Alice stood at the mirror and fixed the pins in her hair. Streaks of grey ran through it. She noticed that the lace on this old dress was getting a bit worn. But what wasn't? The cat sat on the desk, its tail twitching. “Shall I never get any older than I am now?” Alice thought. “That'll be a comfort, one way, never to be an old woman. But then, to always have lessons to learn...”

Remembering herself, she turned back to the young woman on the three-legged stool. She was a big, strapping farm girl with thick calves, made for hauling. She kicked her feet back and forth as she waited, drawing attention to her brilliantly glittering shoes. Dorothy: That was her name. Alice cradled the cat in one arm and stroked its head. “When I was a girl I told stories of just such a sort,” Alice said, sitting at her desk. “Far-off places and talking animals and all manner of nonsense. That's fine when you're a child. But sooner or later you have to grow up. Otherwise we'll never be able to send you home. You want to go home, don't you?”


Dorothy nodded, making her pigtails bounce. “No matter how dreary and gray our homes are, we'd rather live there than any other country, be it ever so beautiful. There is no place like home.”

“I agree. Now what is it you said that started all this trouble?”

The girl fretted for a moment then blurted out: “I asked Marie to make something for me and we got into a fight over it.” She unrolled a handkerchief and showed Alice an illustration in ink—a diagram really—of some machine shaped like a man. She cocked her head at it.

“Curiouser and curiouser.”

“I said I wanted her to make him without a heart,” Dorothy said. “I think it's wrong to want a heart—they make most people unhappy. Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable.”

“I see that you intended to put the materials to good use in another organ entirely,” Alice said. She turned her head a little more to the side as she took in the full dimensions of the drawing. Then she folded it up and stuck it in a drawer. “You're usually a good girl. I've never had to use the rod before. Do you want me to start?”

Dorothy's eyes went wide. She shook her head. Alice went to the cupboard and took down a short-handled paddle with a flat ash wood head. “Stand up,” Alice said.

Dorothy wrapped her legs around the stool. “I'm not—”

“Stand.”

Dorothy stood. At Alice's signal she raised the hem of her plain dress until the tops of her tall socks and a flash of white thigh were visible. Alice laid the hard wood against Dorothy's backside. It was a gentle touch, but she jumped anyway. “You can go with a warning this time. But keep it in mind in the future.”

The girl left without another word, sparkling shoes clomping down the hall. The hall was just a little bit crooked, like everything in the house. Everyone got used to it eventually. The cat jumped onto the desk again as soon as they were alone. Alice sighed. “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” she said, partly to herself.

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the cat. Its grin looked particularly insolent today.

“I don't much care where,” said Alice. “I worry about girls like that ragamuffin who just left. They must be mad.”

“We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad. You must be, or else—” But then it stopped and scampered underneath the desk. Alice noticed a girl standing in the (crooked) office door, apparently waiting. She was a freckled thing with big green eyes and a somewhat vague expression, hugging a satchel to her chest as if it were a buoy in the ocean. Ah yes, Alice thought, the new one.

She came and took the girl's bag. Alice was, by most accounts, a tall woman, and the girl craned her neck to look up at her. “You've come from Morro Bay?” Alice said.


“Yes Ma'am. I'm Trot.”

“What kind of a name is that?”

“My kind,” the girl said. “Really it's Mayre Griffith, but ever since I was little Cap'n Bill called me Trot, after the way I always ran after him.”


“Is Captain Bill your father?” Alice began rooting through the satchel. Certain things she removed: silk stockings, cosmetics, elaborate undergarments, and other items not permitted under house rules.

“Oh no. My father was first-mate on Cap'n Bill's ship. That is, until Cap'n Bill lost his leg. Then he started serving on my father's ship and—”

“I'm keeping these,” Alice said, holding up a handful of silky underpants. These she also put in a drawer in her desk, one all but overflowing with similar contraband. “And this,” she added, keeping the bag itself but piling the rest of Trot's clothes in her arms. The cat had come to investigate Trot and when she scratched between its ears it favored her with a toothy grin. Trot pulled her hand back in alarm.

“Could you please tell me why your cat grins like that?” she said. “I didn't know that cats COULD grin...”

“They all can,” said Alice. “And most of them do. Now, come with me and pay attention: This is the only time you'll be shown the grounds.”

She took Trot by the hand and all but pulled the girl out of her socks, down the crooked halls and up the crooked stairs and past rows and rows of sunny, crooked windows. Anytime they passed an open door, girls in twos and threes gathered to gawk at the new arrival. Trot took two steps to each of Alice's, to keep up.

“This is not like any other finishing school,” Alice said. “Of course, you'll have all the usual lessons: manners, graces, charm, cooking, sewing, reeling and writhing, and the different branches of arithmetic—ambition, distraction, uglification, and derision. But more importantly we're here to help you. You DO know why you need help?” She rounded on Trot, who skidded to avoid running smack into her. Trot stammered for a moment.

“I'm not—that is to say, I know what they told me—”

“This is Madam Alice's Academy for Wayward Women. Wayward Women means you. I've read your stepmother's letters: You have troublesome delusions. Here we help problematic young women through strict discipline, the kind you evidently never got when you were younger.”

“Begging your pardon, I'm not sure I ever did get much formal education. Mostly I just crewed with Cap'n Bill, you see, until—” But Alice was charging down the hall again and Trot ran after her.

When she stopped to catch her breath the cat rubbed up against her leg again. Then it grinned and said: “How do you like the Queen?”

Trot gaped. “That cat!” she said. “It just—” But she stopped when she saw Alice's reproving expression. Alice picked the cat up and allowed it to clamor up onto her shoulder.

“It just what?” Alice said. Trot could only mutter:

“...nothing, ma'am.” The cat grinned. It looked good-natured, she thought; still it had very long claws and a great many teeth...

“If there's no more of that,” said Alice, “it's time to introduce you to your roommate.”

***

Marie Stahlbaum was an odd, quiet girl. The room they shared was spacious, though the absence of windows gave it a claustrophobic feeling, and the proximity to the cellar stairs meant that they could hear the servants tromping up and down all the time. Trot guessed Marie's accent to be German, though Trot, having done most of her traveling under the sea or up in the air, had not much of an ear earthbound accents. It seemed that when Marie she was not at lessons she spent almost the entirety of her time constructing wonderful clockwork contraptions. A great many tiny cogs, springs, coils, and screws were strewn about the top of her dresser, glittering like miniscule jewels.

Marie wore a blue work apron and toiled over the parts with small, sharp instruments, and she never seemed to blink and only talked when asked a question, and even then in a breathless whisper. Trot (whose side of the room was empty except for the few bare furnishings and the clothes she'd arrived with that afternoon) watched her work in rapt fascination for over an hour, and when Marie was done she showed Trot what she'd made. It was a tiny metal box, and when Marie opened it a little bird of fine clockwork hopped out. It pecked its way across the dresser and flapped its little tin wings and in every way mimicked the appearance of life, at least until it finally wound down.

Wind-up creatures of this sort filled the room: little men whose eyes moved to watch Trot as when she came and went, and ever-ticking clocks that opened to reveal curious beings hammered out of tin, and a lake of polished glass on which tiny swans with golden collars glided. Best of all was a great castle, painted gold, manned by proud soldiers no bigger than Trot's thumb who drilled and marched and fired their tiny cannon very bravely. “How did you learn to make all this?” Trot said.

