[Juliet]

O, be some other name!

What's in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet; . . .

—William Shakespeare,

The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet,

Act II: Scene 2

“Alice and the Mad Tryst”

By Linda Kouri

Part I: ‘Alice’

1

Yes, we’ve all heard of that famous Alice who fell down the rabbit hole and entered the looking-glass and the real Alice Liddell who inspired the books and crossed the Atlantic to visit America and lived to a ripe old age. And some of us have heard of the American Alice Lee who entered a hidden door between the washstand and the table or the doomed Alice Pyncheon who entered a haunted house of seven gables or the impoverished Alice Fell who received a new cloak on her way to Durham or the magician Alice Margatroid who lived in a magical forest. And a select few of us have known other women named Alice, unknown to the world at large save for family and close friends and chance acquaintances within our private circles at home and abroad.

Indeed, I even met a tragic specimen of that noble epithet during one of the darker episodes of my life. Whether or not this particular ‘Alice’ became the heroine of her own story, these pages must show, for I can do no more than write.

The rest is up to you, dear reader.

2

Through the double doors stepped a different Alice wearing a mask over her face and a cloak over her sky-blue Sunday dress, passing the threshold of the ballroom amidst a crowd of other masqueraders that were looking up to the mezzanine above the ballroom floor. This Alice followed their gazes and spied a masked man in a white suit over a black shirt with black gloves covering his hands as he greeted his guests from above. And all around her arose the salutations of another name that Alice had never heard before, and she wondered if the name was an alias.

Beneath the lights of the chandeliers over the ballroom, the masked man’s entrance filled the room with a gray mist flooding the floor around Alice standing in the crowd. The man descended the grand staircase and entered amongst his onlookers, who backed away in deference to his presence.

Alice moved with the crowd of masqueraders but noticed some of them turning their masked faces towards her, glancing at her as if she was a blemish on flawless skin.

“Ah,” the man said, spying her out amongst the crowd, “it seems we have an uninvited guest in our midst,” and where his gaze fell, the masqueraders parted away from Alice, who stood alone before him, the observed of the observers amidst many whispers amongst the crowd of onlookers. “What’s your name, darling?”

“Why should I tell you?” Alice said.

So the man turned to his audience in the ballroom and said, “Comrades, what do you think I should do with this intruder?”

And the crowd responded with “Off with her head!” and “Death by a thousand cuts!” and even “Feed her to the dogs!” and other suggestions of a similar bent, but none of these suggestions seemed to interest the man.

Thus, the man raised his hand, and the whole ballroom went silent. Afterwards, he stretched forth his hand and manifested a long dagger and approached Alice, who backed away from him, so he said, “Stand where you are, darling, for you have nothing to fear from me.”

“Are you sure?” she said, still backing away. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

“Then I’ll prove it to you with my name,” he said and held the dagger with his palms up as if he were presenting a trophy to her. “My name is Prince Prospero, and I have been waiting for you to come here for longer than you can imagine. Take it. It’s yours.”

Alice paused on his offer, looking at the man’s intent gaze on her before grasping the dagger in her hand.

Then he manifested a sword-cane and drew out the blade and said, “Kneel, darling.”

Again, Alice paused for a moment, looking into his intent gaze as if trying to decipher the meaning it held, and submitted herself to his whims and kneeled.

He placed the blade of his cane-sword atop both of her shoulders, knighting her with his actions, and said, “I dub you, stranger, the honor of killing these cowards around you,” and he turned his attention back to his audience of masqueraders amidst several horrified gasps. “Now that I have your attention, everyone, you shall all submit yourselves to her blade to prove your loyalty to me!”

A flurry of supplications and complaints and explanations erupted from the crowd, begging him for mercy, asking him what they could do to redeem themselves.

“This is your redemption,” he said, “but redemption requires sacrifice unto death, for death claims us all. Just as Christ died for you to save your miserable selves from going to Hell, so too must you all shake off your mortal coils to allow your souls to float towards Heaven,” and he turned to Alice and said, “Have at it, darling. They’re all yours.”

So Alice gripped the dagger in her hand and took off her mask in front of everyone in the room, who all scattered away from her when they all saw her basilisk glare and the slasher’s smile on her face.

The next several moments were filled with the screams of running masquerades fleeing towards the double doors, shut against the crowd crush of wave after wave of them clawing at the handles and banging the paneling at one end of the ballroom. She sprinted through the crowd, slashing through blurs of flesh in bloody sprays like death on two legs, then wheeled on her feet with her dagger arcing across stomachs and flailing forearms and screaming throats, scattering the crowd away from the double doors towards the grand staircase and the mezzanine. She repeated the process, diving through masses of regrouping masqueraders and wheeling on her feet and swinging her blade through flesh, scattering them anew and depleting their numbers from the ballroom floor and up the stairs and into the mezzanine. And one by one, as their collective screams began to ebb beneath the flickering light of the chandeliers above the ballroom, the parquet floor and the staircase and the mezzanine ran slick with the blood of the slain. And when she finally dispatched the last crying snot-nosed specimens of humanity at the base of the stairs, Alice was huffing and puffing and winded, barely able to hold onto the dagger.

The dagger fell from her grip, clanging to the floor and spattering more blood.

“Come here, darling,” Prince Prospero said atop the mezzanine. “I want to show you something up here.”

So Alice walked up the grand staircase on worn feet, trudging like a battle-weary soldier through mud, and when she reached the top landing and entered the mezzanine, she saw Prince Prospero standing beside the Hearts mirror against the wall.

“A mirror?” she said.

“Not just any mirror,” Prince Prospero said, “but a mirror that reveals the truth. See for yourself.”

She peered at the mirror and saw her own reflection, yet her cloak and sky-blue Sunday dress were not splattered with blood. She looked down at herself and saw the evidence of her crime imprinted on her clothes and smelled the reek of it in her nostrils, but on looking into the mirror, she saw herself without the stain of her crime on her.

“What is this?” Alice said. “Why am I not bloody?”

“Because this mirror reveals the truth,” he said. “So I’ll ask you again. What is your name?”

“Alice,” she said.

“Oh no, darling,” he said. “Give me your real name, the name you were first born with, the name your mother gave you.”

She turned and faced him, saying, “Why should I tell you?”

“Because I know what it’s like to wander this godless world in search of a family to call your own,” he said. “I know what it’s like, because I have been searching for a new family after my old family had abandoned me. And lo and behold! After years of searching and pining, I finally have the honor of your presence gracing this abode, daughter of Lilith, daughter of Night, daughter of Adam’s first wife.”

“Tell me yours first,” she said.

He then grasped her hand and kneeled as if he were proposing to her and said, “Some people call me Prince Prospero or Mr. Prospero, but everybody else calls me Dracula, son of the Dragon, son of the Devil, Vlad the Impaler, and many more besides, but I go by the name of Vlad III,” and he kissed her knuckles like a suitor.

Now it was her turn, so Alice looked at the mirror once more that showed her unstained self in the reflection, then turned back to him and said, “My name is ——————.”

A grin stretched across the man’s face, and he said, “Ah, but to me, my child, you will always be my Bambina.”

And all at once, she grimaced at something spasming in her breast, squinting her eyes shut and gritting her teeth against the pain and saying, “Arrrrrgh! Damn you, what did you do to me?”

“I’ve only set you free, Bambina, free from the pain of countless lifetimes of searching,” Prince Prospero said and pulled her into a familial embrace. “I’ve been searching for you for centuries, and now that you’re here, I have someone to call my own, and you’ve finally found a home. The search is over, darling. No more running, no more loneliness. The only tears you’ll shed from now on are tears of joy, I promise you.”

