Malice in Wonderland Bundle 2, Page 2

  “My apologies, Your Majesty.”

  She scowls. “Oh, this shall not stand. We must organize a coup d’etat at once! How many guard cards are on my side now?”

  “Seventeen, Your Majesty. And there are three humans. There they are now.”

  Two teenage boys and what looks to be a cloaked man walk out from the cave. The man is completely covered with the brown hooded cloak—she can’t see his face and she can’t tell the age, but something about the shape of the body suggests an older man.

  As they walk toward her, she recognizes the two uncloaked boys. She exclaims, “The Brothers Grimm!”

  Until very recently, the three Brothers Grimm had been imprisoned within the Queen of Heart’s very own dungeons. But recently, a little girl from the outside world known as the Tinkerer had overthrown the Queen of Hearts and put Malice in power, and had also released the Brothers Grimm.

  The Queen of Hearts gives a weak smile to the three figures as they step up to her. “Good afternoon, chaps. What are you fine fellows about, then?” She wants to appear nice, in case they are harboring thoughts of revenge.

  The brother named Jacob, who is the oldest at 19 years old, says in his German accent, “My brothers and I arranged for your rescue, because you are Malice’s rival. It would be undramatic for you to waste away in a dungeon cell.”

  The other brother, who she recognizes as Wilhelm, nods. “Would’ve been an unexciting story.” He’s the 18 year old brother, also with an accent.

  The Queen of Hearts struggles to maintain her composure amongst these confusing utterances.

  She hasn’t failed to notice that the third brother has failed to speak, and seemingly stares intently at the grassy ground.

  “Yes,” the Queen of Hearts says carefully, “things will definitely be more exciting with me out of Malice’s dungeons—I intend to coup d’etat her… That means, to violently overthrow her.”

  “We know what it means,” Jacob says.

  Wilhelm looks to Jacob, and Jacob nods. Now Jacob turns back to her and says, “But we feel there are more important matters. Bigger issues.”

  She says, “Oh, by the way, I’m dreadfully sorry for imprisoning you three all those years. I should have executed you immediately to spare you all that inconvenience.”

  Jacob scowls for a moment before going back to a neutral expression. Wilhelm chuckles and says, “Inconvenience? Is that what you call it?”

  Wilhelm laughs again, but he doesn’t sound amused—his laugh sounds mean. “Oh, my dear deluded former Queen, an inconvenience is getting a bad haircut or having a clown face.”

  In a warning voice, Jacob says, “Wilhelm. Remember what our task is…”

  The Queen of Hearts straightens her shoulders and tuts. “Yes, why don’t you get to why you brought me here to these wretched, plebeian accommodations.”

  Wilhelm snarls his lips and seems about to say something untoward but Jacob cuts him off when he says, “Big changes are coming to Wonderland. There is a powerful being known as the Storyteller who has gone into the mood.”

  “Eh?” says the Queen of Hearts. “Who is this Storyteller and what is he or she in the mood for?”

  Jacob explains, “He is in the mood for telling an epic tale. It is because of him and the story he’s telling that we had to help in your rescue. It’s not like we actually like you or anything.”

  “In fact, we think you’re a slag,” Wilhelm says, but Jacob shushes him.

  The Queen of Hearts says to Wilhelm, “And I think your head would look so cute on top of a pike.”

  Now Wilhelm’s anger comes out. “Is that so?!”

  “Yes that’s so!” she screams.

  “We rescued you, lady!”

  “Yes, by having me grovel in dirt like some kind of worm! My dress is all dirty because of you!”

  Jacob says, “Now now! There are more important things to focus on. If we can find the Storyteller and provide him with a satisfying story we can team up to conquer the outside world and fill it with fairy tales!”

  “Huh?” she says. “Conquer the outside world? I demand you explain yourself. This instant.”

  Jacob bows mockingly. “When my brothers and I first portaled over into your world from our outside one, we wanted to destroy your world of Wonderland tales and replace it with our own fairy tales.”

