CHAPTER ONE<\/p>\n
If she moved her head all the way up against the wall and tilted it to the left she could just see the edge of the moon through the bars. Just a silver sliver, almost close enough to eat. A sliver of cheese, a sliver of cake, a cup of tea to be polite. Someone had given her a cup of tea once, someone with blue-green eyes and long ears. Funny how she couldn\u2019t remember his face, though. All that part was hazy, her memory of him wrapped in smoke but for the eyes and ears. And the ears were long and furry.<\/p>\n
When they found her all she would say was, \u201cThe Rabbit. The Rabbit. The Rabbit.\u201d Over and over. When she acted like that they said she was mad. Alice knew she wasn\u2019t mad. Maybe. Not deep down. But the powders they gave her made the world all muzzy and sideways and sometimes she felt<\/em> mad.<\/p>\n Everything had happened just as she said, when she could say something besides Rabbit. She and Dor went into the old City for Dor\u2019s birthday. 16th<\/sup> birthday. 16 candles on your cake, a sliver of cake and a cup of tea for you, my dear. They both went in, but only Alice came out. Two weeks later came Alice, covered in blood, babbling about tea and a rabbit, wearing a dress that wasn\u2019t hers. Red running down the inside of her legs and blue marks on her thighs where fingers had been.<\/p>\n Her hand went without thought to her left cheek, touched the long thick scar that followed the line of bone from her hairline to the top of her lip. Her face had been flayed open when they found her, and she couldn\u2019t say how or why. It had been open for a long while, the blood oozing from it gone black and brackish, the skin around it tattered at the edges. The doctors told her parents they had done their best, but she would never be beautiful again.<\/p>\n Her sister said it was her own fault. If she had stayed out of the Old City as she was supposed to this never would have happened. There was a reason why they lived in the New City, the ring of shiny new buildings that kept the Old City at bay. The Old City wasn\u2019t for people like them. It was for the filth you throw away. All children were warned about the dangers of straying to the Old City. Alice didn\u2019t belong there.<\/p>\n The hospital where Alice had lived for the last ten years was in the Old City, so her sister was wrong. Alice did belong there.<\/p>\n Sometimes her parents came to visit, doing their duty; their noses wrinkled like she was something that smelled bad, even though the attendants always dragged her out and gave her a bath first. She hated the baths. They were icy cold and rough with scrubbing, and she was never permitted to clean herself. If she struggled or cried out they would hit her with the bath brush or pinch hard enough to leave a mark, always somewhere that couldn\u2019t be seen, the side of her breast or the soft part of her belly, with a promise of \u2018more where that came from\u2019 unless she behaved.<\/p>\n Her parents didn\u2019t visit so much anymore. Alice couldn\u2019t really remember the last time, but she knew it was a long time. The days all ran together in her room, no books to read, no things to do. Hatcher said she should exercise so she would be fit when she got out, but somewhere in her heart Alice knew she would never get out. She was a broken thing, and the New City did not like broken things. They liked the new and the whole. Alice hardly recalled when she was new and whole. That girl seemed like someone else she\u2019d known once, long ago and far away.<\/p>\n \u201cAlice?\u201d A voice through the mouse-hole.<\/p>\n Many years before a mouse had gotten into the wall and chewed through the batting between her cell and Hatcher\u2019s. She didn\u2019t know what had happened to the mouse. Probably caught in a trap in the kitchens, or went out on the river side and drowned. But the mouse had led her to Hatcher, a rough voice coming through the wall. She had really thought she\u2019d gone round the bend at first, hearing voices coming from nowhere.<\/p>\n \u201cHey you,\u201d the voice had said.<\/p>\n She\u2019d looked around wildly, afraid, and scuttled into a corner on the far side of the window, opposite the door.<\/p>\n \u201cHey, you. Down here,\u201d the voice said.<\/p>\n She resolutely put her fingers in her ears. Everyone knew hearing voices was a sign of madness, and she\u2019d promised to herself she would not be mad no matter what they said, no matter how she felt. After several moments of happy silence she released her fingers and looked around the room in relief.<\/p>\n A great sigh exhaled from the walls. \u201cThe mouse hole, you nit.\u201d<\/p>\n Alice stared in alarm at the small opening in the corner opposite. Somehow a talking mouse was worse than voices in her head. If mice were talking then there really were men with blue-green eyes and long furry ears. And while she didn\u2019t remember his face she did remember she\u2019d been afraid. She stared at the mouse hole like something horrible might suddenly emerge from it, like the Rabbit might unfold himself from that space and finish whatever he had started.<\/p>\n Another sign, this one shorter and much more impatient. \u201cYou\u2019re not hearing bloody voices and a mouse is not speaking to you. I\u2019m in the room next to yours and I can see you through the hole. You\u2019re not crazy and there\u2019s no magic, so will you please come here and speak with me before I go madder than I already have?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re not in my head and you\u2019re not magic, then how do you know what I\u2019m thinking?\u201d Alice asked, her voice suspicious. She was beginning to wonder if this wasn\u2019t some trick of the doctors, some way to draw her into a trap.<\/p>\n The attendants gave her a powder with her breakfast and dinner, to \u201ckeep her calm\u201d, they said. But she knew that those powders still allowed her some freedom to be Alice, to think and dream and try to remember the lost bits of her life. When they took her out of her room for a bath or a visit she sometimes saw other patients, people standing still with dead eyes and drool on their chins, people who were alive and didn\u2019t know it. Those people were \u201cdifficult to deal with\u201d. They got injections instead of powders. Alice didn\u2019t want injections, so she wasn\u2019t going to say or do anything that would alarm the doctors. Doctors who might be trying to trick her with voices in the wall.