And for the first time since her primordial mother had abandoned her countless lifetimes ago, she clung to her prince and cried her first genuine tears since birth. And in that embrace, she felt a cleaving in her soul, as if the pain of her guilt and sorrow and loneliness had been cut away and cast into the fire, and she felt lighter and more carefree and gay.

Yet when she looked up at the mirror’s reflection, she saw her doppelgänger wearing her bloodstained cloak and Sunday dress and banging her fist against the reflection on the other side of the mirror. She was trying to tell her something, trying to remind her of something she had just given away with her own breath as if she had somehow condemned herself when she fell for Prince Prospero’s promise to be free.

Who is she? Alice thought to herself.

Then Prince Prospero took her hand and said, “Come, Bambina. Leave that reflection be and come with me.”

“Where to, my Prince?” Alice said, paying her reflection no more heed, and walked with her prince down the stairs from the mezzanine and past the corpses of the newly slain and towards the open double doors of the ballroom.

“To the Scholomance,” Prince Prospero said, “where Lucifer himself teaches the tricks of the trade to the Solomonari for the next seven years. Count yourself lucky, Bambina, for he only selects ten individuals to be his pupils every seven years, and you’ve just killed all the candidates for the tenth spot.”

“I see,” Alice said. “Is this Lucifer the—”

“Yes, Bambina, he’s the Devil himself,” he said, “but don’t worry too much about that. He’s been around for countless ages, and he’s a bit of a crank because of that, but you’ll get used to it, I promise.”

“How do you know?” she said.

“I’m one of his alumni,” he said and crossed the threshold of the double doors, hand in hand with Alice. “In fact, he called me up earlier today and asked me to find the tenth student, and lo and behold! I found you. . . .”

And for the time being, that particular Alice exited the pages of this story towards a dastardly school with a dastardly man to be taught by an even more dastardly man, leaving her doppelgänger trapped inside the mirror’s reflection. Yet as their echoing footfalls faded into the silence of the ballroom, this ‘Alice’ had given up pounding on the surface of her prison-like mirror and began crying. It was this ’Alice’ I met in the mirror at the start of my journey, and this is her story.

3

‘Alice’ collapsed to her knees when the mirror before her disappeared from view. After that, she sat with her back against the wall and pulled her legs up to her chest, then rested her elbows atop her knees and cradled her forearms and hands on her bowed head, her cheeks bedewed in a slick of tears. The salt of those tears made her squint and rub her eyes, yet through it all, she kept her gaze onto the floor and thought of her doppelgänger’s actions that had gotten her trapped inside this mirror world.

She looked at the palm of her left hand and curled it into a fist, feeling the residual traces of the dagger her doppelgänger had used on those unfortunate masqueraders and trembling as their last moments shuddered through her astral clasp. Never in her life had she used a dagger, let alone killed anyone with it, as if the actions of her doppelgänger had been determined the moment she took that man’s dagger from his hands.

Pulling from these thoughts, she picked herself up and surveyed her surroundings. Apart from the mirror and the enclosure of a dead end blocking her way, ‘Alice’ found herself in an alley leading the other way, where she saw hanging paper lanterns throwing a warm glow over the street ahead, swinging in the breeze beneath a blood moon looming just above the horizon like the eye of a vengeful god. And below that moon and these swaying lanterns, all the shop lights were lit and full of customers and all the doors open and teeming with the foot traffic of ghosts and yokai and other manner of otherworldly entities mingling in the night.

Some ghosts were in bowlers and derby hats and sack suits and ulsters and loafers, and others were in wide-brimmed hats and long hobble skirts and tailored jackets and gloves and muffs, and still others were in berets and sailor shirts and overcoats and knickerbockers or sailor pants, and yet more were in large hats and overcoats and knee-length skirts. And several yokai and yurei were in kimono and hanfu clothes, while other yokai had adopted Western clothes, adding an oriental flair to the hodgepodge of fashions in this . . . whatever this was.

For the life of her, ‘Alice’ couldn’t make heads or tails of her current location, nor the strange ghost of a man looking her way at the curb of a nearby storefront, blending into the scene in a derby hat and a sack suit and an ulster.

So she discarded her bloodstained cloak in a nearby trash bin and approached this man, waving her hands and saying, “Excuse me, sir. Are you looking for someone?”

This ghost tipped his hat to her and said, “Yes, miss. I am.”

“Do you know where this is?” ‘Alice’ said.

The ghost gave her an appraising look and said, “You’re not from around these parts, are you?”

She nodded that she wasn’t. “What is this place?”

“This is the Limehouse district in the Phantom Realms,” the ghost said and looked at the many passersby around him, then stretched out his hand to her. “Come with me, miss. This is no place for a lost one like you.”

‘Alice’ hesitated on his offer and said, “I’m not lost.”

“Are you sure?” he said, but when ‘Alice’ said nothing, the ghost added, “Look around you, miss. Everyone here who’s not lost has a place to go, except for you. It’s not good to loiter around these parts for long, lest you attract unsavory sorts your way. Come along, miss, and I’ll show you a place to eat if you want.”

So ‘Alice’ took his hand and walked silently beside him for a time along the street, walking past several yokai and yurei eyeing the two as they passed.

“What’s your name?” ‘Alice’ said.

“Edward Foster,” the ghost said. “And yours?”

“‘Alice,’” she said.

“No surname?” Mr. Foster said.

The girl shook her head and said, “Where are we going?”

“To a restaurant,” he said. “I know a place where they serve some good ramen at a bargain price. Feeling hungry?”

And for the first time in a while, ’Alice’ smiled and nodded, looking forward to something to eat.

And so, for the next several minutes, the pair passed along the teeming thoroughfare, hand-in-hand, turning many corners along the intersections and going down more thoroughfares overhung with glowing paper lanterns. All the while, ‘Alice’ kept gazing up at her newly-acquired companion, noticing his furtive glances at the rooftops ahead and in the windows they passed.

“What are you looking for?” ‘Alice’ said.

“Anything out of place,” he said.

“Why?” she said. “Is something the matter?”

“Maybe,” he said and turned down another corner into another thoroughfare overhung with more glowing paper lanterns, pulling ‘Alice’ along at a faster pace, and glancing up at more rooftops and into more nearby windows.

While her companion continued his vigilance throughout their mad tryst past various street side shops and vendors and cafes, ‘Alice’ noticed something else. Along the way, as the bustling of ghosts and yokai and yurei began to dwindle with every corner they passed and every thoroughfare they entered, ‘Alice’ turned behind her and saw red musketeer doppelgängers of herself dropping back further from view.

She paused for a moment, looking behind her, yet Mr. Foster pulled her along along the curb into a long row of restaurants and cafes and bars, saying, “No straggling, miss. We’re almost there.”

“Almost where?” she said.

But the man kept silent as he walked, quickening his pace to a trot, making ‘Alice’ jog beside him to keep up, till she almost tripped herself up when he stopped at a ramen shop on the edge of a square that was starting to fill with customers.

“Here we are, miss. And just in time, too,” her companion said and stepped aside and opened the door for her with the flourish of a practiced gentleman. “Ladies first.”

‘Alice’ smiled again and entered.

4

It’s said that the table where we eat is the great equalizer, where everyone who sits can participate in the cherished pastime of eating and drinking to their hearts’ content, to be merry and shed their worries for a while. Such was true for ‘Alice’ and her companion, both seated at a table on the sidewalk, both eating ramen and sashimi mixed with soy sauce and wasabi and chasing each bite down with a gulp from their glasses, green tea for ‘Alice’ and saké for Mr. Foster.

