Furthermore(56)
“I’m afraid I can’t. You would do better to return home.” He turned to leave.
“Wait!” Alice grabbed the fox’s leg.
He stopped and stared at Alice’s hand.
“Will you let my friend go?” she asked.
The fox narrowed his eyes. “You may go freely on your way, Ms. Queensmeadow, but I’m afraid the boy will have to come with us.”
“What?” said Alice, stunned. “But I thought you didn’t approve of eating children—”
“I don’t approve of eating good children. But your friend is an untrustworthy, duplicitous lout, whose long list of infractions could fill the many trunks of our trees.” The fox held his head high. “Little liars will not be rewarded in Furthermore.”
“But—he didn’t mean any harm—”
“Liars have the longest tongues, Ms. Queensmeadow. A delicacy we all enjoy. And we’ve all been hungry for so long, you see, that it’s hard to deny ourselves a fresh meal when it’s so well deserved. I’m sure you understand.”
With that, the fox took a deep bow, broke free of Alice’s hand, and scampered off in Oliver’s direction.
Alice sprang to her feet, shoving her belongings in her pockets as best she could with one hand. The four foxes were already busy carting Oliver off into the distance, and now that his mouth was unmuffled, Alice could hear him screaming into the sunlight.
She ran forward, horrified but determined, and snatched the ruler from her pocket, charging at the paper creatures as though it were a dagger. She swung and swatted at the foxes, kicking and yelling as they yelped and fell away. Alice hadn’t managed to do much real damage to the animals (who, for paper creatures, made formidable opponents), but her own friendly fox looked so heartbroken by her betrayal that Alice was tempted to feel sorry for him. Fortunately, her guilt was quickly wicked away. She didn’t care that her life had been spared—no fox would eat her friend, no matter the lies he’d told.
But the foxes would not be beat.
They threw themselves forward more quickly than Alice could shove them back. She managed to land a few hard thwacks with her ruler, but her single arm was quickly tiring, and though Alice was now huddled protectively over Oliver’s body, the foxes were showing no signs of letting up. Alice had underestimated the power of animal hunger; these creatures had been promised a meal and they would not leave without it. Oliver tried several times to aid in his own defense, but the foxes were thrashing about so forcefully—growling and snapping—that Alice was worried they’d bite his head clean off.
“Down-exit!” she cried, crouched low over Oliver’s back. “Down-exit, please!”
But nothing was working. (Oliver, to his credit, had tried desperately to persuade the foxes to let him go, but his talent had been withered by fear; his occasional flickers of success weren’t strong enough to fight all four foxes.) Alice, meanwhile, was becoming increasingly panicked. She was fumbling, losing her grip on the ruler as her arm weakened under strain, and all it took was a moment’s hesitation—
Alice was flung backward.
She landed heavily on her only arm, her head slamming hard against the ground. It took her a few seconds to blink away the dizziness, but she clenched her jaw against the dull, throbbing pain and drew herself up, determined not to sway. Alice could still hear Oliver shouting and fighting, landing kicks and punches wherever he could, and she was just about to charge forward again, ruler clenched tightly in her hand, when she felt the ground shift beneath her. One of the foxes had slammed its head into Oliver’s jaw with a resounding crack—and Oliver had gone still.
The foxes snapped around his limp figure, fighting to see who’d get to take the first bite, and Alice felt her brain disconnect from her body.
“NO!” she cried.
She stumbled as she threw herself forward, falling hard onto her knees, her agonized screams ringing out across the barren landscape. She bent into the raging heat and blinding light of this strange town and felt the fresh pain of fear and loss pry open an iron door in her chest and all at once—everything changed.
The land, the sky, the foxes, and even Oliver: disappeared.
Alice had reduced the color of all things around her—the large, the infinitesimal, and everything in between—to a single shade of black, and she was so wholly unaware of the magnitude of what she’d done that it wasn’t until she heard the confused, frenzied foxes knocking into one another that she realized she’d snuffed out the sun. Alice alone stood in stark contrast to the painted night. She examined her single arm—the white of her skin glowing neon in the dark—and for the very first time in her life, Alice Alexis Queensmeadow felt powerful.
Alice heard the foxes scamper off into the distance, the four of them no longer brave enough to fight blindly. When she was finally sure they were gone for good, Alice closed her eyes, drew in a deep breath, and—with the simple twitch of her mind—reset the colors she’d so fully distorted.
She spotted Oliver instantly.
He was on his back, his arms and legs splayed, his lip bloody—but, thank heavens, he was still breathing. Alice ran to her friend, tossed her ruler to the ground, and pulled him up against her.
She shook him, but he wouldn’t wake. She slapped him, but he wouldn’t speak. “Oliver, please!” she cried. But he wouldn’t stir.