Chapter 43
“Hello?” Alice called out, but only the buzzing bugs responded. She called out once again, hoping that her dragon, who seemed to vanish and appear when she was most in need, would arrive. There was nothing. Perhaps that meant she was safe. Or had Alice traveled to a realm where Dinah could not go?
“I think this direction will do fine,” she said, to lighten the fear that was sinking deep into her body.
It had become quite warm beneath the weight of her underskirts, which she would have abandoned altogether, but there was no telling if the weather would remain humid and warm once night fell.
He is safe, she told herself, pushing the thought of the woman who had chased her and Blinkem and the sparking wand out of her thoughts.
She wished to be back with Blinkem, and then, as before, her being alone brought Wendy into her thoughts.
Was Wendy in Oz? If Oz was Wonderland, could it also be Neverland?
And if so, how would Wendy survive in a land this dangerous without help?
She stepped over and into the brush, moving quickly to avoid her mind flooding with thoughts of snakes striking her boots.
She wasn’t scared, she told herself; she simply did not like things she could not see.
The magenta in the sky faded to a vibrant purple, and then, all at once, the blue of early night hung overhead, and the forest became something where there were many things she could not see. This did indeed scare her.
Alice rushed quickly toward an unknown place, not knowing when she would arrive.
Then, as if her imagination had been right all along, Alice stepped onto something long, round, and squirming.
At the moment it wriggled, she hopped up on one foot with a scream, expecting a snake to come flying from the bushes to consume her completely.
Instead, she heard a small roar that squeaked as it finished.
Ducking below a dying bush with hardly a leaf left on it, she found a small lion.
Not small for a cat—it was much larger than a cat—but, for a lion cub, the size seemed about right.
“Oh, sweet girl, I am sorry,” Alice said.
“I am a boy,” the cub retorted. Alice stood straight up, staring. She couldn’t have just heard that.
“And I am not sweet, no. I am ferocious,” the cub roared with another tiny squeak at the end, parading in a circle.
It was likely the sweetest little lion cub she had seen.
It was the only one, in fact. The little lion continued to prance with robust showmanship.
“I may be small, but I am mighty! My claws may be tiny now, but one day they will be razor sharp, and my roar will shake the very ground beneath your paws. You should be very afraid. Yes!” He roared again. “I am not sweet, no. I am ferocious!’
“Forgive me. You did give me a great fright,” Alice said.
“I did?” the cub asked. His voice was high like a child’s. Alice nodded, smiling. How interesting that was! She didn’t know what she expected a cub’s voice to sound like, for she had never expected a cub to have a voice.
“Did you wish to frighten me?” Alice asked. The cub scampered, just as her cat Dinah had as a kitten.
“Of course! That is what the forest kings are to do,” he said, with the fluffy ball of fur swishing at the end of his tail.
“A king! I have now met two queens and two kings! A pleasure, Your Majesty,” Alice said and curtseyed.
“Imagine that! Did the queens frighten you as well?” asked the cub.
How innocent the question was, but it certainly was worth considering.
“One more so than the other, though she did not mean to frighten me, I don’t think,” Alice replied, thinking for a moment of the Ruby Queen.
Of course, she’d intended to frighten Alice in some way.
It was how she maintained the upper hand.
Alice didn’t need to explain all this to the cub, but the entire exchange with the Ruby Queen had a bit more clarity after the fact.
“Where are we, young king?” Alice said, and the cub’s whiskers raised with its teeth showing. It looked as though he were smiling.
“The Forest of No Name, home of the most ferocious beasts in all of Oz,” the lion said, pouncing over the bushes before her and skidding to a stop at her feet.
As the lion fell to her feet, it briskly rubbed against her.
Her legs vibrated from its purr, and then it flicked off back over the bush.
Alice laughed as it navigated its clumsy long legs and large paws, still too large for its frame.
“I will not eat you, I have decided,” the lion said.
His purring had long given away that decision.
“Do you know how I might get to Queen Gayelette’s Kingdom? The Ruby Queen?” she asked the cub. Its whiskers twitched as its head cocked. He knew not who she spoke of.
“It’s a palace made of rubies. It’s… North of the Munchkin folk, I believe.”
“That’s on the other side of Oz,” the cub squeaked. “It would take days on your legs, even though they are very long.”
Alice removed the pocket watch; the hand that should have spun if a portal was near lay still. Alice’s chest felt tight. At least the well had dumped her somewhere in Oz. Though she wished there was a well to return in.
Alice decided. She had to get back to the North. “Thank you for your help. Which direction is north?”
“You aren’t going, are you?” the cub said, sitting up straight on its haunches.
“I must. People will worry about me.” Alice found comfort in the thought. It had been some time since she’d felt that. “You have been so helpful. Now, which way is north?”
“You cannot go yet. I have helped you. You now must help me. I demand it as a king.”
“It only seems fair,” Alice said, plopping her hands on her waist. “Now, what is it I could help the king with?” she said with a slight tease.
“I’m looking for my mother. If you could help me find her,” the cub said meekly, flattening its ears close to its head. Alice felt so many emotions in one pain in her heart, for him, for Wendy, for her mother. She ignored the feeling as best she could.
“Your mother will not eat me, will she?” Alice asked, to be sure before helping the poor cub.
“I will tell her not to,” he assured her. “She will be grateful.”
“Then I would be happy to help you. Where did you see her last?”
“The Angry Grove.”
“That sounds very frightening,” Alice said, beginning to feel unsure about the idea of searching for a lioness missing her child in a place called the Angry Grove.
“It is, but we will be together, so it’s less frightening. Everything is less frightening when you are not alone.”
“How wise.” Alice smiled at the profound truth of the innocent young cub.
“Shall we?” Alice gestured for him to lead the way, and the cub circled itself before briskly trotting to her side.
“If your mother is on the other side of the grove, could we not simply go around?” Alice asked, standing before a dense spread of contorted trees with knobs and knots that looked almost like faces—likely the reason for the angry name.
“There is no way around. The grove stretches from sunup to sundown,” the lion said, nodding from east to west.
“That is much more than a grove,” Alice said, observing the clear line between the forest in which they stood and the endless row of scowling-faced trees.