  “Which is why I imprisoned you,” she says.

  “If you keep interrupting, it’ll take forever to tell you…so when my brothers wanted to vanquish your land, we came up with a character known as the Storyteller who would guide the stories of the fairy tale creatures and beings. He was on the verge of unleashing all the fairy tales into Wonderland when we were captured. To save the fairy tale beings, he hid them away in their own realm. Then he holed himself up in his castle. Without any stories to inspire him, he grew uninterested until now.”

  “Bored. All he cares about is being entertained by you?”

  “By stories. The stories of the fairy tale creatures interest him. And the tale of Wonderland. He has been watching, but has remained uninterested.”

  “So where’s he been this whole time?” the Queen of Hearts asks.

  “He hasn’t told us everything. But he says he’s been hidden in his secret castle, says he’s been catching up on his gardening—likes growing squash, radishes and such.”

  “I’ve never heard of this Storyteller.”

  “He felt it would be more dramatic if you learned of him now.”

  “What?”

  “He cares about things in the sense of fitting whatever story they’re a part of. He thought this was the best point in the story for you to learn about him.”

  “So you’ve been speaking with him?”

  “Yes, recently he has contacted us through our dreams. He believes this is the time of prophesy, when the world of Wonderland and the outside world are destined to clash and decide their fates once and for all.”

  “Yes. Prophesy. Days of judgment. Sounds good. But I only care if I can get something out of it. I’ve always wanted to invade the outside world and conquer it. Think of all the heads I could order be taken off,” she says with a dreamy expression.

  “That could very well happen now that the anchor being has been established within their realm.”

  “What anchor being?”

  “Alice. The Storyteller thinks she is the Chosen One of the prophesy. When she left Wonderland, an opportunity opened up. The Storyteller felt a sudden shift between the two worlds when she crossed over to the outside world. She holds much of the essence of Wonderland inside her and so she serves as an anchor between the two worlds. As long as she is in the other realm, it is like a door has been opened for the fairy tale beings to cross over.”

  “Oh? And what will they do once they do? Create havoc? Mayhem? Misery?”

  “Perhaps all three,” Jacob says with a wicked grin. “It is prophesied that there will be great conflict between the two worlds, and also that there will be one known as the slayer who will battle the fairy tales. But don’t worry, if we work together we can defeat them, and absolutely wreck their world with our fairy tales and rule over all!”

  “Oh that sounds delightful!” the Queen of Hearts exclaims.

  “So what do you say, can we put our differences aside and work together?! The first step is we’ll have to contact Alice.”

  “Whoa. I never knew Alice could be so important for anything.” Alice was a little girl from the outside world who’d entered Wonderland by traveling through the Looking Glass. When the Queen of Hearts found out her tears were magical, she’d captured Alice and essentially made her a slave. But around the girl’s 13th birthday, she’d escaped back through the Looking Glass, but not before leaving behind a mirror reflection version of herself, named Malice, who was identical to Alice except for not having a heart. Malice was only kind because of a mechanical heart with kindness programming built into it. “Oh, how I’d love to get my hands on that bratty Alice again.”

&n
bsp; “So it’s a deal?” Jacob says.

  “Yes, quite,” says the Queen of Hearts.

  Jacob holds his hand out, but the Queen of Hearts merely raises her nose in the air.

  Wilhelm scowls at her, while the cloaked one continues his impersonation of a statue.

  Jacob says, “It’s good we could come to an arrangement, because together we just might be strong enough to deal with the Storyteller.”

  “What’s that? I thought he was on our side.”

  Jacob sighs. “The Storyteller doesn’t really have a side. All he cares about is telling a good story, and to do that, he’s willing to resort to all sorts of little tricks—all that sort of storyteller stuff: irony, poetic justice, coincidence, symbolism, tropes, archetypes, even deus ex machina. You do know what that is right?” He raises a brow.

  “Pish posh. Of course I do, you cad. I’m not some illiterate peasant. But since you do so seem to love to explain such things, why don’t you go ahead, then?”