“Godfather Drosselmeier taught me,” Marie said. “The castle is just like the one he made one Christmas. My brother Fred loved the castle so much he wanted to be inside it. And now he is.” She picked up a wind-up doll that looked startlingly like a real boy, moving it from the parapets to the courtyard. There seemed to be a look of anguished pleading in the little painted eyes and the twist of the carved mouth...

Trot was beginning to understand what Madam Alice's meant when she said this was not an ordinary finishing school. For one thing, she gathered that most of the girls never so much as stepped foot out of the big house. And, like Marie, they all seemed...odd. As for Madam Alice herself, well, Trot could only hope that their paths crossed as seldom as possible during her stay here. However long that would be...

She lay on the bed and watched the lamplight flicker on the plaster ceiling. This would be the first time she'd ever had to fall asleep anywhere she couldn't hear the ocean roar (either next to it or underneath it), and she felt very alone. She wished she had some keepsake of father or Cap'n Bill or Queen Aquarine and King Anko. She was still not entirely sure why everyone had been so insistent on her coming here, though the longer she spent here the more worried she became. Trot was so busy fretting that she didn't notice the two spectral figures at her bedside until one of them clapped a hand over her mouth. Thin fingers smothered her reflexive scream and their owner leaned over so that their faces were very close together, and put a finger to her lips. “The time has come,” someone whispered, “to talk of many things...”

The intruders were two girls so alike that they were indistinguishable. They were pale and their hair was fair and their nightdresses immaculately white, so that they could almost be a pair of ghosts. When it was clear that Trot was not going to scream again they stopped stifling her and then sat on the edge of her bed. Trot pulled her knees up into a protective position. One of the girls had a sullen, far-off look and did not meet Trot's eyes, while the other one smiled in an almost manic way and seemed to want to be as close as possible to the person she was talking to. “I'm Laura,” she said. “This is Lizzie. You're new?”

“I'm Trot. Really it's Mayre Griffith, but ever since I was little Cap'n Bill called me—”

Laura put her hand over Trot's mouth again and pointed to the door, which they had apparently closed behind them. Someone's footfalls tromped up the cellar stairs and lingered outside the room. There was a single knock and then Madam Alice's voice: “Lamps out.”

The light coming through the crack in the door faded as Madam Alice extinguished the lamp in the hall. At Laura's signal Lizzie turned the lantern in the room as low as it could go without completely extinguishing and then blocked it with her hands until they heard Madam Alice tromp away to the rap at the next door. When the sound of her feet and voice had faded away entirely after doing lamp's out for the entire floor Lizzie let the feeble light out again and then went to sit on Marie's bed while Laura stayed on Trot's. “Her room is on the second floor, right above this one, so she won't be back down,” Laura said. “As long as we're not too loud we won't get caught being in here.”

“You mean we aren't allowed to come and go?”

“You really are new, aren't you?” Laura said. “So how mad are you?”

Trot was confused. “I'm not mad at all.”

“All the girls at Madam Alice's Academy are mad. I'll prove it: Marie, tell your new roomie about the mice.”

Marie drew her legs up onto the bed. “They come in under the door, with little uniforms and little sabers, but my wind-up soldiers can always keep them away as long as I repair them and their castle every day. The only one I'm scared of is the Mouse King. He's bigger than all the rest and he has seven heads. The only thing that can protect us from him is this.”

She hugged some kind of wooden doll, and Trot saw that it was actually a nutcracker, one so old that the paint was chipped and fading, though his violet Hussar's jacket, with its gold buttons and neat white loops, remained sharp, and his black officer's boots were still shiny. His arms and legs had been broken and repaired at some point. She said all of this in a monotone, without blinking, and with an utterly sincere look on her face. Trot felt a little dizzy.

“See?” Laura said. “What mad stories were you telling?”

“I don't tell mad stories. I don't tell any stories at all, except about the mermaids.” Seeing Laura's triumphant expression she hastened to add, “But there really are mermaids! They took me and Cap'n Bill to their city in the ocean when I was a little girl. I can even tell you their names: There's Merla and Clia, and their queen, Aquarine, and—”

“Have you met Wendy? She says she's seen mermaids, too. Nobody believes her, just like nobody believes about Marie's mice, or when Lizzie and I talk about the goblins.”

“We must not look at goblin men...” Lizzie whispered, her voice somehow drowning itself out.

“Don't you get it?” Laura said. “Madam Alice's Academy is a madhouse.”

“I thought it was a finishing school?” Trot said, hugging herself. This conversation was upsetting enough, but Laura's hyena grin made it even worse.

“That's just what they say so that our families don't have to be ashamed,” Laura said. “Nobody ever leaves. And you want to know the best part?” She leaned in even closer. “Madam Alice is mad too. She's the maddest one of all. She talks to her cat.”

“Lots of people talk to cats,” Trot said.

“Most people don't say that the cat talks back.”

“Madam Alice's cat really does talk, though. I heard it this afternoon. At least, I think I did...”

Trot tugged her lip in thought. Was it true? Surely father would never send her to a madhouse. Surely Cap'n Bill wouldn't allow it. But then, this place did seem very peculiar. Laura shrugged. “You can believe what you want,” she said. “You'll learn soon enough. I just thought someone should come in here and tell you how it is. Anyway, Lizzie and I will sleep in here tonight. I assume you'll give us your bed, unless you're an ungracious enough host to make us sleep on the floor. Maybe Marie will share her own bed with you, if you ask nice enough.”

Trot blinked. “Why can't you just go back to your own room?”


“Nobody goes into the halls after lamps out.”

“Why not?”

“The Jabberwock,” Marie said. The little treble when she said it was the first inflection Trot had heard in her voice. “It goes up and down the halls at night.”

“What is a...Jabberwock?” Trot sounded the unfamiliar word slowly. It sent a shiver through her.

“The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, came whiffling through the tulgey wood,” Lizzie said. “Beware the Jabberwock—the jaws that bite, the claws that catch. Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun the frumious Bandersnatch...” Nobody seemed to pay her any mind.

“Nobody knows what it is because no one ever sees it. But you can hear it out there every night. It burbles as it comes,” Laura said, reclining. “So now we're both stuck in here until morning. But I figured we should come over anyway on account of it being your first day. Somebody needed to tell you what really goes on in this place. It's only fair”

She rolled over and this seemed to indicate that conversation was done for the night. The twins had somehow evicted Trot from her own bed and were curled up around each other. Marie tugged her blankets aside, offering the other half of her bed. Rather than accept, Trot sat on the floor, watching the tiny flame in the lamp and thinking. She didn't believe there was a “Jabberwock,” whatever that was, or in Marie's midnight mice. Mermaids were one thing, and the people who lived on the floating island. Those things had seen, and anyway, they were just people. What she didn't understand at all was—

She paused. There was a noise out in the hall. It almost sounded like...

She put her ear up against the door. There was a bump and a thump and a bang. Was it Madam Alice? But this didn't sound anything like her deliberate steps. This sounded like something big and heavy lumbering along. And if Trot strained she thought perhaps she heard something like a wet gasp. And then her heart leapt up as a noise came right at the door, as of some immense, slippery body lumbering against it, and then the whole thing bent inward a little, as if supporting an incredible weight on the other side. The awful, wet, burbling noise came right at the door and Trot pictured a hungry, dripping mouth waiting on the other side...

Trot dove under Marie's covers, and the strange, quiet girl held her until she stopped shivering. The noise out in the hall faded as the night hours went by, but Trot could not fool herself into thinking she hadn't heard it. Something really was out there, just like they'd said. And that's when Trot knew: She would never get to go home again.

