

―I‘ve got nothing!‖ Charlie said. ―What I stole I ate for breakfast and I got nothing else ‘cause I thought we‘d eat just like we been doing.‖

It was the same with the others.

―Well, at least we have these crusts,‖ Alyss said.

―A hearty food if ever there was one,‖ replied Quigly, trying not to sound too disheartened. He divided the crusts into eight portions, claiming he was full before he finished eating his share.

But Alyss could see that his bright, cheerful manner was forced, even a little sarcastic.

She stayed awake after the others had gone to bed. I have to think of something. Why can‘t I make the flower sing? Because my imagination was nothing special after all, that‘s why. So think of something. I will. I will I will I will I will.

―I know how we can get as much food as we‘re used to having,‖ she told Quigly in the morning,

―but we need Charlie, Otis, and Esther to help.‖

―Whatever you say, Princess.‖

He wasn‘t very enthusiastic, didn‘t seem as though he much wanted to talk to her. He‘ll be happy afterwards, once our stomachs are full.

She dressed in the finest coat she could dig out of the alley‘s heap of clothes and blankets, and she used her own saliva to wash the dirt from her face and hands. With the stub of a pencil, she wrote out a list of meats on a small square of paper, then she led the others to a butcher‘s shop that she and Quigly had often passed.

―Stay hidden behind the carriage here and wait for my signal,‖ she told them, and entered the shop.

―And what can I do for you today, young lady?‖ The butcher was a large, beefy man with a ruddy face. He wore a bloodstained apron.

―I‘m supposed to get these for my mother.‖ She handed him the list of meats.

―Hmm. Seems like a lot for you to carry.‖

―Our carriage is outside but the driver is off on another errand.‖

She gave him her biggest smile and he couldn‘t help but believe her. Mere circumstances could not disguise the warm look of a princess.

―Let‘s see. It says here, one eight-pound rump joint…‖

He walked through an opening into the back of the shop and she waved for Quigly and the others to hurry inside. They grabbed the chickens hanging in the window, the sausages and hams, Alyss helping load them up when their arms were too full to reach for more.

―Hey!‖

The butcher dropped the joint and scrambled from behind the counter. The orphans bolted out of the shop, scattering in different directions.

―There y‘are!‖

A passing bobby caught Alyss by the collar of her coat. She slipped out of it, her dirty street urchin‘s clothes visible for all to see, but she only got a few steps farther before he caught her again.

―Let me go!‖ she said, imagining a tuttle-bird flying in the man‘s face or biting the hand that held her, neither of which happened.

Quigly had paused at the end of the street and was looking at her, a chicken under each arm, his pockets stuffed with sausages. Maybe he‘d come to her rescue? Maybe he‘d risk his own safety and do something clever to free her and they‘d both get away?

But no. He turned and sprinted around the corner, out of sight.

Alyss never found out if she was the only one of the orphans who‘d been caught that day (she was), but even before she‘d been roughly escorted to the Charing Cross Foundling Hospital, where she would live until she was adopted by the Liddells, and even before she realized that she would never see Quigly Gaffer again, she had started to think that maybe it wasn‘t worthwhile getting attached to people. All they ever did was betray you. They betrayed you by leaving.

Alyss tried not to hear when a warden at Charing Cross opened the door to a large room with cots lined up in two rows against the walls, children screaming and yelling and fighting, and said, ―Welcome to your new home.‖

CHAPTER 17

F OLLOWED BY an angry mob, the Frenchmen brought their prisoner to the Court of First Instance in the Palais de Justice. People pushed and shoved one another, trying to get a better view of the proceedings. The air in the room quickly became hot and stale from so many bodies packed into such a modest enclosure. The men placed the rug upright in the middle of the court, before the magistrate.

A chuckle passed among the prosecutors, advocates, and court reporters.

―Quel est ceci?‖ asked the magistrate, not amused.

