Chapter Four: The Dodo Bird and the Dormouse (2)

[manniness]

Alice finds it supremely ironic that it had taken one look for the dodo – Uilleam – to declare her to be Alice when she had been surrounded by doubters upon her return on Griblig Day. She’d had to remind herself that although that day is in her past, it is actually in these creatures’ future... That realization had made her pause.

Uilleam had accused her of being Alice and she’d hesitated, deliberated, and finally decided that perhaps it would be best if everyone believed her to be another Alice.

An epiphany had slammed into her as she’d stood there stuttering at the very obviously impatient, blue dodo bird: Alice must not interfere with the coming events; whatever she does here, she must be sure that she does not change these creatures’ future; in order to complete this mission, she must do so anonymously!

And so she had made her decision and announced: “I’m afraid you have the wrong Alice.”

A shiver had rolled up her left arm in the wake of that declaration.

The Wrong Alice.

Perhaps I’m the one who instills doubt and suspicion in them! Perhaps she, herself, makes them hesitate to believe in her nineteen-year-old self’s destiny as the Right Alice!

The Fates hadn’t mentioned anything about that, but it had made perfect sense to Alice. Now, as she follows in Uilleam’s wake with Mally dozing on her shoulder, Alice considers the implications and consequences of what she’d done.

She had tried to open the door that the Fates had pointed out to her, but it had been stuck fast. Alice had used her sword then and chopped her way through it... only to have it crumble into bits of stale marzipan at her feet and reveal Uilleam and Mally within a small prison cell. When Alice had looked back over her shoulder, the Hallowed Halls of Time had vanished completely and she had stared down a long corridor lined with other marzipan-made doors.

So, the Fates had directed her to save Uilleam and Mally. Perhaps for this very reason: the dodo is leading her to the Duchess’ estate. Mally, thus far, seems rather useless, which is perplexing. Where is the hatpin-sword-swishing brave warrior that Alice had met that Griblig Day?

Perhaps that is something that will become clearer with time, she muses. What could have been more worrisome is the realization that she might have saved people from the Red Queen’s prison that shouldn’t have been rescued. But, no, Alice had recognized several of the White Queen’s future courtiers and then there had been McTwisp, who had quite obviously survived the Red Reign in the future that Alice knows. So, clearly, she had been meant to empty that prison of its occupants.

A shiver dances its way up her arm. They are coming more and more infrequently, but she doesn’t doubt that her time here is limited – soon the grayness will creep up her heart line to the Heart Mark. Alice tries not to let that distract her from her task, which she must do while keeping in mind the events she must not interfere with and the things she must – by necessity – do to ensure that future comes about.

It is all horridly confusing and Alice winces at the dull headache that throbs between her temples.

“My condolences,” Uilleam remarks.

Alice looks up and catches his sideways glance before he faces forward and along the wooded path once more. “Your condolences?” she echoes blankly.

“Yes, you’ve a Widow’s Peak,” he murmurs sympathetically.

Careful not to unseat Mally, Alice raises her right hand to her hairline. “No, I believe you’re mistaken, sir.”

“I’m not!” he responds tartly. “Only that sort of peakiness comes from a widow’s grief, Gray Lady.”

Alice says nothing as she supposes there is no way to argue with him. Nor is there any way she could explain that she had begun this endeavor with the aim of returning her husband to life and being a widow no longer.

“Did it happen when you got that scar?” Mally surprises her by asking rather directly. “Was there a battle? Was it the Knave?”

Uilleam and McTwisp eye Alice in what they no doubt believe to be a very circumspect manner. Alice swallows and lifts a hand to her neck.

Yes, the scar.

Oh, dear Underland!

Alice had completely forgotten about the scar on her neck!

She barely hears Nivens reprimand the dormouse: “Now, Mally, you mustn’t ask those sorts of questions as they remind one of very bad things!”

Alice does not respond; she is a bit busy fighting back the realization that... that...

She had been fated to come here. Suddenly, the odd comments that the Fates had made begin to make a terrible sort of sense:

“I can see why we chose you...”