***

Trot woke. With no windows and no working clock (Marie's clocks did many things, but none seemed to actually tell time correctly...) there was no way to know if it was morning, and for a moment Trot feared it was still night and that she didn't dare open the door. But after another moment she realized that the house was alive with sounds, and indeed, there shortly came a tap at the door and a curt voice telling them that breakfast would be served in 20 minutes. Trot relaxed a little. At least the night was over.

Except that, in a certain sense, it really wasn't. She was still here, and the awful reality of knowing that she could not leave was almost as frightening as the thought of whatever had been slithering its way up the corridors last night. This place really was a madhouse, and Trot did not doubt that Madam Alice was the maddest of all. If only—

With a prickling feeling, Trot realized that Marie was touching her. The two girls had spent all night wrapped in each other's consoling arms, but this was different. Marie's hands had wandered to parts of Trot that were decidedly private, and with a start Trot realized that the quiet German girl had probably been doing it even before Trot woke. Marie's careful fingers slid over Trot's legs and between her thighs and even now were making their way upward. If Trot hadn't suddenly caught the intruding hand between her knees...well, there was not telling WHAT would have happened. Marie looked at her. “Don't you like it?”

“I suppose I do...but we shouldn't.”

“I was just watching them,” Marie said, indicating the other bed. Trot did a double-take; on the other side of the room, Laura and Lizzie were up to things that Trot was certain twins were not meant to do. She felt alarmed and uneasy, and yet she could not look away. Her legs eased apart almost imperceptibly as she watched. Marie's gaze followed hers.

“They are going to get in very bad trouble,” Trot said. “Sisters really shouldn't do...THAT.”

“But we're not sisters,” Marie said after some moments.

“That's true...” Trot said, easing her legs apart some more. It did feel good, after all. And as much as watching the twins made her feel mildly ill, it caused a certain prickly feeling inside her, like the gentle tickle of seaweed on bare legs. When Marie's hand crept upward again she let it. Their nightclothes rustled together and the bedsprings creaked. Trot bit her lip. “We only have a few minutes,” she said. Then Marie's fingers made contact and Trot swallowed her next words with a small “Oh!” noise.

She felt warm and wet right away. Marie rubbed her with the pad of three fingers, nudging against a particular place each time. Trot drew a breath between clenched teeth. “You...know what you're doing, don't you?” Marie answered by kissing her. It was not like any other kiss Trot had ever had. It made her think of flowers before they bloom and the smell of clean sheets. She dared to put her hands on Marie's body too, feeling the curve of small breasts through her roommate's nightgown. It was all warm and soft and when she grazed the pert nubs of Marie's nipples Marie leaned into the kiss harder and allowed her fingers to range further, parting Trot's lower lips and stimulating the spot just insid.

The little room grew hot. Trot panted as Marie kissed the side of her neck and her exposed collarbones. The noises the twins made now ere simply obscene, not least being a curious wet sound that forced Trot to stick her head out from under the sheets. She blanched. Could women really do that? Wouldn't one of them get dizzy? Marie kissed the side of her neck again and Trot felt lightheaded. This, she knew, was getting out of hand very quickly. And they really shouldn't. But, well, they had to take their nightclothes off anyway if they wanted to get dressed for breakfast, didn't they? Trot's nightgown landed on the floor next to Marie's…

A lifetime of beaches and boats and open oceans had left Trot tanned all over, but Marie's skin was as pale as the porcelain she made some or her dolls from. They pressed together, sharing hungry, open-mouthed kisses, tongues touching and then retreating as Marie's legs twined around Trot's and they pushed their hips together, rubbing up and down. Trot felt as hot as a kettle just on the edge of boiling, and indeed, a sound very much like the scream of a kettle was likely to push its way past her lips any moment now if Marie kept touching her...and touching her...and touching her...

Another rap at the door, louder and sharper this time. All four girls jumped and covered themselves up. When the door didn't open they each stifled giggles and dressed in a hurry. Trot snuck glances at the twins' naked bodies. Laura caught her and winked, and Trot blushed, but she didn't stop looking. What had gotten into her? Perhaps all the stress is making me queer in the head, she thought.

Life at Madam Alice's was surprisingly easy to get used to, if only because there was very little time to dwell on things. After breakfast there were morning lessons: History with Ms. Gryphon, Words and Letters with Ms. Dumpty, French, Music, and Washing with Ms. Mock (all very strange women, as far as Trot was concerned). Madam Alice herself was never seen before afternoon tea, which all the girls had to take in the tea room with her. After that was art with Ms. Conger, who taught, Drawing, Sketching, and Painting in Oils, and then Manners and Graces with Ms. Duchy, the only woman Trot had ever met who frightened her more than Madam Alice herself. Once supper was over they had only an hour to themselves before lamps out, though the tricks Laura and Lizzie had shown her the first night could be used with relative ease anytime, provided you were brave enough.

Trot got to know her schoolmates: Dorothy was a big, strapping farm girl from Culver, Kansas. She came here after a cyclone killed her aunt and uncle and then dropped a house on her, an experience that left her with a head injury and some very odd ideas. Laura told her (in scandalous tones) that Dorothy had a habit of trying to copulate with things that weren't really people. After the storm a neighbor had discovered her trying to perform acts on his scarecrow that the figure was really not equipped for, for instance. But it wasn’t until she took advantages with the lion in a traveling circus that she was sent away…

Karen was an unassuming girl who was prone to strange dancing fits—sometimes until her feet bled—but she always refused to remove the shoes she claimed were responsible. Dot was a sailor girl, just like Trot, and Klara was a girl Trot first thought to be blind but later discovered she only feigned blindness for fear that “the Sandman” would take her eyes.

Elsie and Frances were two furtive of cousins who spent nights peering at an album of photographs they insisted showed fairies but in which no one else could see anything at all. There were two girls refused ever to go out in the sun: Nycteris because light of any kind terrified her and Snegurochka because she feared she'd melt. Supposedly there was a girl around named Mary Rose, but nobody ever quite seemed to know where she was...

Last of all was Wendy, with whom Trot got along best. They met in Ms. Conger's, when Trot complimented Wendy's painting of fairies. Wendy accepted very graciously and introduced herself: “Wendy Moira Angela Darling.” Then she asked, in serious tones, whether Trot believed in fairies. Trot told her she did, and that she had even met some, which seemed to reassure Wendy.

“When the first baby laughed for the first time its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies,” she said. Trot thought it was a lovely thing to say.

Her own painting was of an octopus. She wasn't pleased with it. “I'll never get the hang of this,” she said. “Although I guess it's good that they're trying to teach us something.”

Wendy shook her head. “I already know how to fight and how to fly. What else is there?” And then she looked troubled. When Trot asked what was wrong she said, “For a second I had to remind myself: I've forgotten how to fly. The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it.” And she showed Trot the scars on her knees from where she'd fallen from the window.

Wendy believed in mermaids, and when Trot snuck into her room that night the two stayed up talking about them. Wendy was a lovely lady, with a romantic mind and a sweet, mocking mouth. Trot found herself staring at it and asked, very carefully, whether she could give her a kiss. Wendy agreed and then stuck out her hand, as if expecting something. Then she giggled at Trot's confusion and kissed her properly. Trot felt as if she really could fly.