<\/p>\n \u201cI know what you\u2019re thinking, because that\u2019s what I\u2019d be thinking if I were you,\u201d the voice said. \u201cWe\u2019re in the loony bin, aren\u2019t we? Now come over and have a look through the hole and you\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n She stood cautiously; still unsure it was not a trick, whether of her mind or the doctors. She crossed under the window and crouched by the mouse hole.<\/p>\n \u201cAll I can see are your knees,\u201d the voice complained. \u201cCome all the way down, won\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n Alice lowered to her stomach, keeping her head well away from the opening. She had a vague fear that a needle might flash through the hole and plunge into her eye.<\/p>\n Once her cheek was on the ground she could see through the small, tight opening. On the other side was an iron gray eye and part of a nose. There was a bulge just where the rest of the nose disappeared from view, like it might have been broken once. It didn\u2019t look like any doctor she knew, but Alice wasn\u2019t taking any chances. \u201cLet me see your whole face,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cGood,\u201d the gray eye said. \u201cYou\u2019re thinking. That\u2019s good. Not just a pretty face, then.\u201d<\/p>\n Alice\u2019s hand moved automatically to cover her scar, then she remembered she was lying on that side of her face and he couldn\u2019t really see it anyway. Let him think she was pretty if he wanted. It would be nice to be pretty to someone even with her fair hair all snarled and nothing to wear but a woolen shift. She heard the swish-swish<\/em> of wool on batting as the gray eye moved away from the hole and became two gray eyes, a long broken nose and a bushy black beard with flecks of white in it.<\/p>\n \u201cAll right, then?\u201d the voice asked. \u201cI\u2019m Hatcher.\u201d<\/p>\n And that was how they met. Hatcher was ten years older than Alice, and nobody ever came to see him.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy are you here?\u201d she asked one day, long after they were friends, or at least friends who never really saw one another.<\/p>\n \u201cI killed a lot of people with an axe,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s how I got my name. Hatcher.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat was your name before?\u201d Alice asked. She was surprisingly undisturbed by the knowledge that her new friend was an axe-murderer. It seemed unrelated to who he was now, the rough voice and gray eyes through the hole in the wall.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t remember,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t remember anything from before, really. They found me with a bloodied axe in my hand and five people dead around me all slashed to pieces. I tried to do the same for the police when they came for me, so I must have killed those people.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy did<\/em> you do it?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t remember,\u201d he said, and his voice change a little, became hard. \u201cIt\u2019s like there\u2019s this haze over my eyes, black smoke filling everything up. I remember the weight of the axe in my hand, and the hot blood on my face, in my mouth. I remember the sound of the blade in soft flesh.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI remember that too,\u201d Alice said, although she didn\u2019t know why she said that. For a moment it had been true, though. She could hear the sound of a knife piercing skin, that sliding slicing noise, and someone screaming.<\/p>\n \u201cDid you kill a lot of people too?\u201d Hatcher asked.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d Alice said. \u201cI might have.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s all right if you did,\u201d Hatcher said. \u201cI would understand.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI really don\u2019t know,\u201d Alice said. \u201cI remember before and I remember after, but that fortnight is gone, save for a few flashes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe man with the long<\/p>\n \u201cYes,\u201d Alice said. The man who hunted her, faceless, through her nightmares.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we get out we\u2019ll find him, and then you\u2019ll know what happened to you,\u201d Hatcher said.<\/p>\n That had been eight years before, and they were both still there, rooms side-by-side in a hospital that had no intention of ever letting them go.<\/p>\n \u201cAlice?\u201d Hatcher said again. \u201cI can\u2019t sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n She blinked away the memory, brought on by the moon and the sound of his voice.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t sleep either, Hatch,\u201d she said, crawling along the floor to the mouse-hole. It was much darker down here. There was no light in their rooms save that of the silver moon through the bars, and the occasional passage of a lamp by the attendant walking the halls. She could not see the color of his eyes, only the wet gleam of them.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Jabberwock\u2019s awake, Alice,\u201d Hatcher said.<\/p>\n It was then she noticed his voice was thin and reedy. Hatcher wasn\u2019t often afraid. Mostly he seemed strong, almost relentlessly so. All day long she heard him in his room, grunting with effort as she went through his exercises. When the attendants came to take Hatcher to his bath there was always a lot of noise, punching and kicking and yelling. More than once Alice heard the crunch of bone, the angry curse of an attendant.<\/p>\n She asked once how come he didn\u2019t get injections like all the other troublemakers. He\u2019d grinned, his gray eyes crinkling at the corners, and said the injection had made him wild, wilder than before, so after that they left him alone. He didn\u2019t even get powders in his food.<\/p>\n Hatcher was never scared, except when he talked about the Jabberwock.