A/N; Thank you, thank you, thank you for the wonderful reviews! I really appreciate it. I hope all of you are enjoying the story so far. This chapter is longer than the last one, but not quite as long as I'd hoped….still, I decided to post what I had finished rather than delay the update another day. Read and tell me what you think!
Disclaimer; I own nothing. Alice in Wonderland the novel belongs ( belonged? ) to Lewis Carroll, and the film belongs to Tim Burton.
Dreams of a Memory
Chapter 3
It was just when she had made her way to the very end of the shore---where the sand began giving way to spurts and patches of brambles and tall grass, and the sun had quite come up above the sea and was shining pale and golden, and the sky had grown most sharp and blue---that Alice quickly realized she was not alone.
The first creature that caught her eye was a golden field mouse nearly the size of a sow. It was scurrying across the sand at a speed much swifter than her own, and seemed to be headed in much the same direction. No sooner had the field mouse passed by on her right than another came scuttling round her left to join it, and after that a whole trail of baby field mice went hurrying after, one of them darting twixt her legs and nearly knocking her down.
"Mind, now!" Alice called to it as she wobbled, the way one might scold a dog without thinking. Great was her surprise----though only for an instant, for she quickly remembered that in a dream, nothing is too extraordinary, and she had after all just been left by an enormous talking cat with the power to smile and disappear at will----when one of the tiny mouse babes turned round and answered back to her in a funny little squeak, "Pardon, ma'am!"
"Curiouser and curiouser," Alice mumbled to herself….the instant the words left her mouth, she was struck with mind-boggling deja-vu so intense she actually stopped dead in her tracks.
It was then that she saw there were all sorts of animals flocking toward the same little strip of grass at the edge of the wood where she had been headed. There were mice, hedgehogs, voles, squirrels ( the size of Clydesdales, they were! ), rats, little turtles, and all manner of birds flitting down to hop along on the ground….sparrows, chickadees, blackbirds, bluebirds, yellow finches, swallows, starlings, and cardinals….they were all coming together in a great circle around a boulder that sat half-sunken in the earth, just a stone's throw off from where the trees began.
Slightly breathless, and sandy from her feet to her knees, Alice came to the edge of the queer circle of creatures just in time to see a monstrous bird unlike any bird she'd ever seen hopping up to perch upon the boulder, shuffling its clumsy feet, searching for a grip. It was a dodo bird! It had a bulbous hooked beak and a stout, swan-shaped neck atop a roly body, all covered in bright blue and green feathers. On its back was a satin waistcoat, and over its eyes rested a little pair of round spectacles. As soon as it found a steady purchase on the boulder, it raised its head and cleared its throat loudly, as if it were going to orate.
"Ahem….sit down, all of you, and listen to me!" the Dodo called out. All of the mice, birds, and other creatures stopped their chattering and turned to attention. Alice, looking curiously round her, found that each of the animals was either shivering or shaking itself, licking its paws or preening at its down, and each appeared to be dripping wet. A little starling on her left shook itself suddenly and showered her with water droplets, reminding Alice how cold and clammy she was feeling herself, still clad in her damp and clinging nightgown.
"Now, what was I going to say?" the Dodo continued, talking largely to itself, "….ah, yes, of course! What I was going to say was, that the best thing to get us dry would be a Caucus-race."
Alice's ears perked up. Race?
"Hear, hear!" came the rallying cry from the animals. Alice leaned toward a hedgehog at her right, his spines dewy with water beads.
"What is a Caucus-race?" she whispered to it, but it paid her no attention; all of the creatures were busily chattering and agreeing with one another, and none of them seemed to notice her at all.
"A race, a race!" they cried. "That shall get us dry."
"But what is a Caucus-race?" begged poor Alice. What dreadful manners these animals have! she thought. Next time I shall have to dream up something more polite.
"Yes, yes, then we're all organized!" said the Dodo. "Alright then….on your mark….get ready….!"
"Wait!" shouted Alice. "I'm not---!"
"Go!" the Dodo squawked.
All at once the animals began to run. Not knowing what else to do, Alice immediately set off after them, hurrying along as swiftly as she could for fear of being trampled if she held still. There was a terrible ruckus of squeaking and squawking all about her as beast and bird alike tumbled about in an awkward procession, each scurrying and hopping in a mad dash about the boulder. In the center, the Dodo waved his stumpy wings in orchestrating movements, turning about in circles on his mock pulpit. Bit of sand and pebble flew in Alice's face, her mouth filling with dust if she dared open it a crack. She coughed and sputtered, stumbling and nearly falling, but just managing to keep her bare feet in the ridiculous melee of paws and talons and claws. Only after a full minute of this frantic running did Alice realize that the entire group was moving in one continuous circle just around the perimeter of the boulder.