The two tumbled over each other in the bed, and though Trot had promised herself she would not let certain things happen she found herself allowing just a little more and just a little more, until eventually they were as naked as jaybirds and kissing in that way that she knew women were not supposed to. But the kisses made her think of clean linen and sunny days and sweet cookies and fresh rain on the grass. Trot spent all night kissing the curves of Wendy's breasts and the wonderful slopes of her legs and thighs and woke up feeling happy again for the first time since she came here. The nightly terror of the Jabberwock and the daily ordeal of Madam Alice's reproving looks became almost bearable with Wendy around, and Trot found herself thinking of home a little less than when she first arrived. Wendy's mocking mouth had one kiss on it that Trot could never get, though there it was, perfectly conspicuous in the right-hand corner, and she fell asleep dreaming about it.

But then, after the first month, when she had settled into something almost like comfort, \ Madam Alice called for her just before lamps out. A particularly shrewish maid with very sharp eyes whom Trot had seen lurking around from time to time delivered the message and Trot, already in her nightclothes, was marched all the way downstairs to the tea room. The big long table was set as if to serve a dozen people, but only Trot and Madam Alice were at it.

The older woman stirred her cup with a little silver spoon, which she licked in a very unladylike manner. Trot shivered in her nightgown and waited. Everything on the table had a little card attached to it reading DRINK ME or EAT ME. “Jam?” Madam Alice said, offering. Trot shook her head. “You couldn't have it if you did want it,” Alice said. “The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday, but never jam today. Take some more tea.”

“I've had nothing yet,” Trot said, feeling helpless, “so I can't take more.”

“You mean you can't take less,” said a serving man who was pouring Madam Alice's tea. Trot had never seen him before. She'd never seen any men in the house before. He wore a strange hat. “It's very easy to take more than nothing,” he said.

“Nobody asked your opinion,” said Madam Alice. Then, to Trot, she said, “How are you getting along here?”

“Fine.”

“How do you like your schoolmates?”

“Fine.”

“Laura says you've been doing positively filthy things with the other girls. She says you've been sneaking off with Wendy Darling almost every night.”

Trot's jaw dropped. “She didn't!”

“Are calling Laura a liar?”


“I didn't say—”

“Then you should say what you mean.”

“I do,” Trot said, stammering. “At least, at least I mean what I say. That's the same thing.”

“Not the same thing a bit,” said another serving man, who appeared at Trot's elbow. “You might just as well say that 'I like what I get' is the same thing as 'I get what I like.'“

“You might just as well say that 'I see what I eat' is the same thing as 'I eat what I see,'” said the man in the hat.

“You might just as well say that 'I breathe when I sleep' is the same thing as 'I sleep when I breathe,'” said a third voice, which Trot could not place at all. She stared at the man pouring her tea, and she felt herself go pale. Madam Alice sent both men away but Trot kept staring as they went.

“Madam Alice,” she said, voice weak. “That man. He was...a rabbit?”

“He was not.”

“I saw him!”


“Nonsense.” Madam Alice sipped her tea and wiped her mouth with an embroidered napkin. “Rabbits don’t come to tea. He was a hare. For that silliness I'm going to give you three extra lashes. Stand up and bend over.”

Trot froze. Madam Alice unlocked a corner cabinet with a key from around her neck and selected a hard but flexible rod from several hanging on hooks. She turned back to Trot with a look of measured impatience.

“I said: bend over.”

Trot ran. She ran before she'd even thought about it. But she got only as far as the door, where she found two huge men blocking her way. They were so wide she couldn't squeeze between them and so low there was no way to crawl under them.

“I know what you're thinking about,' said one; 'but it isn't so, no-how.”

“Contrariwise,” said the other, “if it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be, but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.”

Before Trot could even think about what in the world that meant they'd already grabbed her and dragged her back to the table. At Madam Alice's signal they ripped her nightgown off, leaving her horribly naked, and they would not release her arms enough for her to even cover herself. One of them pushed her until she was bent all the way over, sending cups and saucers rattling out of the way. Madam Alice's boot heels clicked even on the soft rug as she came and laid the rod against Trot's backside. It was smooth and cold. Trot squeezed her eyes shut to keep the tears in. “Please,” she said. “I won't do it ever, ever again.”

“So you admit you've done it before. A confession makes it final.”

Trot heard the blow coming before she felt it, a quivering whoosh as the rod whipped through the air, and then there was a feeling like a lightning bolt. Trot screamed. She'd never felt such sharp, unflinching pain. But no sooner had it registered than she heard the ominous whoosh again and then a loud, hard smack as it laid an identical stripe across her cheeks. The pain jumped up her tailbone and skittered down her legs, turning her knees to jelly. This time she whimpered. The china pattern on the cups and saucers by her face blurred through her tears. Madam Alice made a tsk noise at the back of her throat.

“That was just a warm-up,” she said, “to get into form. We haven't really begun your punishment yet.”

“Oh no! Ma'am, please, I promise I've learned my lesson. There's no—”

The rod came down and Trot's bare white behind blistered red. Her cries rattled the tableware, but one of the big men balled up a napkin and stuffed it into her mouth before Trot could shut her jaws again. She gagged. Madam Alice thanked him, and then she gave three hard, fast blows with the rod with machinelike precision. She punctuated each one with a word:

“Filthy!”


“Dirty!”

“Sneaking!”

“Tramp!”

Eventually Trot’s knees gave away and she slid off the table, dragging the tablecloth and dishes down with a crash and a clatter. Madam Alice set her on her feet again. Trot leaned against the table without thinking and then jumped with a howl. Her rear was so red and stung that the slightest touch was agony.

“Any more than that and you won't be able to sit still for your chores, I suppose,” Madam Alice said. “Perhaps I should give you one right across here, just to make sure you remember?” She pressed the hard wooden rod across Trot's small breasts. Trot sniveled and shook her head. “No whining,” Madam Alice said. “I'll get more clothes from your room. We can't you parading around nude. I won't stand for vulgarity here.”

She left and the strange men left and for a moment Trot was alone, and though she wanted to cry she was afraid what Madam Alice would do when she got back. While she tried to compose herself, a curious thing happened. She heard a voice, but she could not precisely where it came from. And all it said was: “Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle,” as if it was trying to sing but did not know the words. Trot peered at the teapot. Surely the voice couldn't be coming from inside it? But now she heard it again, quite distinctly. It said:

“I'll tell you a story: Once upon a time there were three little sisters, and their names were Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie; and they lived at the bottom of a well—”

Madam Alice cleared her throat and Trot jumped. The older woman narrowed her eyes as she handed Trot a spare nightgown. “What were you looking at so intently?”

Trot's eyes flickered back to the teapot, but only for a second. “Nothing,” she mumbled, dressing. She waited to hear it speak again, but this time there really was nothing and, gingerly, she went back to her room.

***

“You don't have to glare like that,” said Laura. “You look like you're choking.”

Trot nearly was. Laura sat at the end of Trot's bed again, brushing her long blond hair. Trot bunched a pillow in her hands. It was not in her nature to hurt anyone, but the thought of taking Laura's eyes out with her nails seemed attractive. Trot hadn't been able to sit for two weeks since her caning. The first few days she couldn't even bear the touch of her own undergarments.

Lizzie and Marie were engrossed in something on Marie's worktable, paying little mind to the other girls. Laura gave Trot a simpering look. “Was it as bad as all that? I've gotten the same more than once.”

“You could get it again,” Trot said. “If I told Madam Alice what you did with your sister—”

“She'd beat Lizzie too, and you wouldn't want that,” said Laura. Trot gritted her teeth. “Anyway, I had to do it. You were getting along too well. You had to understand how bad things could get here or else you might not agree to come along.”

