When Arthur,
clean and dressed, entered the Day Room, the others were all already
there. The blonde girl, Alice, seemed to be trying to organise some
sort of event. She was often trying to get them to play games she
had invented, even though they never made any sense. The others would
often get bored and walk away halfway through, but she only saw this
as a victory for herself, which gave her all the more reason to play
again. She would goad them into joining in by offering the top hat
she always wore as a trophy, but always kept it since she claimed
she always won. Arthur couldn't remember how long Alice had been there,
although he couldn't really remember how long anybody had been there.
She had the others all sat around a table now. They were all uncommonly
quiet. Diana's arm was in a sling from the time she'd jumped down
the stairs, and Sheila was still drooling from her sedation the previous
night. Eric was barely awake under the morphine, but picked at his
bandages nonetheless. Bob and Hank appeared to both be going through
"low patches".
Alice looked up, brightly.
" Arthur! Magical man!"
Arthur winced and put his finger to his lips. No. No magic here.
The girl continued, unabated. "Will you won't you will you won't
you won't you join the game?"
Arthur shook his head, frowning faintly. "Don't feel like playing."
Alice's friendly smile sank suddenly. When she spoke again, it was
with a quiet, menacing growl.
" I want you to play my game."
The others looked up at him from the table, and said, in a dreamy
unison, "Play".
The short nurse took his hand.
" Why don't you play, Arthur? It'll pass the time."
And, suddenly, the tall nurse was at his shoulder as well, pushing
him on to the table. Arthur sighed, and allowed himself to be led
to the chair that was waiting for him. The nurses wandered off, leaving
him with the other inmates.
" Are we playing for the hat?" asked Diana, peering at her
cards.
" The hat's the prize!" grinned Alice, "change places!"
They all put their cards down, got up, moved to a different chair
and picked up the cards in front of them.
" ...want the hat..." muttered Sheila as she sat.
" How do we play?" asked Arthur, but nobody was listening
to him.
" Hit me..." slurred Eric.
Alice passed him a card.
" ...hit me..." he received another card.
" Excuse me?" said Arthur, to no avail.
" ...hit me..."
" ...hit me..."
Hank leaned over the table and hit Eric full in the face. Eric fell
back slightly, but sniggered along with Hank, enjoying the joke.
" Presto?" came another, well spoken, female voice.
" Change places!" shouted Alice, and they all changed places.
" Excuse me?"
" Presto!"
Arthur turned to look at the woman who had been trying to attract
his attention. She was crouching by his shoulder. The Doctor. Arthur
knew there was something familiar about the tall, pale woman, although
he was sure he'd never seen her before. She seemed to know him. She
was calling him by that bad name.
" Don't call me that. It's not my name."
" It's the only name I have for you." The Doctor flicked
her ginger fringe out of her eyes. "It's the name your friends
call you by. Your band of adventurers."
" I don't..."
The Doctor put her chin onto his shoulder and gazed into his eyes.
" Please remember, Presto. I can't bring you out of this by yourself.
You have to remember the powers you have."
" I don't have any powers. It's all a delusion. I wish I weren't
so average so I pretend I'm this great Wizard..."
The Doctor laughed, a high, nasal whinny.
" Presto, this is the delusion. You wish you were average. That
nothing was your responsibility, even your own life, even your own
bloody bladder movements." She stood up. God, she was tall. Her
limbs bulged with sinew and muscle. "You and the others are not
mad. You are not locked away in a lunatic asylum on Earth, gibbering
and dribbling and pissing yourself. I'm afraid, Presto, that it's
much, much worse than that. The nightmares are real."
" Don't say that..."
" The wounds are real. The deaths are real. The powers are real."
Arthur pushed his hands through his hair, rocking slightly. "No..."
" Yes." The Doctor walked around to the other side of the
table, her heels clopping on the bare floor. "Tell me who you
are."
" I'm Arthur Greene. I'm a mediocre little boy who turned into
a crazy, sad little man."
" No! Who are you?"
