Alice and the Magicians
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.
One night she wakes up to find Auntie standing over her bed with a light in her hand. It must be a candle, even though she can't see any wax. She knows it's Auntie because she recognizes her soft voice as she says, "Wake up, darling. Would you like to come outside for a walk with me?"
She looks over at the clock on the wall. It's very late.
"I'm not supposed to be out of bed now. Will I get in trouble?" she says doubtfully.
"Oh, no, darling. Not if you're with me. It will be our little secret." Auntie taps her hand to her face in a shushing motion even though her face is hidden under the hood of the robe, the flickering light staying perfectly still next to her even when she moves her hand away.
Auntie helps her put on her own robe and is impressed when she can do it up all by herself. She takes her hand and leads her over to the open window. Outside the moon is very bright and there are no clouds at all. The stars are all twinkling hello but one dances away from the others.
"Oh!" she gasps. "A shooting star!"
"And do you know the constellation the star came from?" Auntie asks.
She has to look very carefully but she does.
"Very good!" Auntie praises her. "Now, why don't we go take a closer look?"
She thinks Auntie means they're going to the observatory, but instead of sending her to get her telescope, Auntie tells her to climb onto the window sill. She shuts her eyes tight and tries not to look down, because the ground is very far away.
"Oh, no, we can't have that," Auntie tuts, climbing up next to her. "Hold my hand, please."
The night air is cool on her face but her robe is warm, and with her hand safely in Auntie's, she feels much better about standing outside on the ledge. She opens her eyes just in time to see another star streak across the sky.
But when she looks down, she suddenly realizes they aren't standing on anything. The house looks very small below them. She feels herself slipping out of Auntie's grip as the ground rushes towards her.
She wakes up with a start and finds herself in her own bed with the covers pulled up to her chin. Her robe is hanging up on its hook just like it always is. Auntie is sitting at the foot of her bed, the candle in her hands dripping wax down the side.
"I dreamed we were flying, Auntie," she says sleepily.
"Don't be silly, darling," Auntie says. "You can't fly."
But she doesn't sound very happy about it.
Alice replied, rather shyly, "I hardly know, sir, just at present– at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then."
Cousin invites her to tea. She can tell it's Cousin because he slouches, his shoulders dropping forwards even under the robe. She thinks it's because he takes care of so many small creatures, he's always leaning over trying to see where they've gone.
She tries to scratch her legs under the table. Her new stockings are very itchy. She'd ripped her other pair that morning when she'd been trying to reach her books. She'd been scolded for not taking better care of her clothes and for climbing the furniture, although she hadn't meant to, it was just that someone had moved everything to the very highest shelves and taken away the ladder. But when she'd explained why she'd done it she'd been told that she should have found a more creative solution.
He wants to know what books she's read lately, so she tells him all about Alice in Wonderland as he cuts her another slice of cake.
"My, my. And how does Alice get to Wonderland?"
"She follows a rabbit!" she says.
"Do you like rabbits?"
"Oh, yes," she says eagerly. Cousin let her pet one, once. She hopes he might let her see one again.
"What if we had one just here? Do you think you could make one? Imagine a nice, white rabbit, just popping up there –- with nice soft fur to pet — running around on its little legs–"
They imagine the rabbit. They imagine chasing a rabbit. She wishes very hard for a rabbit but none show up.
"I–" she falters. "I don't think I can."
"Are you quite sure?" Cousin says, sounding a little desperate. She nods, and he makes a thoughtful humming noise. "Well, would you like to be a rabbit?"
She thinks about wiggling her nose and her ears – she'd tried to do it lots of times in the mirror, but never as an actual rabbit. Then she thinks of Alice, knowing who she was at breakfast and being lots of things since then. The idea of not knowing who she really is makes her feel strange and her legs itch.
"Think how high you could jump!" Cousin prompts her.
"I'd rather just be a girl," she says in a small voice.
There is a sudden noise. His robe drops to the ground, a flock of birds fly out the window, chattering angrily. Cousin is gone. A deer wanders through and picks up his robe on its antlers before walking back out of the room.
