Page 34 of Wondrous

I set about wrestling my bedding into submission—I had only a few scraps of blanket now, after that business with Jack and the rope. Making matters worse, the ground was very uneven. My hedgehogs, as eager for sleep as I was, kept trying to nestle into the warmth before I had made the bed to my satisfaction, and I accidentally kicked them once or twice, sending them rolling and bouncing over the grass.

“Tansy would love this story,” I murmured to Hedgewitch, who had burrowed into the space between my neck and shoulder. It was true; Tansy loved stories about monsters and sometimes even—to Edith’s dismay—took inspiration from them. The idea of me traveling in the company of a jabberwock would have made her wild with curiosity.

I must have drifted off eventually, because the darkness lay thick around me when I opened my eyes, and little specks of rain fell upon my cheeks, though the sky had been clear before. I had woken because Hedgewitch had bitten me, harder than she usually did.

I brushed the rain off my face, becoming aware that it was warm.

I let out the faintest of whimpers. Half the sky above me was blocked by the huge beast that crouched at the edge of the clearing, leaning over. Another drop of drool landed on my forehead.

The hedgehogs had already curled themselves into spiny balls, their customary response to danger. I slowly turned my head toward where Jack had been sleeping. I could just make out the rough shape of him, still curled up amongst the shadows. Swallowing hard, I turned back to the creature hunched above me.

We wouldn’t need to hunt the mock dragon.

The mock dragon had been hunting us.

Chapter 17

I don’t know why the monster waited to attack. Perhaps it had simply been having a rest before tucking in to its supper, savoring the anticipation. But abruptly, it drew in a wheezing breath, and the embers at the back of its throat were stoked into flame.

I screamed and rolled away, grabbing for the hedgehogs as I went. The hedgehogs didn’t need my help, though—they rolled swiftly into the trees. A geyser of flame struck the ground where I’d been lying, igniting my scraps of blanket.

The mock dragon gave a terrible bellow. Now that there was suddenly a great deal of light in the clearing, I could get a good look at it. What I saw was both more and less terrible than an actual dragon.

It was big, for one thing—possibly fifteen feet in height, and easily the same in length. But it was difficult, at first, to see anything dragonish about it, at least when you looked past the fire-breathing. It had the face of an alligator, the horns of a bull, and the long neck of a horse, but it was covered in small tawny feathers. The body shape was roughly that of a dragon, I thought, not that I’d ever seen a real one, but from its back sprouted what were simultaneously the most beautiful and useless wings I’d ever seen. They were feathered in ivory and gold but nowhere near large enough to lift a creature of that size into the sky.

I was on my feet just in time to dodge another blast of fire, but this one was mostly ash and smoke, like flame choking on wet wood, and I guessed that the dragon had to take breaks to replenish itself. It had already done a great deal of damage, though—small hollows had appeared in the ground and the air above the campsite, big enough to fit my hand through, with the same look of burnt paper about them. I just managed to avoid one at knee height.

The dragon mumbled something to itself and drew a deep breath, then another. It was stoking the flame in its throat, which grew brighter and brighter. I desperately scanned the grove for somewhere to hide—would the trees protect me from this most destructive flame?

From the corner of my eye, I noticed a flicker of movement. Jack had scaled the tree he’d been sleeping in and was now in the canopy. From there he dropped—an impossible drop, but he did it easily—onto the mock dragon’s head. He wrenched the head back by the horns and threw his body sideways, kicking the creature in the throat.

The mock dragon released a belch and then began to cough, the grove filling with soupy clouds of smoke.

Jack yelled something at me, but I couldn’t hear it, and for a moment I couldn’t even see the two of them, just a lot of hazy flailing. The dragon bellowed again—its voice matched its bull-like horns. And then its threatening cries abruptly weakened, mixed with wheezing.

When the smoke finally cleared, Jack was still atop the monster’s head, holding on to a horn one-handed. He held his other hand out as if gripping an invisible ball, his fingers slowly tightening. His face was tense with concentration. About the dragon’s neck were—well, it was difficult for me to work out what I was seeing. Ripples in the air undulated like a long coiling tail and wrapped themselves around the dragon’s throat. I could see the indentations in the dragon’s skin where they pressed deeper and deeper.

“Jack, no!” I yelled. I could make little sense of what he was doing, but clearly this was some sinister jabberwock power of his. “Don’t kill it!”

I sprinted back to our cold campfire. I’d removed my belt with the teacups dangling from it, which I now regretted, but I managed to avoid the lash of the mock dragon’s tail and fumbled with the clasp that held one cup in particular.

I gripped the cup and threw myself into the mock dragon’s path as it staggered about. It turned toward me, and I felt its fury and delight, that I should be so perfectly positioned.

“Alice!” Jack shouted from the mock dragon’s head—he was still maintaining a precarious hold on its horn, but the beast kept jerking its head, trying to dislodge him. “Get out of the way! You’ll be—”

The creature abruptly threw its head back, sending Jack flying into the forest. The transparent ripples dissolved, and it drew a deep breath and opened its mouth wide. Flame surged up the back of its throat.

At the same moment, I hurled the teacup as hard as I could, praying that my aim would be true.

It was. The teacup sailed directly into the mock dragon’s mouth with a wet smack, colliding with the back of its throat. Sparks exploded from its jaws, and I leapt back with a cry. The dragon began to cough, more smoke and embers erupting into the clearing, and suddenly Jack was behind me, dragging me out of range.

I almost didn’t notice him, so intent was I on the mock dragon—would it work? The enchantment was in the teacup, but did it need tea to activate it? I’d always assumed so, but then I’d never tried eating the teacups before.

The mock dragon staggered around the clearing, crashing into trees and snapping several saplings like matchsticks, hacking and gagging. Jack dragged me this way and that to avoid the falling trees, moving so fast it left me breathless and trembling.

And then the mock dragon stopped, and its eyelids drooped, and it let out a sigh woven with soot. It slumped to the forest floor, fast asleep.

Chapter 18