Seeing Redd

CHAPTER 36

W HEREAS OTHERS would have stood gazing down upon the valley in silent awe at the gigantic, multicolored mushrooms and remarked that even the quality of the valley’s light seemed more vibrant than it did anywhere else, Redd started the final descent into the caterpillars’ habitat without pause or murmur. Vollrath, The Cat, Siren, and Alistaire tramped after her-Siren and Alistaire muting their

amazement at a vista unlike any they had ever seen, The Cat stewing in worry because the valley had fully recovered from the devastation his mistress had ordered in her first months as Wonderland’s queen. It wasn’t supposed to have recovered and Redd might punish him.

But Her Imperial Viciousness had other concerns as she stepped along the valley’s spongy floor, searching for the caterpillar-oracles in her imagination. The mushrooms were serving as a sort of cloaking network, deflecting her imaginative sight every which way so that all she saw were mulch and stalks and mushroom tops.

“We’ll have to draw them out,” she said, conjuring a vendor’s cart filled with fresh, aromatic tarty tarts in a variety of flavors.

Vollrath, The Cat, Siren, and Alistaire fanned the delicious scents out in all directions, and in less time than it would have taken a hungry Wonderland child to eat a single tarty tart-

“There!” Vollrath exclaimed, pointing to a blue smoke cloud that formed a beckoning hand.

They followed the hand to a nearby clearing, where the members of the caterpillar counsel sat with their bodies coiled beneath them as they puffed on the same antique hookah. Each of the caterpillars occupied a mushroom as distinct in color as himself: blue, orange, red, yellow, purple, and green.

“Mmm, tarty tarts to munch,” Blue said.

Vollrath, The Cat, Siren, and Alistaire began handing out the treats.

“I get the vanilla ones with gobbygrape filling!” called the yellow caterpillar. “I want vanilla!” whined the orange caterpillar.

“Anything with choco-nibblies is mine!” the purple caterpillar cried. “I get the choco-nibbly ones!” complained the red caterpillar.

“Ahem hum, I’ll trade two caramel tarties for one of the sugar-dusted winglefruit-filled,” Blue offered. “No way!” rebuffed the green caterpillar.

It was one of the most difficult things Redd ever had to do: stand polite and respectful while the larvae bickered like brats and stuffed their wrinkled faces, dropping crumbs and jellied filling onto their mushrooms. When they were no longer shoving three tarts into their mouths at once but nibbling one at a time, she said, “Wise, ancient caterpillars, my tutor, Vollrath, has informed me that for many years I’ve been remiss in not passing through my Looking Glass Maze.”

The red and yellow caterpillars were mouthing Redd’s words as she spoke them, and the orange caterpillar motioned with his numerous right legs for Her Imperial Viciousness to get on with it.

“It’s a circumstance I want to correct,” Redd said. “I already know that my maze is located in the

Garden of Uncompleted Mazes, but I need you to tell me where the garden is.” “Yadda, yadda,” said the purple caterpillar. “Yadda, yadda, yaddda.”

“The question is not where the Garden of Uncompleted Mazes is but when,” Blue grumbled, his mouth full of caramel.

“When the Garden of Uncompleted Mazes is?” the orange caterpillar asked, doubtful. “That’s the question!” exclaimed the red caterpillar.

The oracles giggled and fell silent, alternately munching their tarty tarts and puffing on their hookah. Finally, with a look of exasperation, the yellow caterpillar said to Redd, “Du-uh. We’re waiting for you to ask the question!”

Redd balled her hands into fists. “When is the Garden of Uncompleted Mazes?” she rasped.

“Oh, now and then, now and then,” Blue answered, upon which all of the caterpillars shook with loud laughter-all except Green, who continued to munch a tarty tart and blink at Redd with an appraising, curious expression.

Unable to hold back any longer, Redd aimed her crooked stick at them as if it were a rifle or bayonet and-

Foo-foo-foo-foo-foo-foosh!

Fireballs shot out. The caterpillars’ six mushrooms erupted. Flames licked the sky, sizzled out as quickly as they’d come. The mushrooms had been charred black, but there was no sign of the caterpillars.

“Idiots! Useless idiots!” Redd shouted.

Vollrath, The Cat, Siren, and Alistaire dropped to the ground and covered their heads as she lashed out at the landscape, conjuring orb generators, crystal shot, and flaming spears. A shadow fell over them as an enormous scythe formed in the air and began to swing, lopping mushrooms flat. But at the very height of the violence-the exploding fungi, the thousand razor-cards shredding mushroom stalks-Redd felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned and there was the green caterpillar, nonchalantly puffing on a small hookah. Redd held up a hand; the outsized scythe paused mid-swing, the orb generators and razor-cards and flaming spears hung suspended in mid-flight.

“The Garden of Uncompleted Mazes exists in the could-have-been,” the oracle said. “What could have been was then. But it is also now. Do you understand?”

“I don’t want to understand. Tell me where the garden is or you will lose the valley forever.”

The caterpillar pulled at his water pipe and considered the renegade princess before him: the hate-infused creases of her toughened skin; the knotty hair; the gown of rose vines in constant slithery motion. At length, he said, “To get there, it is necessary for you to think back to the precise moment when your becoming queen-a thing to be-became a could-have-been. Let your mind be wholly absorbed in that moment. Give yourself up to it. Reexperience it in all of its emotional devastation. Once you accomplish this, you will see, somewhere in the rear of the memory, a small door. Through this door, you will find the garden.”

Redd was suspicious. “Why are you telling me this when the others didn’t?”

“Let’s just say, it gives me something to do.”

The caterpillar exhaled a cloud of green smoke. It enveloped Redd and the others, and when they awoke, they were alone.