Figment - Jace Cameron (книги полностью .TXT) 📗

My watch says I only have four minutes left.

I pick up my fragile seven-year-old body and run through the Reds as Lewis fights alone.

"Queen of Hearts," Lewis shouts. "I demand you free this man."

"Help them, please!" shouts Gorgon.

For the first time I am able to see him. He is held by the Reds, unable to free himself. They have his hands and legs roped and tied to trees on four sides. The Queen, although I can't see the details of her face, is pouring pepper onto him. Gorgon sneezes, risking his other eye popping out. She loves torturing him. She doesn't look worried about Lewis fighting her guards behind her.

"This will teach you to never steal my pepper again," she growls. "This will teach everyone in Wonderland to fear me forever." She laughs like an evil witch.

I use my small figure and keep chugging through the red cloaks all around me. I have to reach Gorgon. Maybe it's not about what will happen to him now, but later. If I help him escape the Queen now, it should divert the course of events in the future and save him from turning into a killer.

I stumble over something tiny, and fall on my face. The watch says three minutes. Looking for what I stumbled upon, I find a few croquet balls scattered on the ground. No mallet, though. I pick up a bunch of croquet balls and carry them in my yellow dress. Before I can use them, two Reds hold me by the arms. I kick and moan in this child's body, but it's all in vain.

"Help them, please!" Gorgon begins to cry out of an eyeless eye socket. I wonder how a big man like him isn't capable of freeing himself from the Queen.

And who is he, asking us to help? I don't get it!

I kick the Reds in the faces, but it doesn't help much. Behind me, Lewis starts calling for me. "I told you to stay away, Alice!" He slashes at the fighting Reds with his swords, but he can't get near me or Gorgon. Lewis Carroll in a priest's outfit, fighting the Reds in Wonderland, is a scene that will stay with me for a long time.

"Please, Majesty," Gorgon says. "Let me go, or they will die."

"I want them to die," the Queen growls. She has such a scary growl for such a short person. "Children have small heads. I can use them as croquet balls for my games." She sneers and pours more pepper on him.

Finally, I realize what Gorgon means. Someone has to save his kids from something in his absence. I pull out a ball and hit one of the Reds in the back of his head. It works, but I need to free myself from the other one.

"He wants us to save his children, Lewis!" I yell. "He probably left them back in his house when he went to get the pepper."

"I don't know where he lives." Lewis sounds exhausted from fighting.

I kick the other Red with the ball, but it doesn't hurt him enough to fall. So I try to kick him in the balls with my fragile legs. Oddly, this works fine. His red cloak falls to the ground and whatever was inside it disappears.

On my feet again, I run ahead as I throw balls at each every one of them. If they have swords, I have balls—pun intended.

From afar, I aim one ball at the short Queen's head. Bull's-eye. She gets dizzy, birds chirp around her, and then she falls slowly to one side like a chopped-off tree. I run at Gorgon and try to free him. The knots are too tight for my stupid small body. He has been tied from all fours to different trees in the garden.

My pocket watch says two minutes left.

"Where are your children?" I ask.

"They are trapped in my house." He can't stop crying, trying to free himself, as we don't have a sword or a knife handy. "I live in a mushroom house, and have them locked inside."

"What?" I hold my head with my hands. "Why lock up your children?"

"There is a beast who eats children, roaming in Wonderland. They asked me for pepper. Thee little one asked me for muffins. I paid the Duchess for the muffins, but she ate them in front of me after she took my money. She said Galumphs like me shouldn't eat muffins, as it's considered a luxury to eat them in our times. I have always tried to fulfill my children's wishes after their mother died. I made a mistake and stole from the Queen's kitchen. She caught me. Save my children, please. They are locked in the house."

"It's okay," I say, trying my teeth on the strong rope.

"What?"

"I mean, it's all right," I say, not quite believing myself. "If they're locked, we will get to them once Lewis kills the Reds and frees you."

"It's not all right," Gorgon protests. "I left them three days ago. The food in the house isn't enough. They will die of starvation."

"Three days ago?" My whole world tumbles around me when I hear this. I have to go and save them myself. Maybe take Lewis with me.

"Tell me where you live, Gorgon," I demand. "Where is your mushroom?"

And right before he utters it, the answer already rings a high note in my ears.

"I live on Drury Lane!"

Chapter 5 7

I run as the nursery rhyme rings in my head. The nursery rhyme was made after him. Because the Muffin Man, captured by the Queen, was never able to go back to Drury Lane and save his children. That's why Lewis told me, I couldn't save them, in my vision. I wonder if I will be able to save Gorgon's children.

I tell the rabbit to show me the way to the Drury Lane of Wonderland.

I have only one minute left.

Lewis picks me up, having learned we need to save the children. He takes me by hand toward another blackboard he hid in the forest for immediate escape when he couldn't fight the beast everyone feared by himself. Lewis has many Einstein Blackboards with mirrors hidden everywhere so he could easily escape Wonderland to his office in Oxford when needed.

"Listen to me, Alice." He kneels and grabs me by the arms. "There is a mirror right in front of this blackboard. You will walk into it back to Oxford. I can't risk you being here longer. You have done well already. I fear the Reds will hunt us and hurt you. You mean so much to me, Alice. And you're still a child. I don't want you to die young by the Queen's guards," he says, not knowing that I can't stay much longer anyway. If I do, I will die without any of the guards even laying a hand on me. "I will save the children."

"But he said they have been there for three days—"

"Have faith, Alice." He shushes me. "I will save them. Hopefully they're still alive."

"I hope so," I say, staring at my pocket watch. I almost have no time left. I don't even know how I am going to go back through a mirror I fear. But Lewis is Gorgon's only hope to save his kids and save him from becoming the Muffin Man. Hell, Lewis is Britain's only hope against mass food poisoning.

Lewis turns me around to face the mirror. He does it so fast I have no time to resist. When my eyes meet the glaring reflection of the mirror, I shriek, thinking I will see the scary rabbit right away. But I don't.

Lewis kisses me on the forehead and runs away to save the children, his loyal rabbit following him. I wish him all the luck in the world, regretting that I have to go back now—that is, if I am not already late.

As for the mirror, I get it now. I get why I am not scared of it. I think it's because I am seven years old. Whatever made me fear mirrors happened later when I was older.

I look at the pocket watch and realize I broke the fourteen-minute deadline. I begin to feel dizzy. Something urges me to dig my hand in my pocket to read the Pillar's note about who Jack is. If I am not going to make it, I think I deserve to know that, at least. I dig my hands into my pocket but I come up empty-handed. There is no paper inside. How is this possible? I think it's because I am wearing a different dress in this world. If I die, I will never know who Jack is. I use the strength I have left to walk through the mirror before it's too late, hoping Lewis will save the Muffin Man's children.