Page 63 of Wondrous

A hollow that was rapidly growing wider. Another loomed behind me, narrow but at least twice my height, like the slash of a god’s blade. If I had backed up another three paces, I would have fallen into it. More hollows were opening in the sky, where the canopy was aflame.

Jack landed before me in a gust of wind. His feathers were bristled and his teeth bared, his breath hissing in and out. Alice, get on my back! he cried.

“We have to put the fire out!” I argued. “It’s spreading!”

There’s no time. We have to—

There was a scream, and then someone shouted, “Alice! Jack! Where are you?” I turned, trying to squint through the haze of smoke and soot. Alex was dragging a motionless form away from a burning tree. It was Alicia—she must have been struck by another branch. Half her hair had been singed away, and I couldn’t tell if she was breathing.

“Help her!” I told Jack. “And where’s Maria? Maria!”

I began to cough, and Jack flew away to help Alex.

“Maria!” I shouted, stumbling forward. “Where—ah!”

My foot snagged on something, and I barely caught myself before I fell. It was the burnt tea table, lying pathetically upside down, with its blackened legs in the air. I saw several shards of teacups amidst the grass, and the teapot, which was chipped but miraculously intact.

I looked around for the hedgehogs, or even Grackle, but they were gone—I hoped they’d made it to the forest, to some part of this world that wasn’t yet on fire. Every tree that surrounded the clearing now was alight, and the air was so hot it almost hurt to breathe. We’d defeated the third and final mock dragon, and yet we would still lose everything if the fire wasn’t put out.

“Maria!” I called again, my voice broken by a sob. Was she all right? And what about Alex—would Jack reach her in time?

A tremendous crack resounded through the forest. To my horror, the tree to my left was falling, slicing through the air toward me, its flame bright as a comet. I hurled myself to the side, tripping over the tea table again. This might have helped me, for I rolled when I hit the ground, tumbling down a little hill, and thus managed to avoid being crushed. The tree thundered to the ground, and my skin stung from the eruption of sparks and smoldering pine needles.

The ground abruptly fell away, as if I’d reached the edge of some cliff. Panicking, I dug my fingers into the grass and managed to stop myself from sliding farther down the hill.

There wasn’t a cliff here, I thought, confused. And yet my legs were now dangling in thin air.

When I saw what was below me, my scream shuddered through my entire body.

I was half in and half out of a gaping hollow. It was as wide as I was tall and darker than the space between stars. The edges of it felt crumbly and soft, like a biscuit dipped too long in a cup of tea.

I screamed again and dug my fingers deeper into the ground, trying to haul my legs out. The movement made something slip from the pocket of my cloak and go tumbling down into nothingness. It was the glass bottle of feathers from the first mock dragon and burnt snapdragons from the second. The evidence I had been planning to show the Queen of Hearts, to prove I was the Alice of the prophecy.

“No!” I cried.

The bottle caught the firelight once as it fell, and then it vanished like a snuffed flame.

I tried desperately to lift my right leg up, but the hollow was expanding, the edge of the world I clung to disintegrating beneath me. I only sank deeper, my fingers dragging painfully through the soil.

“Jack!” I shrieked. “Alex! Maria!”

My voice faded into the crackle of fire and groans of the dying trees. Only my arms and head were free now, and I didn’t have the strength to pull the rest of me out.

“Cat,” I rasped. I was losing my voice, which was already ragged from the smoke. “Cat, please—if you’re there—if you were ever my friend—”

I slipped farther. “Cat!” I whispered. The hope was fading like an ember. I closed my eyes and pictured the Hare’s house with the tea table set in the garden, wanting it to be the last thing I saw.

“Oh, very well—but only because you asked nicely,” someone said.

The Cheshire Cat loomed above me. He had grown to the size of a horse, his flamboyant purple and pink turned black and brown, but I thought that was just my eyesight—the flames were too bright, and there was ash in my eyes.

I made a choked sound of protest as the Cat opened his huge fanged mouth. The Cat ignored me. He leaned over and bit my collar where it pressed against the back of my neck, being not at all careful about sparing my skin, and lifted me from the hollow like a kitten. He carried me a few yards and then dropped me unceremoniously onto the ground. I grunted in pain as my shoulder struck a stone.

The Cat sniffed my face with nostrils the size of my hand, as if to assure himself that I was all right. Then he sat back and shrank to his customary size.

“Then it was you!” I said, still half in a daze. “You were pulling the cart all along, weren’t you?”

The Cat did not deny it, but he gave a disdainful sniff that implied it was terribly boorish of me to mention any kindness on his part. He turned away from me and began washing his face, as if the world weren’t burning and crumbling around us.