Page 24 of Wondrous

“Well,” the Cat said into the echoing silence, “looks like you started off on the wrong foot.”

“What’s the right foot with a jabberwock?” I hissed. “Do they even have feet?”

The Cat chuckled. “I did tell you that your plan was mad. I didn’t mean in the good way.” He settled himself down on a branch, ears alert and paws tucked away, looking like he was waiting for a performance to begin.

I gritted my teeth and marched over to the pit again. This time I stopped a few paces from the edge, which seemed to be the limit for the jabberwock’s tail. I hoped.

“Like I said, I’m sorry,” I called to the creature. “But given that you’re stuck down there unless I help you, your best bet might be to listen to what I have to say.”

There was no reply. But no tail darted out to slice me in two, either.

“I’m on a quest—” I began.

Help? a voice murmured. You would help me get out?

I stifled a cry and instinctively clapped my hands to my ears. The voice hadn’t come from the pit, exactly. It had been inside my head, sly and slithery and somehow sticky. The words lingered there even after they were gone, like the track left behind by a snail.

And yet, in a way I couldn’t explain, the voice had also sounded like a boy’s. I remembered what the Cat had said about this jabberwock being young—was he even any older than me?

“Of course,” I said. “I’m not just going to leave you down there.” Realizing my mistake, I added quickly, in a stern voice, “Unless you refuse to help me.”

That word again, the creature said. I thought there was a note of dry amusement in his voice, but I suspected I might be projecting human qualities onto him, as I often did with animals. I had once suspected a seagull of giving me a disdainful look, when it had really just wanted my sandwich.

“Yes,” I said uncertainly. “Now, I know you’re probably not very fond of people on quests—heroes and all that—”

A hero cut off my mother’s head, the jabberwock said. And ran away with it, laughing. No, I suppose I’m not terribly fond of them.

Well, I might have been imagining the amusement, but I definitely wasn’t imagining the sarcasm.

“I—I’m sorry about that,” I said. “I’m not that type of hero, though.”

You lured me into your trap.

“You attacked my tent!” I exclaimed. “Do you expect me to believe you snuck up on me in the dead of night and tore my tent to shreds as a way of welcoming me to the neighborhood?”

He didn’t reply.

“Right, then,” I said, grimly satisfied. “Here’s my offer: You help me track down—and trap—three mock dragons. I know you can do it, because all the stories about jabberwocks say they have supernatural senses and are even more dangerous than dragons. In exchange, I’ll help you out of that pit.”

What a lovely idea, the jabberwock said. I’m suddenly enamored with quests. Now, come closer and put your hand deep into the hole so that you may help me out.

“I’m not an idiot,” I snapped. “Before I help you out, you’ll have to drink the tea I make for you. I’m going to serve it in an enchanted teacup, which will make you less dangerous.”

Less dangerous, the jabberwock said musingly.

“A lot less,” I said, guessing the direction of his thoughts. “I’ve only seen the teacup used a handful of times, once by a knight who came to have tea with the Hatter. That’s the Mad Hatter, if you—well, no, you probably don’t know him.”

My fear was making me ramble. I hadn’t the slightest idea what I was doing, bargaining with Wonderland’s most feared monster, or why I had thought this was a good idea. But there was no way to turn back now. “The knight couldn’t pick up his sword after he drank from the teacup.”

I don’t need a sword.

“You don’t understand,” I said. “The knight couldn’t hold any weapons. They slipped through his fingers when he tried. And when he picked up a teapot to hurl it at the Hatter, he ended up pouring the Hatter a cup of tea instead. When the Hare drank from the cup, he shrank down to the size of a mouse. Well, hares aren’t very dangerous to begin with, so that was probably the best the enchantment could do. It works differently for everyone. And what’s more, it doesn’t wear off like the other teacup enchantments do. I’ll have to give you an antidote to fix you, and only I know how to make it.”

Most of this was true but not all. The antidote was to drink from another teacup, though it was at the Hare’s house. The enchantment didn’t wear off like the others because I had put one of the “Eat Me” cookies from the Long Hall into the clay, grinding it into a powder and mixing it in. It had been an experiment, one that had worked all too well. When mixed into enchanted clay, the cookies didn’t make you bigger. They made the magic in the teacup bigger—or rather, stronger and long-lasting.

The antidote teacup, on the other hand, reversed the effects of the other teacup. I’d made them both with clay from the same part of the river, with crumbs from the same cookie, and painted them with a similar design, to make them a pair. The antidote made the drinker more dangerous, to the same degree the other teacup had made them less. It sounded logical and straightforward on the surface—logical for Wonderland, at any rate—but the whole thing had taken me days of trial and error to work out.

And after I help with your quest, the jabberwock said, what then?