" I'm... I'm..." Presto looked up into her big, pink eyes,
amazed at how one person could at once appear so caring and considerate,
and as angry and feral. "I'm Presto, the great Magician, the
mighty Wizard, the omnipotent Dungeon Master."
The Doctor smiled a toothy smile. "Yes. Yes you are."
" This is all a trick, isn't it?"
" It's a part of her game." Alice and the others didn't
seem to have noticed the Doctor, and were still playing happily. "She
wants you to keep playing. She wants you all to think you're as mad
as her."
" How do I stop it?"
" I can help you. I'm going to upset the boards. That will distract
her." The Doctor stared at Presto, tossing the orange fringe
out of her pale eyes again. "But I can't bring you out of this.
You're the only one powerful enough to do that."
Presto looked down at his hands, which fumbled nervously in his lap.
" Are you ready?" asked the Doctor.
" I..." Presto looked up at the Doctor again. "I don't
know how."
" You do, deep down."
Presto shook his head, looking back down at his hands. Where was his
hat? He needed his hat.
" Are you ready, Presto?"
His hat! He needed a hat! He looked at Alice. A hat! A hat! That was
her crown. She never took it off, never let anybody else touch it.
Hats were powerful things, oh yes, very powerful...
" Are you ready?"
Presto smiled.
" Yes."
The Doctor lashed
out a large, muscular leg, kicking the table. Boards and counters
and cards went flying everywhere. The others laughed in excitement,
but Alice sat rigid, screaming and screaming in horror.
" The game! The game! My game, ruined!"
She didn't get chance to move before Presto reached out to her and
snatched the top hat from her head. Standing, he threw it to the floor.
The girl's screaming grew louder. Presto was sure that hats shouldn't
explode when hurled to the ground, but explode it did, filling the
room with smoke and dust.
A dust that settled
on the surfaces of the dark, dingy room in the castle.
The Ex Queen was still screaming, surrounded by the scattered remains
of her game. The others, still sitting around the fallen table, were
not moving, but gazed unconsciously into the centre of the circle
that they formed, very much alive. The blonde girl's cries were cut
off sharply when the unicorn kicked her off her chair and held her
prone against the floor with one hoof against her chest. The girl
wriggled furiously, struggling for breath.
" How dare you?" spat the girl, "You, a servant, come
and spoil my game?"
The unicorn lowered her head close to the girl's, and spoke with a
soft, deep, female voice.
" You don't know who I am, do you?"
" I know that unicorns don't exist outside of Wonderland."
" That's true, at least."
Presto couldn't help but move in closer to his supposed pet, now standing
victorious over the Sorceress who had almost defeated them all.
" Unicorns don't remain in the plural," continued Uni, "but
one unicorn does still exist naturally. One survived the cull. The
only one of the Seven to come from the world she seeks to save. And
that, my dear girl, is me."
The girl didn't speak, but struggled again.
" I know that you created false unicorns for your world,"
said Uni, gently, "and I know that, had you not thought me to
be one of your minions, you would probably have, ironically, had the
last true unicorn destroyed. Wouldn't you?"
" Most probably. You've ruined my fun, monster. I should have
you beheaded."
" And I should crush you, or run you through," answered
the unicorn. "But, luckily, your lack of consideration allowed
me to follow my friends into this room, and, as you put it, 'ruin
your fun'."
Presto looked down at the girl. Even deposed, without her games, without
her crown, the magic still coursed strongly through her. Wonderland
was still around them, although it was starting to wobble a little
now. There was something terribly sad in her enraged, lunatic eyes.
Very sad, and very, very old. He wondered how old she was really.
He wondered how long he was going to live with the magic.
" Don't kill her," he said.
" I know," answered the unicorn, "she still has Bobby
and the others."
Presto shook his head, sadly.
" No she doesn't. I do."
Uni looked up at him, quizzically.
" Taking her crown's not enough," sighed Presto. "She's
still strong. She can still overtake the Realm with her madness. I've
kept the others under for now because I'm... I'm gonna have to do
something that I'm not proud of. I don't want them to see."