"This is ridiculous!" she gasped aloud.
"No, it's a Caucus," the Dodo corrected without turning his head, his wings waving directions to the wild brigade.
"But what's the good of a race where everyone runs round in circles??"
"What's the good of a circle if there's no one to race round it?" retorted a vole as it lapped her.
Alice grimaced and spat out a mouthful of sand. "Please, let me get out!"
"There's no getting out 'til the race has been run!"
"But how do we know when it's over?"
"Well, if you don't know, then how should I?" the Dodo replied.
I've had about enough of this! thought Alice, and taking a deep breath, she shut her eyes and made a wild jump at freedom. She was almost clear of the ring of runners when she felt her foot catch on the skinny leg of a cardinal, and she went tumbling to the ground…the bird collapsed on it's face behind her, and the family of mice in turn tripped over him, and so it went one after another until the entire procession lay tangled and jumbled all over each other in a perfect circle. At last the Dodo stopped his gesturing and turned to look at the source of the crash.
"Hear, now!" he called angrily. "What's the holdup? The race isn't over!"
"For goodness sake!" cried Alice, groaning as she wrestled to extricate herself from the pile of creatures, finally wrenching herself free of them and falling down in a patch of grass. She shakily rose to her feet, coughing and brushing sand from her clothes. Her long blonde hair was hopelessly tangled, and great clouds of dirt burst from it with every shake of her head. "Why anyone would want to get dry this way----"
"Wait!" the Dodo suddenly shouted, and the whole of the mumbling party was silenced. Alice looked up, surprised by the sudden quiet, and saw the big blue bird staring disbelievingly down at her. Her outrage evaporated and was replaced by an awkward self-consciousness, made only the worse when the Dodo clumsily fell down from the rock and broke through the ring of creatures to stand towering above her. He blinked his beady black eyes over and over, adjusting his spectacles with the tips of his primary feathers. Alice leaned back uneasily, gazing up at his large hooked beak.
It's only a dream, Alice…..only a dream, only a dream…..it's only a----
"Alice!?" the Dodo, without warning, squawked her name so loudly that the burst of air from his mouth blew back the loose tendrils of her hair. Alice timidly opened her eyes, her body rigid and her shoulders taut.
"Yes?" she squeaked.
The Dodo gazed at her, flabbergasted. "But…but is it you? Is it Alice, Alice?"
Alice blinked. "Well….I'm the only Alice I know."
The bird let out another piercing gargle, tossing its head back and flapping its little wings wildly.
"It is you, I recognize that warble! But whatever are you doing here? Has Her Majesty sent for you? Did Thackery come to call again? Have you come to fulfill a great destiny? Speak up, speak up! What's brought you back again? Good heavens….are we in danger?"
Alice only stared with her mouth slightly open. Destiny? Danger? What in the world was a Thackery?
"I came here in a marmalade jar," was all she could think of to say.
The Dodo stroked the underside of his beak. "A marmalade jar, you say…..sounds serious to me. Are you certain Her Majesty hasn't summoned you? I can't imagine why else you'd be here."
"I….I'm afraid I don't know who you mean," Alice replied.
"Why, not know the White Queen?" gasped the Dodo. "Such treason! Such blasphemy! Surely this ignorance can't go unpunished! I must have you brought to Her Majesty at once and slated for a sensible sentencing!"
"Sentencing? But…but I---!"
"Tut tut, be still now, traitor Alice!" the Dodo chirped happily, turning to the arraignment of animals who were just climbing back to their feet after the mishap of the Caucus-race. "Now, who among us is able and willing to deliver to prisoner to the palace? Speak up! Speak up, or I'll have us run races to determine the champion!"
Immediately the animals began to murmur and stir uneasily; it was clear none of them fancied a second round of the arduous running. After a moment's deliberation they pushed forward none other than the poor cardinal who had been first to trip over Alice's foot.
"Him!" cried the mob. "He shall take her!"
"You!" Dodo squawked. "Good red-wing! Fly the little traitor on your back to the White Queen's castle at once, and mind you not to let her fall! It shall be all of our heads if the criminal escapes."
Alice blinked. Everything was happening too fast. What sort of madness had she gotten herself into?
Timidly, the little cardinal hopped toward her, its back standing almost four feet high. It turned an uncertain eye in her direction.
"You'd better climb on, Sir Alice," it muttered under its breath, "…or this will go on all day."
Alice sighed, tossing her hands in the air. "Well, wherever you're going to take me, it certainly can't be any worse than listening to this!"
