A Queen for Every Way
It felt like Alice and Kairi had been walking for hours and all they had seen was more dark forest. The trees were all the same wherever they looked but the path didn't seem to go anywhere. Whenever they looked behind them it wound off into the darkness to somewhere unseen and when they turned back to the front it wound off ahead of them into the dark foliage before them. It brought Kairi to the worrying thought that perhaps they were going around in circles. A frigid breeze blew between the trees and both girls shivered violently as neither was well-dressed for bad weather.
"Oh, I hope it isn't going to snow here too," Alice moaned. She let go of Kairi's hand and sat down on the ground to slump against a tree. "How long do we need to walk through this forest? I'm tired and my feet hurt and now it's getting cold."
"I know," Kairi sighed, sitting down next to Alice since she had no better ideas of where to go from here. She pulled her knees up and folded her arms over them. "It doesn't really help that we have no idea where we are. Is this the Lily Forest or the tulgey wood?"
"I don't know. It all sounded like nonsense to me. This is probably all a cruel joke on us made up by those horrible suit queens."
Kairi lowered her head onto her arms. She didn't say it aloud for the sake of Alice's morale but it was starting to look like she was right. They'd been foolish to walk down this way. Neither of them knew their way around the world or even just this forest.
The air began to warm all of a sudden like sunlight bursting through the clouds. Kairi sighed, glad that at least it was warm again. Then Alice started to frantically tap her on the arm, forcing her to look up but she found that she had to squint. When had the forest gotten so bright?
"Look at that!" Alice exclaimed. "How did we get here?"
Kairi's eyes adjusted to the brightness eventually and then her eyebrows shot up in shock. All of a sudden there was a clearing in front of them with no grass but soft, lush moss covering the ground, rocks and roots in a plush blanket. The forest wasn't so thick anymore. Every tree had ample space to stand and they all had thick, gnarly trunks and little crooked branches yet the strangest part was how at the fork of the boughs for every tree was a pinched little face that appeared to be scrutinising everything. One tree stood apart from the rest, larger and older than them all. It branches trembled despite the absence of wind and every now and then an abrupt creak wracked its trunk like a cough.
At the base of this large tree two old ladies sat upon a white blanket with a simple picnic spread between them of tea, bread, butter, crackers and cheese. They were opposite each other in every way, not just the way they sat. The lady on the right was short, squat and pale with all of her hair and clothes in a mess. She wasn't even properly dressed – she had no skirt over her crinoline and she had apparently forgotten to replace her slippers with proper shoes before she left the house. In contrast, the lady on the left was tall, thin and dark with not a hairpin or button out of place. Her back was as straight and rigid as a board and her clothes were so creaseless Kairi and Alice believed they may have been ironed with her already inside them. The ladies kept on chatting between each other, paying no mind as Kairi and Alice approached. As they got closer, they took note of the fact that both ladies were wearing crowns and had a personalised sceptre lying at their knees.
"Pardon us, ladies," Alice interrupted politely. Despite such a subtle entry the queens both jumped right off the ground, throwing their tea up in the air and then catching it back in the cups as they came down.
"Goodness gracious!" the pale lady exclaimed.
"Oh my word!" cried the dark lady.
Kairi and Alice exchanged puzzled looks.
"Sorry to sneak up on you," Kairi said as the ladies covered their hearts with their free hand and caught their breath. "We're a little—no, actually we're very lost. We need some help with directions."
"Well that's just fine," the dark lady said nonchalantly.
"Absolutely dandy," the pale lady agreed.
"How is that good?" Kairi asked, confused by those sentiments. "We're lost."
"You can't be found if you were never lost," the dark lady answered.
Kairi shook her head exasperatedly. More obnoxious people who spoke nothing but nonsense. "Never mind. It's a good thing we found you. We need to figure out where to go from here… and perhaps also find out where 'here' is… and how we even got here." She looked at the woods around them, searching for any trace of the previous forest but there was nothing left of it.
"How would we know how you came here?" asked the pale lady. "You're the ones who brought yourselves here—you should know that."
"That's the thing, see, we don't," Alice tried to explain. "We walked a very long time and got nowhere but then we sat down for a little while and suddenly we were here."
"Lovely tale," the pale lady said airily.
"Then that's how you got here," the dark lady said with finality. "See? You didn't need us to tell you at all."
"That's… not what we needed to hear," Kairi groaned. Before the ladies could interject again she added: "but can you please tell us where we are?"
