\u201cNow what to do?\u201d Alice muttered, returning to the cave entrance. Hatcher trailed behind her, silent, his mind obviously elsewhere.<\/p>\n
They had counted upon being able to forage for food and water once they escaped the tunnel, but that seemed impossible now.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere must be a village or town somewhere,\u201d she said to Hatcher. \u201cNot everyone in the world comes from the City. And there must be something beyond this blight, else Cheshire and the other Magicians would not have been interested in maintaining the tunnel.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hatcher crouched and ran his fingers through the dark substance that covered the ground. \u201cIt was all burned.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d Alice agreed. \u201cBut burned unnaturally, somehow. That doesn\u2019t seem like ordinary fire ash.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMagic?\u201d Hatcher asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cI suppose,\u201d she said. \u201cBut why would a Magician want to burn all the land in sight? And how recently has all this occurred? It seems the burning goes right up to the edge of the New City. How was it that the City was not burned too?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhatever happened, you can be certain that no one in the City was told of it,\u201d Hatcher said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the residents of the New City,\u201d Alice said. \u201cHow could such a thing occur without their notice?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou once lived in the New City,\u201d Hatcher said. \u201cDid you notice anything that you weren\u2019t told to notice by the ministers?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d Alice admitted. \u201cBut then, I was a child when I lived there. I didn\u2019t notice much beyond my own garden, and my governess, and my family.\u201d<\/p>\n
And Dor, she thought, but she didn\u2019t say it aloud. Little Dor-a-mouse, scuttling for the Rabbit. Dor, who had sold Alice to a man who\u2019d raped her, who\u2019d tried to break her. Dor, her best friend in all the world.<\/p>\n
Thinking of Dor made Alice remember their tea party with the Rabbit and the Walrus, and the enormous plate of cakes, beautiful cakes with high crowns of brightly colored frosting. She\u2019d give anything for a cake right now, although not one of the Rabbit\u2019s cakes, which had been filled with powders to make her sick and compliant.<\/p>\n
For a moment she wished for one of Cheshire\u2019s magic parcels filled with food, but then remembered that such a thing would require a connection to Cheshire that she didn\u2019t want.<\/p>\n
She might be able to summon up food for them. Her only excuse for not doing such a thing before was that she wasn\u2019t yet accustomed to the idea of being a Magician. Perhaps, when they were far from the City, she could search for another Magician, one who might teach her. They couldn\u2019t all be terrible, couldn\u2019t all be like the Caterpillar and the Rabbit and Cheshire and the Jabberwocky.<\/p>\n
She must stop thinking of the Jabberwocky. The wish had said she would forget him, and he would die because of that. So she needed to forget, because she never again wanted to see the results of the Jabberwocky\u2019s rage. The streets of the Old City lined with bodies and rivers of blood, those streets utterly silent, nothing living remaining except her and Hatcher.<\/p>\n
Much like this, really, Alice thought. Just her and Hatcher and the burned land.<\/p>\n
Sitting in the ruins of what was probably magical fire, remembering the horrors committed by those men in the Old City, the belief of the existence of a good Magician seemed na\u00efve.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe power corrupts them,\u201d Alice said.<\/p>\n
It was a frightening thought, one that made her suddenly reluctant to try any magic at all. She\u2019d spent years under the influence of drugs that made her think she was insane. She was only just learning who Alice was, what it was like to be her own self. She would rather use no magic at all than become someone unrecognizable.<\/p>\n
\u201cPower corrupts who?\u201d Hatcher asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cHm?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou said, \u2018Maybe power corrupts them.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Magicians,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019ve yet to meet a decent one.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d Hatcher agreed. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean they don\u2019t exist. In the story Cheshire told us, a good Magician saved the world from the Jabberwocky. At least for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course,\u201d Alice said. \u201cI\u2019d forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s easy to forget the good things,\u201d Hatcher said, and this statement seemed to set off another fit of brooding. He sat back in the ash and began idly drawing with the point of one of the many knives he carried.<\/p>\n
Alice decided to leave him to it. Hatcher wasn\u2019t voluble at the best of times, and forcing him to talk would only leave them both irritated.<\/p>\n
