Page 7 of Wondrous

I avoided the mysterious monster that day—if any monster had existed and it wasn’t just the Cat toying with me. Unfortunately, I also avoided any customers, apart from a wandering peddler. Wonderland had quite a few peddlers, most wending their way along Peddler’s Path, which looped through the Tulgey Wood as if drunk. If you managed to set your feet upon it, it was not usually more than a few hours before you came across someone who might sell you something, though it might not be the something you needed. This peddler sold elbow patches exclusively, and I had to argue with him for a full quarter hour before he agreed to try a free sample of my own wares. He declared himself a coffee person through and through, calling tea a weak and watery substitute, which infuriated me. Once I poured him a cup of lemon hibiscus, though, adding a generous amount of honey, he complained about the stinginess of the sample, and was it really tea if I didn’t serve scones with it?

The long and short of it was that the peddler got a full tea service, complete with jam and cream, all of it for free, and afterward wandered a short distance down Thisaway Path before collapsing against a tree to sleep it off.

“That didn’t go very well,” I said to Hedgewitch. “But it was good practice, I suppose.”

The hedgehog squeaked and bit my hand.

I decided to make camp amongst the fronds of another willow, this one silvery white and luminous in the gathering twilight. I spent an hour wrestling with the tent the Hatter had lent me, finally assembling it into a shape that resembled a half-crumpled paper bag. Sighing, I removed my dress and pulled on my nightgown, then settled into the blankets and tried to sleep.

The Tulgey Wood was a disturbing place after dark. The old trees, which came in other colors besides green, including reds and oranges, looked almost festive during the day, but at night they became a uniform black and whispered together as if the darkness brought them to life. I’d followed Thisaway Path for most of the day, which slowly spiraled toward the Mome Mountains, the ancestral homeland of the mome raths. I was already deeper into the forest than I’d ever gone, and the Hare’s cottage, which I could picture now with its lanterns shining into the darkness, had never seemed so cozy.

“Only go a little farther,” I told myself. “Another day or two, perhaps, to the foothills of the Momes, and then you can return. Nobody expects more than that from the Traveling Tea Shop’s first voyage.”

I made myself a cup of strawberries-and-cream tea, pouring it into my new mug. But I must have woven the magic incorrectly, because I felt no braver than I had before, though my head was a little clearer, perhaps. I set the cup aside and drew my blankets up. The hedgehogs, meanwhile, crawled all over me, which I had always found soothing rather than annoying. Tonight it made me think of Tansy, who would sometimes sneak into my bedroom and poke me when I was asleep.

A little cloud of gloom drifted across my self-satisfaction. It was guilt, I supposed, that made me think of Tansy. I hoped Edith would tell her a story, even if it wasn’t about Wonderland. Did Edith miss me at all? I wondered. Or was she only upset at the trouble my running away had caused the Baron, and Father?

Eventually, I drifted off to sleep.

I woke an hour or two later to a sound that could only be described as a monster snuffling and snorting just outside my tent.

I froze, not even daring to breathe. The hedgehogs had frozen already, curling themselves into balls. Whatever was outside my tent was large, judging by the guttural noises, and it smelled of smoke and something disturbingly metallic, like blood. When the snuffling drew back a little, toward the cart I had parked against the willow trunk, I sat up slowly, sending several hedgehogs rolling down the blankets. Sweat prickled at the back of my neck, but I forced myself to untie the tent flap and stick my head out.

“Hello!” I called brightly into the darkness. The o went on a bit too long. “We’re closed for the day, but you sound like you’re terribly thirsty, poor thing. What sort of tea suits your fancy?”

This was greeted by an astonished silence. It was exactly what I’d hoped for, and I took advantage of the thing’s confusion by bustling out of the tent to begin arranging the tea service on a stump. The monster was somewhere in the shadows behind me.

“We have mint, strawberry, black, gray, strawberry mint, strawberries and cream, cream, lavender, tomato and rosemary, cherry, sweet potato, chocolate mint, honey mint, bacon and toast, five spice…”

I went on and on, surprising myself by remembering them all. As I chattered, I stirred up the embers of the fire and added a few sticks I’d gathered earlier, then set the kettle over it to boil. My hands shook all the while, but I kept my voice light. The monster made no response, but after a moment, I sensed rather than heard it approach, the smell of metal and smoke growing stronger and stronger. I nearly lost control of myself then and fled, but I knew with a bone-deep certainty that doing so would be the end of me.

I forced myself to arrange the cups and saucers and set out the sugar and cream. When the monster finally spoke, it was in a voice like the gentle hiss of a fire that has burnt low in the grate.

“I have quite an appetite tonight, little girl,” it said, which was followed by a choking sound that might have been laughter. “I wonder if you have enough tea to satiate me.”

The voice came from above me—too far above. I guessed the monster was ten feet tall at least, yet sometimes its phlegmy, snuffling breath seemed to hover even higher. Did it have wings?

“Oh, but I baked scones before I set off,” I assured it. “Do you care for cream? And for jam I have raspberry, blackberry, gooseberry, and chocolate cherry.”

The monster seemed to still. “Gooseberry?”

“That one goes well with toasted almond tea,” I said. “Give me five minutes.”

I don’t know how I did it. The creature was completely silent for those five minutes, apart from slavering, a steady drip-drip sound, and me the whole time waiting for a pair of huge fanged jaws to descend on me. But I prepared the tea and set it all on a tray with an oversized helping of gooseberry jam.

“Don’t turn around,” the monster hissed as I lifted the tray. “I don’t want you to drop it.”

Relief washed over me. I had been dreading the sight of the monster with all my heart and had purposely avoided glancing over my shoulder to see what sort of fiend lurked behind me. I set the tray back down on the stump and walked to the other side of the fire without turning.

The monster gave a wet chuckle. “Why is a teacup like a river?”

I froze, wondering for a panicked moment if it had guessed my plan. “What?”

“It’s a riddle,” it said. “The tea made me think of it. I love riddles. Why is an inkwell like a dandelion? Why is a custard tart like a baboon? Of course, I’ve already solved those.”

What followed was a disturbing sequence of slurps, wet growls, and gobbling noises. My stomach was queasy by the time the noises died, and I willed myself not to be sick.

“Would you—would you care for a refill?” I said weakly.