"That's easy," the dark lady replied. "We're in the tulgey wood. It's the queastern-most side of the Lily Forest."
"What?!" Alice and Kairi exclaimed, throwing their hands up to smack their heads.
"We were there the whole time?!" Kairi shouted.
"Maybe that's a good thing," Alice rationalised, folding her arms and furrowing her brow as she thought. "It means that we were on the right track all along." She raised her eyes to look at the two ladies. "If you don't mind, um—oh, fiddlesticks! Where are my manners? We didn't introduce ourselves. My name is Alice and this is my friend, Kairi."
Alice gave a respectful curtsey, which Kairi mimicked. She smiled at the ladies. "Nice to meet you."
The dark lady scoffed in offence. "Why I never! It's rude to be polite, you know."
Kairi and Alice were so confused they just froze halfway to straightening up, speechless.
"If you really must know," the pale lady added. "I am the White Queen and this is my acquaintance, the Black Queen."
"I see," Kairi muttered, finally finding her voice. Both girls stood up straight. Neither of them was sure if it was proper to curtsey again or not, given how offended they seemed to be by good manners. "So, this place is the tulgey wood…"
"Can't you tell?" asked the White Queen. "Everything is so tulgey."
"What even is 'tulgey'?"
"Tulgey is the quality of tulgey things," the Black Queen answered as if that should have been obvious. "This wood is full of tulgey trees with their tulgey branches, surrounded by tulgey moss and all of these little, tulgey rocks. It's a very tulgey place."
"Since this does appear to be the woods we're looking for," Alice said, "then the Tumtum tree must be quite close."
"Why, yes he is," said the White Queen. She patted one of the roots of the largest tree. "He's right here."
Kairi and Alice let their jaws drop. They stared up at the huge tree in disbelief. Kairi forced her jaw shut with a click of her teeth and sighed. "Okay. So we happened to somehow get a lot further along than we thought we had."
"He's been in poor health, the poor Tumtum," the White Queen moaned. "So we decided to keep him company in hopes that he'll feel better."
"It doesn't seem to be working," the Black Queen said, squinting at the tree as it creaked loudly. "I wonder what came over him."
"Perhaps he's coming down with a cold," suggested the White Queen.
"I've never heard of a tree coming down with a cold," Alice remarked.
"Well then you don't hear very well, do you? I just said that."
Alice turned to Kairi with a pout. "These queens are just as bad as those nasty suit queens."
"I suppose," Kairi murmured, turning to Alice and giving the women a side-eye. If they had overheard Alice's denunciation they didn't show it. "But we can't stand here arguing with them. We need to find out where this 'meadow of brack and bright' is so that we can get to the Red Queen."
A sudden, eerie hush whooshed through the entire forest. The Black and White queens gasped, actually spilling their tea this time.
"The Red Queen?" the Black Queen hissed.
"Why would you do such a mad thing?" the White Queen wailed.
Kairi squeezed her eyes shut and folded her arms in frustration. She opened them and looked at the women pointedly. "It's a really convoluted story. We came here looking for a dragon, which we found out was called the Jabberwocky, then we were told we had to go to the tulgey wood and find the Tumtum tree and then after that a meadow and somehow from there we go to the Red Queen and get something called the 'Vorpal'."
"Why, I've never heard of such lunacy!" exclaimed the Black Queen.
"Yeah, I know," Kairi sighed. "The suit queens were the same. But regardless of whether or not you think we're crazy, Alice and I are going to find the Jabberwocky. So you can either help us or you can not, up to you."
The Black and White Queens exchanged surprised glances, momentarily bewildered by the simple choice. Then, the White Queen slowly turned back to the two girls and said in a low voice:
"Well… I suppose it wouldn't do to send them off with nothing."
The Black Queen nodded, lips pressed into a hard line. "We may as well," she said tightly. "But mark our words, we will escort you no further than the meadow of brack and bright."
"Why not?" Alice asked.
"The Red Queen's castle is just beyond the meadow," explained the Black Queen. "I, for one, have no desire to lay eyes upon it."
"I concur," agreed the White Queen. "However, you can't just totter in all willy-nilly. We could help prepare you."
"Thank-you," Kairi replied excitedly, grinning now that they were making progress. "What do we have to do?"
