Other Alice (16 page)

‘You’ll have to wait, Tabitha,’ I said crossly. ‘I don’t have time to make you tea all night.’

‘That’s
not
what I was going to say actually,’ Tabitha sniffed. ‘I was trying to tell you that there’s a girl in my teacup.’ She peered closer.
‘Are you sure that was ordinary tea?’

Piper leaned over the cup and gave a low whistle.

I leaped out of my seat, grabbing the cup. The tea dregs sloshed up the sides, then stilled at the bottom. Already I could see a face forming there, reflected back at us.

I gasped.
‘Alice?’

Chairs scraped and tools clattered to the floor as four heads – one of them furry – crowded round the teacup.

‘Get back, it’s too dark to see with all of us leaning over!’ Piper complained.

‘You get back!’ I elbowed him, panicking. I’d forgotten all about the Summoning, but it had worked, even if it was in a way I hadn’t expected it to. Alice was here and I
hadn’t even thought about what to say to her. One question . . . just one . . . and she’d be gone. I couldn’t bear it. Perhaps the cat had been right
– perhaps I
could
keep her talking longer, without asking questions, if I was clever enough.

‘That’s your sister?’ Piper said incredulously. ‘Why’s she in a teacup?’

‘I do hope that doesn’t upset my tummy,’ said Tabitha. ‘This is most absurd.’

‘Everyone just shut up!’ I roared, slapping my hand on the table, then wishing I hadn’t. Alice’s face rippled, then stilled again. The kitchen was silent. ‘I need
to think. The rules of the Summoning say that you can only ask one question. But one question won’t be enough. I can’t just ask her where she is, if she’s safe, or why all this is
happening. Or how we get her back. I need to know
all
these things, not just one.’

‘So you decided to take my advice,’ said Tabitha. ‘Maybe you are more sensible than I gave you credit for.’

‘I wouldn’t take advice from a mischief,’ said Piper.

‘I wouldn’t offer any to a thief,’ she shot back.

‘Quiet!’ I said, exasperated. I leaned over the cup. ‘Alice? I hope you can hear me.’

Alice’s lips moved, but only bubbles came out.

My heart sank. ‘Maybe it doesn’t work if you don’t ask a question.’

‘Or maybe it doesn’t work if you can’t talk underwater,’ Tabitha said sarcastically.

I sat back and looked at the cat questioningly. Her tail flicked towards the window, like a finger pointing. I got up from the table. The curtains were still open, the other side of the glass
dark as ink. The kitchen and everyone in it were reflected back at me clearly . . . but aside from the cat there were four figures, not three.

Alice stood next to me in the glass, her mouth still moving silently. I could see her more clearly now. Her face was solemn, and there was a dark mark on her forehead and another on her cheek.
They looked like bruises. Had someone hurt her?

‘I can’t hear you!’ I said helplessly.

The Alice reflection pointed up. I resisted the urge to ask her what she meant, for it would still count as a question.

‘I don’t understand,’ I told her.

Alice’s lips moved again, mouthing a word.
Mirror
.

‘She wants me to go to a mirror,’ I said. ‘Just me. The rest of you wait here. There’s one upstairs.’

I turned, passing the sink. Shallow pools of water had collected in a few cups and dishes that were waiting to be washed. Several watery Alices stared back from them, bubbling softly every time
she tried to speak.

I ran through the house and up the stairs. Alice’s face gazed back from the glass of every framed photo and every picture, reflected like a ghost that wouldn’t give up haunting
us.

I reached Mum and Dad’s room, flicking on the light and skidding to a halt in front of the large, free-standing mirror reflecting the room behind me: the hastily made bed, the dressing
table, the nightdress hanging from the back of the door.

All that was missing was me . . . and Alice.

‘Where are our reflections?’ I whispered. I lifted my hand and waved it in front of the glass, seeing no evidence of it mirrored there. ‘Alice,’ I said. ‘If
you’re there, show yourself.’