Meanwhile, the other customers were seated on chairs or nearby ledges underneath the marquee of the ramen shop, outdoor tables spread out into the sidewalk and filled with late night after-dinner customers partaking of ramen bowls and glasses and sashimi platters and saucers of wasabi and soy sauce, all of them yokai or yurei or foreign ghosts on their tour into the oriental realms of the Phantom Realms. And out into the street were phantom rickshaws pulling up in the square beyond the street, where more late-night customers filed into a long line of customers waiting to get their orders from the shop.

They continued eating in silence, till ‘Alice’ finished eating the last bamboo shoots and bean sprouts with a spoon after gulping down the shoyu broth from her bowl. She then looked up at Mr. Foster using chopsticks to dip a slice of sashimi into a wasabi-mixed saucer of soy sauce, coating it and putting it into his mouth with a practice air.

’Alice’ had never tried sashimi before and said, “Is it good?”

“Indeed, it is,” Mr. Foster said. “Try some.”

So the girl tried to use the chopsticks the way her companion did, but she couldn’t hold the chopsticks in one hand. Hence, she had used a fork and spoon when she ate her ramen, twirling it around her fork like spaghetti and eating it the gaijin way.

Mr. Foster smiled at her attempt and said, “You’ve never used chopsticks before?”

‘Alice’ shook her head, placed the chopsticks aside and picked up her fork and stabbed a piece of sashimi from the platter and dipped it into the wasabi-drenched soy sauce.

“Careful now,” Mr. Foster said, smiling at her. “The wasabi is a bit strong.”

‘Alice’ just looked at him for a moment, then ate it and felt heat spreading through her nose and into her eyes, till her eyes welled up with tears, and her throat hitched into coughs. She covered her mouth as the heat faded into something like a pungent cough drop clearing her nasal passages, almost choking on the fish sliding down her throat.

“I told you it’s strong,” her companion said, chuckling a bit at her expense. “How do you like it?”

‘Alice’ glared and said, “It’s too strong.”

So her companion obliged her, taking a small bottle of soy sauce and adding it to the saucer of wasabi, and said, “There. It’s not as strong now. Have another go at it.”

‘Alice’ tried again, stabbing another slice with her fork and dipping it into the saucer of diluted wasabi, and ate it. This time, the flavor of the soy sauce cut through the heat with a savory flavor that added to the flavor of the sashimi.

“Good, isn’t it?” Mr. Foster said.

‘Alice’ swallowed and took another swig from her green tea, then nodded her head and said, “Do you go here often?”

“On the weekends, yes,” Mr. Foster said, then peered out across the square at the bunches of customers still waiting in line. “It’s quite busy tonight, too.”

But ‘Alice’ cut through the small talk and said, “Who were you looking for on our way here?”

“Oh, the inquisitive girl, are you?” he said and looked out across the square again, staring at nothing in particular. “It’s not who, my dear, because the ones pursuing us are not people, per se. They’re clones of the original.”

“And who’s the original?” she said.

“You are,” he said and got up from his chair. “Come on, now. We don’t have time dawdling, ‘Alice.’”

So ‘Alice’ got up and said, “Where are we going now?”

“To Wonderland,” he said, then raised his hand. “Waiter, we’re done here!” And when the waiter came up to them with the bill of service on the platter and two fortune cookies, the man paid and added a tip and gave one of the cookies to ‘Alice,’ then broke his open and read the contents of his fortune: “‘Sceptre and crown / Must tumble down!’ This doesn’t give us much to work with. What about yours? Let’s see what you have.”

So ‘Alice’ broke her fortune cookie open and read the slip of paper: “‘Memories are the architecture of our identity.’” She then looked up at her companion and said, “What does this mean?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I guess we’ll just have to figure out what our fortunes mean on our own. Come on,” and he left the table and headed into the street, and ‘Alice’ followed after him and grabbed his hand.

And hand in hand with her companion, ‘Alice’ kept thinking back to her doppelgänger’s actions in the ballroom beyond the mirror and wondered over the words of her fortune. For the life of her, she couldn’t remember the name her doppelgänger had given to Mr. Prospero in that ballroom, nor could she make out the syllables on the movement of her lips. All she could fathom was the exquisite sense of relinquishing something that had once belonged to her, something that was hers to keep in the memory of someone dear to her, something that was now in the possession of a stranger.

And again Mr. Foster continued his vigilant lookout at the rooftops and the windows of the buildings they passed, while something compelled ’Alice’ to ask something.

“Mr. Foster,” she said, “have you heard of Mr. Prospero?”

Her walking companion stopped dead in his tracks and turned to her, saying, “Where did you hear that name?” Yet before she had a chance to speak, the man put his finger to her lips and said, “Not yet. There are too many eyes and ears around us.”

So ‘Alice’ followed Mr. Foster out of the warm overcast of the hanging paper lanterns into the gloom of a side alley between an izakaya bar and a bustling cafe.

He then reached into a pocket of his ulster and pulled out a small vial and cupped her hands around it.

“What are you doing?” ‘Alice’ said.

“Listen to me,” he said. “Think of the place you want to go, and I will bring you there.”

So ‘Alice’ thought of the ballroom where her doppelgänger had killed those masqueraders with Mr. Prospero’s dagger, but then thought of Wonderland where the Red and White Queens had invited her when she was ten after that godless night of pain and tears when her father had . . .

‘Alice’ shook away these thoughts and said, “Thought of it.”

Mr. Foster then took the vial and threw it against the wall of the building, whereon a swirling kaleidoscope of ever-shifting images manifested before their feet. He said, “You go, and I’ll delay our pursuers as long as I can.”

“But they’ll—”

He put a finger to her lips again and said, “There’s a reason why you and I are here. You’re here to find your way, and I’m here to help you get there,” and before her eyes, Mr. Foster’s form glowed and shifted into the wizened form and the flowing robes of Chuang Chou, the Chinese philosopher. “You may not know me very well, but I’ve known you and Prince Prospero years ago. He’s a dangerous man, ‘Alice,’ more dangerous than you know. So whatever you do on the other side, don’t fall for his tricks. Now get going!”

That’s when an uproar of voices arose from several blocks away, rising from the normal hubbub of the teeming thoroughfares, so ‘Alice’ ran towards the portal and jumped in—

5

And fell down and down the rabbit hole of unconscious sleep, down through the slow-wave madness of repressed emotions flooding up her soul with sensations of horror dancing on the edges of her thoughts over the pain between her legs she had sustained on that godless night, till she became a child again. Yet as the pain there subsided, she came to rest between the Red and White Queens telling her to wake up.

“Wake up, ————,” the Red Queen said.

“Akami?” ‘Alice’ said, rousing from her slow-wave slumber and looking on the blurry shape with the familiar voice.

“Please, open your eyes,” the White Queen said.

“Shiromi?” ‘Alice’ said as her vision came into focus on the queen to her left. “Is that you?”

She felt her hands cupped inside the hands of both queens kneeling on either side of her, the Red Queen to her right and the White Queen to her left. She looked down on her legs and found her dislocated leg intact, feeling no pain there, and looked up at her childhood companions.

She raised her hands to the sides of their clammy cheeks, wet with tears, and ‘Alice’ felt their warmth fading away as they themselves dissipated from view.

“Wait,” she said, “don’t go!”

“Remember our names, ————,” the Red Queen said.

And the White Queen repeated, “And we’ll remember yours . . .”