The public prosecutor, a gowned and whiskered gentleman, stood up and said a number of things in French, which, muffled though the unintelligible words were, Hatter could hear from within the confines of the rug.

―Où est le prisonnier?‖ the magistrate asked.

The public prosecutor pointed to the rug. Again, the court regulars laughed. With a heavy sigh, the magistrate warned the gentleman not to make a mockery of the court. The prosecutor apologized and explained that he had no intention of doing any such thing, but that the prisoner was très dangereux and the carpet the only means that had been found to subdue him.

A man stepped forward and declared that the prisoner possessed violent, other-worldly powers.

The gallery of onlookers, none of whom had witnessed the fight on the rue de Rivoli, came alive with loud assertions of ―C‘est vrai! C‘est vrai!‖

The magistrate, however, had seen quite the parade of motley life from his perch in court and merely wondered if he might not treat himself to a little fried mutton along with his usual wedge of brie and bottle of bordeaux at his favorite café, Le Chien Dyspeptique.

―Je voudrais voir le prisonnier,‖ he said.

The prosecutor cleared his throat several times and said that, with all due respect, he did not think releasing Hatter from the rug was a good idea. The magistrate huffed and ordered the prosecutor to remove Hatter from the rug or he would find himself in prison for contempt of court. The rug was laid on the floor. The gallery of onlookers surged, people squeezing forward, sensing that something dramatic was about to happen.

They were not mistaken. No sooner was Hatter unrolled from his confinement than he jumped up and—

Thwink!

His wrist-blades sliced the air, blurry with speed. He grabbed a dagger from his backpack and threw it, skewering a painting on the wall next to the magistrate‘s head—an action that caused the wise man to hunker down beneath his bench for safety.

Before the court police gathered their courage to attempt recapture, Hatter corkscrewed out the nearest window and landed on the sidewalk at a run. The onlookers crowded at the window, hoping to catch a last glimpse of the mysterious man. The magistrate peeked up over his bench to see if his life was still in danger. After surviving such a day, he decided, a plate of fried mutton was well-deserved.

Rumors began to spread about a man with spinning knives on his wrists who appeared out of puddles. With the passing months, and after numerous sightings of Hatter had been reported but never officially proved, the rumors fossilized into legend. Civilians claimed that he could defeat an entire regiment on his own. Military men wondered aloud what more Napoleon might have accomplished if he‘d had the man in his ranks. Young boys imagined themselves in his shoes, playing the part of a superhero. In drawing rooms, wealthy, educated ladies and gentlemen put aside their usually reserved manners and attempted to imitate his acrobatic spins and twirls, and even, on occasion, his somersaults. Maidservants all over France gathered in dim kitchens and told one another romantic stories about the legendary figure, with whom they‘d fallen in love. A woman must have broken his heart, they imagined, because surely no man would behave as he did for any reason but the suffering of unrequited love? Upon turning in for bed, these lovesick servants left candles burning in their windows, and had Hatter been able to fly over Paris in the middle of the night, he would have seen a sleeping city dotted with these flickering lights of longing—pinpricks of warmth in the cold dark, illuminating the way to women‘s hearts. But Hatter would have felt anything but deserving, for he was wrestling with an unfamiliar emotion: inadequacy. He had failed to keep his promise to Queen Genevieve.

CHAPTER 18

A LYSS DIDN‘T get along with the other children living at the foundling hospital—children who had seen their share of heartache and sorrow, as she had, but who were no less eager to lose themselves in games like jacks, hopscotch, and hide-and-seek. All so silly and immature.

Thoughts of Redd, about what might have become of Dodge, clouded Alyss‘ head. She couldn‘t for the life of her muster up any enthusiasm for games.

