Furthermore (27 page)

Oliver met Alice's eyes in a sudden panic,
and she knew there was no time to deliberate. She took Oliver's hand, scanned the frames for a scene that reminded her most of home and love and Father, and pushed their clasped hands through the painting.

It really was that simple.

Their bodies were sucked through by a force Alice could not name, and soon they were pulled and pushed through a tightness that squeezed their chests until she was sure they would burst, and when Alice next opened her eyes, she and Oliver were standing in what looked like an ancient prison cell; it smelled like mold and rust, the ceiling so low Oliver was forced to stoop.

The two of them didn't even have a chance to panic before a slim panel in the wall was forced open, letting a slice of light slip through. Alice squinted against the brightness.

“What's your business?” a voice barked at them. It sounded
distinctly male, but there was no way to be certain.

“I-I've come to fix my arm,” said Alice nervously. “I heard you were a p—”

“Which arm is it?” the stranger snapped.

“My right.”

The man grunted, but said no more.

“Please,” she said. “Please help us—”

The panel slammed shut.

Alice was nearly in tears with worry.

This was their last chance, and she didn't know what they'd do if the painter didn't allow them clearance to pass. And no sooner had she begun to wonder whether the painter wouldn't simply leave them in that cell to die, when one of the cell walls swung open, and she and Oliver were ejected unceremoniously into a foot of fresh snow.

Once she shook the snow out of her eyes, Alice tried to take in their surroundings; but no matter how many times she blinked, she couldn't get the colors to come into focus. The trouble was, there were no colors here at all.

It was like a scene clipped from a newspaper and made whole unto itself. They were in the middle of an eerily flat, snowy landscape, not a single tree in sight, and every shade and shadow was a variation on white and black. Compared to this world, Alice was practically neon, and her whiteness seemed suddenly nuanced, layered: its own kind of color.
Where she and Oliver felt real and full of life, everything in this world looked drab and dim and, frankly, a little dead. It was as though all color had been snuffed out, sapped of life, and in its place were gray skies, gray wind, gray cold. Before them and beyond them was absolutely nothing, save one single, solitary structure:

A giant half globe, made entirely of gray glass.

Its contents were spare, but visually arresting: the pops of black that made up the furniture contrasted starkly against the very white snow, making for a stunning, simple presentation of beauty in contrasts.

More romantic still: It was snowing.

Confetti flakes fell from the sky, piling up all around them and frosting the top of the gray-glass globe. It looked like a lost ornament, fallen and frozen in the snow of a holiday season. The more Alice looked at this black-and-white scene, the more she began to appreciate the subtleties of light and shadow, and though Alice eventually found it quite lovely, it was also entirely foreign to her. They were not in the painting she'd chosen—the painting she'd chosen had been rich in autumnal colors—which had to mean that they'd not been refused access to the painter.

They'd not been refused.

Oh, the shock of it. Alice thought she might scream.

So she did just that. She fell back in the snow and she shouted
for joy and she grabbed Oliver's arm and said, “This isn't the painting I picked—this isn't the one! The one I picked was in a meadow, and it was autumn, and there were leaves on the ground, and there were little homes everywhere, and, oh, Oliver,” she said. “We made it!”

Oliver sat down beside her, looking solemn but kind, and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “Yes,” he said softly. “I daresay we have.”

They hugged, he and she, for a very long time, just clinging to each other, happy to be alive; grateful to have survived yet another stage of Furthermore. It was starting to wear on them now, nearly dying all the time. Alice promised herself that if they made it back to Ferenwood she would never again complain about a lack of adventure. She would be perfectly happy with a walk to the town square and a peek at the boats in Penelope's garden. She tried to convince herself that it would be enough for her, that she could be happy with a simple, safe life tethered to Ferenwood, but even now, at the tail end of a crisis, she couldn't quite manage it. Because she knew that wasn't true. She wanted to go home, yes, and she wanted to spend more time with Father and she wanted to eat tulips and sit by the pond, but even after all the trials and tribulations of Furthermore—or perhaps because of them—she didn't think she could ever go back to an ordinary life. She knew she'd never say no to adventure.

Alice broke away from Oliver and beamed at him.

“Don't just park your hindquarters in the snow,” someone barked at them. “Good grief, girl, you'll catch your death out there!”

Alice and Oliver looked up to discover a man scowling at them. He looked human enough, but the distance between his world and theirs seemed infinite. She realized then that a man in black and white seems impossibly gray, and even more impossible to reach; it was almost as though he existed in a different dimension.

Something was nagging at the back of Alice's mind.

A bit of conversation.

Something Tim had told her.

“Hey! I'm talking to you,” the man shouted again, and Alice sprang to attention. The man was brandishing a cane at the two of them. Alice noticed that he had a scruffy black beard and wore a wool cap that pushed down over his eyes, and between his lips was an unlit pipe, and as he talked, it bobbed around in his mouth.

