Furthermore (10 page)

“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.

There was food, everywhere.

Cups full of nuts standing in bowls, jars and jars of honey stacked in storefronts, glasses full of flowers just sitting on tables. Alice wanted very desperately to eat one. Just one, she thought, couldn't have been so bad.

She said as much to Oliver.

“That is not food,” he said to her. “Those are decorations. People in Furthermore do not eat flowers. They eat animals.”

“Animals!” Alice cried, and shuddered, thinking of all the cows and sheep and birds back home. The people of Ferenwood lived in peace with living things, only occasionally borrowing milk or eggs or honey in exchange for a lifelong friendship with creatures older and wiser than they. Alice was duly horrified and she suddenly remembered Oliver's hair, which had always reminded her of silver herring. She pointed an accusing finger in his direction. “You eat them, too, don't you?
Don't you?
Oh, those poor fish!”

Oliver went pink. “I haven't any idea what you mean,” he said, and cleared his throat. “And anyway, no food is to touch your lips, not here and not at all, at least not until I tell you so.”

She scowled.

He scowled back.

“Remember what I said earlier?” Oliver scolded her. “About how we aren't to break a single rule if we are to find your father?”

Alice nodded.

“Well, this is the first one,” he said. “So don't break it.”

“Fine,” she said. And she pursed her lips, quietly hating him.

They crept through town quietly, doing little to draw attention to themselves. Strangers offered them a few glances but little else, which Alice thought was kind of them, considering how awful she must've looked with her sea-washed hair and clothes. Her outfit was fairly ruined and her hair was a wispy nest, and though she looked nothing at all like anyone in Slumber, they didn't seem to mind. She realized it was because they couldn't really tell.

In the dark, they were all the same.

“Here we are,” Oliver finally said.

He pointed to what appeared to be a ladies' toilet. It was little more than a wooden shack standing in the middle of all the dimness, and when Alice gaped at Oliver, all he did was shrug.

So into the shack she went—
tick tock tick tock
—and out the shack she came.

She shook out her skirts and smoothed out her top before
joining Oliver where he was standing, and did her best to appear proper. She cleared her throat a little.

“I'm ready now,” she said.

Oliver glanced at her. “And how are you feeling? Still hungry?”

“Yes,” she said. “Quite.”

“Good. Very good. Shall we?” He gestured to the main path.

“Where are we going?” she asked as she fell into step with him.

“We have to pick up something important while we're here. I just hope it'll be in the same place I left it.”

“Oh?” said Alice. “And what is it?”

“A pocketbook.”

Alice laughed. “But you've already got one,” she said, nodding at his bag.

Oliver shot her a look. “I most certainly have not.”

“Oh Oliver.” Alice sighed, rolling her eyes. “We'll get you ten pocketbooks if you love them so.”

Oliver was perplexed but let it go. He seemed distracted—nervous, even, as he wove a path through town, but Alice was experiencing no such nervousness. She followed Oliver through the narrow cobblestoned lanes and tried to be present in each moment, appreciating the scents and scenery of this new land. Lanterns were lit along every path and the sky was positively mad with power, but even so, it was hard to see.
Night light made everything invisible around the edges, all slinky silhouettes and occasional spotlights. Alice did her best to keep up with Oliver, but her efforts required more than several apologies to the bodies she collided with. Still, it smelled like cardamom in Slumber, and the pinked cheeks of bundled strangers made her want to stay forever.

Oliver, however, was not having it.

“But that's not fair,” she said to him. “What if there are clues here? Clues to where Father has gone? We came all this way—I really think we should investigate the people! If Father has been here, we should shop the shops he shopped and climb the trees he climbed and see how the gentlemen wear their hair and, oh, Oliver, I would dearly love t—”

“Absolutely not,” Oliver said, stopping in place. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Alice, please stop insisting we stay. I already know where your father has gone. I don't need any more clues. And besides it all, you don't understand how important it is that we—”

“But—”

“It's not safe!” he said, finally losing his temper.