In the doorway reflected behind me, a figure stepped into the room, coming closer to the mirror from within. She moved right up to the glass, her fair hair loose over her shoulders. She wore an
old T-shirt that I’d seen many times before. There was a hole in the sleeve. I realised with a jolt that it was the same T-shirt I’d used to make the clothes on the Likeness.

Alice lifted one of her hands to the glass and rested it there. Her mouth moved, and I knew the shape of my name on her lips so well that it was a second before I realised that I hadn’t
actually heard the word out loud.

‘I still can’t hear you,’ I said.

Alice took her hand from the glass, then placed it back in the same position, indicating that I should do the same. Slowly, I lifted my hand and held it up to hers, a mirror image. The glass
rippled where our fingers met, before lying flat. Then, like I’d come up to the surface after swimming underwater, I heard her.

‘Can you hear me now?’ Alice asked. There was a slight echo to her voice, as if she were in a large, open space.

‘Yes!’ I pressed my fingers harder against the glass, as if I could somehow grab her and pull her into the room with me, but the glass stayed flat. A familiar smell filled the room,
a smell that I associated with Alice. Not her perfume, or her shampoo . . . something else. A musty, papery kind of smell.

Books.

Questions crowded into my mind. It was all I could do not to blurt them out. I had to think of ways to ask them without actually asking, ways to get Alice to tell me what I needed to know.

‘You know how this works,’ Alice said softly. ‘You only get one question. Choose it well.’

I nodded, determined to play the game. To bend the rules. ‘You have marks on your face,’ I said at last. ‘They look like bruises.’

‘On my face?’ Alice lifted her other hand, the one that wasn’t against mine, to her face. ‘I don’t remember getting any bruises.’

‘On your cheek and forehead.’

She frowned. ‘I can’t feel anything.’

‘I don’t know who you’re with,’ I continued. ‘Or where you are.’

‘There’s no one else here,’ Alice answered. ‘I don’t know where I am, either, but I’m all alone here. There are no people, only words.’

Only words?
What did that mean? My eyes stung, hot with tears. But it was working. I was getting answers without asking questions. ‘I miss you. I wish you were back
here.’

‘I don’t know how to get back. I’m trapped! You’re the only one who can help me now.’

‘Tell me what to do,’ I said, then flinched as something ran across Alice’s forehead. Something small and dark like a bug, but when I looked closer I saw it was a word.
Twist
, it said, in Alice’s curly handwriting. I blinked, unsure of what I was seeing, until it wriggled out of view. A few seconds later another word appeared on her cheek. This one
was
trapped
. It vanished into her hair.

‘I’m in trouble, big trouble,’ said Alice. ‘I didn’t know where the story was going. I lost control of it. So I tried to get it back, but it went
wrong . . .’

How?
I wanted to shout.
What have you done? How do we put it right?
Instead, I waited, saying nothing and praying she would continue.

‘They’d already started coming for me.’ Her voice had dropped, only a little above a whisper. ‘I knew it was only a matter of time before they all got out of the story,
but I thought maybe if
I
were the one to bring them here, I could still control them somehow. And then I changed my mind . . . or tried to. I was too afraid after what
happened last time . . .

Last time?
Of course. Last summer. The other story that Alice had destroyed.

‘The Hangman,’ I remembered. A shiver crept over my skin, like pins were being jabbed all over me.

Alice nodded. ‘And others. They wanted their ending and I couldn’t give it to them.’

‘And now it’s happening again. Gypsy, and Piper, and the cat – they’re all here.’

Alice nodded solemnly. ‘It won’t just be them. There are others, ones you need to watch out for. They’re dangerous, and crazy . . . and they won’t want the
ending I had in store for them – they’ll want to change it.’ Her eyes were wide, fearful. ‘Ramblebrook and Dolly Weaver, but there’s something you need—
’

‘Dolly Weaver!’ I blurted out. So she was one of Alice’s characters. ‘I haven’t met Ramblebrook yet,’ I told her hurriedly. ‘And I don’t think
Gypsy, or Piper, or the cat know that . . . know what they really are. But they know about the notebook. Gypsy’s searching for it – and so is Dolly.’