And their words and voices drifted away into the void of forgotten memories, forgotten to all except ‘Alice’ and her mother and Amelia Hearn and God, the Keeper of dreams from now till the end of her dream—

6

When a teenage ‘Alice’ opened her eyes to the gray hue of churning clouds against a backdrop of blue sky. Yet in her mind’s eye, still charmed with the dust of dreams, these clouds charged across the sky like a brigade of cavalrymen, suspending the heavens in a cloak of gun smoke and wafting it into her nose. Only, it wasn’t gun smoke she smelled: it was the ozone of a burgeoning storm. And when ‘Alice’ fully awoke, she found herself descending onto a field of pansies and lilies and kingcups and daisies and primroses and violets. Yet just as she came to rest, she realized she was not alone on this field.

She sat up and found two other girls lying on either side of her, both fast asleep in the nude, their faces still entranced with the charm of dreams. A strange feeling of déjà vu washed over her at the sight of them, yet their names remained a mystery to her just like her own.

She then reached out to touch them and wake them up, but her hands passed through their bodies. She looked at her hand, yet it seemed opaque and solid, so she patted her chest and stomach and ran her hands across her thighs and confirmed it for herself. She then touched the cool grass below her and ran her fingers over some of the nearby pansies and kingcups, confirming that this ground was solid to her and her sleeping companions.

‘Alice’ took another look at the two sleepers and ran her hands across their faces again, feeling their astral forms wafting through her fingers. She looked up at the storm clouds blotting out the last traces of blue, then turned back to the sleepers and said, “Sweet dreams, you two.”

‘Alice’ picked herself up and smoothed the creases in her Sunday dress and headed down the hill. She spied a yellow-brick road at the foot of the hill, and after reaching it, she followed it past a few fields of roses and irises and pansies and tulips and sweet peas and bluebonnets and violets, etc., till she heard someone calling out her name.

She stopped and looked left, and lo and behold! A Lory and an Eaglet were waving their feathery wings at her, calling her name again (“’Alice,’ over here!”) some distance away.

‘Alice’ stepped off the road into a field of roses and tulips and joined them, where the Lory said, “I haven’t seen you in a long time, ‘Alice.’ It’s so good to see you again.”

“How do you know my name?” she said.

“Because we’re your sisters,” the Eaglet said.

“But your birds,” she said.

“That’s right,” the Lory said. “Birds of a feather—”

“—flock together,” the Eaglet added.

“But I’m not a bird,” she said.

“You’re a ‘bird’ of a different kind, ‘Alice,’” the Lory said, “but that doesn’t make you any less our sister. Come with us,” and the Lory and the Eaglet started walking.

“Where to?” ‘Alice’ said and began walking with her newfound ‘sisters’ of the avian kind.

“To meet the Dodo,” the Eaglet said. “Whatever you’re looking for, ‘Alice,’ he can help you find it. By the way, where have you gone off to all this time?”

“Yes. Tell us,” the Lory added.

So ‘Alice’ told them about getting trapped inside a mirror and seeing the bodies of several masqueraders in the ballroom left dead at the hands of her doppelgänger with a dagger in her hand. And she told them about a strange man that had given her doppelgänger that dagger, a man going by many names, including Prince Prospero and Dracula and Vlad the Impaler.

“Whoa!” said the Lory and the Eaglet.

“Are you all right, dear sister?” the Lory said, halting and looking deep into her eyes.

“He didn’t go after you, did he?” the Eaglet added.

“He didn’t. Don’t worry,” ‘Alice’ said, “but there was another man I saw after that, a man I met in a strange night city with glowing paper lanterns hanging over the streets.”

“Sounds like a lovely place!” the Eaglet said.

“It was,” ‘Alice’ said.

“How was this other man?” the Lory said. “I hope he wasn’t like that other man.”

“He was a gentleman compared to him,” she said.

“Ooooh, really? What’s his name?”

“Edward Foster, I think,” she said, “but then . . .”

Her words drifted off.

“Then what?” the Eaglet said.

“He transformed into an old Chinese philosopher,” she said, “and he said he knew me and Prince Prospero. He got me over here before I had a chance to ask him what he meant. Do either of you know what I’m talking about?”

The Lory and the Eaglet shook their heads, but then the Lory said, “The Dodo might know, though. Come on.”

The Lory and the Eaglet continued walking, and ‘Alice’ followed. Along the way, the Lory and the Eaglet told her how they had met ‘Alice’ before in a deluge of her own tears. The Lory added that she and ‘Alice’ had come to a bit of a scrape on the Lory’s own age and warned ‘Alice’ to not ask her age again when they reached the Dodo’s house. Then it was the Eaglet’s turn, who told ‘Alice’ that the Dodo came up with the idea of a foot race going around and around in a circle to dry themselves off.

“Did that work?” ‘Alice’ said.

“It did,” the Eaglet said. “The Dodo is smart.”

“Yes,” the Lory added, “but not very sensible at times. In fact, at one time, he asked me a very impertinent question, indeed!”

‘Alice’ thought about it for a moment and said, “Did he ask about your age?”

“Yes!” the Lory said, getting all puffed up and ruffling her feathers. “That Dodo can be so uncouth, it’s embarrassing to be with him sometimes.”

And so the Lory went on to explain that the impetuous Dodo had wanted the Lory to act as a model for a photo album, in which he photographed her in various avian poses atop various seating arrangements. It was enough to drive her bats just talking about it. Thus, on and on the Lory went in a tirade that cowered ‘Alice’ and the Eaglet into a series of nods and ’Yes’ answers and ‘Um’ statements to heated rhetorical and non-rhetorical questions about her integrity as a bird.

7

Within sight of a grove of zelkova trees in the middle of a field of tiger-lilies and roses and daisies and violets and larkspurs, ‘Alice’ and her companions began talking about which flowers were their favorites. The Lory preferred tiger-lilies and pointed out orange clumps of them to ‘Alice’ on the field, while the Eaglet preferred larkspurs and pointed out clumps of tall stalks brimming with white and purple and blue and magenta varieties to ‘Alice’ as well. For ‘Alice,’ though, she preferred daisies and pointed out white and yellow varieties to her companions in little clumps here and there on the field, which brought up another topic.

“Ah, but these kinds of flowers are small varieties,” the Lory said. “I’ve seen a few giant tiger-lilies in my day, and let me tell you, they’re all uppity sorts when they start talking down at creatures like you and me.”

“That’s true about all giant flowers,” the Eaglet added. “They treat us as if we’re all tumbleweeds.”

“And it’s even worse for us birds,” the Lory said.

“Oh?” ‘Alice’ said. “Why’s that?”

“Because we can fly,” the Eaglet said, “and they can’t.”

“That’s why they’re so jealous of us,” the Lory added and entered the grove with the Eaglet and ‘Alice’ following after her. “Of course, I’m not generalizing all of them. There are decent exceptions, but most of them tend to be that way.”

“Exceptions?” ‘Alice’ said.

“Well,” the Lory said, turning from the surroundings and eying ‘Alice’ as if she were a partridge, “not exactly ’exceptions,’ per se, since they’re a bunch of sex-starved hussies just after they bloom, but they move like you and me.”

“Where did you hear that from?” she said.

“Oh, I didn’t hear, ‘Alice,’” the Lory said and caught her attention with a spark in her avian eyes. “I saw, and the more I look at you, the more steadfast I get. You look just like them, ‘Alice.’”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because we saw you with them,” the Eaglet added.

“What did you see, exactly?”

“When I was teaching my sister here to fly,” the Lory said, “we both flew over a field of giant lily buds and happened to spot you and another girl walking amongst them.”

