Furthermore(25)

“Well when will it be obvious to me?”

He squeezed her hand. “Soon, I’m sure.”

“But how soon?”

“Patience, Alice. Best to introduce yourself to patience now, so that it might find you when you call upon it later.”

“But I have so many questions,” she said, tapping his shoulder very hard. “Why would they want to snatch up visitors? Is that what happened to Father?”

Oliver smiled at her in the dark. “Not exactly, no. Your father is ten steps smarter than all that.”

“But—”

“While I’d like to answer all your questions,” he said lightly, “we’ve little time to spare and many appetites to avoid. I won’t be the reason you end up in someone’s stew tonight.”

Alice had not a single idea what he was talking about and she told him so.

“Well,” said Oliver, “if you don’t already know what to fear in Furthermore, I can’t imagine you’d want to change that now. Perhaps it’s best to be ignorant just a moment longer.” And then he held up a finger and peered up at the sky.

A moment, it turned out, was all it took.

The sky exploded with light, shot through with so many stars and moons and glittering planets that it was blinding in a whole new way. It looked as though the night sky had tried to snow but the flakes had fallen upside down and gotten stuck.

It was, in a word, magical.

Not just the sky, but the whole village. People appeared out of nowhere, shops and businesses busy in an instant. Food was cooking and chimneys were puffing and children were crying and parents were shouting and the hustle and bustle was all it took to shuffle Alice right along, right into the heart of it, and she felt her spirits soar despite her many worries. Eyes wide-open, Alice took it all in. This was a real adventure, wasn’t it? This was what she’d always dreamed of. And, oh, to find Father in the process! She nearly ran into the arms of this new world.

But first, she had priorities.





“Alice, no!”

Oliver tackled her.

“But I’m hungry,” she said, staring at the flower she’d nearly plucked out of the ground.

“You musn’t,” he said. “You can’t. And you absolutely shouldn’t.”

“But—”

“No,” he said firmly. “Only on special occasions are visitors allowed to eat anything in Furthermore. And this is not one of them.”

“Only on special occasions?” she said back to him. “And what are they to do until those occasions arrive?” Her hands were on her hips now. “Are they expected to starve?”

“Yes,” he said, and very gently and with a smile she did not anticipate. “Now,” he said, clapping his hands together, all business. “Will you be requiring use of the toilets? There’s only one set of toilets in all of Slumber and they’re right here at the start, so best to use them now if you need to. It’ll be a long trip, you know.”

“I—well, yes. Okay.” Alice dropped her hands and looked away. It was hard on her pride to be treated like an imbecile, and she hated the way Oliver seemed to know so much and she so little. She was fighting no small battle to be cooperative, if only for Father’s sake, but her patience had little practice. “But I’m also very hungry,” she said, determined to be heard. “I haven’t had any noonlunch.”

“Good,” Oliver said. “That will help us quite a bit.”

“And how’s that?”

Oliver squinted up at the night sky and, once again, offered no answers. Alice glared at his back. Oliver was secretly relishing his role as leader of the two and, under the pretense of being older and wiser, he hoarded his knowledge, miserly sparing only a sentence or three when he felt he must. But Oliver had underestimated his female companion and her capacity for being condescended to, and he would no doubt pay for his youthful arrogance. With every new slight and casual indifference, Alice was a glass half empty, slowly filling bottom to top with resentment. As for now, all was well enough, as she distracted herself with the splendors of her new environment, but Oliver would later find much to revise in his early moments with Alice Alexis Queensmeadow.

“Now then,” Oliver said, glancing at her, “we have only a couple of hours before the sun wakes up again, and a lot to do before that happens. Best to get moving,” he said, patting her on the back as a parent might. “And let’s get you to the ladies’ toilets, shall we?”

Alice grimaced and trudged on, mildly embarrassed and ignoring the urge to pop Oliver in the nose. She sighed loudly whenever they passed a patch of grass and a promising bud, the grumbles in her stomach growing louder by the moment. She knew she would be a terrible companion if she missed too many meals and it worried her; this journey was too important. She needed to be her best self—healthy and full of energy—and Oliver didn’t seem to care. He was grinning cheek to cheek, happy in a way she didn’t know he could be, and she realized then that Oliver was fond of Furthermore. Happy to be back. Maybe happy to be home.

Strange.

Alice skipped a little as they got closer to the heart of town, abandoning her frustration in exchange for excitement, eager to be seeing and doing new things. This was a thrilling journey for a young girl (and newly twelve years old, lest we forget) who’d never left home in all her life. More exciting still, Slumber wasn’t at all like Ferenwood, where everything was an explosion of color; no, Slumber was black and bright, an inky glow, orange-yellow spilling out of corners, puncturing the sky, creeping past their feet. It was cozy and merry and perfectly odd, and if Alice weren’t so preoccupied with thoughts of Father, she might’ve been more inclined to enjoy it.