‘I know and that’s why they mustn’t get it!’ Alice’s voice was panicked. ‘Put it somewhere safe, somewhere only you know about. And Midge, I have to tell you
something about Dolly—’

‘It’s too late,’ I interrupted. ‘I’m sorry. It was stolen, except for a few pages. The rest was taken by Dolly, and she’s even been here in the house tonight,
looking for the loose pages.’

Alice closed her eyes. ‘I was afraid you’d say that. I thought we might still have time, but it’s all happened so quickly.’ She opened her eyes. ‘All this is my
fault.’ She shook her head miserably.

‘Then tell me how to fix it!’ I pleaded. ‘There must be a way.’

‘Get the notebook back,’ Alice instructed. ‘Hide it. Then you have to find my father. Ask him about the curse . . . and how to break it.’

Her
father?

‘That’s where this all began,’ Alice continued. ‘And where it has to end.’

‘How do I find him?’ I said. ‘You barely found him yourself—’ I clapped my hand over my mouth, realising my mistake. I’d done it. I’d unthinkingly asked
a question. ‘I’m sorry,’ I groaned. ‘I didn’t mean to – it just popped out!’

Alice looked at me, her face a mixture of pride and sadness. ‘Don’t be sorry, little brother. You’ve done so well and been so clever. But now I can only answer this, then I
have to go.

‘There’s a box under Mum’s bed. She thinks no one knows about it, but I do. She keeps things in there, things from the past. Look inside it and it’ll tell you how to find
him.’ Another word scuttled across her face and she flicked at it. It landed on the mirror, back to front, then flipped itself over like a little caterpillar.
Hearth
, it read. It
skittered away in the mirror’s reflection. I turned, unable to help myself, scanning the floor for it, but there was no sign. When I turned back to the mirror, I was just in time to see it
vanish under the bed. What were all these words surrounding her? A thought hit me: if Gypsy, Piper, Dolly and the cat were here, then could Alice be . . .
there
? In the
story they had left?

The room behind Alice in the reflection began to darken, like the light was failing. Above my head, the light bulb flickered. My hand was still pressed against the glass to Alice’s. I was
aware that it was getting warmer, uncomfortably warm. The darkness in the mirror got thicker, like smoke, and words were floating through the air like ash.

‘Alice,’ I begged. ‘Don’t go yet!’

She shook her head, as helpless as I was, and I saw that she was speaking, but I was unable to hear her any more. I thought I could make out the word ‘Dolly’ on her lips but whatever
she was trying to say was now lost, as she was. Stricken, I realised I’d interrupted Alice twice when she’d been trying to tell me something, in my desperation to get my own words out.
Now it was too late.

Her eyes and hair were wild. She was barely a shadow now. The heat from the glass was too much to stand. I pulled my hand away and there was a resounding crack as Mum’s mirror shattered. I
scrambled back, afraid the glass would fall, but it stayed where it was, blackened around the edges and reflecting my shocked face back at me.

Alice was gone.

I’d messed it up. If only I’d stayed smart, if only I hadn’t forgotten myself and blurted out that question. If only.

I stared at the cracked mirror, my heart drumming like thundering hooves. What were all those words that had wriggled over Alice in her glassy prison?

Trapped
 . . .
Hearth
 . . .
Twist?

Hearth . . . ?

I turned and ran downstairs into the living room, crouching down in front of the fireplace. I knew what I was looking for now. I’d remembered.

The grate still had the remains of the fire from last night. No one had swept it out. I shifted the coal bucket out a little, streaking ash across the hearth. A balled-up piece of paper rolled
out from where it had been lodged out of sight.

Alice had been aiming for the fire, but she’d missed.

I picked up the piece of paper and smoothed it out, then began to read.

A
T AROUND THE SAME TIME
as gypsy spindle was puzzling over her map, and Piper was hitching
his third ride of the morning, a girl who looked very much like Gypsy was sitting warm in front of a fire at home in Fiddler’s Hollow.