  “It’s when a miraculous rescue of some sort swoops in and saves the hero who you’dve thunk was certainly doomed. But you know that.”

  “Of course.” She nods smugly. “But I’m concerned that if he only cares about telling a good story, how good of a companion can he be?”

  “I don’t like to speak ill of him. The fact of the matter is we may have to play to his whims. He may have set up a good story for us to play our roles in.”

  “What are you talking about? I want to speak to this Storyteller, to let him know how things shall be.”

  The cloaked brother begins nodding up and down, over and over.

  Jacob says, “As you wish.”

  The cloaked brother brings out a playing card from one of his pockets and hands it to her. It isn’t a regular sort of card. Looking at it, she reads the words written on it: Dramatic reveal.

  The cloaked figure says, “The truth of the matter…” He speaks in a strange voice, quite different from the one she is used to. He also has an English accent rather than a German one. He pulls his hood down. “…is that you’ve been speaking to him all along.”

  The Queen of Hearts gasps as she sees the cloaked figure is not the 17 year old boy she had known all these years as the third Brother Grimm. No, the man before her looks to be in his 40’s with glasses and a big bald spot on top of his head. “I am the Storyteller…” he says dramatically. He adds, “And I just told you so, dramatically!” He plucks the card from her hand.

  The Queen of Hearts rolls her eyes. “Well I agree, I was surprised. I thought you were the other Brother Grimm.” She sees that the other brothers don’t seem all that surprised, so they must have known it was the Storyteller.

  A smirk forms on the Storyteller’s face. “Ah, are you referring to the Brother Grimm who entered your world, and who you imprisoned with his other brothers all those years?”

  “Yes,” the Queen of Hearts says, “that’d be the one.”

  “I must tell you, that I have a special mask I wore. Because who you thought was the third brother was me all along!” he says dramatically while staring intensely, unwaveringly into her eyes.

  She looks at him for a moment. “Pish posh. No mask is as good as that.”

  He sniffs. “Mine was. All that time, I was right there within your very own dungeon the whole time!” He raises a quivering pointing hand in the air for dramatic emphasis.

  “But it doesn’t even make sense. Why go through the bother of being imprisoned all those years? Just so you could be ironic?”

  “Yes! Irony is one of my greatest devices. For I am the Storyteller!”

  “So no other reason? Irony is your reason?” She smirks.

  “Do not mock irony!”

  “You don’t even have the same body type as him. He was 17 years old.”

  “I exercised!”

  “You don’t even have the same voice. I spoke to him several times.”

  “Blimey!” He stomps his foot. “Don’t get in the way of the irony! The beautiful irony.”

  “Well, maybe if you could make your voice sound like him, I might believe you.”

  He stomps. “I am an artist. I’m the Storyteller! And my irony is my art!”

  She sniffs. “Well the irony just doesn’t seem very believable, that’s all.”

  He waves his hand dismissively. “Enough of this. I have more to inform you of. Things upon which your very fate, and indeed all of Wonderland’s depends!” He raises his hand again.

  “Go on, then.”

  “You and Malice shall go against each other. There is a chance that many will lose their lives, and indeed one of you two queens may have to die in order for the other to succeed.” His voice takes on a deeper more ominous tone. “Which makes what I’m about to tell you that much more difficult.”

  He locks eyes with her and doesn’t speak, move or even blink for several long seconds, which fills the Queen of Hearts with the dreadful fear that he is about to reveal something both of import and inconvenience.

  “This is called suspense,” he says quietly out the side of his mouth.

  The Queen of Hearts waits. He hands her a card that says, Ironic twist.

  “For I must tell you…” he says. “Malice… well… perhaps I shouldn’t tell, no I must! Malice…the girl who has become your greatest rival… Well…Malice…is your daughter.”

  She gives him a look. “Well it seems like I’d remember that. I’ve never had any children.”

  “I know,” he says, “that’s what makes it even more ironic.”

  “Poppycock. You fail at your stupid irony.” She tears the Ironic twist card in two, tears again and throws the pieces in his face.

