Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
“Iwonder if this means Sash will finally give ladies a try.”
Sidney laughed at the mental image.
She was talking to a grin without a cat. Which was fine, she was getting used to that. The Mad Hatter, Dormouse, and March Hare were lagging a bit behind, as they had found one of those old-fashioned games where you had a hoop and a stick and had to keep the hoop rolling with said stick.
It was amazing what people could do to entertain themselves before the days of smart phones. Maybe things were better then, who knew.
Sidney had never heard of people “doom-hooping,” after all.
“Oohh?” The grin purred, as it completed its transformation into a fully formed, floating, blue and purple striped cat with a grin. “Whatever do you mean?”
“Well, since she’s stuck with the Queen of Hearts and all.
” Sidney smoothed her hands down the front of the white apron on the front of her blue dress.
She did wish she had pockets in her damn dress, but at least she had something she could store things in.
“Seeing as she managed to screw both Moriarty and make out with Vile in record time, I figure we’ve got good odds that she might take the opportunity to reconsider her stance on her attraction to women. ”
“And they call us mad. My dear Alice, you are making positively no sense at all.” The cat swished his large fluffy tail. Sidney really wanted to pet it. But the Cheshire Cat had already made it very clear that he was not to be petted under any circumstances, which she found to be entirely unfair.
Who puts a big fluffy cat into a story and then doesn’t let anyone pet it?
Seriously?
“Yeah, well, are you complaining? I figured madness was a positive trait around here.” She watched as the hoop bounced up the dirt path beside her. The Mad Hatter went running after it, shouting and flailing. “See?”
“Mmmm.” The cat pondered the scene. “I suppose. But who is this…Sash that you refer to? Part of a window dressing, I assume?”“No, though sometimes I bet she felt like in her life.” Sidney chuckled. “My sister. My twin sister.”
“Alice! You have a twin?” The Dormouse peeped from the ground beside her. “You never told us that!”
“It never came up. And I suppose in this story, she probably isn’t my twin.
But in the real world, she is. But that doesn’t really matter to any of you.
” Reaching down, Sidney offered the Dormouse her hand.
The little critter hopped into her palm.
She put the Dormouse on her shoulder and kept walking.
It was only polite, after all, seeing as her legs were very much longer than the Dormouse’s, and that way she wouldn’t have to shout so very much.
Manners matter.
“The real world?” The Mad Hatter scratched his head. “Where’s that?”
“Nowhere that matters to you.” The Cheshire Cat sighed like an older sibling who was used to dealing with a child. Or, perhaps, like a cat used to dealing with every other living being in the world. “Only the White Rabbit has been there.”
Right. Wait. No. That wasn’t right. “Kind of, but not really. It doesn’t matter. Anyway. I’m telling you the story from the middle and not the beginning, which is why it doesn’t make any sense.”
“Stories told in the proper order are so much less interesting. The White Queen does this all the time, starting from back to front. A marketable improvement, I’d say, knowing the ending before the beginning.
” The Cheshire Cat swished his tail as he floated leisurely in the air beside her, stretched out upon nothing at all.
“So. The White Queen. Can she help us?” Sidney pondered aloud.
“Oh, no, no, I doubt it.” The Hatter cackled. “Maybe?” He frowned. “Possibly. Oh, most definitely. But you’ll absolutely positively need to do something about her scale.”
“Scale?” She blinked.
The Hatter positioned his thumb and forefinger two inches apart. “Smaller than Dormouse, I’m afraid! Not enough cake in the world would grow her big enough, I’m afraid.”
There had to be another means of fixing that problem. Sidney hummed. “Well, I just…I hope Sasha’s okay. And whoever she is, she’s finally taking my advice.”
“About women?” The Cat purred and grinned.
“About anything. But I’d settle for that.” Sidney and smiled back.
Sasha jolted back into awareness of herself and pulled in a startled hiss of breath. “Fuck.”
The chuckle from across the table from her told her she was still in Vile’s presence. She was just somewhere else, somewhen else.
Stupid scene cuts. She didn’t think she’d ever get used to them.
Taking a quick look around, she was sitting on a balcony of the castle.
The sun was out, and for all intents and purposes, it looked like a perfectly lovely, sunny day.
Flamingos were gathered in the fountain below. Their feathers were all jet black.