“Wait a minute,” ‘Alice’ said, halting her steps and making her companions stop with her, as images of half-naked copies of herself flashed through her mind’s eye, which she blinked out of sight but not out of mind. “I . . . I don’t remember seeing a bunch of giant lily buds, nor do I remember walking with anyone here beside you two. Are you sure that’s what you saw?”

“Honest to God, we did,” the Eaglet said, “and by Heaven, it was a blasted sight!”

“We saw you looking inside one of the buds,” the Lory went on, “and that bud opened to reveal a copy of you, and all the other buds opened up revealing more copies of you. I bade my sister to avert her eyes, and we flew away, but not before we saw those little hussies do naughty things to the girl you’re with. It was horrible, absolutely horrible! You were screaming out her name, too, but I’m not sure—”

“It’s ‘Kendra,’ I think,” the Eaglet said.

“Yes, that’s it,” the Lory said. “You were screaming out ‘Kendra’ and trying to get to her. Don’t you remember?”

“No, I don’t,” ‘Alice’ said.

“Good!” the Lory said. “I’d be worried if you did.”

And with that, the trio of ‘birds’ walked on in silence through the grove of trees, each one keeping silent on the matter just discussed. That is, until they reached the end of the grove, and the scenery opened into a clearing in the woods, where ‘Alice’ found a quaint Victorian Queen Anne-style house with white walls and red accent trim moldings and a wrap-around front porch skirting it like a girl’s dress. And beneath the shade of that architectural dress of a porch was a big Dodo sitting, Indian-style, with his thick stubby legs resting over a round wicker table, enjoying a smoke from his pipe while reading a book in his feathery hands.

That’s when the Lory and the Eaglet waved their wings and called out to him (“Mr. Dodo, over here!”) and started skipping up the gravel walkway towards the front entrance. ‘Alice’ followed close behind as the Dodo looked up, put the book on the table, and said, “Ah, my favorite birds have come again to visit me! Come by, come by, and have a seat!”

And when all three took their seats on wicker chairs (the Lory and the Eaglet sitting opposite each other and ‘Alice’ sitting between them), the Dodo caught sight of his new guest and gaped, dropping the pipe from his mouth.

“My God, is that really you, ‘Alice’?” the Dodo said.

“Um,” ‘Alice’ said, “how do you know me?”

“You’ve visited us before,” he said, “but it’s been a few years since the last time, so I understand why you don’t readily recognize us.”

“If you’ve met me before,” she said, catching his quick eyes on herself, “then do you know my real name?”

“Of course,” the Dodo said. “You’re none other than ‘Alice Pleasance Liddell,’ and these two are your sisters, ‘Lorina Charlotte Liddell,’” he added, pointing at the Lory, “and ‘Edith Liddell,’” he added, pointing at the Eaglet.

“And what’s your name?” ‘Alice’ said.

“Take a guess,” he said and got up from the table, “and I’ll go get the tea and cups ready,” and he headed through the entrance door and into the kitchen, where they heard the clink and clatter of cups and saucers and silverware.

“He’s a bit eccentric,” she said.

“I know,” the Eaglet said, “but you’ll get used to it.”

“He’s a good man,” the Lory added, “though he does get on my nerves at times, but don’t tell him I said that. He’s a bit too sensitive for an old boy like him.”

And without warning, both of her avian companions transformed into young girls, with the Lory transforming into a long-haired young lady in a red Sunday dress and the Eaglet transforming into a wavy-haired little miss in a white one, while ‘Alice’ stood out in her soiled sky-blue one.

“We really are your sisters, ‘Alice,’” ‘Lorina’ said, “even when you don’t remember us.”

“And we’ve been waiting for your return,” ‘Edith’ added, “even when you don’t know it.”

‘Alice’ covered her gaping mouth with her hands, looking from one sister to the other with wide teary eyes, yet before she could say anything, the Dodo came in carrying a silver platter with a tea set for three and the kettle fresh from the stove and placing it on the table.

“Here’s the tea, girls,” the Dodo said and transformed himself into a curly-haired man in a dark waistcoat, vest, and bowtie around his collar. “Have you guessed yet?”

‘Alice’ just dropped her hands, revealing her gaping mouth, and said, “You’re Lewis Carroll?”

“Yes, that’s me!” he said, smiling as he sat down and began setting the cups on the saucers and pouring out steaming tea for his three visitors. “Don’t burn your lips now.”

So ‘Lorina’ and ‘Edith’ took up their cups and blew over the steaming brew before taking a sip, while ‘Alice’ could barely hold her cup steady in her trembling hands, till some of the tea sloshed onto the saucer and the table.

“I’m sorry,” ‘Alice’ said.

“That’s okay,” he said, getting a handkerchief from his vest pocket and wiping up the mess. “You don’t seem yourself today. Is there something bothering you, ‘Alice’?”

At first, the girl stayed silent for a spell, but at the urging of ‘Lorina’ and ‘Edith’ with reassuring words, ‘Alice’ took a deep breath and broke her silence, saying, “I found myself on the other side of a mirror, through which I peered and saw several masked individuals dead at the hands of another version of me with a bloody dagger. There was a man with her, too, a man dressed in a white suit, who gave her that dagger.”

Lewis Carroll stayed silent for a time, seeming to process her words through his mind, and said, “Did this man introduce himself to this other ‘version’ of you?”

“Yeah, he did,” she said. “He went by many names.”

“What were they?” he said.

“Mr. Prospero, Prince Prospero,” ‘Alice’ said, listing off the names she remembered at the time, “Dracula, and Vlad. There were other names, but I don’t recall.”

“Did he know anything about this other ‘version’ of you?” he said. “Or was he just bluffing?”

“I think he knew something, actually,” she said, peering up into Lewis Carroll’s gleaming dark eyes. “He called her the daughter of Lilith, the daughter of Night, and the daughter of Adam’s first wife, I think.”

“Those are just epithets, ‘Alice,’” he said. “How did she respond?”

“She seemed reluctant,” she said.

“As she should,” he said. “Then what happened?”

“It took a bit of coaxing,” ‘Alice’ said, “but she gave out her name, and this man did something to her. I’m not sure what he did, but he started calling her ‘Bambina.’”

“That’s Italian for ‘my child,’” he said, pausing for another spell, which got ‘Alice’ giddy in her seat. “Do you know the name that she gave him?”

Again, ‘Alice’ paused, thinking back to the silent movement of her lips that hid a name just hanging on the tip of her tongue, just out of her ability to recall it like a kiss on the wind. She kept thinking and thinking, yet her efforts were in vain, and she said, “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” he said.

“I don’t remember, okay?” she yelled, which prompted ‘Lorina’ and ‘Edith’ to scoot their chairs closer to ‘Alice’ and hug their arms around across her shoulders. Then ‘Lorina’ rubbed circles around her back, while ‘Edith’ cupped her hands over her own, and both sisters were telling her that it was going to be okay, though ‘Alice’ hadn’t a clue why she yelled like that. “Sorry.”

“That’s all right, ‘Alice,’” Lewis Carroll said. “We all have our tantrums, so it’s best to let them out when it becomes too much to bear.” Again he paused for another moment, then said, “Do you remember anything else that seemed out of place to you?”

“Anything?”

“Anything,” he said.

‘Alice’ gave it some thought, thinking back to her encounter with Mr. Foster in that crowded night city, and said, “Do you know a man named Edward Foster?”

“No,” he said. “Can’t say I have.”

“Well, just before I came here,” she said, “he helped bring me here, and he also warned me about Mr. Prospero.”

“As he should,” he said. “Go on.”

“Anyway,” she continued, “I saw Mr. Foster change into an old Chinese philosopher, but I’m not sure who.”

