The Looking Glass Wars (12 page)

Alyss sat at the dining-room table with Edith, Lorina, and Rhoda, paper and pencil neatly arrayed in front of her. A blackboard rested atop the sideboard. The words ―Welcome Alice Liddell‖

were written on it.

―That‘s not how you spell my name,‖ Alyss blurted.

Miss Prickett looked at the blackboard, then at Alyss. ―No? Perhaps you‘ll be kind enough to come up here and show me how to spell it. I‘ll let it pass this time, Alice, but in the future, you are not to speak out. You raise your hand and wait to be called upon.‖

Alyss held her head high and stared straight ahead as she walked to the sideboard. At the blackboard, she erased ice from her name and wrote yss in its place. Edith, Lorina, and Rhoda erupted with laughter.

―That is enough!‖ scolded Miss Prickett. ―Alice, you will write your name one hundred times on the blackboard. A-L-I-C-E. Now begin.‖

So she was stuck there, in front of them, while Miss Prickett began the lesson. Edith, Lorina, and Rhoda peeked around their books at her, threw one another giggling glances. Alyss wanted their hair to fill with gwormmies, their eyes to seal shut, their laughing tongues to tie into knots.

Nothing happened.

Useless. White Imagination or Black, it doesn‘t matter, because I can‘t conjure. She‘d written A-L-I-C-E ninety-nine times. Miss Prickett wasn‘t looking. She spelled out A-L-Y-S-S on the blackboard and started toward her seat.

Miss Prickett turned to the board. ―Just a moment, please! I‘m sure you think you‘re clever, Miss Liddell. But let‘s see what such cleverness gets you. Wipe the board and start again. Another hundred times. A-L-I-C-E. Begin.‖

Alyss did as she was told, no longer wanting to stand on exhibition.

―Maybe now you‘ll remember how to spell your name correctly,‖ Miss Prickett scolded when she‘d finished.

As she returned to her seat, Lorina whispered, ―Odd Alice,‖ and the label stuck. It probably didn‘t help that whenever the children of family friends thought they‘d take a chance and chat with her, Alyss filled their ears with talk of Wonderland.

―She must think she‘s better than all of us, calling herself a princess,‖ the children huffed.

Alyss got into fights and traded insults with her tormentors, often returning home scraped, bruised, and humiliated. She tried to shut her ears to it all, but doubts began to plague her. Can everyone be wrong? She grew tired of persisting in her convictions against the Liddells, their friends, everyone. Is it really possible that every single person I meet is wrong and I‘m right? A whole lot easier if I could just forget. Might she have imagined that she‘d been a princess in another world? What if I dreamed it up while sick in bed?

Then the simplest and yet most miraculous thing happened. She found a friendly ear—or rather, two. They belonged to the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, the mathematics lecturer of Christ Church. He was a gentle, shrinking-violet type of fellow who lived at the college and sometimes came to the Liddells‘ for tea. An amateur photographer, he took pictures of the girls.

Alyss posed for him in a corner of the garden, wearing a light-colored dress with flared sleeves, white socks, and patent-leather shoes. She faced to the right of the camera and smirked at him, shy but proud, as if the two of them shared a secret. But it wasn‘t until a boating trip to Godstow that she told him about Wonderland. They had stopped for a rest, were lounging on the grass while Edith and Lorina played in the shallows of the river Isis, as that particular stretch of the Thames was called.

―Don‘t you want to join your sisters?‖ the Reverend Dodgson asked.

Alyss no longer bothered explaining to people that she didn‘t have any sisters. ―No,‖ she replied.

Dodgson thought this a charming answer. ―But why not?‖

―After you‘ve been a princess and had your queendom taken from you, as I have, it‘s hard to get excited about a mess of fish and weeds in a river.‖

The Reverend Dodgson laughed. ―Alice, whatever are you talking about?‖

Should I? Will he believe? He does seem different from the others. Should I, one last time? The restraint she‘d been under gave way. Memories poured out of her as if they had to be spoken aloud, and quickly, to convince her of their truth or be forever forgotten. When she mentioned Dodge, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson started to take notes. Dodge. Dodgson. He was the boy. The reverend was flattered to be part of Alyss‘ dream world.

―You have the most amazing imagination of anyone I‘ve ever met,‖ he told her.

Alyss knew better. She hadn‘t conjured anything in a long time.