The queens began to pack up their picnic. The Black Queen stuffed their bread and crackers into her crown and put it back on her head, then emptied the teacups and stuffed them into the bust of her dress. Then she took the teapot and shoved it up her bustle while the White Queen carefully placed all of the plates and saucers on her crown like a rack. She gave the picnic blanket a flick and then tied it over her crinoline like a messy skirt.
"The first thing you'll need to be aware of is that you can't just waltz into the Red Queen's castle," the Black Queen said. "Nor tango, nor foxtrot, nor any kind of dance really. The only people who can enter the castle are those who the Red Queen favours to be there."
"Or another queen," added the White Queen. "If you were queens you could go wherever you like and do whatever you want. So, to ensure you have the best chance of conquering the Red Queen and winning the Vorpal from her, you will have to become queens yourselves."
Alice and Kairi exchanged confused looks.
"Is that easy?" Kairi inquired.
"Not so much," the White Queen admitted.
"You'd have to be approved by another queen to become queens," said the Black Queen.
"Just as well, the two of us are such other queens!"
"But then what happens to you?" Alice wondered aloud. "I thought there was only supposed to be one queen. You wouldn't be the queens anymore if we became queens."
"Nonsense," the Black Queen snapped. "There will be as many queens as there are things to be queen of. And there are quite a lot of things so it stands to reason that there should be quite a lot of queens. "
"Onwards!" the White Queen declared, waving her sceptre in front of her. "To your crowns!"
Alice and Kairi couldn't help exchanging yet another puzzled expression but only briefly since the queens were already marching away into the wood. The girls jogged to catch up and fell in behind them. After a few steps Alice even started imitating the purposeful march the two queens were doing.
"If there really are as many queens as you say," Alice began out of curiosity, "then just how many are there?"
"Very many," the Black Queen answered vaguely.
"A great deal many!" the White Queen added. "We could tell you all about it."
"You should sing it. The woods might let us out faster if you do."
"Splendid idea! Music! Music! We need music!"
The White Queen waved her sceptre around in seemingly random arcs and circles. As it swung past trees and shrubs and flowers music really did start to play, increasing in parts like an orchestra with each section being called upon in turn. The Black Queen waved her sceptre like a conductor's baton as the White Queen began to sing in jolly alto notes:
"There's a Queen of the Night, a Queen of the Day,
A Queen of the Corn and a Queen of the Hay,
A Queen of the Lawn and a Queen of Croquet.
There is a queen for every way!"
As she sang various flowers and shrubs from within the woods convened alongside their party, bobbing and swaying in time. Trees seemed to just slide out of their way and the smaller plants marched down the edges of the new path to make a joyous singing and dancing promenade. They chorused with the queens:
"To make everyone happy
A crown will give you sway.
That's why we here are proud to say:
There shall be a queen for every way!"
"Oh, isn't it true?" the White Queen chortled. "But I recall even more than that, if you'd believe:
"A Queen of the Rock and a Queen of the Roll,
A Queen of the Dress and a Queen of the Doll,
A Queen of the Scarf and a Queen of the Stole.
Why, there is a queen in every role!"
"A Queen of the Bridge and a Queen of the Brook," added the Black Queen.
"A Queen of the Sheep and a Queen of the Crook,
A Queen of the Fish and a Queen of the Hook.
A queen is required in every nook."
The flowers chorused again: "All the girls and ladies
Who take us through the day
Make us all here proud to say
There shall be a queen for every way!"
"That's a lot of random stuff," Kairi pointed out. The music didn't stop playing even as the queens turned to her questioningly. "There can't possibly be a queen for everything, can there? What else is there to be queen of?"
"Plenty, plenty!" exclaimed the queens.
"We haven't even scratched the surface," the Black Queen insisted. "I could go on:
"There's a Queen of the Green and a Queen of the Blue,
A Queen of the Boot and a Queen of the Shoe,
A Queen of the Goop and a Queen of the Goo.
There is a lot for a queen to do."
The White Queen nodded. "There's a Queen of the Post and a Queen of the News,
A Queen of the Shades and a Queen of the Hues,
A Queen of the Quest and a Queen of the Clues.
You could be Queen of Whatever-You-Choose."
"A Queen of the Curd and a Queen of the Whey," trilled the Black Queen.
"A Queen of November and a Queen of May," sang the White Queen.
"And a Queen of Tomorrow and a Queen of Today," chimed the plants.
"There shall be a queen for every day!"
"So when you say every day," Alice piped up, "do you mean every day?"