Before Trot could ask what that meant they heard the telltale knock at the door, and Lizzie turned the lamp down and everyone was quiet until Madam Alice's boot heels thumped up the stairs. In the nearly pitch-black room the four girls huddled together and Laura whispered:

“We're running away. You can come.”

“How?” Trot said, a touch breathless. “What about the Jabberwock?”

“That's why we need you,” said Laura. “Your room is closest to the cellar stairs. The Jabberwock never comes out before Madam Alice finishes her night rounds. After she heads upstairs we'll have just enough time to sneak to the cellar, but only if we're all in your room here first. That's why we came in your first night, only you spoiled the whole plan by being here.” Her expression suggested she had just bit into a lemon. Trot pondered.

“That's why you had Madam Alice beat me? To convince me to run away?”


“It was bound to happen sooner or later. Sooner was better. Do you really want to stay here for the rest of your life? Do you want more stripes like the ones you've already got?”

“But we have no idea what's in the cellars. What if we can't find a way out? And what will we if we do get away?”

“If we let questions like that stop us we'll never leave,” Laura said. “We'll become old women and die in here. You've got to decide now: in or out? It doesn't work without you.”

Trot looked around the circle: Laura's eyes gleamed. Lizzie looked afraid, but there was no telling what of. Marie hugged her nutcracker tighter than ever. Outside, she heard the first fitful stirrings of the Jabberwock, shuffling its way across the floorboards...

“When?” Trot said.

“The night of the new moon. We all meet here. Wendy is coming too. When we're out we'll all be free, and we'll all be sisters. We'll have to stick together, after all. We won't be able to trust anyone else.”

Laura inched closer. Trot fell back on the bed as she advanced and before she could move Laura slid up over her like a snake, nestling their bodies together. Her cherry-red lips hovered over Trot's, and the gleam in her eye became more fevered. “You will be my sister now, won't you?” Laura said. “You'll help us because we all love each other. Right?”

“Um...”

“Kiss me like a sister. Then we'll know we can trust you.”

Trot really didn't want to, but something about the little bow curve of Laura's mouth was impossible to resist. Their lips met and a little shock went through her. Laura's kiss made Trot think of strange fruits growing plump and lush in midnight gardens: apples and quinces, lemons and oranges, plump unpecked cherries, melons and raspberries, and bloom-down-cheeked peaches. When they kissed again she imagined popping a glowing red cherry so juicy and firm that it was almost ready to burst all on its own into her mouth.

She let Laura put her hands all over her, and whenever their bare skin touched she writhed against the other girl. Licking the juice-sweet taste of Laura's kiss from her lips, Trot wanted more: melons, icy-cold, piled on a dish of gold too huge to hold, peaches with velvet nap, pellucid grapes without one seed, with lilies at the brink, and sugar-sweet their sap...

Marie retreated to her own side of the room. Laura tried to entice her over too but she was busy erecting castle walls and soldiers around her bed. She looked anxiously at Trot but Trot did not notice. Lizzie was mumbling something that sounded like a prayer: “We must not look at goblin men, we must not buy their fruits: Who knows upon what soil they fed their hungry thirsty—”

“Roots?” Laura finished for her and then grabbed a handful of her sister's pretty golden curls and pulled her down to the mattress with Trot. Lizzie opened her mouth to cry out but Laura pressed her face into Trot's bare breasts, smothering it. Lizzie struggled but Laura held her where she was, licking her cherry-red lips all the while. She continued to force her sister's mouth onto Trot, and Trot, her skin suddenly quite sensitive, squirmed and squealed at Lizzie's frantic tongue and soft lips. The girls had all stripped now and there was no way to tell the twins apart except for their expressions: Laura's hungry, Lizzie's resigned.

At her sister's behest, Lizzie dutifully sucked Trot's standing nipples. She sucked and sucked and sucked the more, fruits which that unknown orchard bore. She sucked until her lips were sore, and when Laura finally yanked her head back she gasped for air, red-faced, mouth wet. Laura kissed her sister and Trot's mouth watered remembering the pulp-sweet taste of that strange fruit. Lizzie blushed for shame but obeyed Laura's instructions, getting down on all fours over Trot's reclining body, mouth poised just over the sensitive folds of Trot's wet sex. Laura gave Lizzie a disapproving look as she stood over her. “Say it again,” she said.

“We must not look at goblin men, we must not buy their fruits,” Lizzie recited. “Their offers should not charm us, their evil gifts would harm US!” The last word came out with a scream when Laura pulled Lizzie's hair again and pushed her face down, planting her hands firmly Lizzie's shoulders so that she couldn't wriggle away. A sumptuous wet noise filled the room. Trot's eyes rolled back in her head. Lizzie, it seemed, was still speaking, but nobody could really hear her.

Once she was sure Lizzie was not going to stray from the spot she'd been put in, Laura reclined next to Trot, offering own breasts to Trot's mouth. Laura's skin glowed, as if something full and ripe were burgeoning inside her. “Come and kiss me,” she said. “Never mind my bruises. Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices, squeezed from goblin fruits for you. Goblin pulp and goblin dew. Eat me, drink me, love me, make much of me. For your sake I have braved the glen, and had to do with goblin men...”

And then she clung about her new sister, kissed and kissed and kissed her, shaking with aguish, fear, and pain she kissed and kissed her with a hungry mouth. Her lips began to scorch. That juice was wormwood to her tongue. And Laura writhed as one possessed; she leaped and sung and wrung her hands in lamentable haste. Her locks streamed like the torch borne by a racer at full speed, or like the mane of horses in their flight, or like an eagle when she stems the light straight toward the sun, or like a caged thing freed, or like a flying flag when armies run.

Lizzie looked sad. “Must your light like mine be hidden, your young life like mine be wasted, undone in mine undoing, and ruined in my ruin, thirsty, cankered, goblin-ridden?” she whispered. In reply Trot kissed and kissed her, tears once again refreshing Lizzie's shrunken eyes, dropping like rain after long sultry drought. But Lizzie kissed back, kissed and kissed her with a hungry mouth. Laura watched them with eyes half-lidded, like a dozing cat.

“For there is no friend like a sister, in calm or stormy weather. To cheer one on the tedious way, to fetch one if one goes astray...” she said.

***

All the clocks had stopped at 6 o'clock. Marie was trying to fix them but didn't seem to be able to. Trot watched their stalled faces and twisted the hem of her dress. “I suppose it's like the ticking crocodile, isn't it?” Wendy said. “Time is chasing after all of us.” She squeezed Trot's hand and Trot squeezed back.

Tonight was the new moon (Trot had no idea, not having really seen the night sky coming here, but Nycteris assured them it was and everyone swore she was never wrong), but the twins had not yet appeared. Time was running out. What would happen if they didn't show? To make matters worse, Madam Alice's evil-eyed old maid seemed to have been lurking underfoot all day, something that made Trot very nervous. Did anyone suspect what they planned?

“I wish Cap'n Bill was here,” Trot said.

“I wish Peter was here,” Wendy said.

“I wish—wait, who is Peter?” Trot's head swiveled. Wendy looked suddenly embarrassed.

“He's just some boy I knew,” she said, pronouncing the word “boy” with tones usually reserved for the word “slug.” But Trot saw a certain dreamy wistfulness in her expression, and her blood simmered. “He didn't come back for me like he said he would. I waited in a new frock because the old one simply would not meet, but he never came. Michael said, 'Perhaps there is no such person,' and we all became very upset.”