“Did you happen to catch his name?”

‘Alice’ shook her head.

“Too bad,” he said. “There are many Chinese philosophers out there, and many of them sharing the same surnames, if not the same kanji, but unless I have specifics, I’m afraid I can’t tell you much about this Mr. Foster fellow. Anything else?”

“Yeah, there’s one more thing,” ‘Alice’ said. “When I came here, I found two other girls with me, but they were asleep, and I couldn’t wake them up.”

“Where did you find them?” he said.

“On a hill close to a yellow-brick road,” she said.

“Take us there,” he said, getting up from the table and making his three visitors get up with him. “Maybe we can wake them up for you if you can’t.”

“Maybe,” she said, but she had her doubts as the group left the front porch and passed back through the grove of zelkova trees beneath the ever-darkening bellies of forming storm clouds. By the time they exited the grove of trees and crossed a field of tiger-lilies and roses and daisies and violets and larkspurs into another field of roses and tulips, they kept walking till they came within sight of the yellow-brick road. Once they gained the road, they followed it past a few more fields of roses and irises and pansies and tulips and sweet peas and bluebonnets and violets, etc., till they came within sight of the very hill ‘Alice’ had mentioned, yet the two girls she had seen were no longer there.

Instead, another man wearing a white suit over a black shirt with black gloves covering his hands was descending down the hill, twirling his cane around in a circle, coming close enough for ‘Alice’ and Lewis Carroll to recognize him at once.

“Get back to the house, girls,” Lewis Carroll said.

“But what about you?” ‘Alice’ said.

“I’ll be fine,” he said. “Just get back to the house and stay there. And whatever you do, keep the doors closed, till I get back. Now go!”

And off they ran—

8

While Lewis Carroll ascended the hill, saying, “Why are you here, Mr. Prospero?”

“Oh, just enjoying the scenery,” he said and planted his cane on the grass of the hill like a flag pole and looked at the surrounding countryside of checkerboard fields and round-topped hills and groves of trees, all of it under the distant rumble of thunder in the skies. “God, you have a beautiful imagination, Mr. Carroll. Or should I say, Mr. Dodgson?”

“Either name is fine with me,” Lewis Carroll said, “but tell me the truth: why are you here?”

Yet Mr. Prospero kept on observing the countryside streaked with the winding golden hue of the yellow-brick road, then smiled and said, “You’ve shared your vision with Mr. Baum, haven’t you? Like minds think alike, eh?”

“I’ve met him a few times,” Lewis Carroll said and then looked Mr. Prospero dead in the eyes. “Enough with the small talk already. Why are you here?”

Now Mr. Prospero took a few paces back and raised his hands in a placating manner, saying, “Impatience doesn't fit you, Mr. Dodgson. I did not come here to get into a scrape with you, for we’re both gentlemen here.” But then he looked around at this darkening mixture of Carroll’s Wonderland with a touch of Baum’s yellow-brick road running through it and said, “You have the mind of a child, Mr. Dodgson, a man-child who never grew up and never had any confidence with women his own age. So you’ve sated your lust by taking pictures of young girls and jacking off to—”

“STOP!” Lewis Carroll said, manifesting the Vorpal Sword in his hand and pointing it up at his foe’s throat, waves of his anger glowing off of him like smoke from his astral body.

“You’re nothing like me, Mr. Dodgson,” Mr. Prospero said and merely edged the tip of his blade away from his throat with his cane. “You only use a false name to hide your sordid and disgusting self behind a reputation of wholesome innocence, but I know what your head asks your heart.”

“You don’t know me, you fiend!” he said and attempted a thrust at his foe’s chest, yet the man parried it with his cane. So Lewis Carroll lunged forward with another trust, yet his opponent moved in a blur before his eyes and struck the point of Carroll’s blade into the ground, where it remained stuck. “You fiend! What have you done?”

“Like I said, I didn’t come here for a scrape,” Mr. Prospero said, yet Lewis Carroll had other plans and yanked at his Vorpal Sword over and over again as more thunder rumbled louder in the skies. He kept yanking at it over and over, yet the sword remained stuck in the ground like Excalibur in the Stone, so he glared at his foe, huffing and puffing. “I pity you, Mr. Dodgson. You’ve created this magnificent world in all its nonsensical wonder, yet the very man who created it is nothing more than a repressed man-child jacking off his own sword.”

“Damn you!” Lewis Carroll said, leaving his Vorpal Sword in behind, and ran up to his opponent with clenched fists, yet before he got in a good wallop on his foe’s grinning face, a stab of pain struck through his back and out of his chest, jolting his heart and bringing him down to his knees before Mr. Prospero. He put his hand to the wound on his chest as a gush of ectoplasm spilled from his astral body onto the grass and ran like a glistening river—

(of semen)

—over the pansies and lilies and kingcups and daisies and primroses and violets of the hill.

“You blew your load too soon, Mr. Dodgson,” his foe said. “Too bad for you, because you’ve just arrived at the best part,” and Mr. Prospero pointed his cane somewhere behind him.

So Lewis Carroll turned his head and saw a doppelgänger of ‘Alice’ with his own ectoplasm—

(semen)

—dripping from the dagger clutched in her hand. Yet this particular Alice seemed different from the ‘Alice’ he’d met back at his house, for this one had the roving predatory eyes of a she-wolf wearing the face and clothes he recognized so well. Yet in those eyes was mischief, hinting at forbidden desires coming to the surface like hellfire from unfathomable depths. And in those eyes, this shameless copy of ‘Alice’ carried a cesspool inside of bodily sensations that only wanted more, more of Lewis Carroll’s body, more of his heart, more of his soul.

A slasher's smile stretched across this doppelgänger’s face and lifted the hems of her sky-blue Sunday dress up her thighs and past her waist, yet he averted his eyes from the crime of his own dastardly thoughts on the child he loved like a daughter.

“I’m sorry, ‘Alice,’” he said, tears streaming down his ashen face. “I may think softly of you from time to time, but I’ve never done, nor will I ever do, anything to hurt you.”

Mr. Prospero came towards this shameless copy of ‘Alice’ and had her drop the hems of her dress, then bent down and kissed Alice Liddell on her forehead and said, “That’s enough, Bambina. You’ve done your part to a T, and I can only praise you for it. Now let me do mine.” He then turned and glared down at Lewis Carroll and said, “As you can see, she’s not your ‘Alice’ anymore, Mr. Dodgson. She’s mine.”

Yet Lewis Carroll kept his eyes on Alice Liddell and said, “Dear ‘Alice,’ please forgive me.”

Yet Alice turned her head away and hugged Mr. Prospero’s arm as if she were avoiding the leers of a lecherous man and said, “I don’t know you.”

So Mr. Prospero rubbed his free hand over Alice’s head, ruffling her hair, and stepped forward over and unsheathed his his blade from the hilt of his cane-sword, then pronounced Carroll’s crime for all of Wonderland to hear, saying, “Lewis Carroll, otherwise known as Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, you are hereby sentenced to eternity in Tartarus for the crime of thinking ‘softly’ on Alice Liddell and her sisters and all the other little girls you’ve befriended in your sordid life. What have you to say for yourself, you godless degenerate?”

He bent his head down, more tears dripping onto the grass, and said, “I’m sorry. As God as my witness, I never meant to hurt anyone,” and he turned to Alice still looking away from him. “Especially you, Alice.”

Yet Alice Liddell merely glanced at him and turned her face away again, while all around the lugubrious trio arose a chorus of voices, chanting, “Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!”