Uni nodded, coldly. "You are going to kill her."
" That's not the only answer, Uni."
Uni huffed.
" It's this place, Uni," continued Presto, "it's got
too much magic. It's too much to take when you're sensitive to it.
But on Earth... all I could do on Earth was tarot readings and the
odd healing spell."
He looked down at the prone girl.
" It's high time that Alice went home."
" ...home...?" squeaked Alice.
Uni looked at him, incredulously.
" You can take her back to the time and the place that she left?
Centuries in the past?"
Presto smiled, sheepishly.
" Are you kidding? I can't even slow down the timelines between
here and Earth. And that's meant to be a piece of piss."
He raised a hand out towards the nearest wall.
" Still," he continued, "for what it's worth..."
A portal opened up swiftly and easily, like a well oiled sliding door.
On the other side of it was a winding, suburban street. Californian
sunshine flashed on the cars as they sped past. Presto gazed into
it, sadly, hungrily, for a second, and then stooped to help Alice
to her feet. The other girl winced back in fear as she saw the world
beyond the portal.
" What...?" she gasped, "What is this?"
" I'm sorry," said Presto as he lead her towards the bright
portal, "it's the only Earth I have for you. America, early 21st
Century. My home. Those shiny things are cars. They're very fast,
so if I were you, I'd stick to the side of the road."
" I don't..." gasped the girl, "I don't..."
" I know. It's the wrong time and the wrong place. Your family
won't be there any more." Presto closed his eyes, and thought
of the letter he could write to his own parents. A letter that said
he was doing OK. A letter that said goodbye. He reached into his hat,
and it was there, neatly addressed to his house.
He handed the letter to Alice. "Take this note to the address
on the envelope."
Alice looked at it. "Mr & Mrs Greene. 42 Summer Street."
" Yeah. They're a nice couple there. They'll help you out."
He gently pushed her through the portal. Clutching the letter, she
turned around on the tarmac, cars whizzing behind her, and watched
as the portal to her world slid shut. She looked so lost, thought
Presto, so hopelessly lost. Just a little girl in a whole new Wonderland.
One she couldn't control.
But he didn't
have time to contemplate this for long. Wonderland was beginning to
dissolve.
And when the others
awoke, they did so amongst the green hills of the Realm.
They walked quietly
for a while, caught up in their own thoughts.
(I did the right thing, didn't I. Didn't I?)
(Yes. I've killed.
I had to. It was self defence. But I'll have to do it again some time.
Won't I? Live with it. Live with it.)
(The kid was wrong.
I'm still me. I can prove it. I can be strong again. Everybody's weak
sometimes. I'll win myself back. And I'll win her back.)
(It's in the past.
It's in the past. It's over. You've got a good life now. You've found
your happiness. You've got your friends. Your girl.)
(You could never
make it work. You both know the reasons why. Be honest. End it. Nip
it in the bud. Don't string it out, don't make him believe you can
fall in love with him. Be honest from the start. Finish it and keep
your friend.)
They stopped under
the shelter of a cliff at dusk and began to set up camp. And when
Eric wandered off to a secluded spot for the purpose of using it as
a temporary urinal, he was glad to find that Diana had followed him.
" Bing bong. Acrobatagram."
" Pissing, Dee. With you in two shakes."
He was a while longer, although Diana now understood the difficult
nature of iron pants and waited patiently. Eventually he turned around
to her.
" Hey," she said, her heart sinking at the warm, lovely
smile he gave her.
" Hey," he replied, softly.
(End it. End it now. It's better in the long run.)
He reached out, taking her shoulders gently and pulling her into him.
She allowed herself to be drawn into the long, slow kiss.
(Uhh... it's OK. One last kiss. Enjoy it. Make it one to remember.)
They explored one anothers' mouths with their tongues. Diana sighed
slightly as he rubbed his tongue over the sensitive seam connecting
her top lip to her gum, deliberately reminding her of what they'd
got up to the evening before. His hands were naked already and running
down the nape of her neck.
