WonderLand

When I came to, I was lying on my back, blinking blearily as my double vision swam in front of me, and vaguely aware that I seemed to be moving. I tried to sit up, but the movement made my head lurch, and I only managed to roll over onto my side, my head splitting in agony.

“Oh man, what happened?” I tried to groan, but I couldn’t get the words out past my limp tongue. I remained where I was, curled up on my side, while my vision slowly began to return to me. After perhaps a minute, I realized I was in fact moving. The trees of the Forest were sliding past me; but more worryingly, I began to notice that my view of them appeared to be somewhat obstructed by a set of golden, metal bars.

With a great deal of effort, I pushed myself into a sitting position. After my mind, still a little fuzzy around the edges, managed to orient itself, I realized exactly what had happened, and my heart immediately sank right down to my toes.

After that cube thing incapacitated me, the Dodo and Bill had managed to lock me in some sort of cage. But... no, they hadn’t had a cage of any sort with them, as far as I could tell. Let alone one that appeared to be made of solid gold. Perhaps the cube itself had been the cage all along, like some sort of portable, collapsible trap; enclosing me within when it exploded. I supposed it didn’t matter how it had happened, just that it had happened at all. I was trapped, and I doubted that this time my prison was fitted with a trap door or a trick lock that would allow me to escape.

After taking several deep breaths to settle the feeling of nausea that was steadily rising in my throat, I tried to properly discern my surroundings on the outside of my golden cage. To the front of me, the Dodo huffed and puffed, waddling stiffly from side to side and making the sort of noises that makes someone call an ambulance. Behind me, on the opposite side of the cage, Bill the Lizard struggled to keep up, grunting and hopping about frantically. I suddenly realized they were carrying my cage on their shoulders, as if it were some sort of litter.

“Hey, put me down! And let me out of here, this instant!” I demanded, grabbing the bars in front of me and trying to shake them.

“Oh no,” the Dodo wheezed. “Not after everything we’ve been through. But don’t worry, little Alice. You’ll be released soon enough. To the highest bidder, anyways. And then it’ll be their turn to decide what to do with you. Something painful, I hope.”

“The highest bidder? What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, a cold chill settling in my stomach. Bill the Lizard snickered as best he could beneath the weight of my prison.

“You’ll see, you’ll see!” he chittered.

“Shut up, Bill,” the Dodo snarled.

I didn’t see how I was going to get out of this one, but I sure wasn’t going to go without a fight. I began throwing myself from side to side, trying to unbalance my cage and its carriers as best I could. I didn’t know how much good my aim would achieve, but it would at the very least give the Dodo and Bill a hard time, and that was good enough for me.

“Hey! Knock it off, you little-” the Dodo snapped, stumbling to the side and nearly capsizing.

“Oh, I’m sorry, does that bother you? Yeah, no problem, I’ll stop, I wouldn’t want to inconvenience anybody,” I grunted, trying to work up a really good momentum before heaving all of my weight to the left again.

“There’s no point in fighting, Alice,” the Dodo grunted, just barely keeping his balance. “Even if you did manage to knock yourself down, all you would accomplish is obtaining some bruised elbows. There is no way to escape our ingeniously designed Trap Cube from the inside. You’re coming with us, back to our Headquarters you so rudely refused to visit when we first... crossed paths.”

“And what are you going to do to me then?” I asked, not entirely sure I really wanted to know the answer.

The Dodo chortled, obviously quite pleased with himself. “We told you we were entrepreneurs of sorts.”

“Yeah, yeah, we sell stuff!” Bill chimed in, giggling nastily to himself.

“Shut up Bill. Isn’t it obvious, Alice?”

“Alex.”

“You’re going to the highest bidder! It’s far too messy to pick sides, Bill and I have learned that lesson. We’ll simply... offer the goods, and let it work itself out!”

Ah. Well. That’s didn’t sound good. That didn’t sound good at all. I had to get away, and I had to do it fast. I couldn’t think of many people I had met so far that would show up to an auction featuring me as the main prize with good intentions.

Whether the Dodo had been telling the truth about the ‘Trap Cube’ being inescapable, I couldn’t know. He could have very well been lying in an effort to quell any escape attempts I had been considering, or he could have been telling the unfortunate truth. Either way,I figured I ought to work under the assumption that there was a way out, since I had nothing to lose by trying. And meanwhile, I could also try to just really ruin Dodo and Bill’s day while I was at it.

The first thing I did was stand up.

The cage wasn’t very large, only about four feet by four feet wide, and just about the same height. I couldn’t stand up all the way, but I did my best, and my effort had the desired effect. My sudden movement nearly toppled the cage over again, off of Bill and the Dodo’s shoulders. They cursed, and the Dodo threatened me some more, which I ignored. It wasn’t like anything they could do to me would be any worse than what would happen if the Queen got her hands--or axe--on me.