“Perhaps there isn't,” Trot said, letting go of Wendy's hand. Wendy realized her mistake immediately.

“Oh Trot, are you jealous?” she said. “You should know one girl is worth more than 20 boys.” And she batted her eyes in a way that made Trot forgive everything. Then Trot felt a pang of guilt; she had not told Wendy about what happened with the twins. But she assumed Laura had probably recruited her the same way. A jumble of emotions too complicated to have names jostled for prominence in her heart. But then there was a knock at the door and Madam Alice's voice: lamps out!

Trot and Wendy exchanged glances. Only Marie did not appear worried. It seemed she was not coming with them, and somehow Trot was not surprised. The night before she'd wished Trot luck and presented her with a gift: It was a nutcracker just like her own, a perfect replica that Marie had worked on in secret for two weeks. Trot thanked her but said that she should keep it. “There will be no midnight monsters where I'm going,” she said, kissing her roomie very sweetly on the cheek.

Madam Alice's boot steps retreated down the hall and all over the house the lights were going out. What if the twins were already gone and had left everyone else behind? But that was impossible, Laura had insisted that the plan only worked from this room. Where were they then? What if—

And just like that they appeared, both of them flustered, golden hair a mess. Laura grabbed Trot by the wrist and yanked her to her feet. “She's upstairs already. We don't have much time.” Trot looked at Wendy, who nodded, setting her pointed chin in determination. She spared a glance at Marie, who gave a wave goodbye from behind her phalanx of dolls. Then they were all gathered at the door. No one was allowed to keep any luggage here, so they were leaving only with the clothes on their backs. Laura laced her fingers with Trot's. “Every girl hold hands so we can't get separated in the dark,” she said. “Wendy in the lead; Lizzie in the back.”

She grinned at Trot, who felt uncomfortable. It was a friendly enough grin, but it made her think of something Lizzie had said once on the subject of a crocodile: “How cheerfully he seems to grin, how neatly spreads his claws, and welcomes little fishes in with gently smiling jaws...”

The lamp went fully and truly out and they plunged forward, into the darkness. The girls all tiptoed out, staying close to the wall so that they could navigate by it. The cellar stairs were only 100 feet away but they might all have only seconds to get there as silently as they could. How far along was Madam Alice upstairs? How quickly did the Jabberwock move in the dark? The thought of being out in the open when it came turned Trot's blood to ice, and at that very moment she saw two green eyes flaring in the dark and almost screamed. But then she heard the patter of little paws on the floorboards. It was only Madam Alice's cat.

How far had they gone now? Surely the hall was not really this long? Trot wanted to call ahead and ask Wendy but didn't dare make any noise. She began counting their steps even though it was useless, since she had no idea how many they'd taken so far: one thousand-twelve, one thousand-thirteen, one thousand-fourteen—

She jerked to a stop. Behind her, Lizzie had frozen in her tracks. Trot tugged at her with all the urgency she could but the girl would not budge. Meanwhile, Laura's hand was slipping away. Trot would have to let go of one or the other. Without thinking, she released Laura (hoping she'd interpret it as a signal to stop) and grabbed Lizzie with both hands, yanking as hard as she could, but Lizzie seemed to be a world away. Trot heard her muttering in the dark:

“They hunted till darkness came on, but they found not a button, or feather, or mark, by which they could tell that they stood on the ground where the Baker had met with the Snark...”

“Lizzie! Come on!” Trot hissed...and that's when she saw it: two burning eyes, like flaming lamps, and behind them something huge and twisted slubbering its way down the stairs. All the air left Trot's body. Fear made her a statue. She remembered the sound of great, horrid lips smacking hungrily at her door at night and a warm trickle ran down her leg. The misshapen, barely-seen thing turned toward them. Its enormous eyes widened. Oh please, Trot thought, let me be already dead by the time it gets here...

And then she was being pulled along again. It seemed that the sound of the Jabberwock dragging its uncertain limbs toward them woke Lizzie out of her reverie, for she was now moving with a speed Trot would not have credited her with. Trot all but flew as Lizzie dragged her toward the shelter of the cellar door. But the Jabberwock's footfalls echoed behind them, the boards creaking under it as if its body were too much to bear. How fast was it? How far behind? Trot imagined she would feel the hot breath from that wet, burbling mouth any second and winced, waiting for the embrace of its jaws—

And then the cellar door slammed shut behind her. The first step below the landing was so narrow and crooked that she almost tumbled head over heels. Trot held her breath, waiting to hear the Jabberwock scrabbling at the door, but there was nothing. She sagged in relief. Then she turned to see if Lizzie was all right—and found that she was alone.

Had she left Lizzie behind? Trot reached for the doorknob but snatched her hand back right away. There'd be no help for anyone still out there now. But surely Lizzie couldn't have been shut out when she'd been ahead of Trot the whole way? Surely she wouldn't have shut the door until she herself was safe? But she was nowhere to be found now...

Swallowing her anxiety, Trot peered down the cellar steps. Light flickered at the bottom. She took them slowly, as they turned out to be slick and as crooked as anything in the house. She wanted to call out for Lizzie or Wendy or anybody but instead kept quiet until her foot hit the earthen cellar floor. The tunnel at the bottom of the steps stretched in two directions. One way appeared filthy with mildew and cobwebs, so she turned the other way but found an ominous archway with a leering stone face that was no more inviting.

Looking back over her shoulder she blinked in surprise; the other half of the tunnel now appeared bright and clean, and the tender green roots of young plants webbed the walls like ivy. And when she looked back again the sinister arch was gone, replaced with a long path of mirrors with burnished violet surfaces, each reflecting the other on and on, endlessly. Her knees quaked again but, thinking how bravely Wendy would act in her place, Trot straightened up. There had to be some way out of here, whatever was going on. Then she heard a voice:

“Long has paled that sunny sky: echoes fade and memories die. Autumn frosts have slain July. Still she haunts me, phantomwise: Alice moving under skies...”

Trot frowned. From the other direction, she heard:

“He thought he saw a Coach-and-Four that stood beside his bed: He looked again, and found it was a bear without a head...”

And then there were fits of giggling that made Trot feel very cold. Just as she was about to slink back into the stairwell an unseen hand touched her shoulder. She spun around with her hands up to defend herself but found a pair of familiar blue eyes waiting for her. “Wendy!”

Wendy looked at her in a distant way. “Is it really you, Trot?”

“Who else would it be?”

“That's just the thing: I'm not sure. It's very strange down here. And I think...oh, but it is you!” And they threw their arms around each other. “I have no idea where Laura's gone, and I've been lost for such a terribly long time.”

“It can't have been very long. We've only been down here a minute or two.”

Wendy got that vague look again and again Trot felt frightened, so they simply held hands and in time felt a little better, though Trot could still not help but notice that they had somehow become lost and had no idea where to go, except that they could not go the way they came. “And I'm not even sure where it is I've come from,” Wendy admitted. They drew a little closer together.

“Do you think we're going to die down here?” Trot said.

“To die would be an awfully big adventure,” said Wendy.

“That's really not the most encouraging thing you could say right now. What about…Wendy? Is that...is that a rabbit?”

“It is!” Wendy said, picking the animal up from where it was snuffling around her feet. “A white rabbit,” she said, perfectly astonished. The creature huddled in her arms. “I'm not sure it's normal to find a rabbit wandering around in some cellar.”

