Chapter 53
“The Principles of Magic, Lesson One,” Tinkerton said to Alice, who sat hoping that by learning the craft she could somehow find whatever it was that lived inside her. “The wand. It is nothing more than a stone and a stick, but without one, your powers are wild. You need a channel and a conduit.”
“Tea for the little witches and wizards,” Lorelei said in a demure voice, entering the room. “Tattypoo is looking for you, Alice. You’ll find her in the workshop.”
Alice excused herself to meet Tattypoo. Please let her have found a way to Wendy, Alice willed.
Tattypoo stood at her desk looking through a witch’s libre. Surely it was Tattypoo’s. As Alice entered, Tattypoo looked up with a stern brow and slowly closed the book. It appeared the news was not good.
“Have you discovered anything about Wendy?” Alice asked, hoping what concerned Tattypoo was not about Wendy.
“That I have,” Tattypoo said, and nothing more. She stood rigidly, almost as though Alice had disrupted her.
“Can you find her?”
“Oh, I think so. It will take some time,” Tattypoo said, stepping from behind the desk. “Of which I think I will have plenty.”
“Well.” Alice cleared her throat. “The witchcraft lessons have only just begun with Tinkerton…” Alice said as Tattypoo began to counter, walking behind her. “But I will do my very best to learn as quickly as possible.”
“That won’t matter. Not one bit,” Tattypoo said lowly as she circled Alice, then stopped and stood directly behind her. A strange feeling came over Alice. The very feeling that Marker had stirred when she’d watched Alice from the hallway at Pastoria House.
“I had better return,” Alice said, with a glance toward the wardrobe mirror across from them. Alice looked into Tattypoo’s eyes, though she did not need to see them to know. Wide eyes stared back with whites that gleamed over her irises.
“You are not Tattypoo,” Alice said, frozen in place.
“Afraid not,” she said, and as she did Tattypoo’s face and body transformed in the blink of an eye, with a horrid squishing and cracking sound. Before Alice stood a taller, cold-looking woman with black lifeless eyes. She was the very same witch from the Ruby Forest.
“Mombi,” Alice said with a sharp exhale.
“I see my reputation precedes me.” Mombi took a sharp step toward Alice, which sent her stumbling back as she nearly fell over one of the stacks of books Tattypoo’s workshop was littered with.
Mombi stepped closer yet again. She was the cat and Alice undoubtedly the mouse. “I knew my sister was deceitful, but to read it in lurlicite in her libre, it will take your breath away. Do you know that she has taken your ability to manifest your powers, girl?”
“I know that I am bound. She is going to lift the spell.” Alice moved cautiously, countering Mombi, who wove in loops around Alice, disorienting her like a snake.
“Binding a witch is considered a form of cruel punishment. Fitting only for those who use the craft for murder.” Mombi grinned, teeth sharp and grey. “Have you murdered anyone, girl?”
“Of course not.” Alice turned, and a bolt flew over her shoulder, singing her hair and sending books from the shelves scattering. Alice whirled. Mombi stood with her wand pointed to Alice.
“Why would sweet Tattypoo punish you, then, hmm?”
“You are attempting to manipulate me. Why would she do that?”
“Isn’t it obvious? She doesn’t want you to have powers,” Mombi said through a snarl, close enough to Alice now that Alice could feel the wet of her spit. Alice felt flushed. Could this be true, or was it a deception?
The doors behind Alice burst open. “Alice, are you…” the true Tattypoo said, bustling into the room. Alice turned to Tattypoo as Mombi grabbed Alice, pulling her against her, the tip of the wand pressed to her throat. A rancid scent clung to her—stale sweat, damp earth, and something acrid.
“Let us ask her!” Mombi hollered, causing Alice’s ear to ring.
“Sister, how long it’s been!” Mombi’s voice suddenly cracked into two, as though two women spoke in unison, as her body made strange popping noises.
The hand that clutched Alice shrank, and thus Mombi’s grip grew tighter as she took on her sister’s form once again.
“Can’t say it’s good to see you, but it sure feels good to be you. ”
“Let her go, Mombi!” Tattypoo reached to take her wand from her belt.
