Bargain price

CHAPTER 12

“P OINT YOUR feet down!” Hatter shouted, holding himself as straight as he could. He knew that if he and Alyss didn’t hit the water with as little impact as possible, it would be like landing on a sheet of diamond and they’d be killed.

Alyss barely had time to do as he instructed before they shot deep into the pool. She lost her grip on the Millinery man. He reached for her, but she panicked, flailing, and then she was out of reach. Falling deeper underwater, she opened her eyes, saw nothing but foam and a rush of bubbles, and shut them again, not wanting to face the unknown. Just when she thought that she couldn’t hold her breath any longer and would drown in the depths, she stopped and reversed directions, heading up toward the surface with the same force and speed as her descent.

Whoosh!

She was out of the water and in the air, cannonballing out of a dirty puddle in the middle of a street where

a parade was taking place. People dressed in various shades of dull, with strange, anonymous faces, were crowding the pavements and applauding her.

All these jumping and spinning and juggling people. And…are those soldiers? She had been mistaken for a member of a gypsy troupe tumbling and twirling and performing magic tricks alongside a marching regiment.

“Bravo! Bravo!” the crowd applauded.

Five bowler hats, an ivory-tipped cane, a pair of tortoiseshell eyeglasses, a rolled-up newspaper, a potato, and two plates of steak and kidney pie took to the air and circled overhead. The rolled-up newspaper smacked into a boy sitting on his father’s shoulders. One woman ended up with pie in her face. Dazed, Alyss didn’t even realize it was her imagination that had caused the objects to take flight. She was keeping her eye on the dirty puddle, hoping Hatter would appear. Then a gilded open carriage pulled by eight horses decked out in jeweled harnesses splashed through the puddle and she caught a glimpse of a woman-a queen, surely it was a queen!-inside, waving to the crowds.

“Mother?”

It was possible. Genevieve might have arrived in this world before her. If anyone could do it… And maybe being a queen in one world meant you were recognized as such in another? Alyss forgot about the dirty puddle and chased after the carriage, at which point the bowler hats, eyeglasses, cane, potato, and steak and kidney pie dropped to the ground.

“Mother! Mo-ther, wait!”

She weaved her way through the parading soldiers toward the queen’s carriage. The soldiers bumped and elbowed her.

“Get lost, brat.”

“Away with you, dirty urchin.”

She hardly noticed. She was gaining on the carriage. Her mother would see her, order her lifted up onto the equipage’s plush cushion, and they would be reunited. It had been a test, Genevieve would say, Alyss’ first test as future queen and nothing more.

She was within a hundred feet of the carriage when, having reached the end of the parade route, it abruptly turned into a side street and picked up speed, the entrance to the street blocked by a line of soldiers to prevent anyone from following. With as much pride as she could muster, armed with a firm belief in her own entitlement (she was a princess), Alyss approached the soldiers standing guard.

“Where is that carriage going?”

No answer. Maybe they hadn’t heard her? She was about to ask again when one of the soldiers deigned to look in her direction and, judging by the look on his face (as if someone had shoved a smelly radish under his nose), he was not impressed by Alyss’ rough-and-tumble appearance. Alyss glanced down at her dress, torn by The Cat and wet from the Pool of Tears. She looked far from regal.

“To Buckingham Palace. Where d’ya think?” he said.

But Alyss wasn’t thinking, events still following too closely and too quickly one after another for her to make much sense of them. Buckingham Palace was simply the place where her mother had gone.

“And where is the palace?” she asked.

“You don’t know where Buckingham Palace is?”

“If you don’t tell me, I can make life difficult for you.”

This amused the soldier. “That right? And why should I tell you where the palace is? Like as not, you’re after doing the queen some harm.”

“I am Princess Alyss Heart. The queen is my mother and-”

“Your-? Well, well.” The soldier turned to the fellow standing next to him, who had overheard everything. “Heh, George. This girl here says her mother’s the queen.”

