Bargain price

CHAPTER 25

T HE LONG, tortuous trail of publishers and translators led Hatter to Christ Church College in Oxford, England. He stood outside the door of a bachelor’s apartment in Tom Quad. The time was 12:30 P.M. He was closer to finding Alyss Heart than he had been in thirteen years. On the other side of the door: Charles Dogson, aka Lewis Carroll. He knocked.

“Who’s there?” a voice called.

“My name is Hatter Madigan. I am a member of Wonderland’s Millinery and I’ve come to find Princess

Alyss Heart.”

There was a long pause from the other side of the door, then, “I-I don’t know who s-sent you, but th-this isn’t fu-funny. It is Sunday, sir, and n-n-not a day f-for whimsy.”

Hatter stood outside the door long enough to realize that Dodgson was not going to open it. Shwink!

The blades of his left bracelet began slicing the air and he pushed them into the door. It splintered apart and Hatter stepped through the opening into a small, warm room where a fire burned in the hearth. Dodgson jumped up, spilling tea onto the rug and dropping his fountain pen, which dripped ink onto the pages of his journal.

“I beg y-your-” Dodgson started, backing into a corner of the room.

Hatter snapped shut his wrist-blades. The man before him had the brightest glow of anyone he’d ever seen. “Where is Princess Alyss?”

“Wh-wh-who?”

“Princess Alyss of Wonderland. I know you’ve been in contact with her. I’m in possession of your book.”

As Hatter reached into a pocket of his Millinery coat, Dodgson whimpered.

“Please, n-n-no!”

But Hatter was only reaching for the copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. He returned the book to his pocket, strode to the writing desk, and flipped through the pages of Dodgson’s journal.

“Do you know who I am?”

“I…I th-think I know who y-you’re s-s-supposed to b-be. But I can’t s-say that I f-find…find this a-at all amusing. Did A-Alice send you t-to make fun of m-me?”

“I’ve searched many years for the princess-more than half her life-and made little progress. But now

I’ve found you-”

“Y-you c-can’t be s-s-serious?”

“Oh, I’m very serious. And I will find her whether or not you tell me where she is. But it will be better for your health if you help me.”

“But I’ve hardly s-seen her in n-n-nine years. She re-re-refuses t-to have anything t-to do w-w-with m-me.”

Hatter considered the sadness, the mournful reminiscence, in the reverend’s tone. The man was telling the truth. “Where do I find her?”

“Sh-she l-l-lives at…at the d-deanery here at Christ Ch-Ch-Church.”

Hatter was about to ask where the deanery was, but his eye alighted on a newspaper spread open on the tea table. One of the headlines caught his attention:

Lewis Carroll’s Muse Alice Liddell to marry

Prince Leopold

Alice Liddell?

“She goes by a different name?” he asked aloud, but more to himself than to Dodgson, who said nothing. There was urgency in his voice when he asked this time, “Where is the deanery?”

“In…in the n-next quad. The b-b-blue door, but…” “But what?”

“She is currently at K-K-K-Kensington Palace, prep-p-p-paring for-”

Hatter snatched up the newspaper and bolted from the apartment, scanning the article as he sprinted in the direction of London. Why had the princess taken a different name? How could she pretend to be an ordinary, soon-to-be-married young lady of Earth? He hadn’t known what to expect when he found the princess: perhaps a young woman not quite ready to fulfil her destiny, a woman who would need convincing of her own powers, in whom the bravery of a warrior queen was not yet second nature, but he hadn’t expected this.

Kensington Palace. Hatter ran toward the front gate, showed no sign of stopping. “Halt!” one of the guards ordered.

Hatter leaped, somersaulted over the gate, and dropped to a crouch, startling a young, baby-faced guard patrolling the grounds. The guard tripped, his rifle went off, and-

Hatter spun with the force of the bullet. He’d never been shot before. Incredulous, he touched the bloody wound. The guard stared at Hatter, paralyzed, unsure what to do.

Whistles were blown. The clap and patter of running feet all around. The wild, angry barking of guard dogs set loose. Hatter had little choice but to run. The bullet had hit him in the shoulder, severing tendons and ligaments, shattering bone. He couldn’t move his right arm. It hung limp, banging against his side, trailing blood. With his free hand, he put constant pressure on the wound to slow the bleeding. With difficulty, he jumped over the palace wall and hurried into a darkened street, got two-thirds of the way down it before he discovered that it was a dead end.

The pack of dogs had already closed in when three guards appeared at the street’s entrance, came forward with drawn rifles and bayonets, squinting into the shadows where Hatter stood, trapped. No doubt a dagger or corkscrew would have whistled out of the darkness into their vitals if Hatter had had no other choice. But when the guards reached the end of the drive, it was empty, deserted. They saw only a puddle on the ground where no puddle should naturally have been, the dogs growling at it until, with a few tentative sniffs, they began to lap up the dirty water.