And before his eyes, the inhabitants of Wonderland appeared all around him on the hill: the White Rabbit; the Mouse; the Duck; Pat the Ape; Bill the Lizard; the Puppy; the Duchess; the Mad Hatter; the March Hare; the Dormouse; the Gryphon; the Mock Turtle; the Knave of Hearts; the King of Hearts; and all the other playing cards from the deck. All of Wonderland’s inhabitants (save for the Queen of Hearts, the Crow, the Oyster, and the Tweedle brothers) were present at Lewis Carroll’s execution under the rumbling storm clouds of hostile public opinion, all of their glares now directed at him.

So Lewis Carroll raised his eyes up to the gloomiest sky he’d ever beheld now hanging over him like his guilty conscience haunting his mind, like the sword of Damocles looming over his head, like the slender blade of Mr. Prosper’s cane-sword raised high over him. And for one moment of eternity, he closed his eyes and lowered his head in thought, thinking of the three Liddell sisters (‘Lorina,’ ‘Alice,’ and ‘Edith’) smiling up at him in the rowboat on a fine summer’s day and begging him to tell his tale about a little girl who fell down the rabbit hole—

Till those dreaded words issued from Alice’s lips:

“Off with his head!”

9

‘Alice’ and ‘Lorina’ and ‘Edith’ were wheezing on their feet by the time they sighted Carroll’s Victorian Queen Anne-style house, yet what greeted them was no longer the cheerful one they had visited earlier. What greeted them were the yellowed walls and the bleached-out accent trim moldings of an abandoned house with its wrap-around front porch now left to decay like the frayed hems of a soiled dress. And beneath the ever-darkening clouds overhead, the ancient house leered back at them from the glare of flickering windows, daring them to step past its yawning entrance door. After they reached the front porch, their steps creaking over the loose planks, the sisters crept past the threshold of the open door into the foyer of the house.

And once all three were inside, the door slammed shut, and the sisters jumped and turned and grabbed the handle, but the blasted thing wouldn’t budge. They yanked and pulled on it to get the bolt to turn over and loosen its grip against the slip plate, but the lock kept solid in defiance of their efforts.

“Damn it!” a winded ‘Alice’ said and turned back towards her winded sisters, wondering how this house ended up in such a decrepit state, and looked at her surroundings. “Do you really think Lewis Carroll wanted us to be here?”

So ‘Lorina’ said, “He did order us to stay here—”

“—till he gets back,” ‘Edith’ added.

“If he gets back,” ‘Alice’ said, making ‘Lorina’ bite her lip and making ‘Edith’ pout and glare up at her.

“He’ll be back!” ‘Edith’ said.

“I sure hope you’re right,” ‘Alice’ said, “but it seems—”

She stopped when a faint whisper echoed somewhere in the house, sending a shiver down ‘Alice’s spine.

“W-what was that?” ‘Edith’ said, grabbing onto ‘Lorina’s arm and looking around for the source. “Is it a ghost?”

Then another whisper echoed to their left from the living room, so ‘Alice’ put a trembling finger to her lips, and ‘Lorina’ and ‘Edith’ nodded their heads. With a throbbing heart and bated breath, ‘Alice’ led her sisters into the living room, where she found a big fireplace in front of a scattering of ottomans and end tables surrounding a solan sofa and a coffee table at their center.

And over the mantle of that fireplace hung a huge portrait of Mr. Dodo holding his cane beneath his wing, his avian eyes fixed upon the three sisters in a fatherly gaze, till those eyes flashed against the canvass of the picture. Then the Dodo himself stepped out of the picture and onto the edge of the mantle and fluttered down with a thud on the creaky floorboards. But unlike before, when the three Liddell sisters first beheld a cheerful Dodo, this Dodo had lost quite a bit of his hue and humor, as if a part of his soul had been wrenched out of him. But only when he transformed into Lewis Carroll, turning into a pale imitation of the man they’d seen earlier, did the true extent of his suffering become apparent in the residue of ectoplasm staining his dark waistcoat and vest and collar and bowtie.

‘Lorina’ then cupped her hands to her mouth and said, “My God, what happened to you?”

“What did that man do to you?” ‘Edith’ added.

“Oh, nothing much,” Lewis Carroll said, smoothing out the creases on the sleeve of his waist coat as if nothing had happened, till his head rolled off of his shoulders and landed with a thud on a floor. “He only lopped off my head.”

At this, ’Lorina’ and ‘Edith’ fainted, while ‘Alice’ just stood there gaping at the lugubrious absurdity of a headless body walking around with outstretched arms in search of its talking head on the floor in front of her. Carroll’s head was giving his body directions, but his body kept stumbling around at variance to whatever he was saying, so ‘Alice’ shook off her bewilderment and crept over to Lewis Carroll’s head and picked it up in her hands.

“Ah, thank you!” his head said, then spotted his body loitering around the solan sofa and coffee table. “Ah, there you are! Okay, ’Alice.’ Just throw my head to my body, and I’ll be sure to catch it. Now on the count of three: one, two, three!”

And she threw his head over to his headless body, who caught it in his hands and repositioned it over his shoulders.

“Thank you, ‘Alice,’” Lewis Carroll said and walked towards the fireplace where he had left his cane after transforming into his human self. He kept his hand over the crown of his head, preventing it from rolling off again, as he bent down and took up his cane with his free hand. “I’ll ask L. Frank Baum to refer me to General Jinjur, so she can sew my head back on. But before that, I must tell you some important things.”

“What are they?” ‘Alice’ said.

“First of all,” he said, “I’ve found Mr. Foster.”

She gasped, then said, “Where is he?”

“He’s been captured in your future,” he said. “After my beheading, I descended into an underground place where I saw him held against his will. After I get my head sewn back on, I’ll enlist General Jinjur’s aid to lend him a hand.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you!” ‘Alice’ said, hugging Lewis Carroll’s waist. “Be sure to mention me when you find him, so he can thank you properly.”

“Will do,” he said. “And one more thing before I go: ’Alice,’ no matter what Mr. Prospero says, no matter what anyone says, you are the true Queen of Hearts and ruler of Wonderland. And your sisters, ‘Lorina’ and ‘Edith,’ they are the Red and White Queens who preside over the world of the Looking-Glass right beside your Wonderland. You’ve a bright future ahead of you, but I’m afraid it’s not all wine and roses, ‘Alice,’ not for a while at least. I’ve seen glimpses of it in my descent, and I’m telling you: there are rough seas ahead, both for you and for your sisters.”

And here, he crouched down and looked ‘Alice’ in the eyes, keeping his hand over his head to steady his gaze, and added, “I can’t tell you what I’ve seen, ‘Alice,’ for that’s beyond the confines of my part in this whole affair, but I can tell you this much. You’ll meet a woman who will give you a new name, a name that once belonged to her mother. I don't know how you’ll meet her, but when you do, I need you to trust her. For your sisters’ sake, for your own sake, will you do that for me?”

‘Alice’ nodded her head, while tears fell from her eyes, for she sensed Carroll’s departure coming up.

So she said, “When will I see you again?”

Lewis Carroll smiled and patted her head, ruffling her hair and wiping the tears away with his other hand.

“When your coronation comes,” he said, “I’ll be there with General Jinjur and her army to back you. Till then, stay strong,” and he stood back up and tapped his cane over the floorboards before the fireplace hearth, and his spirit fluttered into a flaming flash from the fireplace and shot up the chimney as a shooting star across the skies of Wonderland and the Looking-Glass world towards L. Frank Baum’s Land of Oz.

