Page 52 of Wondrous

As I tossed and turned in my blankets a few hours later, the realization hit me: I could simply leave.

As soon as I’d had the thought, I was flattened by a wave of guilt. Alex and Maria had told me where the third mock dragon was. Taking that information and sneaking off on my own was the very definition of treachery.

But they’re competition, a little voice said. And you already told them you didn’t want to team up. It’s not your fault they told you about the third mock dragon anyway.

They told me because they trusted me, I argued with myself. Because we fought the second mock dragon together. They even gave me the snapdragons they stole.

I’d placed the glass bottle by my side, and I brushed my fingers against it in the darkness. It was the bottle the first mock dragon had given me, with several of his feathers inside it; to these I’d added the slightly singed handful of snapdragons Alex had picked from the other mock dragon’s garden. The flowers were evidence that I’d faced her, at least, which I hoped would be enough for the Queen of Hearts. They were yellow and red and silvery white. Mixed with the feathers, the contents of the bottle now resembled a very strange potpourri.

You’ll have to share the credit for defeating her, the voice replied. The voice was highly reasonable, even if it did have an undercurrent of cunning that reminded me of the Cheshire Cat. And if you fight the third mock dragon together, you’ll share the credit again. The Queen won’t be able to choose an Alice, so she’ll probably kick you all out. How is that fair?

I couldn’t think of a way to argue with this. My conscience flailed about for a few moments like a butterfly in a net, and then it went still.

I left.

Chapter 26

Perhaps I’d been studying Jack more closely than I realized, because I had less trouble sneaking away stealthily than I’d feared. The hedgehogs were always grumpy when I woke them, but their indignant squeaks quieted when I found them a pocket each to nap in, some in my cloak and the rest in my knapsack.

The teapot strapped to my back barely clanked as I crept away from camp, and my teacups made no noise at all. Well, I only had two left, one dangling from my left hip and the other from my right. I was certain Alex and Maria were asleep in their tent this time—I could hear both of them snoring.

I was careful to take Grackle with me, encouraging him to sit on my shoulder as I packed, because I didn’t know if his small spirit would be able to bear being abandoned a second time. Likely I was concerned over nothing; I’d seen no actual evidence that Jack had hurt Grackle’s feelings by leaving him behind, nor did I know how a moth would even be able to convey that its feelings were hurt. But I had always thought I would rather err on the side of being too kind to defenseless creatures than not kind enough.

After about an hour of walking, I came upon Dead End Path, which naturally didn’t have a dead end, nor even an end. It formed a circle through the Tulgey Wood and the foothills of the Momes.

“It’s too bad,” I mused aloud to Hedgewitch, in an effort to keep myself awake, “that the paths of Wonderland aren’t all the opposite of what their names suggest they are. No, some have to be the opposite, while others are exactly as advertised, and then there are the ones that are just open to interpretation. I suppose if they were all opposites, it would be far too sensible a system.”

Hedgewitch, who was trying to nap, bit me through my cloak.

In fact, Dead End was even less sensible than some of the paths, for despite being far out in the wilderness, miles and miles from the Queen’s castle, it was illuminated every few hundred paces by a lamppost. These were helpful in keeping me awake, though after another hour of trudging along, I still felt myself nodding off and stumbled several times. It didn’t help that the path had begun to follow a stream, which whispered over its rocky bed in a soothing way. Something about that whisper was familiar.

And then I recognized the pale stripes of clay along the sides of the streambed.

“Why, you’re the Hatter’s stream!” I exclaimed.

A thought occurred to me, and I paused. It was a thought I’d had before and dismissed as pointless. But now, hearing the familiar, soothing rush of water and remembering happier days in the Hare’s garden, I wondered if pointlessness was actually a good reason not to do something.

And so I marched down to the bank and scooped up a handful of clay. Then I settled myself on a mossy rock and set about making a small blue chalice.

I didn’t have any blue dye, so I’d need to rely on natural ingredients. I sent my hedgehogs—now extremely grumpy—into the forest to search for wild blueberries while I rubbed and pressed the clay in my hands.

The main problem was that I didn’t know exactly what a chalice was. A teacup that puts on airs, the Hatter had said, and though I tried to make it more chalice-like and less cuplike, still I found my fingers following the same pinching motions I used to make the teacups. I tried to make it fancier, something more like my father’s riding trophies, with thinner walls and two proud handles instead of one, but one of the handles simply wouldn’t stick, no matter what I did.

I had more success with the color—it didn’t take the hedgehogs long to return with blueberries speared to their spines. Hogarth even found some black moss, which would hopefully tone down the purplish hue of the blueberry juice. I ground everything up on a concave stone, then strained it through my tea strainer and worked the liquid into the clay.

In the end, the vessel looked like—well, it was hard to describe. A little like a teacup and a little like something that might have been a chalice. But given its size and flaring rim—which I’d hoped would lend the vessel dignity—it also bore an unfortunate resemblance to a plant pot.

“At least it’s blue,” I said to Hedgewitch. “That should count for something.”

The hedgehog yawned.

I turned the chalice over in my hands, trying to admire my handiwork, when I realized my mistake.

“Oh, no!” I cried. “I’ve left you blank. How stupid of me. I should have put an enchantment in you—surely that would have made you more useful.”

The chalice, I noticed, seemed to be slumping on one side, as if it agreed with me and was losing confidence in its own existence. I sighed. Well, it wasn’t as if I were much good at enchanting teacups. Yes, some of the cups had come in handy, particularly against the mock dragons, but half the time the enchantments didn’t match my intentions at all. Perhaps an unmagical chalice would be useful in its own right.

I set the chalice aside to dry for a few moments while I walked along the stream looking for a sharp stick. When I found one, I used it to draw a pattern of dragons on the chalice. They all ended up looking like Jack, feathered, with overlong tails, which I didn’t realize until after I was finished. I wrapped it carefully in a cloth and tucked it into my knapsack. I would have liked to let it air-dry, but I couldn’t afford to wait around. The clay from the Hatter’s stream only took a few hours to harden completely, much faster than normal clay, but that was still too long. I had to find the third mock dragon before another Alice did.