(The sneaky bastard. Stop it! You're supposed to be splitting up with
him. You can't do relationships, either of you, especially with one
another! It's never going to work!)
But she couldn't stop. His mouth left hers and kissed the side of
her neck.
" Um..." was all she managed to say before his lips found
the spot that sent goosebumps running down her arms and chest.
(Dammit! Hello? Hello?!? Brain calling crotch! Brain calling crotch!
Abort! Abort, Over!)
Where were his hands? Where were her hands? Shit! Shit, it wasn't
working!
She grabbed his hands, stopping them in their journey towards her
breasts. But instead of pushing them away as she knew she should,
she held them out at his sides. Their eyes met. Something within her
leapt. She slid her hands up his arms to his shoulders, then down
his sides.
(Now what are you doing, woman?)
She had become acquatinted with the trick with his breastplate buckle
quickly, and made swift work of it. She lifted it over his head, then
did the same with his chainmail.
(Jesus, are you even listening to me? This is the opposite of what
you came here to do!)
He started to mumble a complaint as she began to lift the thin cotton
shirt he wore underneath, but she kissed him into silence and succeeded
in stripping his top half. She ran the tips of her fingers down the
slender muscles of his chest. God, she loved it when skinny guys worked
out!
(It's no Biggy, he's just your Type, that's all. Slim and toned with
big brown eyes. You've split up with, what, fifteen, twenty guys just
like that...)
She watched her fingertips as they failed to stop at his navel, feeling
through the line of black hair that ran down his belly and disappeared
under his waistband. She couldn't stop. Why did she need to end it,
again? She liked him. She really liked him. And the sex was amazing.
It was like she'd spent all her life looking for a pair of jeans that
fit just so, and now she'd found them she was going to throw them
away because she was sure she'd seen better ones once in some store
or other seven years ago. And that there was a strong possibility
that she and the jeans might end up killing each other some day. Yeah,
that analogy was going nowhere...
(Speaking of pants, this rotten boy's wearing way too many.)
She pulled at the leather laces tying his fly together and, gravity
being gravity, his pants dutifully clattered to the floor. He laughed
slightly as she tickled her fingers gently down his hips, pushing
down his underwear. She couldn't stop. She couldn't end it.
(So what's the alternative? You need to be honest. Talk to the man!)
She leaned her head onto his chest.
" Sylvester?"
" Mmm?"
" Do you know what this is?"
There was a brief pause.
" Yes, Diana," he replied. "It's called a penis. You
put it in your mouth."
She stifled a laugh. Damn him!
" I meant, what's going on between us. You and me. Do you know
what it is?"
" Hmm." There was another pause. "Well, it's a... Thing."
" A 'Thing'."
" That's how you described it, Dee. It's a Thing where we know
we shouldn't be having sex but it's too much bother to not have sex,
so here we are, not not having sex."
Diana gave a small nod. That seemed to sum it up pretty well.
" And," said Diana, "are you happy with that?"
" How do you mean?"
(Shit. He's going to make me say it.)
She walked around him slowly. He tutted slightly and tried to turn
with her, but she made him stand still and walked around to face his
back. She'd never looked at it properly before. She'd always felt
too polite to stare. But if she was going to invest in this back,
she might as well get a good hard look at it. The burn wasn't actually
that bad. It was big, sure, a great semicircle of discoloured, puckered
scar tissue. It did look like a wing, sitting neatly on his shoulder,
feathering out towards the centre of his back. It wasn't that bad.
She ran her long nails through the hair at the back of his head and
watched the wing shift and flex as he breathed.
" Do you think," she asked, "you'd like it to be a
different Thing?"
He didn't answer. Diana sighed.
" A Boyfriend Girlfriend Thing?" she added.
Eric shrugged.
(He shrugged? He shrugged?!? I thought he was nuts about you!)
" Hi," said Eric, conversationally, "I'm Eric, and
this is my girlfriend, Diana."