Yes, they had chosen her, hadn’t they? Even though the choice hadn’t yet been made, it must be made because, according to the memories of Underlandians like Mally and Uilleam and Nivens, it had already been made!

“Several people do have memories of you, another you, at a time when you shouldn’t have been in Underland, which leads us to believe that it is you we send to fetch the Oraculum and find it a new home...”

Yes, it all makes sense now. Alice had been destined to come to this time, to interact with these creatures... Which means... if she were destined to do this, then she had also been destined to Court Fate... which she’d had no intention of doing until... until...!

“And you rather took your time in Courting us!”

Alice gasps, stumbles to a halt on the leaf-strewn dirt road and presses a hand to her eyes. She breathes deeply, but it doesn’t keep the dizziness at bay.

The Fates had been expecting her to contact Them, to Court Them. In fact, They had orchestrated it!

“I suppose you rather didn’t like my method for bringing you here. But it was of my own invention!”

A method of his own invention...!

“Gray Lady?” Uilleam whispers tentatively.

Gulping breaths, Alice holds up her other hand – thankfully, the heart line is still encased in the gauntlet and hidden under her tunic sleeve – and manages to gasp, “I just need a moment.”

“Here,” he says quietly, his feathery hands nudging against her thigh. “There’s an obliging tree stump here for you to rest upon.”

Alice weakly allows the dodo to herd to toward it.

Nivens barks, “Apologize to the Gray Lady, Mallymkun!”

“What for?”

“For that utterly thoughtless remark! Can’t you see it’s caused our rescuer a great deal of distress?”

“I only asked what you two were thinkin’!” the dormouse argues.

“Perhaps we had been,” Nivens replies, “but neither one of us would have uttered a word about it!”

“Which makes me braver than you,” the dormouse insists. “An’ I ain’t apologizing for it.”

“Nor should you,” Alice interjects, rallying herself from the terrible knowledge that the Fates had killed Tarrant, had waited for his death, had known that Alice would do anything for his sake, had expected that she would finally Court Them and They would have Their chance to send her into the past to right Their Wrong!

She will be angry later. She will be furious... no, bey-urious! Later.

Later, she will dwell on the fact that the moment she had told Tarrant her plan for turning the rebels away from warfare... The heartache she had felt from him when he had realized precisely how she would do that...

The scar, she realizes. Her left hand, still at her own throat, tightens a bit until she can feel her loose, wrinkled skin mold around the hardened leather. Tarrant had recognized this scar. He had known what it would mean. He had known he would die, that she would travel into the past as his widow...

Later, Alice!

She gives herself a sharp shake. Yes, later, she will damn the Fates at Their Plans. Later, she will rage against Them for hurting her husband so deeply, so unforgivably.

Later.

“My apologies for the delay,” she says, interrupting a hissed argument between her three guides. “Let us continue.”

“Are you quite sure?” Uilleam inquires solicitously, helping her stand.

Alice’s legs are a bit wobbly and her head is still spinning, but she nods. “Lead on, kind sir.”

With an uncertain glance toward McTwisp who shrugs once, he does.

“By the way,” Mally wonders aloud after a few minutes of silence, “how did yah get that door lock to open up for us? The iron one? Back at the prison?”

Alice smirks, relieved at the change of topic. “I gave it a password.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a secret word that – when used – shows the lock that the speaker is a friend.” It had been almost too easy to explain the system to the door, set the password, and then use it. Iron locks, while quite strong, are not as bright as brass ones, obviously.

“Oooh...” Mally replies sounding thoroughly entertained. “So what was the password?”

“It’s five words, actually. Which makes it that much harder to guess: Downal wyth Bluddy Behg Hid.”

Nivens stumbles and has to scramble to keep from diving nose-first into the rotting leaves and gravel on the dusty road. “I beg you pardon!” he squeaks.

Uilleam gawks at her.

Mally cackles. “Oh! So yah are an Outlander! Although I ain’t never heard that turn o’ phrase before.”

“Haven’t you?”

“Nope.”

Alice blinks at her stunned compatriots. “Haven’t any of you?”

The dodo and the rabbit shake their heads.

“It’s the rallying cry of the Resistance!”