Why not? If I can fly on a cat, I can certainly fly on a bird.
"Huzzah!" cried the Dodo. "Then the matter is settled. Off you go! Farewell to you, traitor Alice, and a happy beheading!"
All of the creatures cheered merrily as Alice swung her leg round and shifted her weight cautiously onto the Cardinal's back. His feathers were smooth and slippery, and her legs fit snugly in the small grooves beneath the down of his wing joints. She clutched her arms tightly round his satiny neck, and with a few fluttering beats of his wings his feet leapt up and tucked under him, and the ground shrank away at such a frightening speed that Alice gasped and buried her face in the red spike of his feathery crown. For a long minute there was nothing but rushing wind all around them, and Alice was too afraid to lift her eyes.
"It's alright, now," the Cardinal suddenly spoke. He had a nice, calm, sturdy little voice. "We're away from the nitwits."
Slowly, ever so slowly, Alice raised her head. The moment she ventured to peer down past the Cardinal's rapidly fluttering wings, she gasped sharply, her breath instantly stolen away. They were soaring miles high above the ground, tufts of white cloud passing underneath them, the whole of the rich green forest spread out in every direction for acres and acres. The sun was beaming brightly all around them, the sky now swathed with the soft peaches and blues of mid-morning.
"Ease off a bit!" chirped the Cardinal. "I hardly can breathe!"
"Oh…I'm sorry," Alice apologized, loosening her vice-grip on the bird's neck. After another few moments of smooth flight, she felt brave enough to sit up a tiny bit straighter, but she still kept her fingers fisted tightly in the soft, crimson down.
"You needn't mind a single word that dum-dum said, by the way," the Cardinal spoke presently, as they were just coming to end of the dense forest and flying along over what looked like great hilly fields of green grass speckled with shrubbery and other bright-colored shapes Alice couldn't recognize.
"What dum-dum?" she parroted blankly, distracted by the fantastical landscape wheeling far beneath her bare toes.
"The Dodo bird. He doesn't know a word of what he says. He's one of the biggest numbskulls in Underland."
Underland.
Alice's eyes shot wide open. The wind whipped her long hair in a fanning flag behind her face. She sat stock upright and stared straight ahead of her, unblinking, at the vast, spreading world, without seeing a bit of it.
Underland.
Underland.
Un--der--land.
"Underland," she whispered, as if uttering a dangerous secret she had been keeping inside for longer than she could remember.
"What's that?" Cardinal chirped brightly.
Alice blinked and shook herself. What was that? That word? Why had she suddenly felt so….so….
But the feeling had come and gone so fast, she had already forgotten what it was she had felt. She shivered once, leaning a little closer to the Cardinal's head.
"Then….then that means I'm not really a traitor?" she asked.
"Traitor!" the Cardinal shrieked with laughter. "If you'll pardon me, Sir, I'm nothing but a poor little peasant from the countryside, less than a half-mile away from the bloody Outlands, and even I and all my brothers and sisters know who you are….and you're no traitor."
"Then the White Queen isn't going to sentence me to a beheading?"
The Cardinal laughed again, his back bobbing up and down. "It's as I said, Sir Alice," the bird repeated, "The Dodo is a downright nimrod. Don't listen to a blessed thing he says. He's still thinking of the horrid Red Queen, and I certainly don't have to tell you that there's no worrying about her anymore, bloody old Bighead."
Alice pursed her mouth. Of course she had no idea what the dear bird was talking about, but just then it seemed better not to bother him with questions. She guessed she'd find out soon enough once they reached the White Queen's palace, or wherever it was they were supposedly going.
"To tell you the truth, Sir Alice, I was quite startled to see you there on the beach. I mean, all the stories….I've grown up with them since I was a budgie….and then, to see you there, in the middle of a silly Dodo's Caucus-race! A shock indeed, Sir Alice."
"Small Alice, traitor Alice, sir Alice," she muttered, shaking her head. "Why do you dream-creatures have all these funny names for me?"
The Cardinal cocked one eye back to look at her, a confused gleam in his shiny black gaze.
"Funny----? Oh, no, I haven't insulted you, have I? I only thought you'd like to be called by your proper title! Do forgive me Si----er, I mean…..what would you like to be called, ma'am?"
Alice narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. "My proper title?"
"Well, yes, since you were knighted by the White Queen, I assumed you went by Sir Alice, as all the stories say you do. But if that isn't so---"
"Knighted?" she laughed aloud. "Such a curious dream this is! I do hope I'll remember it when I wake up."
The Cardinal gave her another puzzled look, stranger than the last, but continued flying onward without another remark. For almost a quarter of an hour, they soared on in silence. Then….