I stomped around my tiny confined space, jumping up and down when I could, heaving myself from side to side, and all the while checking every side, every corner, every bar and square inch of the solid gold floor and ceiling of my cage for a weak spot or a keyhole or anything.

At one point I did actually manage to knock the cage, and myself, off of my kidnapper’s shoulders. I was sent tumbling painfully to the ground, catching my fingers between the hard earth and one of the bars of the cage when it landed on its side. The Dodo swore, but it was drowned out by me saying nearly the same thing, only louder.

The next time I knocked it over, I held tight to the bars of the opposite side, and would have ended up in much less pain had the Dodo not come over to where I smugly crouched and kicked at me repeatedly. Not really being able to get his fat feet through the narrow bars, he pulled a branch down from one of the nearby trees and hit me with it a few times, before I managed to grab it and yank it from his hands. I still ended up with a few painful, red welts across my forearms and palms.

Despite all of this, and what felt like hours of tedious walking after I had grown too tired, sore, and despondent to bother trying anymore, I couldn’t find a single means of escape. The golden cage really did seem impenetrable. It was seamless and solid, and even though it seemed to be made of gold, it was hard as steel, and my attempts to gnaw through one of the bars only left me with a sore mouth and a headache.

So instead of trying to escape, I settled on a much more passive plan. I was complaining, loudly and passionately, in the hopes that the Dodo and Bill would become so frustrated with me they would release me just so they didn’t have to listen to me any longer.

“Are we nearly there yet?” I whined, laying flat on my back, my feet sticking out between the bars and knocking into the Dodo’s head with every step. “I don’t want to be here anymore. Literally anywhere but here would be great.”

“Shut up, and move your feet before I cut them off!” the Dodo growled.

“But I have nowhere to put them!” I said, waggling them a little more. “It’s so cramped in here. My legs hurt. And I’m thirsty. And hungry. Are we nearly there yet? I’m really sick of this. Speaking of sick, I think I’m getting motion sick. I feel like I’m going to throw up.”

The Dodo took a deep breath, and counted to ten.

“Yes, we are nearly there. And if you stop talking, I will not have to punish you once we arrive!”

“Oh my, such a gentleman,” I said, with as much over-the-top sarcasm as I could muster. “When are the nominations for the Kidnapper of the Year Award?”

Bill snorted. I don’t know why he was laughing, I doubted he had any idea what an awards show was.

“Don’t you start,” the Dodo threatened his partner, “Or the consolation prize at the auction will be lizard-skin boots.”

That shut Bill up quickly.

“How about we sing a song to pass the time?” I suggested. “I’ll start, just join in whenever you get the hang of the lyrics. One million bottles of beer on the wall, one million bottles of beer! Take one down, pass it around, nine-hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine-hundred and ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall!”

In front of me, the Dodo began quietly praying for death. Whether it was my death or his, I couldn’t be sure.

Their headquarters were abysmal.

I thanked my lucky stars that I had not chosen to go with them when I had first encountered the unpleasant duo on the beach when I first arrived in WonderLand, and not only because they were the kinds of people who were willing to stoop to human slavery.

It was a ramshackle shack, barely big enough to be considered a hovel, really. It appeared to be made entirely out of rotting driftwood, which they must have collected themselves. We were near the ocean again, I could smell it in the air, and feel the stickiness on my skin from the wind. The shack was right on the edge of the Forest, right where the tree line began to peter out, and the rocky hills spotted with scraggly dune grass that preceded the beach, which must have been maybe a mile off, began.

The Dodo and Bill both seemed relieved to be out of the Forest. I didn’t blame them, it certainly hadn’t given them an easy time in the journey. Roots seemed to try to trip them up whenever possible, and tree branches stretched lower than usual to smack them in their faces when they passed. It was the middle of the afternoon and whatever animals that were out at that time seemed small and remained hiding in the bushes, but we all heard the snarls as we passed.

I had to admit, for once I was appreciative of that stupid Forest. At least it was backing me up now. It was nice that the Forest seemed to accept me, even if WonderLand as a whole didn’t, and at that moment, I was just happy to have any allies at all, even ones made of trees.

Bill and the Dodo practically dropped my cage onto the ground in front of the shack, groaning about their aching shoulders.

“Hey, I’m the flyer when I stand in for acrobatic routines at the Circus, I know I’m not that difficult to carry!” I protested.

“I just can’t wait to be rid of her,” the Dodo muttered to Bill darkly under his breath.

“I can’t wait for the money!” was Bill’s shrilly excited reply.

“Shut up, Bill,” said the Dodo, and he smacked the smaller man upside the head. “Now get the auction set up, the participants should be here within the hour, and we want to make a good impression.”

