Furthermore(57)

Tears were streaking fast down her face and though she fought valiantly to hold on to hope, she wasn’t sure how to fight this.

Panic had overtaken her.

Alice was just in the middle of giving Oliver another good shake when her eyes hit upon the ruler she’d dropped so carelessly onto the ground. The inscription in the blond wood was staring up at her.

SNAP IN THREE IN CASE OF EMERGENCY

If this wasn’t an emergency, Alice was a dill pickle.

She didn’t hesitate—desperation had left her no options. She grabbed the ruler, held it in place with her foot, snapped it twice—leaving her with three broken pieces—and cried, “Help! Help! This is an emergency!”

And everything slowed.

The scene before her went soft and blurry, and a moment later, all things froze. The bees went still in midair; sitting birds went silent mid-chirp. Only Alice was free to move, and when she did, she stood up.

A crack, a zip, and an exclamation point later, three extremely thin, ludicrously tall, bright orange doors were set before her. Hung on each door was a different sign:

STEP THROUGH TO FIX YOUR ARM

ENTER HERE TO SAVE YOUR FRIEND

OPEN ME TO FIND YOUR FATHER

And then, in small print under each sign,

CHOOSE ONLY ONE DOOR OR DIE A PAINFUL DEATH





It’s a great testament to the tender heart of our dear Alice that she did not agonize over this decision. Alice Alexis Queensmeadow knew right away what she would do.

(She’d decided to save Oliver, of course.)

Alice would no longer be bullied by the tricks and games of Furthermore. She didn’t care what the doors said. She would have her friend and her father. (And maybe her arm, too.)

She would find a way.

So she marched right up to the door she’d chosen, turned the knob with great conviction, and tripped—in the most unflattering way—straight over the threshold. With a sudden twist in her stomach and the uncomfortable displacement of her heart to her throat, Alice fell forward, screaming, into a strange sky. She flipped upside down only to tumble right side up only to plummet horribly to her death, and it was only the sound of someone else’s blistering screams that so swiftly silenced her own.

Oliver came barreling through the sky like a bullet, slamming into Alice so hard she nearly knocked her head against his nose. She righted him as best she could and then took hold of his hand, squeezing it tightly, relief and joy flooding through her. She had no idea how much she’d come to care for Oliver until she’d nearly lost him.

“Don’t worry,” was the first thing she said to him. “Everything will be alright.”

And Oliver beamed at her.

After ascertaining that he was indeed in one piece and not two, Alice quickly explained everything that’d happened with the fox and her ruler and the emergency doors, careful to leave out the part about things changing colors. (Alice wasn’t ready to talk about that yet.) Oliver’s head was spinning with the weight of all this frightening new information, but somehow, despite the horrors they’d seen, a huge smile had hinged itself to his cheeks. (Alice had chosen him, you see. Alice had chosen to save him, and Oliver was euphoric. It was all rather sweet.)

But Alice was thinking of other things now.

The thing was they’d been falling through the sky for quite a long while now, and they still hadn’t reached the bottom of anything—and it was beginning to make Alice anxious. To make matters worse, it was taking a great deal of effort to keep her skirts out of her face (and with only one arm, my goodness), and she was growing tired.

“Oliver,” she said.

“Yes?” he said.

“When do you think we’ll reach the bottom?”

“Of what?”

“Of . . .” Alice looked around at the emptiness surrounding them. The bluest skies, a couple of clouds, and no sun she could see from where she sank. “Of this,” she said, nodding at nothing in particular. “When do we get to the bottom of this?”

“I haven’t any idea,” he said simply. And right then they hit the ground.

Alice and Oliver landed with two great thumps, one after the other, the impact rattling their teeth and bruising their knees.

“Right,” said Alice, as she picked herself up off the ground, dizzy and light-headed. She squinted at the scene set before them. “I take it you’ve never been here before, have you?”

Oliver shook his head.

They were standing in a narrow lane walled in by hedges three times taller than Oliver and packed so densely with roses and lilies and peonies and lilacs (and gardenias and freesia and hyacinth) that the two of them could hardly breathe. The flowers were stunning, but the sweet scent was so intoxicating as to be sickening, and the farther they walked, the more difficult it was to tolerate.

“Well,” said Alice. “I suppose we’re about to die, aren’t we?”

“You jest,” said Oliver, raising an eyebrow. “But it’s entirely possible.”

Alice shot him a halfhearted grin. “Well then, should we down-exit?”

Oliver laughed. “You can’t just down-exit your way through Furthermore, Alice. You’re only allowed to do it once every five villages.”

“See—how do you even know that?” Alice said, throwing her only hand up in defeat. “I haven’t any idea how to go about unearthing information like that.” She sighed, then mumbled, “And anyway I was wondering why it hadn’t worked for me earlier.”