"There!" the Cardinal cried suddenly, rousing her from her dazed staring at the passing earth below. "Straight ahead, Sir."
Alice looked up and lost her breath again. It seemed to have appeared out of nowhere; one moment, there was nothing but mist and mountains on the horizon, and the next, there it was. It couldn't have been less than a mile away, yet its towers reached high into the clouds….it shone in the morning sun like an iridescent pearl, gleaming whiter than any white she'd ever seen.
"That's…..the White Queen's castle?" she asked, her mouth half agape at the mesmerizing, glittering shape in the distance.
"That's it, Sir," Cardinal assured. "Barring bad winds, we should be there in just a few----"
"TTTSSSSSHHHHIIIIIEERRRAAAWWK!"
"Aaaaaaah!"
It was as if the world had been struck by a comet and was sent spinning wildly through space. The ground was whirling madly, first beneath her feet, then high above her head, then left and right on every side and back again. The darling Cardinal was caught in a plummeting dive, spinning round and round as he fell down toward the earth.
"Cardinal!" Alice cried, struggling to lift her voice above the whistling scream of the wind as it rushed past them. Her hands were clenched white with terror in his feathers, her legs flailing behind as she was scarcely able to keep her seat on his back.
"Hold on!" he shouted, struggling fervently to right himself in the air. Alice squeezed her eyes shut, her heart palpitating in her mouth.
Wake up, wake up, wake up!! she silently screamed.
Finally, the universe stopped spinning. With one great burst of effort, the Cardinal spread his wings wide and held them open against the tremendous rush of air resistance….his whole body trembled, shook as if he were being throttled…but at last, the world righted and they were again flying forward in a straight course.
Gasping for breath and pale with shock, Alice opened her eyes and looked about.
"What was that?" she shuddered, tossing her head wildly in every direction.
That shriek….that horrible, blood-curdling shriek! Where had it come from? It had almost sounded like….like….
"THE JUBJUB BIRD!"
"The what? CardinaaaAAAAAAALL!" Alice's words broke off into a shriek of terror as the Cardinal folded his wings back and dove straight down, just as a terrific gust of wind burst above them and rushed past. Alice lifted her head to see what enormous thing could have caused such a gale at this altitude….and suddenly there it was. Her eyes widened in her head….her lips parted in a disbelieving gasp.
"The Jubjub Bird, the Jubjub Bird, the JUBJUB BIRD!" Cardinal was sobbing the words over and over again, his wings flapping madly as he darted this way and that, out of his head for fear. It was all Alice could do to keep herself from flying off his slippery back.
The Jubjub Bird was enormous. Positively monstrous. It would have been large even if Alice had been her normal size….as titchy as she was now, it was a beast so great it seemed to blot out the sun. Alice gazed back at it in horror as it turned a great loop through the sky, its vulture-like wings spread wide and it's glistening scissor of a beak gnashing furiously. Its talons unhooked and outstretched, it let out another ear-piercing scream as it dove down towards them, a dark shadow descended upon them from above.
"Cardinal! We've got to get out of the sky!"
"TTTSSSSHHIIIIIERAWK!"
"It's coming, it's coming!" the Cardinal jabbered senselessly. "The Jubjub, the terrible Jubjub!"
"Cardinal, please!" Alice begged, watching in terror as the winged beast drew closer and closer. Its claws flashed in the sun, its fiery eyes burned bright and terrible. It was seconds away from dashing them to pieces, snatching them straight from the air….
Alice squeezed her eyes shut, covered her head with her arms, and screamed.
"WAKE UP!"
"TTTTSSSHHHIIEEEEERAAAWWK!"
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"
"Sir Alice!" the Cardinal's voice sounded from far, far away, and growing farther by the instant.
Alice thrashed her arms about and felt….nothing. Her legs flailed wildly, but couldn't find the little's birds sides. She groped desperately all about her, but she couldn't reach the Cardinal's neck, nor find any trace of his soft feathers beneath her fingertips. Wind was rushing all around her, deafeningly loud….she fought to crack her eyes, and the moment they were open they filled with tears, the whistling, stinging wind biting fiercely and making them water. Far away, she could just make out a great dark spot far above her, a black mark that was shrinking smaller and smaller with each passing second. It was the Jubjub Bird, still circling high in the sky. The dear little Cardinal was nowhere to be seen.
She was falling.
A/N; Oh no, a cliffhanger! And still no Tarrant! But rest easy dear readers, all shall be resolved. And I promise we'll see some Hatter action at least within the next two chapters. Thanks for reading/reviewing!