She puts her cup back on the tea tray and sees herself out.
'Children do know some things without being taught.' —ALICE.
It's half past noon and the doors to the big dining room are still closed, she can hear the quiet murmur of conversation so she knows the rest of the family must still be eating lunch. She takes her sketchbook to the parlor to work on her drawing, but she's surprised to find that someone has already lit a fire and pulled one of the big armchairs closer to the hearth. They turn and motion for her to join them, so she drags an ottoman over.
She can't tell who it is but they smell like spices and ink so she thinks they might be Uncle. He's always traveling to interesting places and bringing back old scrolls and things like that for their collection. He produces a second teacup from his robe and pours her a cup of spiced tea. She drinks it even though he adds too much milk and sugar, because it would be rude not to.
He asks what she's learned recently. A little, she tells him shyly; a little math, a little history, and then she shows him her sketchbook. She's been trying to draw the sigils from their robes, but it's harder than she thought it would be. He doesn't seem impressed. She's certain now that it's Uncle, because he's never impressed by anything.
"I suppose you aren't completely empty headed after all," Uncle grunts, which is probably the nicest thing he could say.
Uncle picks up his tea and sips it. The cup vanishes under his hood. She can't see his mouth, although she knows it's there, because everyone has mouths, of course. She thinks about Alice and the caterpillar, wreathed in smoke so thick you can't even see his face, and bites back a smile.
"But I mean there's nothing at all on them," said Alice; "they're only blank paper."
She's just finishing up her breakfast when Great-Aunt comes in. Great-Aunt always pushes up the sleeves of her robe because she likes to have her hands free, even though the robe is supposed to cover your entire arm. But she's an Elder so no one can tell her she isn't allowed, even if they want to.
Today Great-Aunt is wearing white cotton gloves. She hands her another pair and tells her to put them on, so she knows they'll be going to the Old Library. You always have to wear gloves in the Old Library because the books there are so fragile.
Great-Aunt takes her through the rows and into a storage cupboard in the back of the Old Library, pushing aside boxes of candles and a mop to pull an old, dusty book off a shelf. She wonders if they're going to clean it but Great-Aunt tells her that this kind of book likes to have a little dust on it.
"Is that why it's in the cupboard?" she wants to know.
"No, it's just happier when it's hidden," Great-Aunt says, and she thinks that she likes the way Great-Aunt talks about books as if they have feelings.
The book is strange. It's written with symbols in ink that's faded and sometimes scribbled as if someone was in a hurry to write everything down, with larger letters painted at the beginning of each chapter like the illustrated manuscripts Uncle brought them last month. Some of the pages have pictures.
"Can you read it?" she asks.
Great-Aunt nods. "I learned when I was, hmm, about your age, I suppose. Turn to the front, please."
The first page has much less writing than the rest of the book does and there's a picture of water pouring out of a jug. Great-Aunt points to each symbol one by one and tells her what it means and how to say it until she can read the first paragraph all the way through.
Great-Aunt closes the book. "Now, can you remember the very first word?"
She repeats it back from memory.
"Good, good. Watch closely."
Great-Aunt pulls a small pitcher and basin from a shelf. She holds the pitcher over the bowl and says the word again. When she tilts the pitcher, water pours out of it, just like in the illustration.
"I'm thinking of water," Great-Aunt says. "Doesn't matter which kind. Cold, hot, rivers, baths, tea. The point is it has to be water and has to move. Then you say the word and it's there. Now, you try."
Hesitantly, she takes the pitcher. It feels very light. She tries to look inside to see how much water is left because maybe there isn't enough to pour, but Great-Aunt raps her knuckles on her head, just hard enough to startle her but not hard enough for it to hurt.
"Don't look! Just say the word and pour."
So she does, but nothing happens. Great-Aunt makes her try again and again but the pitcher is still empty, and finally she offers to go fill it with water but Great-Aunt just sighs like she's done something disappointing again and tells her not to bother. She tells her to leave the pitcher and basin in the cupboard and puts the book back on the shelf, where it blends in with everything else and looks so ordinary she hates to leave it.