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no Jabberwock, Hatch,\u201d Alice said, her voice low and soothing. She heard tales of the monster before. Not often, although lately it seemed to be on his mind more.<\/p>\n \u201cI know you don\u2019t believe in him. But he\u2019s here, Alice. They keep him downstairs, in the basement. And when he\u2019s awake I can feel him,\u201d Hatcher said.<\/p>\n There was a pleading note under the fear, and Alice relented. After all, she believed in a man with rabbit-ears, and Hatcher accepted that without question.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat can you feel?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel the night crawling up all around, blotting out the moon. I feel blood running down the walls, rivers of it in the streets below. And I feel his teeth closing around me. That\u2019s what he\u2019ll do, Alice, if he\u2019s ever set free. He\u2019s been imprisoned here a long time, longer than you or me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHow could anyone trap such a beast?\u201d Alice wondered.<\/p>\n Hatcher shifted restlessly on the floor. She could hear him moving around. \u201cI don\u2019t know for sure,\u201d he said, and his voice was quieter now, so that she had to strain to hear him. \u201cI think a Magician must have done it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA Magician?\u201d Alice asked. This was more farfetched that anything Hatcher had said before. \u201cAll the Magicians are gone. They were driven out or killed centuries ago, during the purge. This place is not that old. How could a Magician have capture the Jabberwock and imprisoned it here?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOnly a Magician would have the skill,\u201d Hatcher insisted. \u201cNo ordinary man would survive the encounter.\u201d<\/p>\n Alice was willing to indulge his fantasy of a monster in the basement, but she couldn\u2019t countenance this myth about a magician. It didn\u2019t seem wise to argue, though. Hatcher took no powders and had no injections, and sometimes he could get agitated. If he got agitated he might howl for hours, or beat his hands against the wall until they were bloody despite the padding.<\/p>\n So she said nothing, only listened to his shallow breath, and the cried of the other inmates echoing through the building.<\/p>\n \u201cI wish I could hold your hand,\u201d Hatcher said. \u201cI\u2019ve never seen you all together, you know. Just bits through the hole. I try to put all the bits together in my head so I can see all of you, but it doesn\u2019t look quite right.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn my head you\u2019re just gray eyes and a beard,\u201d Alice said.<\/p>\n Hatcher laughed softly, but there was no mirth in it. \u201cLike the Rabbit, just eyes and fur. What would have happened if we met on the street, Alice? Would we have said hello?\u201d<\/p>\n She hesitated for a moment. She didn\u2019t want to hurt his feelings, but neither did she want to lie. Her parents lied. They said things like, \u201cYou\u2019re looking well\u201d and \u201cWe\u2019re sure you\u2019ll be home soon,\u201d things Alice knew were not true.<\/p>\n \u201cAlice?\u201d Hatcher asked again, and brought her back to him.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know if we would have seen each other to say hello,\u201d she said carefully. \u201cI lived in the New City and, I think\u2026you seem like you were from the Old City.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell, la-dee-dah,\u201d Hatcher said, and his voice was hard. \u201cFancy girl wouldn\u2019t soil her dainty hem in the Old City. Except you did. You got good and soiled. And now you\u2019re here, just like me.\u201d<\/p>\n His words were like knotted fists to her gut, and all the breath seemed to leave her for a moment. But they were true words, and she would not pretend otherwise. The truth was all she had left. The truth, and Hatcher.<\/p>\n \u201cYes,\u201d she said. \u201cWe are both here.\u201d<\/p>\n There was a long silence between them. Alice waited in the darkness, the moonlight shifting on the floor. Hatcher seemed to be walking the knife\u2019s edge tonight, and she would not be the one to knock him off.<\/p>\n \u201cI am sorry, Alice,\u201d he said finally, and he sounded more like the Hatch she knew.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t,\u201d she started, but he cut her off.<\/p>\n \u201cI should not say such things,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019re my only light, Alice. Without you I would have succumbed to this place long ago. But the Jabberwock is awake, and he makes me think of things I should not.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe sound of a blade in flesh,\u201d she said, echoing the memory of his words.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd warm blood on my hands,\u201d Hatcher said, \u201cI feel most like myself when I think those thoughts. As if that is who I really am.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAt least you have some idea,\u201d Alice said. \u201cI never had the chance to find out. I lost my way first.\u201d<\/p>\n She heard him shifting again on the floor.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like I\u2019ve got bugs inside my skin,\u201d he said. \u201cSing me a song.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know any songs,\u201d she said, surprised by this request.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, you do,\u201d he said. \u201cYou sing it all day long, and when you\u2019re not singing it you\u2019re humming. Something about a butterfly.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA butterfly?\u201d she asked, but as soon as she said this it came back to her, and she heard her mother\u2019s voice in head. This sound was so painful, piercing her heart, this remembrance of love that was lost to her forever. She began to sing aloud, to cover the memory with her own voice.<\/p>\n \u201cSleep little butterfly<\/em><\/p>\n Sleep little butterfly <\/em><\/p>\n Now the day has gone<\/em><\/p>\n Sleep little butterfly<\/em><\/p>\n Sleep little butterfly<\/em><\/p>\n Soon the morning will come<\/em><\/p>\n Close your eyes and let the night go \u2018round you<\/em><\/p>\n He\u2019ll keep you safe and warm<\/em><\/p>\n Sleep little butterfly<\/em><\/p>\n Sleep little butterfly<\/em><\/p>\n Soon the morning will come.