"But of course," the Black Queen replied. "As well as the Queen of Tomorrow and Queen of Today there is the Queen of Yesterday, and the Day Before Yesterday…"
"… and the Day After Tomorrow," the White Queen reminded. "And there's the Queen of Monday, of Tuesday…"
"… of Two Days From Today, and of This Day Next Week…"
"… of Wednesday, of Thursday, of Friday…"
"… of This Day Last Week, of the First Day of the Month…"
"… of Saturday, of Sunday, and of the Sabbath."
"… of New Year's Day, of Old Year's Day and a Queen of The Unbirthday."
"That sure is a lot of days," Kairi said. "But what about the Queen of The Birthday?"
"Yes, there's her too," the Black Queen confirmed.
"What about a Queen of Christmas?" Alice asked excitedly. "And Christmas Eve? And Boxing Day? And Easter Sunday?"
"Yes, yes, yes and yes," said the White Queen. Kairi and Alice both laughed—it was too absurd not to. Without even realising it, Kairi's feet were skipping and the music guided her speech when she said:
"So you wouldn't think it too silly or bizarre,
For there to be Queens of Corsets or of Bras?"
"Or a Queen of the Loo or a Queen of the Lard?" Alice snickered.
"Or even a Queen of the Fashion Faux Pas?"
Both girls laughed uproariously at their ridiculous suggestions but the Black Queen put her sceptre to her chin in thought.
"Hmm… actually, I don't recall there being a Queen of Fashion Faux Pas." She turned to Kairi. "Would you like to be the Queen of Fashion Faux Pas?"
Alice laughed as Kairi suddenly went red in the face and exclaimed: "No way!"
"HAAAAALLLT!" shouted the White Queen, stopping so abruptly that the Black Queen bumped into her. The music stumbled to a halt sounding like a circus falling down stairs.
"Fancy that. We're here already," the Black Queen remarked, righting her crown since it had fallen askew.
Kairi and Alice looked up to the path ahead of them. The makeshift road suddenly ended and they were at the neat, straight boarder of a large, lush meadow that stretched for miles. The grass was long but not too high and it swayed dreamily in a pleasant breeze that seemed to be crooning its own kind of song.
"This is it, then," the White Queen announced. "The meadow of brack and bright."
"It's very lovely," Alice commented. "This must be the bright part. So where is the brack?"
"Oh, you'll come across it," the Black Queen said offhandedly. "Now, we must prepare you for queendom."
The queens stood opposite the girls, the Black Queen across from Kairi and the White Queen across from Alice. The girls straightened their posture, anticipating the magic ceremony about to happen. The queens waved their sceptres high. The finials glowed with magic and with a swish the queens tossed that glittering power at Kairi and Alice. They both blinked as it blew into their faces and swirled around them until suddenly there was a big poof. More glitter rained over them and they both felt the solid weight of something gently coming to rest of their heads.
With a grin, Kairi reached up and took the headwear off to examine it, expecting a gorgeous crown. Her face fell when instead she found herself looking at a knight's helmet. The visor on Alice's slipped over her face with a loud clank.
"Is this a joke?" Kairi asked angrily, glaring at the queens. Alice struggled to raise the visor back to its upright position. "You said you'd make us queens."
"We can't just make you a queen," the Black Queen drawled. "You have to earn it like everybody else."
"Then what are we now?"
"Pawns, naturally," answered the White Queen.
"Pawns?!" Kairi exclaimed in offence.
"Yes, pawns! And now that you have your helmets you've made the first step to becoming queens."
"Step into the meadow," the Black Queen instructed, gesturing to it with her sceptre, "to begin your quest for queenhood. With courage, wit and strength you shall have your crowns by the time you reach the Red Queen's castle."
"And if we haven't?" Alice wondered aloud, peeking under the visor that she had to hold up.
"Best hope that you do."
Alice and Kairi exchanged nervous glances and gulped. As one, they turned towards the meadow. The queens had both stepped aside like guards granting them passage. The meadow seemed to go on forever – they couldn't even see a tower or spire indicating a castle. The flowers, shrubs and trees had closed in behind them, watching expectantly. In getting this far there was no way to turn back so, as one, Kairi and Alice walked purposefully onto the grassy meadow.
A/N: Choo-choo chugga-chugga choo-choo! Here comes the hiatus train, to drop off chapter 13 and pick up chapter 14. Please do review, it might make the hiatus train break down and that will be better for everyone (including me).