“I'm sure it's not normal to find a rabbit wearing a waistcoat,” Trot said. “What about—”

And then Wendy's eyes went wide and she pointed behind Trot and was maybe even about to scream, but before she could a big, strong hand slipped around Trot's throat and squeezed and then the world went red and then black and a sort of foggy grey. Trot was aware of someone (with very large hands) dragging her limp form along and then, later, tugging at her clothes, but all of this happened in a kind of dream which she was not entirely sure she wanted to wake up from. She heard a voice again:

“Oh oysters, come and walk with us, along the briny beach: We cannot do with more than four, to give a hand to each....”

Eventually Trot did wake, to discover a terrible pain in her head and neck second only to one in her wrists and arms. She was naked and dangling from a pair of manacles set into the cellar wall. The orange haze of a furnace lit this room, and she saw that one of the twins (it was impossible to say which) hung next to her, limp and senseless but evidently still alive. Trot tugged at her bonds but the chafing of the metal cuffs made her stop right away. She craned her head, not sure whether or not she wanted see if Wendy was here or not. All she discovered was a thin, scrubby man working with his shirt off. He was cutting his way through a lath with a handsaw. When he finished he had made the same kind of flexible rod Madam Alice beat her with. He regarded Trot with a dull look. Trot stuck her chin out the way she'd seen Wendy do and said, “Whatever's going on here you had better let us go.”

The man did not seem to hear her. He took Laura's (Trot thought it might be her) face in his hands, turning her head back and forth. “If this were only cleared away it would be grand,” he said. And then he brought the cane up to Trot's naked breasts. She couldn't help but squirm again.

“Oh please no,” she said. “Please don't! If you'll just let us go...”

Suddenly there was another man there, a great, fat man with a big mustache and canines so long and broad that they looked like nothing so much as tusks poking out of his mouth. “I weep for you,” the large man, said, “I deeply sympathize.” In his hand he held a leather strap, which he teased Trot's thighs with. She shook some more. “It seems a shame to play them such a trick,” the second man said, “after we've brought them out so far and made them trot so quick.”

In response the thin man stuck two fingers inside Trot. She screamed. “The butter's spread too thick,” he said. “Oysters, you've had a pleasant run. Shall we be trotting home again?” And he brought the cane across Trot's naked breasts and she howled. The fat man stuck the strap in her mouth. She bit down on it as the birch wood struck her flesh again. The rattling of her chains sounded like tin bells as she swung back and forth.

“The time has come,” the fat man said (as Trot cried out), “to talk of many things: Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax, of cabbages and kings. Of why the sea is boiling hot—” But Trot screamed again and at that he gave up. The thin man handed him a tool that was several strips of leather attached to a handle, and when he gave it a practice flick the tips of all nine tails pricked her. He rubbed his tusks in contemplation. Trot spat the strap out and sobbed a few words through tears:

“Please, no. Can't you just—OHHH!” The sound of wood and leather on naked flesh was very loud in the tight confines of the cellar.

“The night is fine,” said the big one, “do you admire the view? It was so kind of you to come, and you are very nice.”

“Cut us another slice,” the thin one said. “I've had to ask you twice.”

“I deeply sympathize,” his partner said again, and swung the whip, soft, oiled leather leaving flaring red marks across Trot's body, her old ones already beginning to fade into the deep purples and soft yellows of bruises, like autumn leaves. She twisted and squirmed and bit and yelped. She struggled so hard she flopped around, tangling her chains together as she swung until she faced the wall. This made her wriggling backside vulnerable.

“Oh no,” she said. “Don't—!” There were two hard smacks as they brought the floggers down on her softly curved cheeks. She shrieked and bit her lip, wincing through more tears. She throbbed with bruises. One of them (she couldn't tell which, as her face pressed up against the gritty stone wall now) pushed her legs open again and she gritted her teeth, waiting for the blows she knew were coming to her thighs. She jerked and flopped as they landed. Soon there was hardly a square inch of Trot that wasn't marked. She felt she might pass out again, but a metallic screech brought her back around. Out the corner of her eye she saw a flurry of sparks. Awoman she recognized as Madam Alice's foul-tempered maid was working at a grindstone. She was dressed very strangely, and when she was done and Trot saw what it was she was hefting she felt a whole new stint of panicky screams welling up inside her.

The woman held the crescent-shaped axe high enough to brush Trot's cheek with the blade and said, “Off with their heads.”

Both the men seemed about to object but the woman pushed them almost out of the room and repeated:

“Off with their heads!”

“You don't know what you're doing! You're mad!” Trot said. The woman went to the bruised and beaten girl hanging next to Trot and measured the width of her neck by holding the blade against it. She nodded with something like satisfaction. Trot thrashed so hard she thought her wrists would break. “You can't do this!” she said. “You just can't! Wendy! Wendy, where are you, we need you—!”

The woman squared her feet and hefted the axe back for the swing, eyes rolling in her head and flecks of foam appearing at the corners of her lips as she bared her teeth and gave one last, hoarse cry:

“OFF WITH—!”

“That's enough,” said another voice.

A woman's hand appeared on the maid's shoulder. The maid wobbled back and forth like a tree being chopped at the base and then let the axe drop with a clunk at her feet. Madam Alice arched her eyebrows at her. The cat perched on her shoulder, looking quite smug.

The maid gestured in a sheepish way to the captive girls. “Off with their heads?” she said. Madam Alice took the axe away as if it were a toy. The maid indicated the two men. Both the men dropped their whips, suddenly looking very sheepish as well.

“Yes,” said Madam Alice. “They're both very unpleasant characters.”

The skinny one opened Trot's manacles and let her slide to the floor, her bare feet uncertain on the dirt. Madam Alice was only two or three feet away, so Trot pushed off the wall with one hand and raised her other as high as she could, meaning to slap the older woman across the face before her strength gave out, but all she managed was to fall forward. Madam Alice caught her before she hit the ground and wrapped her in her cloak, cradling Trot's stung body. The last thing Trot heard before slipping away from the waking world again was Madam Alice sighing and saying:

“The problem is that I generally give myself very good advice, but I seldom follow it.”

***

After a week of bed rest Trot could walk again, though it hurt. They'd moved her away from Marie, to a private room on the third floor, with a window. The nutcracker Marie made for her stood smartly at attention at her bedside. The only person she saw other than a nurse was Madam Alice, who served her evening meal to her personally, coaxing her to eat. Trot would only glare. For that first week she didn't even speak and when she finally did it was only to ask, “Where is Wendy?”

“She tried to fancy what the flame of a candle is like after the candle is blown out, for she could not remember ever having seen such a thing.”

“No nonsense!” Trot said, sitting up in bed. Madam Alice fingered the bruises on Trot's arms, which were beginning to fade.

“That's why there are called lessons,” she said, as if to herself. “Because they lessen...”

“Aren't you going to tell me what happened to the other girls?”

Silence.

“I think Wendy got away and that's why you won't tell me about her.”

“If that's what you think.”

“Why are you so cruel?”

“I can't explain myself, because I'm not myself, you see.” Madam Alice folded her hands into her lap and looked out the little window at the sunset. “There's hardly enough of me left to make one respectable person.” She looked and sounded so sad that Trot blinked in amazement, and bitter words withered on her lips. “The world makes you cruel when you're different; when you're special; when you believe things no one else does. The world is very cruel to girls. The sooner you girls learn that, the safer you'll all be. We're all mad here: I'm mad. You're mad.”

“How do you know I'm mad?”

“You must be, or you wouldn't have come.”