There was a moment's silence.
" Yeah," added Eric, eventually, "that sounds all right."
Diana smiled to herself, and stroked her fingers down his neck. He
winced away as she brushed the burn.
" Does it hurt?"
" Not right now," he answered, "but I'd rather you
let it be."
He looked at her, over his shoulder. "It's not very nice. Who
am I kidding? It's hideous."
Diana just shook her head, gently stroking the scar, watching her
deep brown fingers covering and uncovering the mauve of the burn against
the pale cream of his skin.
" It's beautiful," she said, and kissed it tenderly, watching
his surprised, grateful dark eyes. "You're beautiful."
He didn't answer, and she said nothing more to him for the next hour
or so, but kissed down the scar and down his back and turned him around
and kissed his belly and laid him down on the grass and got on top
of him and made slow, wordless, gentle love to him.
At the same time,
Presto sat down at the campsite, alone. Almost alone.
" Well then."
" Well then, indeed."
There was an uncomfortable pause. Still, mused Presto, she wasn't
really used to conversing.
" So. You can talk."
" Ten out of ten for observation," huffed the unicorn at
his side. "You weren't made Dungeon Master for nothing, were
you?"
Presto nodded, deadpan.
" And you've mastered sarcasm. Bravo."
Uni didn't reply, leaving them both sitting in another stilted silence.
" Still," attempted Presto, "came as quite a surprise."
" Life will throw those at you from time to time." Uni flicked
a midge away with her ear. "Dungeon Master or no."
" Yeah." Presto gave Uni a sheepish look. "If I knew
you could talk, I'd never have told you, y'know. I may have put you
in danger. I'm sorry."
" I already knew. I knew the moment the old man passed his powers
on to you."
" But some of the things I've told you... about Eric and the
Black Knight, about me and Sheila. Jesus, I even told you about Bob's
kid." Presto hung his head, sighing. "I just needed to talk
to somebody who'd listen. Somebody who wasn't Big V. How could I make
you responsible for keeping secrets like that?"
The unicorn lowered her head so that it was close to Presto's.
" You think you're the only one who's whispered confessions to
what they thought was a wild, dumb beast?"
Presto looked up at the animal. She still seemed pretty wild to him.
But sad, too. Sad and too wise for such a young creature. He'd only
ever seen world-weariness like that in one other eight year old before.
" They all have," continued Uni, "dark little secrets.
I know things about them that their friend and Dungeon Master could
never imagine. Terrible things."
" What do you mean, 'terrible things'?"
" Now, now." There was a faint smile in Uni's eyes. "If
I told you, they wouldn't be secrets. Same as if I told the others
your little white lies..."
" ...same as if I told the others that you can speak perfectly
well after all..."
" ...but that won't happen, will it, Presto."
There was another, long pause.
" So why play dumb?" asked Presto at last, "it wasn't
as though you had nothing to say."
" It's an evil world that you've inherited, my little Wizard."
Uni looked up, along the blighted landscape. "They were cruel
to me, you know. But I was never tortured. Not the way they tortured
those who walked on two legs, who had stories to tell."
" Who do you mean?"
" There is no point in going to pains over a mute, a wild creature.
Becoming feral probably saved my life many times over."
" Who tortured who?"
" You will know. Soon enough, little Presto, you'll know the
world that's been left to you."
" Uni?"
The unicorn scanned the horizon.
" They are returning." She looked at him. "I'm going
to stop talking now."
She stood up, and Presto got to his feet with her.
" Uni? What was it you said about being the only unicorn?"
Uni huffed and snorted.
" To Alice. You said something about a cull. Uni?"
But Uni only whinnied softly. And that was all.
" Fine," he said. "Don't talk. Never talk. Never tell
Sheila how in love with her I am. Never tell Eric there's a demon
festering in him that wants to destroy us all. Never tell the person
you love the most that he got a woman pregnant. Never tell them what
I am. Never tell them I could send them home any time I want, but
can't afford to lose them. Never tell them what I did to Alice."