“You don’t say?” said George, turning to the soldier next to him. “Timothy, you hear that? This little girl’s mother’s the queen. You and me’d have to die protecting her, I suppose.”

“All hail the royal lady,” Timothy said, bowing. The soldiers laughed.

Nothing was worse than imagination used in the service of anger, Alyss knew, but these soldiers were too disrespectful. It may have been the distorting properties of her anger, or the muck of this alien city, but when she imagined the soldiers’ mouths sewn shut, their coats and breeches tore at the seams instead.

Thinking they had split their uniforms from laughing so hard, the soldiers laughed even harder.

Alyss’ anger drained out of her, leaving her sad and doubtful. Could it be that her mother hadn’t been in the carriage? Hadn’t she seen her mother burst into a thousand fragments, leaving only blackness, nothingness in her place? And why had her imagination failed her?

Without realizing it, she walked away from the soldiers. “Hatter?” she called.

But there were only strangers, clots of them conversing on the pavements, others hurrying on their way to who knew where. There was only the grime and soot and horse-dung stink of the streets.

“Hatter!”

She had to get back to the puddle that had landed her in this world. It could reunite her with Hatter, maybe even return her to Wonderland. She retraced her steps. But the street was mottled with so many puddles. What if she’d gone too far and passed it? Everything appeared equally unfamiliar. Could she have covered so much distance while chasing the carriage? What if she never found the puddle? What would happen when the sun broke through the clouds?

If she stopped to think about what she was going through…No, don’t. Her father murdered. Her mother most likely dead. Sir Justice Anders’ throat torn open. And Dodge, her best friend…But don’t think about it. Don’t! Stuck in this alien place. Alone. Don’t-

She had to be strong. She was a princess, the future Queen of Wonderland. She shouldn’t weep like a baby.

She took a running start toward the nearest puddle, jumped, and landed in the middle of it, splashing herself and a lady and gentleman walking past.

“Oaf! Good heavens!” the woman protested.

The man made as if to chase after Alyss, but she had already stamped out of the puddle and was sprinting toward another. She jumped into it and thoroughly soaked a dapper young chap who’d just come from a visit with his tailor.

“Ugh! This cravat alone is worth more than you, you beastly thing!”

Alyss splashed from puddle to puddle, squeezing shut her eyes as she took to the air and imagining hard that she was back in Wonderland, opening her eyes as she came down, sprays of water going every which way, only to find that she was still in this alien world.

I’ll never find my way home. Never ever EVER!

All hope gone, she jumped up and down in a single puddle, yelling, “No! No! No!” until it was impossible to tell which were her tears and which splotches of street water.

“You taking a bath or what?” said a boy watching from a safe distance, out of splashing range.

She stopped jumping, sniffed. The boy wore gray breeches patched at the knees and thighs, a frock coat much too big for him, the tail of which reached down practically to his heels, and cracked leather boots with no laces.

“I’m Princess Alyss Heart of Wonderland,” she said defiantly.

“Yeah, and I’m Prince Quigly Gaffer of Chelsea. That’s one loony outfit you’re wearing.”

She looked down at her damp, dirty birthday dress: a flouncy thing, tight at the waist and poofing out below her knees in a cumbersomely wide circle, its collar high and floppy and ruffled. It was decorated with appliqued hearts, in colors only available in Wonderland, and the dress was a rare sight even there, where it would be taken from the princess’ wardrobe and aired only once a year, the royal tailors refitting it to accommodate Alyss’ growing body.

“It’s all I have,” she said, which started her crying again.

Quigly considered her for a moment. Even smudged with dirt and scum, and with tears leaking out of her eyes, there was something about the girl that intrigued him. She seemed brighter than everything around her. It was as if she were lit from within by a lantern that shone faintly through the pores of her skin.

“Better come with me if you want dry clothes, Your Majesty,” he said.

He started to walk off. Alyss hesitated. Half a block away, Quigly turned. “Off we go!” he called, waving for her to follow.

She looked around one last time for Hatter, then abandoned her puddle. She couldn’t afford not to have a friend.