The wardens of Charing Cross took a special interest in her and this only served to further alienate her from the rest of the orphans. Anyone could see that she was going to grow into a beautiful woman. It was thought that her beauty might gain her entry into ranks of society rarely attained by orphans, which could bode well for Charing Cross, leading to donations from wealthy families on the hunt for unearthly beauties of their own. Whenever Alyss mentioned Wonderland, she was shushed more harshly than she would have been if the wardens hadn‘t taken an interest in her.

―That‘s all in your head, little miss, and no one will want a daughter who talks rubbish all the time. Unless you want to live here forever, you‘ll clear your mind of that ridiculous, fantastical stuff.‖

Dr. Williford, the doctor on the staff at Charing Cross, listened patiently to Alyss‘ ridiculous, fantastical stuff.

―I‘m sure you‘ve had to face things that no young girl should ever have to face,‖ he said. ―But you cannot hide in fantasy, Alice. Accept what has happened to you and know that you are not alone in misfortune. Try to focus on the sights and sounds around you, because they are reality.

There is still a chance for you to lead a normal, fruitful life.‖

She stopped confiding in Dr. Williford and spent her days staring out a window at a dirty, leaf-strewn courtyard, which was where one of the wardens found her on an afternoon that would (yet again) change everything.

―Alice, I‘d like you to say hello to the Reverend and Mrs. Liddell.‖

Alyss turned from the greasy window to look at the couple—the woman with the hard eyes and uneasy smile, the doughy man in overcoat and gloves. All strangers were the same to her: strange, far removed, unable to reach her.

―She is pretty,‖ Mrs. Liddell said, ―but a haircut and a thorough scrubbing are in order, I think.‖

―Quite,‖ said the reverend.

The Liddells lived in Oxford, where the reverend was dean of Christ Church College. Nothing happened, it seemed, that didn‘t bring with it an element of misfortune. No sooner had Alyss left Charing Cross than she found herself in circumstances hardly more pleasing.

―Not another word!‖ Mrs. Liddell scolded when Alyss described the Inventors‘ Parade to her new siblings.

―Animals can‘t talk because they‘re dumb beasts,‖ she rebuked when Alyss claimed otherwise.

―Flowers can‘t sing because they don‘t have larynxes,‖ she insisted when Alyss told of flowers with beautiful voices. ―Keep talking nonsense and I‘ll wash your mouth out with soap.‖

―I‘m a princess and I‘m waiting for Hatter to come and rescue me,‖ Alyss said. ―You‘ll see.‖

―Alice, if you want to amount to anything in society,‖ Mrs. Liddell warned, ―or at the very least show appreciation for what we‘ve done by welcoming you into our home, you‘ll stop embarrassing this family and live with your head firmly in this world and do as others do.‖

As punishment, Mrs. Liddell would send Alyss to her room, where she had to stay for days, sometimes a whole week, at a time; meals would be brought to her. That suited her perfectly well. It meant she wouldn‘t have to see them. Wrong! Though she couldn‘t go out, her new sisters weren‘t forbidden from visiting, and the second afternoon of one of her confinements Edith and Lorina marched into the room and sat on Alyss‘ bed, studying her. She tried to ignore them, working hard to remember every gemstone of Heart Palace, every turn of every heart-shaped passage. Numerous drawings of the palace were tacked to her walls. Fourteen steps leading from the lower courtyard into the ballroom, seventeen bathrooms in total, and—

―Why don‘t you draw something else for a change?‖ Lorina asked her.

―Because I don‘t want to forget where I came from.‖

―Better draw the orphanage then!‖ Edith shrieked, and she and Lorina ran off, laughing.

Alyss sat with pencil poised above her drawing. I shouldn‘t care what they think. I don‘t. But their mocking laughter had caused a twinge of…what? Embarrassment? Shame? Princesses didn‘t like to be made fun of any more than ordinary people. Alyss pushed the drawing away from her. It would remain forever unfinished.

―All right, girls,‖ Miss Prickett, the Liddells‘ governess, announced, ―seeing as this is Alice‘s first day at our lessons, let‘s wish her well and encourage her to work hard.‖