Trot crossed her arms over her chest. The light was going out in the west very quickly. “You can't keep us prisoner, even if you do think it's for our own good.”

“It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.”

“Wendy got out,” Trot insisted. “That means the rest of us can too.”

Madam Alice seemed to consider this for some time. “I suppose you are very clever girls,” she said. Then she grinned in the most startling way, looking exactly like her cat, and for a moment it seemed her eyes were very much like a cat's as well. “But then, I'm very clever too.”

Trot heard the key turn in the lock when Madam Alice went out. Alone, she had only the nutcracker for company. It made her think of all the little dolls in the dollhouse, and how they must feel about the great big hands that force them into each room, picking them up and moving them around at will. It must be a very scary thing, to be a doll.

She looked to the window. If Wendy were out there, she could fly up here to the third floor, Trot thought. She could fly up and see me, and maybe even save me. She'd figure a way through the bars. She was clever enough for that. She would slip in through the window and wake Trot and say, “Oh, the cleverness of me...”

But of course, Wendy didn't know how to fly anymore.

***

Time passed. Girls came and went (though where they went no one could say). The house grew more crooked as it aged, and so did Alice. The cat became mangy and grey and finally disappeared, only to replaced a few days later by one that looked so very like it that no one could be sure it had really gone.

One morning Alice came down the stairs, leading with her cane and swatting a servant out of the way. It was a moment before she perceived two young women and a great many trunks in the foyer. She peered at them over her glasses. They stared back at her, looking a bit vacant. Alice said, “What are your names then?”

“Susan,” said one, sullen.

“Lucy,” said the other, brightly. “Pevensie.” English girls, from the sound of it. Alice had missed hearing such voices.

Even so, she fretted with her cane for a bit and said, “I don't know. We have so many here already…” The girls looked at her as if anticipating something, but Alice couldn't know what. “We have so many...” she said again.

And then the serving man said, “It's very easy to take more.”

The girls blinked their light blue eyes at her. Somewhere nearby was a purring sound, so loud that it almost seemed to come from the house itself. Alice nodded. “I suppose that's true,” she said. And it was.

 

WOW! This story was just... WOW!
Extremely well done. This is one I have to go back and read again. Maybe even a third time. Some of the characters were unfamiliar to me, so I would like to look them up, and get a little back story.
To my untrained eye, there were a few minor errors, but I don't worry too much about those. Everything else was amazing. Dark, and a little disturbing, like many of the original Fairy Tales often were. Very Good Job!

 

Just color me lost and confused.
When a reader is required to know too much then the story suffers if they don't. I was able to identify only three of the girls and they were rather obvious.

 

I will concur with that. I could not follow with the story in too many locations and soon lost interest in it.
This one will not be on my voting list.

 

Well written with a minimum of errors. I'm not sure how it relates to a fairytale but has multiple fairy tale character's in. I enjoyed the story but was disappointed that they weren't molested more and then beheaded.

 

Good storie!

 

Confusing

I suppose I must admit that the author of this tale has put together a well-written story. But, it is quite confusing!

The lesbian theme seems to be very popular in CAW 20...I wrote one in one of my (oops!)

 

Maybe that will be a theme for a future CAW (lesbian scenes galore?)

 

Gave it a week, and read it again. I can not understand why there aren't more positives for this one. I really like it!
Alice in Wonderland is a trippy, weird, acid trip of a tale. (I probably shouldn't have done so many drugs in the 80's) This goes along with that nicely.
Some of the characters are a bit obscure, but I found all of them on Google with very little effort. I think this is a top notch entry!

 

very intriguing story. I liked how you pulled characters in from other stories to add to the suspense. Good luck in the comp.

 

"One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small and the one that mother gives you don't do anything at all. Go ask Alice when shes ten feet tall." "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane should be playing in the background when one reads this tale.

 

Trite, Plagiarized and sooo boring I couldn't get past the first five paragraphs...........please.....DON'T WRITE ANYMORE!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I started to read this story, and detecting the characters from many stories, was somewhat intrigued. That soon gave way to utter confusion. I lost interest quickly, and just skimmed the majority of it looking for some sort of story line. Those must have been some good drugs you were on while writing this, because it was definitely a trip.

 

Interesting if somewhat confusing story. I think the author is trying to make a point about how insane most fairy tales are if you look at them from a certain angle, and how the characters in these tales would be institutionalized if they told their stories to a mental health worker.

I don't think it worked as well as the author hoped, there were simply too many characters coming and going. I will say there were parts that were pretty creepy and surreal, but overall I think this story needs to be pared down a bit.

The sex was a bit creepy, too. I'm not sure if the author intended it to be.

Two and a half tissues on the AZMotherLover scale.

 

I actually feel bad on this one. Sometimes it doesnt matter how good the story is the way someone writes doesnt catch.

 

I enjoyed the hell out of this story. I really liked the Goblin Market (good job making pushing a very nearly sexual poem over the edge into actual sex, it was well done), I wrote a xmas story a year or so ago for a CAW about the nutcracker so I was aware of Marie and ETA Hoffman so I knew Klara as well. Wendy, Dorothy, Alice were the easiest ones. Trot I didn't know and didn't need to know beforehand. Same goes with the other mentioned but not really characters girls.

The only thing I can think might've made it more friendly to those confused commenters above is maybe give references for Goblin Market (which I think is probably a prerequisite for the story *not_secure_link*www.archive.org/download/goblinmarket_etk_librivox/goblinmarket_01_rossetti.mp3) and the Wikipedia articles on Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass (to introduce the captors, or wardens or whatever) & Cap'n Bill (to introduce the readers to Trot ahead of time). That in my opinion might've been your only misplay.

The dialogue was confusing by design I think it was true to the Lewis Carroll style. I was able to keep up with it without any problem I thought it was ingenious.
I only caught 2 or 3 spelling errors. It was one of the better stories in the competition. Please keep writing.

 

Trite is an okay comment. Plagiarized? Are you sure you know what that word means, because that's a hefty accusation to make. Trust me, I know. If you are claiming true plagiarism, then provide proof. If you cannot, then you owe the writer an apology. And as far as the dozen plus exclamation points, grow up. People spend a lot of time writing these stories. They don't need someone coming along and acting like a jerk. If you don't like a story, say so, but be respectful.

 

I missed the accusation and I will stand with Horse in requesting substantiation of the claim.

I did not like the story and stated the reason for that lack of enjoyment in my original post even though I did not overtly state that I did not like the work. I also failed to state that I disliked the work and those two concepts (did not like -vs.- dislike) are very different. How is the story trite and why is it boring?
Are you sure that you know the definition of the word, trite? Here is a link to the dictionary: "not interesting or effective because of being used too often : not fresh or original". When you post the reference to prove plagiarism, you might also supply additional references which prove that the CONCEPT used here has been overused elsewhere as well.
I can easily agree that it is confusing but I would not attempt to state that it was boring.

I will stand with Horse also in requesting respectful communication to the authors in these comps.

Considering the fact that this is the only daverjax post made to a CAW entry since 8/12, I will not expect that he will be voting as comments on all entries are a stated requirement for voting in this specific incarnation of the CAW.

 

Horse, and Darthel... You guys rock!
I personally really like this story, but can understand why someone may not connect with it. I AM NOT THE AUTHOR! But I like that two different people will jump in to defend a story ( and an author ) that they are not emotionally invested in. Both of you show integrity, and a love of writing. I respect you both.

 

Plus it's a really dickish thing to tell someone not to write anymore. I liked this story as well.