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Her voice trailed off, her throat full of love and loss and pain. Hatcher said nothing, but she heard his breath go deep and even, and she let her eyes fall shut. She matched her breath to his, and it was almost like holding his hand as the night closed in.<\/p>\n Alice dreamed of blood. Blood on her hands and under her feet, blood in her mouth and pouring from her eyes. The room was filled with it. Outside the door Hatcher stood hand in hand with something dark and hideous, a thing crafted of shadow with flashing silver teeth.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t take him from me,\u201d she said, or tried to say, but she could not speak through the blood in her mouth, choking her. Her eyes were covered with smoke then, and she couldn\u2019t see Hatch or the monster anymore. Heat enfolded her body, and then there was nothing but fire.<\/p>\n Fire. Fire.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cAlice, wake up! The hospital is on fire.\u201d<\/p>\n Alice opened her eyes. Hatcher\u2019s gray one was pressed to the mouse-hole, and it was wild with fear and anticipation.<\/p>\n \u201cAt last!\u201d he said. \u201cStay low, away from the smoke, and get near the door but not in front of it.\u201d<\/p>\n Alice blinked as he disappeared. The dream still clung to her brain, and her mouth was dry. Her shift clung to her body, and her face was wet with sweat. The odor of smoke finally permeated her nostrils and her fuzzy head, and there was another smell, too \u2013 like cooking meat. She didn\u2019t want to think what that might be.<\/p>\n Alice turned so she was flat on her back, and saw a thick blanket of smoke just a few inches from her face. The heat beneath made the floor an agony to lie upon, but there was no way to escape it.<\/p>\n The sounds filtered in then. The crack of flame, of heavy objects crashing to the ground. Horrible, horrible screams. And close by, the repeated grunts and pounding of someone slamming his body into the wall. Hatch was trying to break the door down in his room.<\/p>\n The noise was terrible. Alice did not think it was possible. The walls might be soft, but the doors were iron. He would kill himself.<\/p>\n \u201cHatcher, no!\u201d she cried, but he could not hear her.<\/p>\n There was a sound of something crunching, but Hatcher did not cry out, and then there was no more noise.<\/p>\n \u201cHatcher,\u201d she said, and her voice was soft and sad. Two tears leaked from the corner of each eye. There was no point in getting up then, if Hatcher was gone. The smoke and the noise told Alice that the fire was well underway. The attendants and the doctors would not bother to free the patients, especially when most families would be thrilled to be free of the burden of their mad relatives. So they would all burn.<\/p>\n Alice found she was not as distressed about this as she ought to be. Perhaps it was the powder in last night\u2019s dinner, or the smoke that filled her lungs in place of air. She felt very calm. She would just lie there and wait until the fire came.<\/p>\n Her eyes closed again, and she drifted away, away to a place she had never been in real life, a silver lake tucked in a green valley, wildflowers dotting the shore. There was no smell of medicine there, or harsh burning soap. There was no smoke and no pain, no heartache and no blood. It was the place she always went, the place where her mind hid when the doctors asked questions she did not want to answer, or her parents sighed in disappointment.<\/p>\n Something grabbed her around the shoulders, and her eyes flew open in shock. It had been years since anyone touched her except to drag her to the bath. Hatcher\u2019s face was close to hers, twisted in anger, and blood ran from a cut on the side of his head.<\/p>\n \u201cI told you to get near the door, you silly nit,\u201d he said, dragging her up to sitting and then immediately pushing her down to her belly.<\/p>\n \u201cFollow me,\u201d he said, crawling toward the door.<\/p>\n The open door.<\/p>\n She followed automatically, keeping his filthy bare heels in sight. She wanted to ask how he had gotten out, how he wasn\u2019t battered and dead. But he was moving along with surprising quickness into the hall. He paused after a few moments so she could catch up to him. There was no one except the two of them, and the frantic pounding of other patients still trapped in their boxes.<\/p>\n It was then she noticed his right arm hung at an odd angle and he was using only his left to pull his body along. \u201cHatch, what happened?\u201d she asked. She was out of breath from just that short period of exertion.<\/p>\n \u201cIt came out when I broke the door frame,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ll fix it later. We have to go. The floor is getting hotter, and he\u2019s almost out.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWho?\u201d Alice asked.<\/p>\n He started along again. \u201cThe Jabberwock.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHatch,\u201d she said, trying to keep up with him. Her lungs and throat were burning. \u201cWe\u2019re going the wrong way. The stairs are behind us.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe stairs are on fire,\u201d Hatch said. \u201cI\u2019ve already checked. We\u2019ve got to go out this way.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut, Hatch,\u201d Alice said, shaking her head from side to side to clear it. The smoke was getting to her. \u201cWe\u2019re on the third floor.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll go out the back to the river. Just keep up, Alice.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe river?\u201d she said, and a faint alarm sounded in her head. There was something about the river, but she couldn\u2019t recall exactly what it was.<\/p>\n Just then they passed the door of a patient who was repeatedly throwing himself against the iron and screaming. The cloud of smoke above them blocked the small viewing window, so Alice was fairly certain the man could not see them escaping. She felt a tinge of guilt all the same as they went by.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat about the others?