Meanwhile, ‘Alice’ stalked back towards her fallen sisters, both out cold from the shock of seeing Carroll’s headless self, so she crouched over them—

10

As the scenery around her began to change, and just like the heroine of Carroll’s book, she found herself falling down and down the rabbit hole of unconscious sleep, down through the slow-wave madness of repressed emotions flooding up her soul with sensations of horror dancing on the edges of her thoughts over the pain between her legs, becoming a child once again. Yet as the pain there subsided, as the memories of that godless night faded through her subconscious, she found herself between the Red and White Queens telling her to wake up.

“Wake up, ————,” the Red Queen said.

“Akami?” ‘Alice’ said, rousing from her slow-wave slumber and looking on the blurry shape with the familiar voice.

“Please, open your eyes,” the White Queen said.

“Shiromi?” ‘Alice’ said as her vision came into focus on the queen to her left. “Is that you?”

She felt her hands cupped inside the hands of both queens kneeling on either side of her, the Red Queen to her right and the White Queen to her left. She looked down on her legs and found her dislocated leg intact, feeling no pain there, and looked up at her childhood companions.

She raised her hands to the sides of their clammy cheeks, wet with tears, and ‘Alice’ felt their warmth growing against her palms as they smiled down at her. Then ‘Alice’ blinked and opened her eyes, seeing double vision of their faces coinciding with the faces of her sisters. For in her eyes, ’Lorina’s face coincided with the Red Queen’s, and ‘Edith’s face coincided with the White Queen’s, bringing more tears to ‘Alice’s eyes.

“Now do you remember our names?” the Red Queen said.

“‘Lorina?’” ‘Alice’ said.

The Red Queen nodded and smiled, saying, “But I’ve grown attached to Akami, so I’ll keep it. The only one who needs to remember our names is you, ‘Alice.’ As long as you remember our true names, you’ll always be part of us.”

“And what about mine?” the White Queen said.

“‘Edith?’” ‘Alice’ said.

The White Queen nodded as well and smiled, saying, “But I like Shiromi better, so I’ll keep it.”

“Wait,” ‘Alice’ said, sitting up and facing them, “what about me? Who am I to you?”

“That’s not for us to say,” Akami said.

“Someone else will give you that name,” Shiromi added.

“What name is that?” ‘Alice’ said.

Shiromi looked at Akami, who nodded her head that it was okay, so she said, “It’s ————, but wait till the right person gives you that name, for that name will set you free from Mr. Prospero’s spell.”

Then both Queens grabbed a hold of both of her hands and hauled her up to her feet, where she steadied herself, then doubled over for a moment before standing back up once the pain subsided.

“Does it still hurt?” Shiromi said.

“A little,” ‘Alice’ said, “but I’ll be okay.”

Akami and Shiromi traded glances, and Akami said, “If you need to rest, let us know, okay?”

So ‘Alice’ nodded, then looked around at the rows of pews stretching down the knave, till she saw the balcony above the narthex and a baptismal font below that at the end of the row of pews. She looked back along the nave at four massive pillars surrounding the cathedral crossing just before the steps leading into the choir stalls funneling an ominous throughway towards the altar. At the sight of all of this, ‘Alice’ turned back to Akami and Shiromi and said, “Where are we?”

“We’re in Chess Cathedral,” Shiromi said.

“And we have something to show you,” Akami added, and she took ‘Alice’s hand, while Shiromi took her other hand, and both girls lead ‘Alice’ down the knave towards the baptismal font at the end of the pews just before the double doors of the narthex.

‘Alice’ said nothing, only followed along, till she reached the font and looked down at her shadowy reflection in its waters. And when Akami and Shiromi dipped their fingers into the waters of the font and made the sign of the cross with their hands, ‘Alice’ copied their movements. Yet when it came to prayer, she couldn’t come up with anything except for a passing fancy as she remembered Lewis Carroll’s last words to her in the living room of his house, a whimsical thought of becoming the ruler of Wonderland as the Queen of Hearts. It was a supposition, really, just a notion of pretending to be something she wasn’t, even if she just wanted to quench a curious whim of the moment.

Yet no sooner had the notion crossed her mind when the waters of the font sparkled and glowed, brimming to the edge and overflowing in rivulets of down its basin and pooled onto the stone-cold floor of the cathedral. That glowing pool spread across the knave into the pews and into the crossing and transepts and rippled against the steps leading into the elevated choir, filling the whole interior with shimmering light.

And out of that shimmering light arose the reflected ghosts of various ladies and gentlemen of the court talking up a storm at the sight of Lewis Carroll and an unknown dark-haired woman walking towards the door of the throne room in the company of a palace guard in a red uniform and a tricorn hat. And many of these esteemed personages, as ‘Alice’ and her companions bore witness, stared at the dark-haired woman wearing a pre-World War I military uniform, complete with frogging over her shoulders, a knee-length skirt and high boots over her legs, and a tall shako atop her head.

Both she and Lewis Carroll passed by ‘Alice’ and her companions as another palace guard, dressed in the same red uniform and tricorn hat, opened the doors into a throne room and said, “There are visitors, your Highness.”

“Send them in,” a youthful voice called out.

After the duo were admitted through the double doors, ’Alice’ and her red and white counterparts crept past both guards, eyeing their sabers hanging from the baldrics slung diagonally from their shoulders. And on passing the threshold, they followed Lewis Carroll and his companion (undetected) into a massive round room with a vaulted ceiling that terminated in a central point, from which hung a massive chandelier made of shimmering emeralds overhead.

And inside this room, ‘Alice’ and her companions stood unseen before the presence of four young girls sitting on thrones, flanked by two massive beasts sitting on giant pillows, a lion and a tiger, both eyeing today’s visitors. The three girls sitting on the little thrones were gorgeous specimens sporting bobbed haircuts (one brunette, one blonde, and one with auburn hair) and wearing dainty knee-length dresses and socks and princess shoes, each with a coronet atop her head. Yet today’s visitors (‘Alice’ and her companions included) stopped and stared at the girl sitting on the big throne atop a circular pedestal, their mouths agape and eyes wide, taking in the closest approximation of otherworldly perfection that ever sat on any throne in any throne room in any royal palace.

This particular girl (like the other three) seemed a bit older than ‘Alice,’ maybe around 12 or 13 years old, yet her eyes sparkled like emeralds, and her lips were the luster of a pink tourmaline. From her head fluttered tresses of ruddy gold over supple shoulders, and over those shoulders flowed robes of silvery gauze reaching to the floor and obscuring her dainty satin slippers. And around her head gleamed a golden band with a giant blossom covering her ears and a tall and slender crown standing atop her head.

Before these princesses (and this esteemed princess in particular), Lewis Carroll bowed, and his dark-haired companion curtsied, and both introduced themselves in deference to these royal highnesses.

“Who are they?” ‘Alice’ said.

“Don’t know,” Shiromi said, “but the one on the pedestal—”

“—seems to be the true ruler of this place,” Akami added. “Let’s take a closer look, shall we?”

So the trio walked closer to where Lewis Carroll and the dark-haired woman both stood, standing just a few paces from the thrones of these girls, who seemed more like fairy princesses the longer ‘Alice’ stared at them.

In fact, these girls reminded ‘Alice’ of her idealized childhood self, for these princesses were sweet and beautiful and innocent, yet possessed a certain grace that ‘Alice’ wished she’d had in her ridiculous encounters with the child-neglecting Duchess and the tyrannical Queen of Hearts from Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. And so, ‘Alice’ and her companions stood and watched, three voyeurs looking through the looking-glass of time and space, three girls out of time and out of place and out of their league in the presence of these four beautiful Lolitas.

つづく