Page 22 of Wondrous

I was in the jabberwocks’ forest.

Chapter 13

The path had petered out at some point—I wasn’t sure when. But it didn’t matter.

If you start to lose the path, you must turn around immediately, the Hatter had said. The path disappears when you reach their territory, and it’s curtains for you if you go that far.

Naturally, he’d never thought I’d actually take the Jabberwock Path. The Hatter just liked to talk, particularly if the subject was completely irrelevant. It could be a maddening quality, but I’d never been so grateful for it.

There were no houses in this part of the Tulgey Wood, although there used to be an entire village, according to the stories. The inhabitants had abandoned it over time, because jabberwocks liked to creep into people’s houses in the dead of night and drag them into the woods to devour them—or, in other stories, lure children from their beds by imitating their parents’ voices, calling from the dark trees. Sometimes jabberwocks were sighted in other corners of the Tulgey Wood, but for the most part, they seemed to keep to their territory.

I built a hasty fire between two squid-like roots of a crimson elm and made a pot of mint tea, which I poured into my new stars-and-moon teacup, the one that had made me cleverer before. I still wished I’d succeeded in weaving a bravery spell into the clay, but perhaps wisdom would prove more important to my quest.

I couldn’t suppress the nagging worry, though, that having one without the other would be a little like being a bird with one wing.

I drank my tea quickly, wishing I could savor the sharp warmth of the mint. It didn’t much matter, from a magical perspective, what kind of tea you paired with each teacup—a teacup with a daydream enchantment in it would give the drinker daydreams whether it was filled with raspberry tea or lemon hibiscus. I’d had the sense, sometimes, that certain teas made some enchantments stronger, but I’d never had a large enough sample size to study the matter. It was something I’d hoped to look into with the Traveling Tea Shop.

I shook off the gloom that had settled over me and drained the last of my tea. There was no sense longing for my tea shop now. If I was the Alice in the prophecy—despite the odds—and I managed to rescue Wonderland from the mock dragons, I could pick the business back up.

I frowned at the stars-and-moon teacup. It was a pity that wisdom and confidence didn’t go hand in hand. Still, the enchantment was working, and the details of my plan—which had been rough until now—began to crystallize in my mind.

I went a little farther into the forest, scanning the gloom until I found exactly the spot I’d been looking for.

First, I set up my tent, trying to make it look sturdier and more tentlike than I usually managed. I placed a small lantern inside, then tossed in two of my blankets to form a heap. I even went to the trouble of building another fire and stamping it to embers. When I retreated into the dark forest and examined the scene from a distance, it looked unmistakably like the cozy campsite of some foolish traveler, the tent illuminated from within like a firefly. The blankets made a lumpy sort of shadow that could easily have been a supine figure.

I didn’t bother concealing myself—the shadows would be my cloak. I found an oak tree with a low branch that formed a natural seat and tucked myself into the crook, leaning against the trunk. I made a blanket nest for the hedgehogs, hoping they would go to sleep and stay out of the way. I could still see the tent from that angle—indeed, given the gloom of the forest, the tent’s light would be visible for nearly half a mile in all directions. My heart thundered, and I yearned abruptly for Edith. When I was little and woke from a nightmare, I would steal into her bed and fall back to sleep as she stroked my hair.

But this wasn’t a nightmare, and my sister was a long, long way away.

“What are you doing?” someone murmured in my ear.

It took everything in me not to scream. Fortunately, I could recognize this voice from a single word, and I’d half expected it anyway.

“Quiet!” I hissed into the seemingly empty shadows. “You’ll scare it away.”

“Don’t worry,” the Cheshire Cat said. “I’m far too curious to interfere.”

He came into view slowly, seeping out of the shadows like blood through cloth. First the ears, then the glittering eyes; he left the rest of himself as a faint outline.

“You do realize you’re supposed to be hunting mock dragons,” the Cat said. “Not jabberwocks.” He was perched on a branch just above my head, which made me nervous; I didn’t like to be within the Cat’s pouncing zone.

I glared at him. I wasn’t at all surprised he knew about the competition between the Alices—no doubt he’d been lurking somewhere out of sight the entire time.

“Keep your voice down,” I said. “I’m trying to catch a jabberwock so I can talk to it.”

“What a dangerous, outrageous, ridiculous thing to do,” the Cat said. “And here I was, thinking that I didn’t like you.”

“You like me enough to follow me everywhere,” I muttered, wishing he would shut up. Had I just heard a twig snapping in the shadows on the other side of the tent? “And anyway, you’re the one who told me I should come here.”

The Cat blinked at me. “Did I?”

His confusion seemed so genuine that I felt a prickle of dread. “You told me that jabberwocks could be useful. That wasn’t—that wasn’t a hint? About how I could defeat the mock dragons? I didn’t think it meant anything at the time, but looking back, I—”

The Cat laughed. “Maybe it was a hint, and maybe it wasn’t. No one in their right mind would describe a jabberwock as useful. Should you be taking hints from mad people?”

My dread grew. I couldn’t tell if the Cat was toying with me or not—mainly because the Cat always seemed like he was toying with me. Had this been a ghastly mistake?

The Cat leapt to the ground, then stretched his front legs languidly. “So you’ve laid a trap for it, have you? And you think it will help you, once you’ve caught it? This is the maddest plot I’ve ever heard of. I’ve never been so convinced you belong here.”