“Sitting in the snow in a silk gown,” he grumbled. “Up, the lot of you,” he said, poking Oliver with his cane. “Get inside.”

She and Oliver stumbled to their feet and stared at the man.

“Are you—?” she started to say.

“Of course I am,” he said. “Do you see anyone else here?
Now hurry up,” he said. “I've put the kettle on, and it'll be whistling by now.”

They did as they were told and followed the old man toward the half-globe home. The man stopped short a few feet and then began to disappear from his ankles up; it was only as she got closer that Alice realized he was walking down a set of stairs.

They quickly followed his lead.

It was him, then her, then Oliver, disappearing into the ground only to then climb their way back up; except when they finally faced a door, it opened from overhead.

Alice stomped the snow off her feet as they climbed and, as they crossed the threshold up and into the glass home, she did her best not to trail any dirt or wet onto the old man's floor.

Suddenly, she and Oliver were standing in the middle of a clear dome, and looking out at the snowy world from the comfort of a toasty, cozy sanctuary.

As promised, the kettle had already begun to whistle. The old man moved quickly and easily for someone who carried a cane, and she wondered for a moment why he carried it. She noticed then that there was no real kitchen, no living room or bedroom, but one big space where everything sat out in the open; there were no secrets here, no closed doors, no walls or windows.

All the furniture was minimal and spare: clean lines and simple frames, black seat cushions, gray pillows and a threadbare blanket that was neatly folded and placed atop a bed. Solid shades of gray dotted her vision; this home was a place where colors did not exist and patterns were not made. It was steady, sturdy, and extremely tidy. The rug underfoot was soft and gray and fluffy, and not bothered by a single spot.

Alice and Oliver weren't sure what to do with themselves.

It was a strange home for a painter, stranger still that there was no sign of his paintings anywhere. Alice cleared her throat, rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet, and waited for the old man to return.

He came forward with fast, heavy footfalls—now moving without the assistance of his cane—holding two cups of hot tea that spilled into their saucers with his every step, and set them down on a small table around which a large couch and a few chairs had gathered. No cream, no sugar, no please or thank you.

“Well, sit down, then,” said the man, looking from her to Oliver, obviously irritated. He pulled the wool cap off his head to reveal a rather large tuft of dark hair that stuck straight up before falling into his face, and as she and Oliver tentatively took their seats, so did he.

He seemed much younger than Alice had originally thought he was. In fact, she was fairly certain he wasn't old at all. He
was just crabby. She tried to get a better look at his face, but he'd ducked his chin into his chest, and his eyes were now partially obscured by his hair. Alice sat back, confused.

It was coming back to her now—her conversations with Tim—and she looked around, carefully cataloguing all the gray. There was not a spot of bright color anywhere, and Alice was growing more convinced by the moment:

This must be a prison village.

But how could it be? Could the painter also be an inmate? Alice wasn't sure. She didn't know Furthermore well enough to know whether this was possible.

Alice looked to Oliver and nearly told him what she was thinking (she was thinking that if this
was
a prison village, that perhaps this man might be able to tell her how to find Father), but fear had made her too afraid to hope, so she kept her theories to herself.

Oliver cleared his throat.

The painter crossed his legs and leaned back in his chair (she noticed then that he wore thick wool socks), and leveled them with a stare she couldn't quite match. Alice felt too open, too vulnerable and bright-eyed, so she looked away.

“So you've come about your arm, then?” he said to her.

Alice nodded.

“And how did you manage to lose it?” he said.

She blinked up at him, then looked down again, frowning.
“I—well, I made a mistake,” she said, digging the toe of her shoe into the carpet.

“What kind of mistake?” he said.

“I followed a paper fox,” Alice said quietly. “My right arm turned to paper.” She hesitated. “And then the fox ripped my arm off.” Alice didn't know why she was speaking so stiltedly or, more importantly, she didn't know why the painter made her so nervous, but her hand was sweating and her heart was pounding and her emotions were trying to tell her something she couldn't yet hear.

The painter laughed a loud, humorless laugh. “You followed a paper fox and got your arm ripped off.” He sighed. “Yep. Sounds about right.”

His voice was rough from lack of use, but there was something about it that made Alice feel like she was overheating. Something in it—somewhere in the rustiness—that reminded her of something, of someone she could not place—

“What's your name?” he said, tilting his head, and for just a moment, his hair shifted out of his eyes.

Alice thought she might collapse.

“Oliver,” she cried. “Oliver—”

“Your name is Oliver? That's a strange name for a girl.”

“
My
name is Oliver,” said Oliver, who'd jumped up and was now looking anxiously at Alice. “What's wrong?” he said to her. “What's the matter?”

But Alice couldn't get the words out. She was seeing spots; she thought her throat might close up.