\u201d Alice asked. \u201cShouldn\u2019t we let them out?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no time,\u201d Hatcher said. \u201cAnd they would only be millstones in any case. They\u2019ve no sense. We\u2019d have to lead them from here like children. And then what? Would we take them with us? No, Alice, it\u2019s best to leave them as they are. We must get away before he\u2019s free.\u201d<\/p>\n It was a cold thing he said, but true. Not the bit about the Jabberwock getting free, but the other part. They would not be able to safely lead them to freedom without endangering their own lives.<\/p>\n Hatcher reached the end of the hallway before Alice did. He came to his knees, and she noticed he held a small ring of keys in his left hand.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere did you get those?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom the attendant at the top of the stairs. How do you think I opened your door?\u201d he asked as he methodically fitted first one key, then another, then another.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was nobody in the corridor when we came out,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cI took his keys and threw him down the stairs. That\u2019s how I knew the steps were on fire,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The fifth key clicked, and Hatcher pushed the door open, waving her inside the room.<\/p>\n A cloud of smoke followed them in before Hatcher was able to close the door behind them, but it dissipated quickly as the far window was open. The heavy seething air of the city, hardly fresh, poured into the room. Still, it had been years since Alice had smelled anything but the rank asylum \u2013 unwashed bodies, laudanum, chloroform, vomit and blood and burning soap over it all. By contrast the soot and refuse outside seemed like a burst of clean country breeze.<\/p>\n Suddenly a head appeared in the window from outside. It was one of the attendants, a ginger-haired man with only half a nose. His eyes widened when he saw Hatcher and Alice in the room, and he started to climb back inside.<\/p>\n Before the man could get any farther than throwing one leg over the sill Hatcher was upon him. He punched the man in the face hard with his left hand, twice, three times. Then he kicked the man in the side so hard Alice heard ribs break. Finally he pushed the now unconscious attendant out the window, looking out after the falling man to follow his progress to the river below.<\/p>\n He nodded in satisfaction before turning back to Alice. \u201cI was the one who bit half his nose off. He was coming back to make sure we couldn\u2019t get out, do you see? He would never have let us leave.\u201d<\/p>\n CHAPTER TWO<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Alice nodded. She did see. The smoke must have gone up in her brain because everything seemed soft at the edges.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a ledge out here,\u201d Hatcher said.<\/p>\n He went to the wall next to the window, grabbed his right wrist with his left hand, pushed his hanging right arm against the wall, and did some kind of maneuver while Alice watched. When he turned back to her his right arm appeared normal again. He flexed his fingers as if to ensure they were still functional. Throughout all of this he never made a sound, not even a hint that the process was painful, though Alice was certain it must have been. He held his hand out so she could join him by the window.<\/p>\n She approached him, and gasped in shock when his hand closed around hers. It seemed like an electric current ran from their joined hands up into her heart, which hammered in her chest. His gray eyes sparked, and he squeezed her hand tighter for a moment. When you are in an asylum no one ever touches you in kindness, and Alice knew the shock was as great for him.<\/p>\n He said nothing as he released her. He climbed through the window on to the ledge, and Alice followed him, because that was what she was supposed to do.<\/p>\n She swung her left leg over the sill. Her shift rode up, exposing her skin to the morning chill, and she shivered. She supposed it wasn\u2019t so terribly cold out, but after the furnace of the burning hospital the outdoors seemed frigid.<\/p>\n Alice ducked her head under the sash and saw the ledge Hatcher wanted her to reach. Below it, too far below for comfort, was the river, gray and putrid. Now that she saw it she remembered what she had forgotten before.<\/p>\n Hatcher moved on the ledge behind her, and his hands were at her waist, guiding her out until they stood side by side, their backs pasted against the brick exterior of the hospital. The ledge was barely wide enough to admit the length of Alice\u2019s feet. Hatcher\u2019s toes curled around the edge as if that grip could save him from falling.<\/p>\n His expression was fierce and exultant. \u201cWe\u2019re outside, Alice. We\u2019re out.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes,\u201d she said, and her thrill at this prospect was much tempered by the sight of the river. Now that she was away from the smoke her mind was clearer, and this plan seemed more risky than trying to climb down a set of burning stairs. The stench of the water reached her then, and she gagged.<\/p>\n Hatcher grabbed her hand to keep her from stumbling forward into the empty air. \u201cWe jump into the river,\u201d he said, \u201cand swim across to the opposite bank. We can disappear into the Old City after that. No one will look for us in there. They will think we\u2019re dead.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes,\u201d she agreed again. \u201cBut we\u2019re not supposed to go into the river. It will kill us. All the factories dump their waste there. I remember Father speaking of it. He said it was an outrage.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNeither can we stay here,\u201d Hatcher said. \u201cIf the fire does not consume us then they will catch is in their nets and put us back in our cages. I cannot go back, Alice. I cannot spend the remainder of my life as a moth beating its wings against a jar. I would rather perish in the mouth of the Jabberwock than that.