Uni just looked at him.
" I did the right thing, didn't I? I couldn't let her stay here.
She'll be OK there, won't she?"
" Won't she?"
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Twas brillig, and the jibber halted.
Maiden came to most exalted
Queen of all the games and japes.
Shall I play at Jackanapes?
"Alice?"
Alice looked up, smiling, at the other girl, and dealt her out seven
cards.
" This one's called The Merry Duchess."
The girl stopped her hand, and Alice's expression darkened. The nurses
were close by, though, watching. Bad Things happened when she hurt
people.
" I didn't come here to play, Alice."
" ...nobody wants to play..."
The girl sat down opposite her, a sad understanding in her expression.
" I came here to talk to you."
Alice folded her arms and sat back, watching the girl.
" I know you're not mad, Alice..." The girl gazed around
at the Institution, then back at Alice's frozen, threatening smile.
"The place you've been to..."
" Wonderland," breathed Alice.
" Yes. Well, I've been there too."
Alice scowled. "No. It's my Wonderland."
The girl sighed. She was pretty, in a way, about Alice's age. And
sad. Terribly sad.
" What I mean is, I know it exists. Other people get taken there,
and sometimes some very bad things happen to them there."
" It is mine."
" I think you met some people there."
" No!"
" The couple who took you in, who brought you here. Remember
them?"
Alice didn't answer.
" You brought them a letter. Who gave it to you?"
Alice began to watch her cards as she shuffled them. The girl leaned
in a little.
" It was an upsetting letter. It was from their son. My friend.
He's missing, you see. He went missing before, but he's been gone
too long now." The girl frowned to herself. She seemed to be
trying not to cry. "So are some of my other friends. I think
they're with him, but I'm not... not sure what's wrong with them."
The girl brought some photographs out of her bag and laid them on
the table. Blue Eyes and Freckle Face at a restaurant together. The
little Sorcerer and the pale skinned Knight at a gymnasium, flanking
the Nigress, hugging her proudly. The black haired young girl herself,
with a large dog in one arm and the tall, sandy Boy in the other.
She pointed to the Sorcerer.
" Please. Tell me if you saw this person."
Alice just looked at the photographs, wondering not only at the clarity
and colour of what should have been stiffly posed, monochrome prints,
or at their strange clothes. The expressions on their faces were so
free in those images, so happy. So they had been normal once, too.
" Did you see any of these other people? Please? Did anybody
describe a group who looked like this? Please, Alice? Are they OK?
Are they coming home soon?"
She pointed at the boy in her picture.
" What about this boy? His name is Bob, or Barbarian. Have you
seen him? Or heard of him?"
Alice went back to shuffling her cards. A nurse walked over to the
other girl and put a hand on her shoulder.
" That's enough now, Terri."
" But..."
" The doctor warned you that you wouldn't get much sense from
her. And telling her that this Wonderland really exists isn't helping
anyone."
" Please. I just know she's seen my friends." The girl was
starting to cry now.
" The police are taking care of that, and they've already interviewed
Alice. We don't know how or why she had that letter, and neither does
she."
The black haired girl stood up, trembling slightly with tears and
rage.
" She knows something."
" No she doesn't. She doesn't know anything, she doesn't understand
anything. She doesn't know what a TV is, or how a hairdryer works.
When she's not telling us she's the Queen of a fantasy world she's
saying she's a 19th Century novelist's niece."
The nurse started ushering the other girl away.
" She can't work Velcro, let alone find a bunch of missing students
that half the LAPD have been spending the last three weeks looking
for."
Alice stood as the other girl walked away, defeated.
" You're leaving, already?"
But this time it was the brunette's turn not to answer. The door closed
behind her, leaving Alice alone again in the strange, fast, noisy,
brightly shining world. She felt tears prickle her own eyes, and sat
down again to shuffle her cards and sing.
Soup of the evening,
beautiful soup.
Soup of the evening, beautiful soup.
THE END