“Alice?” said Oliver, panicking. “Alice, what are you—”

“Her name is Alice?” said the painter, who was now on his feet.

“
Father
,” she gasped. “
Father
.”

And then she fainted.

I don't know how much time elapsed
between when she fell and when she woke—Oliver says it was at least several minutes—but when Alice finally blinked open her eyes, they'd already filled to the brim with tears.

Alice Alexis Queensmeadow had finally found Father.

Accidentally, unintentionally (serendipitously), Alice had found Father and she was unsinkably happy.

Their reunion was long and joyous; tears were shed, laughter was shared, stories were recounted from all. Alice's and Oliver's stories are already familiar to you, so I won't bother relating them again, but Father's story was new, and certainly new to you, too, so I'll do my best to remember exactly what was said. However, before I do, I'd like to address one detail that must be bothering you:

Strange, you must think, that Father hadn't recognized Alice himself.

You are wise to wonder so. And when Alice first told me how it all happened, I thought it strange, too. But we must remember that Father had been locked away for three Ferenwood years in the heart of an impossible land. Father had never dreamed—never dared to think it possible—that his young daughter would, firstly, know a single thing about Furthermore and, secondly, have survived long enough to find him, when he, a grown man, had barely survived himself. He had never dreamed Alice might show up. In fact, when Father saw Alice and Oliver requesting permission to enter his village, he accepted their request solely because the young girl he saw—her white hair, her white skin—reminded him a great deal of his own daughter.

Alice, too, had no idea how much she'd changed since the last time she'd seen him. The girl who sat in front of Father now was a girl greatly changed from the nine-year-old Father remembered. This new Alice was confident and bold; she was articulate and passionate; she had become the kind of person who'd lived through hardship and survived with grace. Father hardly recognized her. Though it took very little encouragement for him to be reminded.

Now, let us return to their reunion.

As you might imagine, Alice and Oliver had thousands of questions for Father. What happened after he arrived in Furthermore? Why had he come? Why hadn't he told anyone?
What happened to get him stuck? Was he really a spy? And so forth. But as their conversations were exhaustive, rerouted by endless tangents, and punctuated by waves of tears and silent embraces, I will, in the interest of expediency, make an effort to summarize all that was said in a short set of paragraphs.

Father had indeed been arrested for wasting time, and Enslaved Imprisonment was indeed his punishment. He was sentenced to the prison village of Ink, which was where he'd been isolated ever since. It was a comfortable setup—he had his own home and he wasn't wearing shackles—but what was life without color? No friends, no family (not even a cellmate!), not a single thing to read. Father had been desperately depressed and lonely. He'd grown gruff and angry, and his bitterness made him reject nearly every job request he'd received. Being a painter, you see, was his enslavement. He was forced to do labor for Furthermore as a means of penance, and in this case, it was painting new limbs for those who'd lost them. Occasionally Father would paint someone a leg instead of an arm, or a finger instead of a toe, just to keep things interesting, but mostly it was a tedium of the same, boring work. “You'd be surprised,” he said, “how many people lose limbs in Furthermore.”

But Father's greater story began many moons back, beginning with his own Surrender and with the task he'd been tasked by the Ferenwood Elders. Father, as you know, had
been sent to map the many magical lands and, after having lived and survived in Furthermore so long, he thought he'd have no trouble surviving again. “What I didn't realize,” he said, “was that my brain was different when I was younger. I was successful because my mind was nimble and my ideas about the world were flexible. The tricks and twists of Furthermore were easier to navigate.” He sighed. “But as I got older, I became more set in my ways. It was harder to think differently and it took me longer to figure everything out. I had so much more to lose this time around, and the fear crippled me. I was too nervous, too careful. I made too many mistakes.” He shook his head. “I never should've come back. I wouldn't have dared if I didn't think it would be worth it.”

Oliver, you see, had been right about why Father returned to Furthermore. He was no spy for Ferenwood.

His effort was entirely for Alice. Always for Alice.

This, dear reader, was the most difficult conversation for the group of them to get through, because there was so much emotion to contend with. Alice was devastated to have been the reason Father had put himself in danger. After all, Father had never
wanted
Alice to change—he'd only wanted her to be happy—and it broke her heart to think of all he'd risked for her. Thankfully, her hurts were healing quickly.

And Alice was learning to be happy.

Alice knew that being different would always be difficult;
she knew that there was no magic that would erase narrow-mindedness or iron out the inequities in life. But Alice was also beginning to learn that life was never lived in absolutes. People would both love her and rebuff her; they would show both kindness and prejudice. The simple truth was that Alice would always be different—but to be different was to be extraordinary, and to be extraordinary was an adventure. It no longer mattered how the world saw her; what mattered was how Alice saw herself.

Alice would choose to love herself, different and extraordinary, every day of the week.