\u201d<\/p>\n Alice saw the truth of this, and felt it in her heart as well. She did not want to go back inside the box they had made for her. But the river was so far below, churning with poison. What if their skin was seared from their bodies? What if they swallowed the river water and died writhing on the shore as the foul substance coursed in their blood?<\/p>\n As these thoughts occurred a burst of flame caused a nearby window to explode outward, startling a huddle of soot-coated pigeons that had taken foolish refuge on the same ledge Alice and Hatcher perched on. The birds took flight, squawking in protest, and Alice looked at Hatcher, knowing he saw the fear in her eyes.<\/p>\n \u201cNow we must fly,\u201d he said. \u201cTrust me.\u201d<\/p>\n She did. She always had, though she didn\u2019t know why. He squeezed her hand, and the next thing Alice knew she was falling, falling away into a rabbit\u2019s hole.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t let go,\u201d Hatcher shouted just before they hit the water.<\/p>\n His grip on her fingers tightened painfully, and she cried out, but he didn\u2019t let go. Which was a very good thing, because as soon as the horrible muck coated her head she reflexively loosed her hold, and if Hatcher hadn\u2019t been holding her that way, she would have drowned.<\/p>\n He yanked her, coughing and gagging, to the surface, scooped an arm under her ribs and began paddling toward the shore. \u201cKick your feet.\u201d<\/p>\n She fluttered her ankles weakly in the water. It felt thick and strange, with none of the fluid slipperiness water was supposed to possess. It moved sluggishly, the current hardly enough to push them a few inches off course. A noxious vapor rose from the surface, making her eyes and nose burn.<\/p>\n Because of the way Hatcher held her she couldn\u2019t see his face or the opposite shore that the approached. His breath was smooth and even, like he was unaffected by the miasma floating above the surface of the river. He pulled them both along with smooth, sure strokes as Alice floundered in the water, trying not to cause them both to go under.<\/p>\n She saw the asylum burning behind them, as tongues of flame emerged from newly opened windows. The distance and roar of the fire drowned out the sound of the inmates screaming. There were people running around the sides of the building, trying to stop the spread to the adjacent structures. She had never given much thought to the places around the hospital before.<\/p>\n On one side was a long, low building crouched against the bank of the river like a squat turtle. That must have been on the side that Alice\u2019s room had been, else she wouldn\u2019t have been able to see the moon. The edifice on the opposite side was huge, much bigger than the hospital, and the smoke belching from its chimneys seemed as thick and dangerous as that pouring from her former home.<\/p>\n \u201cPut your feet down,\u201d Hatcher said suddenly, and Alice realized he was walking now, not swimming.<\/p>\n Her toes sank into the muck, and the water was still up to her neck, but they were nearly there. A small knot of people were gathered a little ways down the bank on a jetty, pointing and exclaiming over the collapsing asylum.<\/p>\n \u201cI see them,\u201d Hatcher said in a low voice. \u201cOver here.\u201d<\/p>\n He guided her toward a place where the shadows lay thick despite the rising sun, away from the flickering exposure of the gas lamps set at intervals to alleviate the fog from the river and the factories. Alice fell to her hands and knees just out of the water, taking great gasps of air. Even a few feet from the river the air was noticeably cleaner, though hardly what one would call clean<\/em>, she thought.<\/p>\n Everywhere was the stench of the water, the reek of smoke and flame, the chemical burn of factory exhaust. Underneath it all was the smell of the morning\u2019s cooking coming from the warren of flats just before them.<\/p>\n Hatcher had done much more than Alice to get them out of the burning hospital and through the disgusting river, yet he had not collapsed like she had when they emerged from the water. He stood beside her, still and calm. Alice rolled to her seat and looked up at him. He stared, transfixed, at the fiery structure across the water. He stood so still that she began to worry, and she struggled to her feet.<\/p>\n \u201cHatcher?\u201d she asked, and touched his arm.<\/p>\n His hair and clothes were steaming now that they were on shore, and he was coated in the filth they had just crossed. His gray eyes glowed in the reflection of the fire, like the coals of hell, and when he turned those eyes on her she felt, for the first time, a little afraid of him. This was not Hatch, her constant companion through the mouse-hole. Nor was this the man who had methodically rescued her from a burning building. This was Hatcher, the murderer with the axe, the man who had been found covered in blood and surrounded by bodies.<\/p>\n But he would never hurt you,<\/em> Alice told herself. He\u2019s still Hatch, somewhere in there. He\u2019s just lost himself for a moment.<\/em><\/p>\n She put her hands on his shoulders, tentatively, and said his name again, for he stared at her but did not seem to see. Then his hands were at her wrists, his grip bruising the thin skin, and his iron eyes were wild.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s out, he\u2019s out, he\u2019s out,\u201d he chanted. \u201cNow the world will break and burn and bleed, everyone will bleed.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe Jabberwock?\u201d Alice said.<\/p>\n \u201cHis mouth will open wide and we will all fall in, fall in and be devoured,\u201d Hatcher said. \u201cWe must get away, away before he finds me. He knows I can hear him. He knows that I know what evil he will do.\u201d<\/p>\n Suddenly there was a tremendous noise from the asylum, a sound like the very heart of the building crashing in on itself. Alice and Hatcher turned to watch, and all the walls collapsed like a melting sandcastle. There seemed to be nothing but fire now, and the fire shot impossibly upward into the sky, well past the point where there was anything to burn. It filled the horizon, the wings of a monster outstretched.<\/p>\n Behind the flame was a darkness, a gigantic shadow that spread, as if something that was trapped was now free, reaching its arms toward the sun.<\/p>\n \u201cIs that\u2026him?