“It's not safe? To pop into a shop? Not safe to knock a hello on a neighbor's house?”

“Not safe, no! Not safe at all! We cannot, under any circumstances, go into the
light
,” he hissed. “Don't you understand?”

“No, I do not
understand
,” Alice snapped. She shook her
head and shook off his hand. “You are being insufferable,” she said, “and I'm so tired of it I could fall asleep standing up.”

“But—”

“Now I haven't a single idea which feathers you pluck in private—(this was a common Ferenwood expression; I'll try to explain later)—but I can't guess which either. And my right hand to rainlight, Oliver Newbanks, I swear it, if you go on an
inch
more with this nonsense of answering
none
of my questions, I will find a lake and push you in it and then,” she said, poking him in the chest, “then you'll discover the only use in having a head so full of hot air.”

Oliver had gone reddish.

Humility had gotten lost on its journey to his ego, but the two had finally been reunited, and the meeting appeared to be painful. Oliver swallowed hard and looked away. “Alright,” he said. “Alright. I'm sorry. But let us find a quiet place first. A private place. We won't have much time to spare, but I'll do my best to tell you the things you need to know.” His eyes darted left and right. “And please,” he begged, “for Feren's sake, lower your voice.”

Alice sighed.

“Oh, very well,” she nearly said. “Fine, fine, let's carry on,” she nearly said. She nearly said she was perfectly ready to be amiable.

But nearly said was not quite enough. Alice was distracted,
frustrated, and embarrassingly stubborn, and she had stopped paying attention to anyone but Oliver. So it should come as no surprise to you then, that in that moment, just as she was about to grant Oliver her acquiescence, she was plowed into.

Apologies abounded.

Excuse me
and
pardon me
and
oh goodness
collided in the air. Alice was dusting herself off and adjusting her skirts and clambering to her feet (with no help from Oliver, mind you), when she first saw the person with whom her body had collided.

Friends, he was the most handsome boy she'd ever seen.

He was tall but not too tall, perfect but not too perfect, dark hair, dark eyes, dark skin. He looked like molasses had made a man. Her exact opposite in every way. Skin like silk jam, hair as dark as pitch. Eyes with lashes so thick and black and oh, how they fluttered when he blinked. Was he blinking? He was staring. At her.

At her?

Where she looked like nothing, he looked like everything, and she had never been so speechless in all her life.

Be still her heart, he was smiling at her.

Alice was convinced, after a moment or two, that she was most certainly in love with him. It seemed like the only logical explanation for what she was feeling. And it wasn't until Oliver pointed out (rudely) that her mouth was open (only a
little, really) that she was startled back into her bones.

She gasped, surprised by how loudly her jaw snapped shut, and wondered how best to ask the beautiful boy to marry her. He was maybe Oliver's age, which meant he was close to Alice's age, which meant none of them had any actual interest in marrying anyone, but that didn't change what Alice said next.

“Will you—” she began to say, and thought better of it.

“Would you—” she said instead, and reached for his hand.

Oliver snatched her arm away and gave her a very mean look. “What are you doing?” he hissed.

“Oh, hush,” she whispered, waving him away.

“Good sleep to you,” the beautiful boy said to her, smiling wide. “It certainly is a pleasure to be meeting you tonight.”

He had a slight accent; his voice was deep and musical, like maybe it wasn't real. Like maybe he was speaking a language she didn't know she could understand.

She didn't much care either way.

“It is a very great pleasure to be meeting you, too,” she said quickly, ignoring Oliver, who was already trying to pull her away.

“Yes, yes,” Oliver said. “Pleasure. We must be on our way now. Thank you, good-bye!”

“Wait!” said the boy urgently. He scanned Oliver's face for only a moment before turning back to Alice. “You are new here. I have never seen anyone like you before,” he said, and
as he did, he reached out, tangling a strand of her unfortunate white hair around his fingers.

Alice nearly fainted.