It couldn\u2019t hurt to try a little magic. They obviously weren\u2019t going any farther at the moment, and Alice was hungry.<\/p>\n
The only magic she had performed thus far\u2014on purpose, anyway\u2014had been in the form of wishing. She\u2019d wished the Jabberwocky into a butterfly; she\u2019d wished the connection between herself and Cheshire broken. A delicious meal should only be a wish away, then.<\/p>\n
Alice sat a few feet away from Hatcher and his drawings. She noted that he wasn\u2019t merely idly tracing shapes in the dirt. There appeared to be a pattern to his work, and the pattern was growing larger and more complex. He was on the balls of his feet now, crouched like a monkey, darting to and fro as he added to the design on the ground.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are you doing?\u201d she asked, curious.<\/p>\n
He grunted at her, and Alice frowned. Well, if he is going to be that way about it. She deliberately turned her back on his activity and concentrated on her own task.<\/p>\n
First,<\/em> she thought with a thrill of anticipation, what to wish for?<\/p>\n Alice had a terrible sweet tooth, one that had not been suppressed in the least by ten years of bland oat porridge. Her first instinct was to wish for plates of cookies and cakes, and a large pot of steaming tea and pretty china cups to pour the tea into. But that was not a practical wish. Even Alice knew that they could not walk for miles on nothing but frosting and butter.<\/p>\n What, then? Something that would pack up easily in Hatcher\u2019s bag, and not spoil in this bleak, hot landscape. It was very hot, Alice realized. Beads of sweat had formed on her forehead and upper lip and trickled down her chest. The tunnel they\u2019d left was cool and dark. Now the full scorch of the sun made the shirt and jacket and heavy trousers Alice wore cling to her skin, which resulted in her being more cross and more uncomfortable than she already was.<\/p>\n She took the jacket off, transferring the little knife she always carried to the belt of her trousers. She put her hands in front of her, palms down, though it felt a little foolish to do so. Alice had an odd idea that the magic would come out of her hands. She closed her eyes and focused hard on what she wanted.<\/p>\n \u201cI wish for\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. six meat pies,\u201d she decided. \u201cAnd a dozen apples. And a jug of fresh milk.\u201d<\/p>\n She opened her eyes and peered under her hands. Nothing. Only fine grey ash, and the hot wind lazily blowing it in little swirls and eddies.<\/p>\n Alice frowned. Now, why hadn\u2019t that worked? She kept her hands in her lap this time, and repeated the words, staring at the blank space in front of her intently.<\/p>\n Again, nothing. She realized Hatcher had ceased his frenzy of activity and peered over her shoulder.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think it works like that,\u201d Hatcher said. He sounded almost normal, like the fever that seized him had passed.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat do you know about it?\u201d Alice snapped. She felt a little embarrassed, like she\u2019d been caught being naughty.<\/p>\n Hatcher shrugged. \u201cAs much as you, I suppose. Or probably less.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThen why do you think it wouldn\u2019t work?\u201d Alice asked.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re trying to make something out of nothing,\u201d Hatcher said. \u201cWhen you wished the Jabberwock into the jar as a butterfly, you were using the Jabberwock himself to start with. When you broke the connection between you and Cheshire, you were breaking something already in place. You didn\u2019t start with nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n Alice frowned. \u201cAnd what about when I pushed the Jabberwocky away from you? I made something out of nothing then.\u201d<\/p>\n Hatcher shook his head. \u201cNo. You used your own fear, your own love, and you pushed it toward the Jabberwock.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m hungry and thirsty,\u201d Alice said. \u201cWhy can\u2019t that make food, then, if love and fear can chase away a monster?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re the Magician,\u201d Hatcher said, and he waited to see what she would do.<\/p>\n RED QUEEN will be released July 12, 2016!<\/p>\n Add RED QUEEN to your Goodreads list here<\/a><\/p>\n Preorder RED QUEEN from:<\/p>\n Mysterious Galaxy here<\/a><\/p>\n Barnes & Noble here<\/a><\/p>\n Amazon paperback here<\/a><\/p>\n Amazon Kindle here <\/a><\/p>\n Powell’s here<\/a><\/p>\n Books-A-Million here<\/a><\/p>\n Kobo here<\/a><\/p>\n Indiebound here<\/a><\/p>\n Audible audio edition here<\/a><\/p>\n Titan Books UK edition here <\/a><\/p>\n Alice was a Magician, albeit one who did not know very much about her own magic. She was escaping a City that hated and feared Magicians, which was one of the reasons why she didn\u2019t know so very much about … Continue reading ![\"red_queen_front](\"https:\/\/www.christinahenry.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/RedQueen.jpg\")
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