The boy grew suspicious. “Maybe.”
“At your age, you shouldn’t need your father’s help administering punishments. I will hunt out the culprit and bring him to you. Go and enjoy a nice bit of tarty tart and say nothing of this terrible incident to anyone until I return. You will surprise the queen with your judicious punishment of Dodge, I’m sure.”
Bibwit watched the boy strut up the passageway, his round rear jiggling left, right, left, right, all the way to the royal gardens. With his ultra-sensitive ears, Bibwit Harte had heard everything that had happened in the Issa Room. Only when he was positive that Jack would say nothing of the trifling matter to the queen or the Lord of Diamonds, only when he heard the boy greedily munching on a tarty tart, did he set out after Alyss and Dodge. Cocking his head, as might a dog hearing a strange, high-pitched noise, he
listened to far-off sounds. He heard a husband and wife discussing their upcoming safari in Outerwilderbeastia. He heard a shopkeeper totaling up his accounts three streets away. And then he heard a mishmash of humble voices. Using his hearing as a guide, he made his way out of the palace.
Alyss and Dodge ran through the servants’ tunnels, Alyss yelping with laughter and quite enjoying herself, Dodge all business, until he shouldered open a door and they stepped out into the light of
Wondertropolis. For the first time in her life, Alyss Heart was outside the grounds of the palace.
“Whoa.”
It was a festive scene: Wonderlanders dancing, playing musical instruments, and acting out
mini-theatricals. A shopkeeper spotted Alyss and, with respectful expressions of good wishes for her health, dropped to his knees. Seeing who was among them, Wonderlander after Wonderlander followed his example and, in less than half a minute, Alyss and Dodge were standing at the center of a bowing, reverent audience.
“Uh, yeah,” Dodge said in a loud voice to no one in particular, “she looks a lot like Princess Alyss, doesn’t she? But her name’s Stella. She’s nobody.”
The Wonderlanders lifted their heads and turned to one another. How could this beautiful girl with her soft eyes and her black hair styled like the princess’ not be Alyss Heart? Their confusion vanished with the appearance of Bibwit Harte. If the royal tutor was after her, then the girl had to be Princess Alyss.
At the sight of Bibwit, Alyss shouted, “Run!” But the scholarly albino was pretty fast and would have caught up with them in no time if his robe hadn’t sprouted the fluorescent feathers of a tuttle-bird, ballooned around him, and lifted him into the air.
“Alyss, noooo!”
Dodge glanced back. “What-?”
“I didn’t exactly mean to do it,” said Alyss. This was not how she should have been using her imagination and she knew it. “I just didn’t want him to catch us.” She’d had the faintest glimmer of an imagining to slow Bibwit down and then-bam!-it became a reality.
Bibwit dropped from the sky into mud-choked grass, slipping and sliding as he tried to get out of it, but Alyss and Dodge were already gone. They ran down brick lanes, cut through alleys, and crossed thoroughfares. Eventually, the polished shop fronts and glistening streets of the capital city gave way to a wood. The trees and flowers chirped in surprise at the sight of the princess, making sure to look as
in-full-bloom as possible while moving their branches and petals out of her way as she and Dodge ran, jumping over rocks and creek beds until they came to a cliff and could go no farther. Alyss looked down from the vast height of the rock face. Below her stretched a body of water surrounded on all sides by a crystal barrier.
“What is it?” she whispered, partly in awe and partly because she didn’t want Bibwit to track her with his hearing.
“It’s called the Pool of Tears,” Dodge answered, also whispering. “They say that if you fall in, it takes you out of Wonderland, but no one knows for sure. People have gone in, but nobody’s ever come back.”
Alyss said nothing.
“People sometimes come here and wait for the return of those who’ve fallen in. They cry and let their tears drop into the water. That’s how it got its name.”
Alyss stared down at the water. It wasn’t fair. How could the world be so sad on her birthday? She tried to imagine what she’d do if Dodge or one of her parents fell into the Pool of Tears. What would life be like without them? But she couldn’t do it. Imagination failed her.
“We should go back,” Dodge said.
“Yes, yes,” said the trees and shrubs closest to them.
People would come looking for them, Alyss knew, maybe even Hatter himself. She could not escape being who and what she was.
“Maybe if we go back and act as though nothing has happened,” she said, “it’ll be like nothing did.” Dodge lent her his guardsman coat-no small gesture considering what it meant to him, Alyss knew. She
wore it over her head like a shawl to avoid being recognized by Wonderlanders, part of a disguise that
also included a caterpillar mask she imagined for herself.
To prevent Bibwit from tracking them, she and Dodge didn’t speak during the journey back to the palace-a journey that seemed much shorter than their escape had been. Sooner than soon, they were making their way along the row of glorious fountains that led up to the front gate. Alyss could see the iridescent Heart Crystal beyond the locked entrance, giving off its white clouds of imaginative energy.
“Meow.” A kitten with golden fur rubbed against her leg.
“Where did you come from?” She took the kitten in her arms. It wore a ribbon for a collar, and attached to the ribbon was a card with a simple greeting: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ALYSS! “He knew me even through my disguise.”
“Who’s it from?” “It doesn’t say.”
Dodge looked around to see who might have been so generous, but of the many Wonderlanders enjoying the festivities outside the palace, no one paid them any attention.
“It’s smiling,” he said. “I didn’t know cats could smile.”
“He’s smiling because he’s happy to be with me.” Alyss wouldn’t put her new pet down.
The guards at the front gate recognized Dodge Anders but said that they couldn’t give entry to his friend without proper authority. Alyss took off her mask.
“Our humble apologies, Princess,” said the guards, promptly unbolting the gate. “We didn’t expect to see you. Beg your pardon.”
“I will pardon you on one condition,” Alyss announced. “You must tell no one that you saw me and
Dodge outside the palace. Can I rely on you to say nothing?” “Of course, Princess.”
“Not a word.”
The guards bowed. Alyss and Dodge entered the palace. Once the gate was locked behind them, the kitten jumped from the princess’ arms and bounded down the hall.
“Kitty, no!”
But the kitten ran and ran, as if it knew exactly where it was going and had things to do, appointments to keep. Which, in fact, it did.
CHAPTER 7
Q UEEN GENEVIEVE slipped away to her private rooms for a moment’s rest, leaving the guests to occupy themselves. Without a word, Hatter Madigan followed and stood guard in the hall.
The queen’s quarters consisted of three interconnected salons. One of these was filled with overstuffed couches and giant pillows to swaddle Her Highness in lazy comfort; another was a dressing room, storehouse for the queen’s many royal outfits; and the third was a bathroom, outfitted with tasseled curtains made of a fabric more voluptuous than any found outside the queendom.
Genevieve studied her reflection in the bathroom looking glass. Her daughter’s birthday always made her feel old. It wasn’t very long ago that she herself had begun her training to become queen. She saw lines at the corners of her eyes and on both sides of her mouth that hadn’t been there a year earlier. It was a shame that imagination had its limits, that it could affect the physical realm only so far and she couldn’t imagine herself young again.