"Please, may I come back and read it again?" she blurts out.
Great-Aunt shrugs. "If you like. It won't matter, anyway."
They're changing guard at Buckingham Palace -
Christopher Robin went down with Alice.
They've great big parties inside the grounds.
"I wouldn't be King for a hundred pounds,"
Says Alice.
One night, Kaito finds his new charge in tears over Winnie the Pooh as Edward Bear comes down the stairs with a bump, bump, bump.
"The p-poor bear!" the little girl sobs. "I'd never treat a bear like that. Bears are so lovely and so friendly."
It takes her a long time to calm down. He sits next to her bed and they read together until she's satisfied that Christopher Robin does learn to take better care of Pooh.
The next day, Kaito takes her with him into town to run errands. They pass by the toy store on their way home and she gravitates to the window, staring longingly at the teddy bears on display. He realizes with a jolt of surprise that he's never seen any toys in her room.
"Would you like to have a bear of your own, like Christopher Robin does?" he asks.
She smiles at him, but the smile doesn't reach her eyes as she shakes her head no. "I don't think I'm allowed to. It wouldn't look very dignified."
She's right, of course. Frankly, he thinks her clan cares too much about how things look and not enough about how things are. Her parents may have been powerful magicians, but the girl is still just a child. Kaito decides he'll have to do something.
So Kaito thinks and he thinks and he thinks, until he thinks up a small thing that's just the right size for a little girl's pocket, with long ears like the rabbits in the garden, with dark eyelashes and a beautiful muff and a golden crown.
"Hello," he says politely, once he's finished. "I've got a job for you. Are you ready?"
The rabbit yawns. "Oh, I suppose."
Kaito gives her the little white rabbit and knows he's done the right thing by the way her eyes light up with delight when she sees it.
"What shall we name her?" he asks.
She'd just read a story about a small person who lived inside of a peach so she has exactly the right name. She runs to fetch the book to show him all the illustrations and barely stumbles over the words as she reads aloud in Japanese, translating the tale of Momotaro on the spot. There's an innocent magic in her storytelling that he suspects her clan will never be able to appreciate.
"You truly have a talent for words," he praises, resting his hand on her head. She blushes and hides her face behind Momo, the small rabbit smiling serenely at them both.
"You see," he went on before giving her time to reply, "it might mean ALICE MAYBE!" So perhaps it's not for you after all. It might even be intended for me." This was a rather disturbing thought, especially as, curiously enough, Alice could not for the life of her, at the moment, remember her full name.
She knows her family thinks she can't do anything right. When she was young, they used to tell her she'd understand everything when she was older, but the older she gets the less they tell her.
Maybe that's why she likes Kaito so much. He isn't like the rest of them. Whenever he asks her questions, she always feels like it's because he's genuinely interested in what she has to say, not because he's looking for an answer she can't give.
Sometimes, when the family's disappointment is too much to bear, she goes to her room and cries into Momo's soft muff because she knows Momo won't tell anyone. Momo is very good at keeping secrets. She isn't allowed to tell her real name to anyone outside of the family, but she tells it to Momo, because while Momo isn't family she isn't not-family, either, because she's just a toy.
"I wish I could be a more interesting Alice, like the Alice in books," she confides, hugging Momo close. "I think they would like me more."
Momo waits until Alice falls asleep to promise her that someday, things will be different; she strokes her hair and does what she can to take away the hurt and give her good dreams. After all, it's her job to look after her.
"You're better than all of them," Momo tells her. "They don't know what they're missing."
Sleeping peacefully, Alice smiles.
notes: This is all wild speculation on Clear Card (and probably about to be destroyed by canon) just because I'd like if Akiho's real name turned out to be Alice. The quotes are pulled from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through The Looking Glass, the unofficial sequels A New Alice in the Old Wonderland and The New Adventures of Alice, A.A. Milne's When We Were Six, and E. Nesbitt's The Treasure Seekers.