“The Resistance?” Uilleam parrots, clearly confused.

“Yes! The Resistance which seeks to return the crown to the White Queen once and for all!” Alice gapes at the lot of them. Is it possible that this is something else that she must address? Is it possible that there is no organized resistance against the Red Queen at this time? She considers informing them that Tarrant Hightopp is the leader... but forces herself to be quiet. If the Resistance hasn’t begun yet, then it will do no good at all to claim that it has a leader!

“A Resistance!” Mally sighs happily. “I like the sound o’ that!”

“Better than your own snores?” Uilleam asks wryly.

Mally considers her answer for a moment before declaring, “Aye. I like it e’en better than my own snores.”

“Callou, callay. Oh, joyous day,” the dodo intones.

“Have you ever held a sword, Mally?” Alice asks the dormouse.

Mally giggles. “How could I with ’em bein’ so great big an’ all and me being so... not!”

Alice smiles. “Then we shall have to find you one that is a proper size.”

The dormouse huffs. “I ain’t never gonna be a fighter. So just leave off, all right?” And with that, she curls back up on Alice’s shoulder and seems to fall asleep out of sheer spite.

Alice sighs.

“Oh, I wouldn’t mind her,” Nivens comments. “It’s just that her size is a touchy subject.”

Uilleam concurs. “It’s hard being so small. Good for survival, I expect, for hiding. But not good for much of anything grand.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Alice snaps. “How’s Mally supposed to believe in herself if no one shows her how?”

And in the wake of the guilty silence that follows, Alice sees yet another task before her: Mally’s muchness. Somehow, she will have to help Mally become the brave fighter Alice knows she is capable of being. In fact, it is necessary that Mally develop unshakable courage, for she will have to have the fortitude to poke out the Bandersnatch’s eye!

Things are so different now, she muses. The Underland that Alice is acquainted with is full of creatures that are stronger, braver, muchier.

“What’s the date today?” she asks suddenly.

“Merride,” Nivens replies.

Alice does a bit of mental calculation and... “How long has the Red Queen worn the crown?”

“Just since Horvendush Day last, although she’s been intolerable for much longer than that!” Uilleam supplies with a woeful shake of his great head.

“Horvendush Day... That was just a few days ago!” Alice muses, horrified and sickened. If today is Merride, then that means that this – everything she has witnessed – is only the beginning of the horrors that await Underland!

Her mind racing, Alice slows to a halt on the road.

“Gray Lady?” Nivens gently – but nervously – prompts her.

“I’ve changed my mind, sirs,” she answers, thinking of today’s date, thinking of the one person who needs help the most; the one person she cannot abandon without seeing first; the one person who needs to help Underland – who is destined to champion Mirana of Mamoreal and both inspire and encourage Alice to pick up the Vorpal Sword; the one person whom she can trust to retrieve the Oraculum should she fail her task; the one person who is hurting worse than anyone else in Underland today.

“I need to go to Iplam.” The sound of her own voice calls her back to the present. Alice blinks and looks from Uilleam to Nivens and then back again. “Take me to see the Hatter.”

 

*~*~*~*

 

Notes:

 

1.  A Widow’s Peak refers to the lack of color in someone’s face and skin. That is, Alice’s grayness. In Underland, people who are grieving suffer from Widow(er)’s Peak, turning gray and aging with their sadness and feeling of aloneness and such. (And, you must admit, losing someone you love very deeply is not the sort of thing that makes you feel young at heart. Not at all. So, all widows and widowers in Underland are old and gray... at least for a time after the death of their spouse.  Although I doubt Iracebeth properly mourned her husband’s death...  In the film she came across a bit pouty, like she’d been forced to give away a favorite toy.)

 

2.  Yes, Alice’s heart line is turning to ash. Only an act of will – the Will to Live – can stop the decay, which is why it is possible for one spouse to survive the death of the other... but it is not easy to do. This is also why having children helps – it gives the surviving partner Something to Live For. At the moment, Alice is determined to finish her task and get her husband back which is slowing the decay. This is not a reason to Live, per se, by it is a reason to Fight (which is why her heart line is still turning to ash, just at a slower rate).