“Oh good, I have another hour!” I exclaimed with the most cheer I could muster. “We have time to get through another five hundred bottles! All together now, you know the words! Nine-hundred ninety-nine thousand, five hundred and thirteen bottles of beer on the wall, nine hundred ninety-nine thousand five hundred thirteen bottles of beer! Take one down-”

They threw a tarp over my cage, as if I were a particularly obnoxious parrot they were trying to shut up. Which was exactly the sort of vibe I was going for, so I happily raised my volume and sang my little heart out. I feared it might be the last time I would be singing for a while, maybe ever, so I tried to enjoy it as much as I could.

At some point, somewhere around bottle number 999,327, I felt my cage being lifted up, as presumably Bill and the Dodo hoisted me up on top of something, some sort of platform.

“Hey, don’t rock the boat, fellas!” I cried, grabbing onto the bars on either side of me to keep myself from falling over. I giggled at my joke a little. Haha, it wasn’t a boat! That was funny.

Then a slapped myself upside the head, disgusted.

No, no that wasn’t funny, not in the slightest. And worse than that--I would have been able to suffer the indignity of a bad joke in a time of great stress--but worse than that, it didn’t make any sense.

Well, okay, it made a little sense, but only a little. I had never gone mad before, I didn’t know what the warning signs were. But from that moment on, I promised myself I would be watching what I said, even thought to myself, very carefully. If anything came out of my mouth that sounded like something a WonderLander might say, I’d have to…

Well, I didn’t know what would happen then. Presumably that would be the beginning of the end, and from there it would be a slippery slope into madness, until I was… what was the phrase the Cat had used, so many days ago in the Duchess’s abandoned house? That Outsiders like me who stayed in WonderLand too long ”frail little imaginations can’t stand the strain and snap, and they eventually are consumed by madness becoming nothing more than gibbering husks of their former selves”? Yeah, it was something along those lines.

At least I could take consolation in the fact that I wouldn’t be the only looney in the bin. There were plenty of others to keep me company. And hey, on the bright side, maybe if I lost my mind to such an extent that I was worthless to be used as a tool in this ridiculous war, the Queen of Hearts wouldn’t want my head anymore!

Then again, I wasn’t sure if living out the remainder of my life as a “gibbering husk” was actually much better than being dead. Ah well. I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.

Finally, after what certainly seemed like more than an hour and took almost six hundred bottles to sing through, someone banged on the bars of my cage, through the tarp.

“Hey you rotten girl,” the Dodo called, no longer as jovially polite as he had been with me. Perhaps I had upset him. I certainly hoped so. “Pipe down, the guests will be here at any moment, and the auction will begin soon!”

“Oh of course, and we do so want to make a good impression, don’t we?” I called back, my voice dripping in so much sarcasm that I was practically drowning in it.

“Yes you do, if you want anyone other than the Queen of Hearts interested in buying you off of us! She won’t care how obnoxious you are, she won’t have to deal with that for very long!” the Dodo shot back, his tone laced with cruel pleasure. Apparently he wouldn’t be terribly sad to see me go.

“The Queen of Hearts?” I repeated, suddenly a little nervous. “Is she coming?”

The Dodo laughed at me, as if I were stupid. “The Queen, coming here? My word, if you’re that dense, I can’t imagine why anybody wants their hands on you so bad! No, no, that Queen would never soil her hands with her own dirty work. She’ll be sending representatives.”

“Actions can’t happen with only one party. Who else is coming?” I demanded to know.

“The Rebellion, if they accept the invitation I sent them. But then, maybe they decided you weren’t worth all the effort, and will just let the Queen have you,” he suggested with mock sympathy.

“In which case,” I growled, in no mood to be mocked, “You’ll get absolutely nothing out of this, except maybe a beating, since somehow I doubt the Queen will be eager to pay you for just handing me over to her--at least, that’s what I gather from what I’ve heard about her. Does that sound right?”

I took the Dodo’s lack of a reply to be a yes.

“In that case, you better hope that someone from the Rebellion shows up!” I shouted. But I was using my anger to cover up the fact that I was afraid myself. What if no one showed up? More than five hours couldn’t have passed since the Dodo and Bill captured me. How could anybody even know I had been captured, let alone make it all the way here, prepared for an auction of some sort, in that amount of time?

Right then, for the first time since I had arrived in WonderLand, I was completely helpless. I couldn’t run, I couldn’t fight back, I couldn’t try to talk myself out of this one. I was trapped in a gilded cage, just hoping that I would be lucky enough to be rescued before things went terribly wrong.

I hoped I hadn’t already used up all my luck.

Within fifteen minutes, the auction began.

I was jerked from my pitiful musings, sitting cross legged in the middle of the cage with my chin in my hands, when I heard the sound of a wheezy trumpet bellowing a fanfare somewhere to my left. I assumed it was Bill doing the trumpeting, it sounded vaguely pathetic.

