Page 45 of Wondrous

“You can stay the night,” I said. “But my answer won’t change in the morning.”

Chapter 22

I stared up at the roof of the tent, watching the tree shadow move with the wind. The skies had cleared by midnight, but the moon was hidden by the boughs and the night was very dark. I had been awake for so long that I was beginning to feel hungry—I’d been too anxious to eat more than one s’more. Also, I wasn’t convinced about them. I wasn’t used to eating things with my hands, and certainly not anything so sticky.

Jack, on the other hand, had not needed convincing. He had eaten eleven.

“Serves you right,” I hissed at him as he groaned and turned over for the hundredth time. He was sleeping in my tent that night instead of a tree to avoid making the other Alices—who had set up their tent on the other side of the clearing—even more suspicious of him than they already were. He had been so clearly unfamiliar with the concept of either marshmallows, chocolate, or ginger biscuits, asking Alex and Maria dozens of questions about their origins and making, that I eventually had to elbow him to keep quiet. When we had heard a strange noise in the bushes, he had risen and melted soundlessly into the darkness in a way that was much like a monster and nothing like a boy. Also, he still refused to wear shoes.

“My heart,” he muttered. “It feels as if it’s trying to leap out of my chest.”

“Well, of course. You can’t eat that much sugar in one sitting.”

“And my stomach might as well have rocks in it. What dark magic is in those things? And why could I still go for another?”

“They aren’t magic. You just aren’t supposed to have eleven,” I retorted.

Jack’s only response was another groan, while his stomach gave an angry rumble. At least it wasn’t romantic, sharing a tent with him in such circumstances. Not that sharing a tent with a jabberwock should be romantic—indeed, I was likely the only person in history to have had that particular worry.

“I’m dying,” he murmured. “I always thought my end would involve the slash of a sword and my head rolling off my shoulders. But in place of a sword, it’s those fiendish marshmallows.”

I gave a snort of laughter. I sat up and placed my hand on his forehead. Grackle, who had been resting amongst his waves of dark hair, fluttered free. “You’re not dying,” I said. “I’ll make you some peppermint tea—that should help the stomachache.”

Jack groaned again, but one of his eyes flickered open, a flash of periwinkle in the darkness.

I made Jack his tea, trying not to clank anything, to avoid waking Alex and Maria, and wishing I’d brought the teacup that was good for stomachaches. I left Jack propped up on his pillow, sipping the tea and ruing his gluttony—at least I hoped he was ruing it—and went back to the fire. I couldn’t sleep with him making such a fuss anyway.

I left the hedgehogs to nap in my blankets, but Grackle followed me out of the tent. Disturbingly, he’d begun to settle on me as often as he did Jack, perhaps hoping I, too, would put him to work, thus increasing his rewards. Though it was also possible he didn’t have the intellect to distinguish between one lumbering two-legged creature and another.

He fluttered frantically around the rock I’d been about to sit on, where I found a large hairy spider enjoying the warmth of the fire.

“I’m not going to kill it,” I told Grackle, gently shooing the spider away. “Not all of us eat bugs.”

Grackle settled himself on another rock, antennae twitching with what I could only describe as disappointment.

“You are the wickedest creature I have ever met in my life,” I said.

I stirred the embers and gazed into the forest. Despite the danger of the mock dragon lurking nearby, it was a peaceful part of the Tulgey Wood. A stream flowed past the campsite, wending its way down to the lake, the swishing sounds like the sighs of someone looking forward to rest after a long day. The vines draping the trees muffled sounds and blurred the hard edges of the forest. Even through my fear and my mistrust of the other Alices, I felt a shiver of happiness that I was here, in Wonderland, on an impossible adventure, instead of back home.

Naturally, someone decided to interrupt my pleasant thoughts—someone with sharp claws.

I turned to find the Cheshire Cat mid-scratch, spine curved in contentment as he rent long jagged scars in the side of a tree. He shook himself and ambled over to the fire, remarking, “Ah! Much better.”

“Where have you been?” I demanded, not because I expected the Cat to answer but because I’d missed him.

The Cat yawned and collapsed onto his side by the flames, licking his paw. This exposed his exceptionally fluffy stomach, which made my hand twitch with unwise longing.

“Don’t you have questions for me?” the Cat said. “I should imagine the discovery of all these Alices has left you feeling a little—lost.”

He made his head disappear, then pretended to be feeling for it with his paws.

“I just asked you a question,” I said with a sigh. “Honestly, you are even more pointless than a regular cat.”

“Pointless? What a silly girl. I’m pointful.” His head reappeared, and he bared his teeth and claws. “See?”

I poked the fire with a stick. “I know you rarely say what you mean, but if you actually mean what you say, here’s a question: Are we all the Uplanders who have ever come to Wonderland?”

The Cat yawned. “I forgot how boring it is to answer questions. Wouldn’t you rather play a game?” He vanished but for his tail, which he waggled in front of me. “Catch me if you can!”