  He sighs. “My dear lady. I know it may have been quite challenging to your suspension of disbelief, but if you had simply been polite enough to go along with it, it would’ve made for quite an interesting story.”

  The Queen of Hearts crosses her arms. “It was stupid because of biology. Women notice when they have children.”

  Sulkily he says, “You could’ve glossed over that fact for the sake of the irony. It was such beautiful irony.”

  “It was rubbish irony. Is all your irony like that?” She narrows her eyes at him. “So where is the real third Brother Grimm?”

  He nods, now hands her a card.

  There are two words on the card. She only has the chance to read the first, which is Blackout before everything goes black.

  Chapter 4

  When the Queen of Hearts comes to again, she is lying upon a carpet.

  She’s inside what looks to be a medium sized bedroom. The walls are gray stone. She sees a bed and Wilhelm, Jacob and the Storyteller seated on chairs to its side. Without his cloak, the Storyteller looks like an ordinary Victorian gentleman.

  The Queen of Hearts doesn’t have a very good view from her vantage point, but she can hear the Storyteller orating: “And then the Princess laid a kiss upon the top of the frog’s head.”

  The Queen of Hearts grunts as she rises up to an upright position. And the three guys turn to look at her.

  “Ah, you’re up,” says Wilhelm.

  She shouts, “This is outrageous that you would leave me upon the floor like this! I am a queen!”

  Jacob says, “Well, actually you were usurped.”

  “Usurped? Absurd! I’ve escaped, and I shall regain my castle!”

  The Storyteller says, “Well until then, you’re in my castle. We couldn’t put you in a chair for fear you’d fall out. But now, you’re awake, so please join us for this most momentous messaging.”

  The Queen of Hearts looks to her sides before starting to get up. She sees the card she’d been holding lying next to her, picks it up and reads the words, Blackout Transition. “What is this?” She waves the card. “Oh, won’t you fools help me up!”

  The brothers walk to her and pull her up by grasping her hands. The Queen of Hearts doesn’t like touching these two gits, but her full-hooped dress can make complicated maneuvering difficult
.

  She’d dropped the card when she was being picked up. Wilhelm stoops to pick it off the ground and hands it to her. “There you are. Now if you’ll just—”

  “Blackout Transition!” she shouts. “Why did you give me this card?” she says as she stomps over to the Storyteller who is seated in a chair next to the bed. A young girl of about 11 with long brown hair lies in a night gown on her back with her eyes closed.

  “I thought—”

  The Queen of Hearts would love to wake up whoever this brat is with her screaming. “Nincompoop!” Just to drive her point home, she crumples the card and tosses it into the crease of the book in his lap.

  He clears his throat. “Yes, well I thought it would be better for the story. With a blackout transition you don’t have to deal with all the traveling and boring interludes. You can get right to the next exciting part and still leave a lot of things mysterious and unknown.”

  “My life is not a story, you idiot!”

  He gives a smug little smile. “Of course it is. All our lives are, though most peoples’ lives are monotonous, full of boring parts—not enough drama, you see, or irony, for that matter. I like my stories to have irony.”

  “Oh, you prat! You knocked me out!”

  “Or did I?” he says with a raised brow.

  “Okay. What’d you do? Use some sort of potion?”

  He leans and says, “It’s a mystery.”

  “Ooooh!” she shouts in frustration. “Off with his head!” she shouts out of habit, but quickly looks embarrassed, for there are no guard cards around to carry out her orders.

  “Come now,” the Storyteller coos. “We’ve a more important matter to address.”

  One of the brothers sets a chair next to the others.

  “Oh, fine.” The Queen of Hearts sits, causing her royal gown to rise up. “But no more blackouts. Don’t think I won’t have you beheaded. And praytell, who is that, anyway?” She points at the little girl who hasn’t moved at all, except to breathe.

  The Storyteller says, “Oh that is my daughter, my little Sleeping Beauty. We are going to draw upon her dream energy to contact Alice in the other realm.”