“Draw your wand and I’ll invert your knees. They’ll snap back, you understand? How would you like living with the broken legs of a horse?” Spit flew over Alice’s shoulder as Mombi howled at Tatttypoo and sparks shot from her wand.
“You will not give her to Roquat. You hear me?” Tattypoo approached.
“I should!” Mombi spun, dragging Alice to avoid Tattypoo advancing.
“But I’m easily bought. Give me the chronex!
” Tattypoo shifted nervously. The wand sparked, shocking Alice with an intense jolt that caused her entire body to tense.
No longer under her control, her teeth clenched against her cheeks, and blood filled her mouth.
“Do not harm her!” Tattypoo screamed as Mombi pointed the wand back to Tatttypoo.
“Give me the watch!” Mombi barked in response. “You caged me, you wretched scab! Only after you spoiled the world to me! ‘Chaos prone’ is what you wrote about me when we were children, is it not? You turned Father on me!”
“You did that all on your own, Mombi.”
“Well, if I am chaos, so be it! I’ll live in chaos,” the woman seethed, her grip tightening at Alice’s throat.
Tattypoo tried approaching again, which only caused the woman to jab the wand deeper into Alice.
“But sister, I’ll offer you mercy, which you’ve never offered me.
Give me the watch and you can have this precious witch of yours. It’s easy!”
“I don’t have the watch!” Tattypoo had tears in her eyes.
“Lying sack! It was meant to be mine! Father intended…”
“He was mad! A deranged tyrant!” Tattypoo screamed, her face blood red. “And you are just like him!” Mombi, grabbing Alice’s neck, fired an explosion of sparks at Tattypoo, knocking her back against her desk.
Alice screamed, and Mombi’s grip tightened. “I have it!” Alice choked.
“No!” Tattypoo yelled.
“In my waist pouch!” Alice said, pulling at Mombi’s grasp. Mombi grabbed furiously at the pouch until she held the watch up with one hand and returned the tip of her wand to Alice’s throat.
“Open it!” she demanded of Alice, dangling the watch in front of her face. Alice grabbed the pendulum swinging from its chain and opened the watch face. Mombi took it with one hand and twisted the knobs as she mumbled in an incoherent whisper.
“Tell me, Tattypoo, what else have you not told Alice? Liddell? An orphan you brought to Pastoria House.” Mombi let out a sharp grinding laugh. “Really, sister?” She continued to twist the knobs.
Tattypoo shifted nervously, her arms outstretched.
“Does she know you took her from her family? Not once, but twice! And then, and this is what really has me in awe, you took her out of time! Tsk tsk, sister.” Mombi eyed the watch, checking whatever it was she was setting, and dropped it to dangle by the chain as she pushed the tip of the wand further into Alice’s throat.
“It was you?” Alice strained to say. “You took me out of time?” Alice grabbed at Mombi’s rough hand, trying to alleviate the pressure on her windpipe.
“I had to move you! You were being pursued! You always have been. The moment you arrived in Oz when you were a child, he knew! He has known of your existence. You have always been pursued!”
“That’s a very wicked, wicked thing you did, Tattypoo!
A punishable offense! Why stop there? Tell her the full truth!
” Mombi screamed. Tattypoo’s mouth quivered with her hands outstretched.
“Tattypoo Molloy, the good witch of the North, and her many, many lives and endless lies. Isn’t that right, Lady Pastoria? ”
Tattypoo began to weep, attempting to move closer to Alice.
Mombi fired a burning spark that struck the ceiling above Tattypoo as chunks of plaster fell around her.
“Alice, I’d like for you to meet your grandmother!
” Alice’s eyes watered as she tried desperately to breathe.
Tattypoo did nothing; she stood dumbfounded.
It was true? Tattypoo was her grandmother?
“Tattypoo, you’ll never admit it, but you are the witch with the talent for deception.
You are far better at it than I. Well, not anymore, not with this.
” Mombi waved the watch aggressively. “What was it that happened on the date I read again? Oh, yes! According to your libre I can find Alice, as a young girl, on her birthday, I’ll find her waiting on the bank of Kensington Gardens.