I strained my ears then, and definitely heard the sounds of people approaching--actually, quite a lot of people, judging from all the clinking of armor, marching footsteps, and even the snorting of horses.

These sounds all came from the right of my cage, but there was definite movement on the left as well, apart from Bill’s wheezing trumpet. It wasn’t nearly as noisy as the commotion on the other side, but I could tell it was a group of people approaching, not just one or two. That encouraged me; no matter which side was the Rebellion, I wasn’t alone.

Unless neither were them. I had no idea who else might show up to an auction like this, but the thought that the Rebellion hadn’t in fact bothered to show up at all, and that there might now be some third sinister party interested in my capture out there waiting for me was something I didn’t like to consider. I could feel my heartbeat quicken as my nerves threatened to overwhelm me, but I took a deep breath and tried to steady myself. There was no point in worrying yet, I was sure I would have plenty of time for that later.

“Welcome, Ladies and Gentlemen!” I heard the Dodo cry out, in a loud, grand voice. “Er, well, just gentlemen, I suppose. Either way, welcome one and all! I am sure you are all very interested in why I have brought you here today! Unlike the rest of you, I have succeed where you have failed! The measly woman-child, Alice of WonderLand, was no match for me, and I have captured her!”

There was a murmur of displeasure that seemed to pass around the gathered crowds, though I couldn’t understand them. I wished the tarp wasn’t so thick.

“But I am not a fighting man. I choose to rise above the pettiness of politics, so I have no use for keeping Alice for myself! And since I, as a tradesman-”

“A racketeer!” someone shouted, but they were quickly hushed.

“As a tradesman,” the Dodo continued, sounding slightly annoyed now, “would never consider favoring either side of this conflict, in the spirit of impartiality, I will simply leave it up to you good folks, and the favors of economics, to determine to whom she shall go! Yes, gentlemen, this is an auction, and auction for the jewel of WonderLand, the one from the Prophecy, the tool that will win the war for either side that possesses her! Ladies and Gentlemen, you may begin bidding, for Alice!”

And with a dramatic flourish, the Dodo pulled the tarp off of my cramped prison, leaving me exposed, crouching angrily inside like a caged tiger.

There were a series of gasps from the crowd assembled, most given up for wildly different reasons.

To my right were the Queen’s representatives, to the left, the Rebellion’s. I saw so many familiar faces in that instance, I wasn’t sure whether I should feel relieved, emboldened, vengeful, or terrified.

The Queen’s gathered group was larger, with almost twice the numbers of the Rebellion’s. Most of them were guards of some sort, dressed in red armor, all standing motionless in neat rows, wearing identical faceless helmets that stared straight ahead. There was a small man wearing a ridiculous outfit, with an enormous Elizabethan collar and overly poofy sleeves and pants. It was all patterned in red and white diamonds, except for the giant red heart stitched over his breast, the word “Knave” embroidered in the center in gold thread. He seemed to be in charge there, but he was not the figure commanding the most attention. For beside him stood the Jabberwocky, looming over the little man like a shadow of death, his tuxedo as impeccable as it had been when I had first seen it, his face as horrible.

He caught me looking at him, and he bared his teeth at me, perhaps in a smile. I shuddered, and had to look away. I was afraid if I looked too long, I might see blood on him somewhere, and that it wouldn’t be his own.

So instead I focused on the other side, on my side, on the people who were as close to friends as I had in WonderLand.

I saw the Hatter and Hare, waving furiously at me wearing silly grins--they had come down in person, themselves, risking being exposed like this, for me. I knew they probably could have sent someone in their stead, they didn’t have to be there. I waved back, choking up a little despite myself.

The Doormouse was with them, looking more alert than I had seen him thus far. His sword was drawn, and he stood a little in front of Hatter and Hare, and his gaze was fixed upon the Jabberwocky, his gaze steely and unyielding.

And then I saw Gryphon, and the White Knight, and my heart soared. They were okay, though the Gryphon did look a little worse for wears. But they both smiled at me, immensely relieved to see that I wasn’t hurt, that they hadn’t failed entirely in their mission.

And there were some others too, men I didn’t recognize, but I didn’t focus on them for long. For then someone else pushed their way to the front of the group, his glass green eyes wide and worried, until they locked on mine.

“Cat!” I cried aloud, and I would have collapsed to my knees if I hadn’t already been kneeling.

“Alex!” He shouted back, but he approached no further, standing beside the Hatter and looking at me from a distance. His purple suit was slashed across the chest, and it was stained with blood. There was a nasty cut above his blackening left eye, and that side of his face was stained crimson, but other than that, he appeared fine. He was okay. I began to cry. He was okay.