The garden was actually…rather pretty, if morbidly designed. She was sitting at a small table with the Queen of Hearts, playing a game of chess. Well, she was in the middle of several rounds of chess.
She keenly remembered having lost the last four games, even though she knew she hadn’t actually played them. They were just memories that lived in the back of her head because it was information she needed.
Because she was in a book.
Because none of this was real.
And now she was in Wonderland.
Gritting her teeth, she stared down at the chessboard. That was something she could focus on. She’d lost the last four games, and by the looks of things, she was well on her way to losing the fifth. How convenient. She wondered if she’d actually lost them or not.
“You would have still legitimately lost. I don’t feel the need to cheat at chess.” Vile—the Queen of Hearts—reached out and picked up a piece from the chess board in front of him.
It screamed, small and high-pitched. She watched in horror as it kicked and wriggled where it dangled in between his fingers.
It was a chessboard made of people.
Actual people. Tiny people. Actual, tiny, living, people in suits of armor or medieval clothes. She was playing white, and he was playing red.
Staring down at the nervously-shifting crowd of extremely-tiny people in shock, she felt a cold sensation run down her back. At least it seemed like no one actually died. There were no smears of blood across the board.
And while Vile had far more pieces of hers over on his side, she had a Red Knight and two Red Pawns gathered around on hers. They were idly sitting on the table, looking up at her with wary and untrusting expressions.
“I…I thought you weren’t reading ‘the page’ while we were in a story?” She forced herself to look away from the little chesspiece people as Vile set down his wriggling and panicking Bishop onto a new spot in the middle of the board.
“You aren’t staying in character. Why should I?
It’s clear we’re going to spend this entire story trying to rebuild our ‘working relationship.’ The only way I can have any hope in the world of doing that is by giving up on any pretenses of staying inside the rules of the story.
” He sounded so horribly miserable. Usually he was grinning, or laughing maniacally, or something.
But no. He was sitting there, staring at the board…pouting.
“I am not pouting.” That earned her a glare.
“It’s not my fault you can read what I’m thinking, so don’t hold it against me.” Letting out a heavy sigh she looked down at the board. “Um. Mister, um, I’m sorry, are you the Rook? Uh…Sir?”
On the board she could identify everyone as their obvious pieces, except for the ones which were…elephants in painted armor.
Fairytales were weird.
“That is not part of the fairytale, that is historically accurate.” Vile pointed at one of his own little elephants, his wearing red, of course. “Well. Not the part about them speaking English, but. Really, you humans forget your own selves so easily.”*
“We don’t have all the time in the world to learn and memorize everything. You’re immortal. We’re not.” She looked back down at the elephant. “Hello. Hi. Um. Do you mind moving here, please?” She tapped a point on the board. “I’d rather not…I don’t want to hurt you by accident.”
The Red Bishop still hadn’t managed to get back up to his feet.
And the elephant seemed more than happy to oblige.
Once it took its new spot, she muttered a quiet thank you down at it.
It was a defensive maneuver. It was to protect her own remaining Bishop. It didn’t do anything to put pressure on him, but she had to protect what little of the board and what few pieces that remained.
“Defense is often a good strategy, but it is doesn’t guarantee you any mercy from your enemies.” Vile reached out and picked up his Red Queen by the cape. She was half-choked by the time set her down on the same tile as her White Bishop, capturing it.
The White Bishop helped the poor Red Queen to her feet before he walked off the board to join his other teammates.
“Why are we doing this?”
“The chess?” He hummed. “Do you know how boring it is being the villain? It can sometimes take decades before the damn hero shows up. They’re doing all the exciting things and we sit around and wait to be relevant to the plot.”
“No, I mean—this. Why are we talking? What do you want?” And why was he so miserable-looking?
He flinched. “I am miserable because if this is how it is going to be for us for the next, at minimum, two stories, I think I am going to be the one to lose my mind, Sasha.” His hand curled into a fist.
Unfortunately, he had been holding a Red Pawn at the time.
The man yelped, quiet and muffled, from inside his hand.
“Vile!” She reached out and grabbed his hand, pulling his fingers from his palm. She pulled the Red Pawn from his hand and set him down on the board. “I’m sorry, I hope you’re all right. He’s upset with me, not you.”
“I’m fine,” came the teensy squeak of a reply. “Thank you.” The pawn stood, trying to straighten out his clothes and armor.