But oh dear, what else will I find? I will find a rabbit with the chronex!
” Mombi began to snicker wildly. “And you won’t have a way to stop me.
I’ll kill the rabbit. Take the watch and…
Kill the girl? Maybe. Or shall I leave her in the time she belongs and let someone else do that for me?
Hard to say!” Tattypoo tried to step forward, and Mombi’s wand sparked.
“But I will undo everything you have used this relic to change. And then I will destroy you! And I will be free to roam anywhere I damn well like!”
“Enough!” Tattypoo shouted, and Mombi fired a crackling spark which struck Tattypoo to the ground.
At the sound of the crack, footsteps came running from down the hall.
Tattypoo wasted no time righting herself, and a bolt sparked from her wand, landing on Mombi’s shoulder, searing her dress, sending the sharp acrid smell of burnt fabric to fill Alice’s nose.
Alice screamed, and the timepiece swung against Alice’s tightly clenched fists.
Alice only had a moment. She grabbed the watch, hiding it inside her closed fist. Her thumb found the fourth knob, and quickly she cranked it, and cranked it again, and again.
Could it foil what Mombi planned? She let it go, so that it dangled again from the chain Mombi held, and hoped it might have some effect.
With a sudden ferocity, Mombi shoved Alice by the neck to the wardrobe mirror and spun her to face it.
Had she seen Alice wind the watch? She pressed her wand to the glass.
“Mando tibi, Lurlicite obscurus, ad tempus refletum…” There was a loud crack behind her.
The scent of burning fabric came—Tattypoo had landed a strike on Mombi.
“Ah! Diem quartam Maii, mille nongenti tredecim anni,” she intoned, and a bolt of electricity swirled through the room, followed by the stench of burning flesh. The witch, still holding Alice, howled in agony from another strike made by Tattypoo, and another.
“I’ll be seeing you…” she hissed to Alice, and then she screamed, “Pastoriae domum, iterum percipe!” In that moment, Alice stopped her attempt to pry Mombi’s fingers from her throat, and instead she grabbed the watch that Mombi still held by its chain.
If she held onto it, could she stop what Mombi was attempting to do?
Alice’s eyes began to spot, the pressure at her neck blooming into her face.
“Pastoriae domum, iterum percipe!” Alice held the watch tightly as a sound cracked through Alice’s ears, before she succumbed to unconsciousness.
May 4th, 1665
Mombi, having just released Alice, stood under heavy rain, the chain of the pocket watch still in her hand, but the watch itself was gone!
Mombi looked around in a mad panic. The ground beneath her was not the manicured lawn she had expected, but a muddy, uneven expanse, dotted with sagging tents, their filthy canvas weighed down by the rain.
Distressed voices echoed in the distance, the sounds of retching coughs carrying on the wind.
Mombi took a slow step forward, her boots sinking slightly into the wet earth. “What did she do?” she growled to herself, tossing the chain onto the ground.
A man appeared before her, shuffling under a cloak, holding a lantern that flickered weakly against the storm.
“What is this place?” Mombi demanded, her voice sharp.
The frail man hardly acknowledged her, glancing up with a scowl. She grabbed him by the shoulder, spinning him around. “Where am I?”
“Hyde Park,” he rasped, his voice rough. “Ye snooty wench.”
Mombi’s heart raced. “This is not Kensington Gardens?” she barked.
He sneered, “Tis the end of the world, aye. Plague camp, they call it. Ye’re either here to die, or ye’ve already passed.”
Mombi’s fury flared. “The year! What is the year?” She had him by the collar now, shoving him down into the mud.
“The year o’ our Lord, 1665!” he spat, scrambling up from the muck, coughing wetly as he hobbled away.
Mombi froze. She had traveled too far back.
Too far! Her mind seethed with the knowledge of how much time she had already lost in exile—and now this!
Mombi screamed, and jerking her wand above her, fire exploding from it shooting into the sky, joining the rolling thunder above.
How long would she have to wait for revenge on Tattypoo? How long would she wait for Alice?