\u201d Alice asked. She\u2019d never believed in the Jabberwock, not really. And perhaps there was no shadow at all. She was exhausted, and had spent some time breathing smoke and poison. Her brain might tell her there was a shadow when in fact there was none. That was the trouble with not being right in the head. You couldn\u2019t always tell if your eyes were telling the truth.<\/p>\n Hatcher did not reply to her question. He stared for a moment at the tower of flame, and then grabbed Alice\u2019s right wrist, tugging her up the bank. The mud inhibited fast progress, but they finally managed to clamber on to the narrow cobbled path that ran around and between the warrens of tilting structures stacked crazily against one another.<\/p>\n The Old City seemed to have no beginning and no end, a circling maze of stairways and narrow alleys connecting buildings that had been patched and rebuilt on top of crumbling ruins for centuries. There was nothing gleaming and new there, not even the children, who seemed to be birthed with haunted eyes.<\/p>\n Hatcher ducked into the nearest alley, pulling Alice after him. The rough stones scraped her bare feet, but she understood the need to disappear quickly. Aside from the question of the Jabberwock, Alice had recognized the distinctive brass-buttoned gleam of a copper\u2019s uniform. Never mind if the asylum was naught but a cinder now. If they were caught out in their hospital whites the police would drag them away. And Alice had a feeling Hatcher would not go quietly.<\/p>\n So they dipped and darted beneath the girls with their customers pressed up against the alley walls, or old men gathered in clusters around a shell game or a cockfight. Hatcher led them deeper into the Old City, to a place where the rising sun was blocked by the closeness of the buildings and the air was blanketed in fog from the factories. Mist rose from the cobblestones, hiding approaching figures until they were nearly upon you.<\/p>\n Which is how the men surrounded them.<\/p>\n Hatcher paused for a moment, seeing Alice out of breath and suffering. He did not pat or comfort her, but waited. In that moment that they were still an enormous ogre loomed out of the darkness and swung a club at Hatcher. Alice opened her mouth to scream, but a filthy hand covered it and another hand latched on her breast, squeezing it so hard tears sprang to her eyes.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat have we here?\u201d a rough voice cooed in her ear. \u201cA little lost lamb?\u201d<\/p>\n She kicked out, tried to slip out of his clutch as Hatcher and the ogre- whom she now saw was a man, the largest man she had ever seen \u2013 disappeared into the fog. Her struggles were useless against her captor\u2019s strength as he dragged her away.<\/p>\n His free hand moved from her breast to the hem of shift, pulling it to her waist, his fingers on her thighs, and she went wild then, biting down on the hand that covered her mouth because she remembered, remembered a man over her in the flickering light, pushing between her legs and it hurt, she screamed because it hurt, but he kept at it until she bled.<\/p>\n The man who held her now swore as he felt her teeth but he did not let go. \u201cLittle hellion,\u201d he snarled, and slammed her forehead against the brick wall.<\/p>\n She went limp and dazed then for a moment, and something wet and sticky covered her eyes. Then she was on the ground on her belly, her bare thighs scraping against the stones, and his hands were on her bottom, pulling her legs apart.<\/p>\n Just go away<\/em>, she thought. You\u2019re not here, you\u2019re in a green field in a valley, and the sun is shining down, and here comes someone smiling at you, someone who loves you.<\/em><\/p>\n Then the hands on her were gone and she heard the sound of flesh meeting flesh. She rolled to one side, her shift still up around her waist, and wiped the stickiness from her eyes.<\/p>\n Hatcher was pounding her attacker repeatedly with his fists. He had pushed the man\u2019s back against the wall and was methodically reducing the man\u2019s face to an unrecognizable blob of jelly. After several moments Hatcher released the man, who fell limp to the ground. He did not appear to be breathing.<\/p>\n Hatcher turned to Alice, his chest heaving. He was covered in blood, his hands and his chest and his face. His eyes went from the cut on her head to her bare waist, and lingered there for a moment. Then he said, \u201cCover yourself\u201d and turned away to search the man\u2019s pockets.<\/p>\n Alice pulled the shift down to her knees again and used the wall to help her stand. She leaned there for a moment and her body began to shake all over. When Hatcher turned back her teeth were chattering. He held a small pouch in one hand.<\/p>\n \u201cFull of gold,\u201d he said, nudging the limp body with his toe. \u201cProbably a slave trader. He would have used you and then sold you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI th-th-think I w-w-was sold before,\u201d she said. She had a memory of money changing hands, of seeing a smaller hand being filled with gold from a larger one.<\/p>\n \u201cBy the man with the long ears, or to him?\u201d Hatcher asked.<\/p>\n She shook her head. There had only been that flash of terror, of memory best forgotten. There had been a man, but she couldn\u2019t remember his face. Then her mind reasserted itself, keeping her safe.<\/p>\n He paused in front of her, a savage splattered with the blood of her attacker, and there was something about his face that was oddly vulnerable.<\/p>\n \u201cMay I\u2026?\u201dhe asked, and he mimed putting his arm around her shoulder.<\/p>\n Everything inside her clenched and cried no.<\/em> Then the moment passed, and she remembered how he had stared at her bare legs but turned away instead of falling on her like a ravening wolf. She nodded, and saw relief on his face.<\/p>\n His arm went around and pulled her tight to his body for a moment, so she could feel the coiled strength in him. Then he loosened enough so she could walk, but did not let go. They returned to the place where the ogre had attacked. Alice saw the body of the larger man there. He still breathed shallowly through the broken mess where his teeth used to be. Near by on the ground was the club he had used on Hatcher. It was actually just a thick rod of wood with a slightly oversized end. It was broken in two pieces.