―Let me see if I understand you correctly,‖ Dodgson said. ―People can travel through looking glasses, enter through one and exit from another?‖

―Yes. I‘ve tried it here but none of the glasses work.‖

She watched him jot something in his notebook. ―Are you really going to write a book about Wonderland, Mr. Dodgson?‖

―I think I might. It‘ll be our book, Alice. Yours and mine.‖

The book would prove that she was telling the truth. She would not give up on herself. Not yet.

PART TWO

CHAPTER 19

I N A region somewhere between the Everlasting Forest and Outer wilderbeastia, remarkable only for its desolation, Wonderlanders who not long before had been law-abiding, family-loving folk slaved away in Redd‘s most notorious labor camp, Blaxik. Having fallen into the queen‘s ill favor, they worked in unventilated factory rooms for seventeen hours a day on nothing more than water and infla-rice—a food favored by the poor because each grain inflated in the stomach, making the recipient feel full.

It had been decreed that every Wonderlander was to have a three-foot-high porcelain and crystal statue of Redd in his residence, the set piece in a shrine to the queendom‘s ruler. Surprise spot checks by Redd‘s soldiers were not uncommon. Those in violation of the decree, anyone whose statue was not in pristine condition, found themselves hauled off to Blaxik, where—in a bit of irony Redd found pleasing—they were forced to make the statues until death descended upon them.

But tonight something was wrong. Production of the statues had been interrupted by a rebel attack. Periodic explosions rattled camp dormitories. Flares zoomed through the night, illuminating figures engaged in hand-to-hand combat. Card soldiers from Redd‘s technologically advanced, ultramodern army, known as The Cut, were trying to fend off the attack, which shouldn‘t have been so difficult considering that the rebels were nothing more than a hodgepodge of ex-Heart soldiers and Wonderland civilians. But the rebels had righteous anger working for them, which could be a better weapon than mere combat skills, and among them was one who suddenly split in two so as to lend an extra body to the fight: Generals Doppel and Gänger, battling alongside a white knight, a white rook, and several pawns. The rebels called themselves Alyssians, in honor of the young princess who‘d been killed before her time, never able to ascend to the throne. Princess Alyss Heart: not alive in flesh and blood, but very much alive as a symbol of more innocent (though still imperfect) times, an icon of hope for peace‘s return.

Among the Alyssians, one particular soldier was making a name for himself with his growing military prowess and suicidal bravery. If this renegade didn‘t always mix with his rebel brethren, if he kept to himself when not engaged in battle, at least he was on their side. Better to have him as a friend than an enemy, as anyone who‘d seen him fight well knew. It was this renegade who broke away from the cover of the other rebels at the Battle of Blaxik. Without concern for his own well-being, and with sword glinting, he slashed his way through Redd‘s soldiers, who looked like ordinary playing cards (albeit larger) when unengaged, but who now fanned out as if the hand of a giant poker player was spreading them across the green baize of a gaming table.

Each card flipped open to form a soldier almost twice the height of an average Wonderland male, with limbs of steel and a brain that understood little more than how to follow orders in combat.

One by one, the renegade aimed the point of his blade at the soldiers‘ upper chests, their single vulnerable spot (a medallion-sized area above the breastplate, at the base of the steel-tendoned neck); a direct hit cut through vital inner workings and sent sparks flying, killing them. He fired a cannonball spider at the doors of the factory; in midair it mutated from ball to massive black spider and tore through the doors. As the renegade slashed and hacked at Redd‘s soldiers, the slave workers were able to flee across the plain into the Everlasting Forest.

A burning dormitory illuminated the renegade‘s face: handsome and rugged, with four parallel scars visible on his right cheek. Dodge Anders. Only fourteen years old but fighting like a grown man.

A handful of years had passed since Redd‘s initial invasion of Heart Palace, and the chaos that resulted from her takeover of the queendom had settled into a new order. Upon hearing of Redd‘s coup and fearing the kind of ruler she‘d be, many citizens had immediately packed their bags and tried to emigrate to Boarderland, that independent country separated from Wonderland by the tangled expanse of Outerwilderbeastia and overseen by King Arch. But whether these would-be emigrants didn‘t bribe Boarderland‘s border officials generously enough, or Redd had anticipated an exodus among the cowards of the population and made an agreement with King Arch, no one was able to leave. All were stuck in Wonderland, forced to endure the teeth of Redd‘s anger. Entire families were shipped off to labor camps or, worse, exterminated. Others, who hadn‘t attempted to flee the country but nonetheless had issues with Redd being queen, heard about the Alyssians and fled what they knew of normal life to join the resistance.

Redd chose to rule the queendom from her fortress on Mount Isolation. The fortress served as a constant reminder of her years in exile and unjust banishment at the hands of her dear departed sister, and thus was a spur to her ruthless methods. Soon after her coronation, and very hush-hush, Redd had the Heart Crystal moved to the fortress, and she could feel it now, shimmering in its secret chamber as she paced back and forth, listening to Bibwit Harte recite pages of In Queendom Speramus, which she was rewriting, the tutor acting as her secretary.

―…the queendom had always been a naïve, optimistic place,‖ Bibwit read. ―It was as if Wonderland were run by girls and boys—‖

―By children,‖ Redd corrected.

―—by children who had yet to put away their childish toys and face the harsh realities of the universe.‖

―Good,‖ Redd said. ―Now continue: A universe in which only the cruelest survive, a jabberwock-eat-jabberwock universe, so to speak.‖

The pointed tip of Bibwit‘s quill scurried against the royal papyrus. The Cat entered the room.

―Yes?‖ Redd asked.

The Cat hissed, ―Blaxik has fallen and the slaves escaped. The Alyssians were responsible.‖

Redd clenched her fists. Items around the room began to quiver. The Alyssians: a boil on the face of her reign, a thorn in the fist of her rule. Why hadn‘t The Cut done away with them already? Weapons and furnishings, anything not bolted down, shook with her mounting fury.

Knowing her intolerance for failure, Bibwit Harte and The Cat hurried from the room.

―Yaaaaaaaaah!‖ Redd yelled, standing at the center of whirling chairs, lamps, swords, spears, platters, and books, a tornado brought forth from the bottomless well of her hateful imagination.

Blaxik attacked? Slaves freed? Heads were going to roll.

In the aftermath of the Blaxik battle, their adrenaline still pumping, Dodge and the white rook braved a walk through the teeming urban slum Wonderland had become to remind themselves why they fought. The rook camouflaged himself in a hooded coat, but Dodge refused to do likewise. He would not hide who he was from his enemies.

―I remember when Wonderlanders actually cared for this city,‖ the rook said as they picked their way along a sidewalk choked with litter. ―Streets were clean, roads swept. The curbside shrubs and flowers were always humming bouncy tunes.‖ He glanced at the curb: nothing but weeds and long-dead growth; all vegetation silent, killed by Naturcide, a chemical Redd had concocted specifically for that purpose. ―And you could get a hot, fresh tarty tart on every corner. I miss tarty tarts.‖

Dodge nodded. He had his own memories: the glittering, quartz-like buildings of Genevieve‘s time, the twinkling colors of towers and spires regularly cleaned and polished. Wonderland had been a gleaming, incandescent place, filled for the most part with hardworking, law-respecting citizens. Now everything was covered with grime and soot. Poverty and crime had oozed out of the back alleys and taken over the main streets, and anything bright and luminescent had to hide itself away in the nooks and crannies of the city.

―Let‘s cross the street,‖ the rook suggested.

Dodge saw why: Ahead of them, a fight had broken out—two emaciated Wonderlanders attacking a third. Probably an imagination-stimulant deal gone bad. Dodge and the rook could never walk more than a few streets without witnessing a brawl. It was best not to approach, to not draw attention to themselves.

They crossed the street and came to a corner crowded with smoky gwormmy-kabob grills and crystal smugglers hawking contraband. Dodge tried to call to his senses the aroma of freshly baked tarty tarts. Hadn‘t his father bought him one on this very corner? His sense-memory failed him. Impossible to enter into the past. Underneath the shouts and horns that echoed through the streets, he heard a disembodied voice speaking ―Reddisms‖ from loudspeakers mounted overhead. The Redd way is the right way. As in the beginning, there was Redd, so in the end Redd shall be. Three-dimensional faces on holographic billboards told of the latest crackdowns and taxations. Piped in from who knew where played the background music of Wondertropolis‘

free fall into decay. It seemed to come from every crack in the pavement, every pothole in the street, every crevice in the time-battered buildings: a composition on infinite repeat, featuring lyrics Redd had written herself, which sang her praises as Wonderland‘s savior.