<\/p>\n \u201cWe must get inside somewhere,\u201d Hatcher said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere can we go that\u2019s safe?\u201d Alice asked. \u201cDoes this place seem familiar to you?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt does,\u201d he admitted. \u201cThough I don\u2019t know why. From the moment we stepped inside the Old City my feet have been leading us someplace.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSomeplace safe?\u201d she asked. The cold was in her bones now, making her tremble all over despite the warmth of Hatcher holding her close. She was hungry and tired and more scared than she could ever remember being. For a brief moment she longed for the certainty of the hospital, the security of four walls around her.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s been many years since I\u2019ve been here. Some places look the same. More the same than you\u2019d think. And others seem much different, though I can\u2019t put my finger on why.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think your memory is as gone as you think it is,\u201d Alice said. \u201cYou remember things like the time of Magicians. And that men like that sell girls like me. And you know the city. You\u2019ve only forgotten who you are.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d Hatcher said. \u201cI know who I am now. I\u2019ve forgotten who I was before. Probably for the best. You might not like who I was then. I might not, either.\u201d<\/p>\n Alice remembered who she was before. She just couldn\u2019t recall what happened to that girl to make her this girl. And given the flashes she\u2019d just seen that was probably for the best. Hatcher was right. Maybe not remembering was better.<\/p>\n She shook under his arm. He rubbed his shoulder with his hand, fruitlessly trying to impart heat.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t get warm,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re nearly there.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNearly where?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know. It\u2019s where my feet are leading us. It\u2019s someplace safe.\u201d<\/p>\n Alice noticed they\u2019d emerged from the maze of alleys into a thoroughfare. It wasn\u2019t packed, but there were plenty of people going about their morning\u2019s business. Women with their heads wrapped in scarves against the chill, carrying baskets of eggs and cabbage and fish wrapped in paper. Men leading donkeys laden with coal or firewood, or making quiet trades on the sly. Boys in ragged caps and bare feet pinching apples from carts when the proprietor wasn\u2019t looking.<\/p>\n Everyone who saw Alice and Hatcher averted their eyes and veered away, but the two of them did not seem to cause sufficient alarm that the police were called, for which Alice was grateful. None of these folk would want the authorities sniffing around, for she was certain that more than fruit and coal was being sold off those carts. Every person made it clear that no help was to be found there, but no hindrance, either.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we arrive,\u201d Hatcher said. \u201cThere will be an old woman, and she will know me, and she will let us in.\u201d<\/p>\n Alice wondered who this old woman was, and why Hatcher was so sure she would help. She wanted to ask, but Hatcher probably would not know the answer, anyway. And her stomach was starting to churn, even though there was nothing in it. If they\u2019d still been in their rooms the morning porridge would have come hours ago. Alice coughed, and tasted something foul in the back of her throat.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel sick,\u201d she moaned.<\/p>\n \u201cNearly there,\u201d Hatcher said, steering her around the corner of a storefront selling healing potions and down another alley.<\/p>\n \u201cI won\u2019t make it,\u201d Alice said, and broken away from Hatcher to heave against the wall.<\/p>\n Her stomach wrenched upward, her throat burning but all that came out were a few thin drools of bile. Alice leaned her aching forehead against the cool brick and winced when the rough surface scraped against the scabbed knot given her by the man who would have raped her. The nausea had not passed. Instead the outburst had only made her feel worse.<\/p>\n \u201cJust a little farther,\u201d Hatcher said, tugging at her hand, her shoulder. \u201cIt\u2019s the powder making you sick.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI haven\u2019t had my powder today,\u201d Alice said.<\/p>\n \u201cPrecisely,\u201d Hatcher said. \u201cHow many years have you had a powder with breakfast and supper?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEver since I went to hospital,\u201d Alice said.<\/p>\n It was a terrible struggle to put one foot in front of the other. She could barely lift her leg from the ground. Her toes curled under and scraped along the stone, the skin there peeling away and leaving it raw.<\/p>\n Hatcher badgered and dragged her the last few feet. When finally they reached the plain wooden door tucked in a notch halfway down the alley Alice was on the verge of collapse.<\/p>\n Hatcher pounded on the door with his fist, his other arm keeping Alice from folding up in a heap on the ground. The door opened and a very small woman, knotted and ancient, appeared in the opening. She wore a blue dress covered by a faded red shawl. Her hair was white, and her eyes were as gray as Hatcher\u2019s. She took one long look at him, and Alice thought she heard a little sigh.<\/p>\n Then the woman said, \u201cNicholas. I\u2019ve been waiting for you for three days.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Preorder ALICE now!<\/p>\n Amazon<\/a><\/p>\n Barnes & Noble<\/a><\/p>\n Books-A-Million<\/a><\/p>\n Indiebound<\/a><\/p>\n Powell’s<\/a><\/p>\n or ask your local bookstore to order a copy for you!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" CHAPTER ONE If she moved her head all the way up against the wall and tilted it to the left she could just see the edge of the moon through the bars. Just a silver sliver, almost close enough to … Continue reading