Free After Alice by Gregory Maguire

“They buried me under the Iffley yew. A new grave was open and they packed me on top of a coffin before they filled in the hole. It’s true cats have nine lives, you know. But cats can’t count. So I don’t know where I am.”
    â€œI don’t know where I am either. But I know where I want to be. Won’t you please tell me where I can find another key?”
    The cat-­head didn’t reply, but set to licking the ocean out of the teacup. As it beaded up on the cat’s whiskers, it no longer looked like drops of salty sea, but like cream. “Since this is my day, by and large, I have no reason to satisfy the urges of the most peculiar mouse I have ever met. Still, I’m feeling fat and satisfied. Do climb into my mouth, my dear. More than one way to get into that garden, you know.”
    At great speed, the mouth dipped very close to her. The smile looked less hungry than kind, but Ada stepped back. “I am too timid,” she said, “and we’ve hardly been introduced. Another time, perhaps.”
    The haunted mouth began to fade. “Very well. I can wait. May I give you a bit of advice?”
    â€œPlease do.”
    â€œDon’t take the advice of anyone you meet here. We’re all mad.”
    Ada thought about it. I’ve just met you, and your advice is not to trust you. If I don’t take your advice, then I should trust you. I guess I have to trust you and not trust you. Your advice wheels about like the keyhole. There’s no way in.
    Watching the cat-­head dissolve much as daylight does, by unnamable degrees, Ada’s eyes fell again on the words in the ceiling tracery. DON’T LOOK UP . Why trust that advice? Noticing that the plaster tracery had sent tendrils down the paneling, and that they were beginning to take root in the floor, she found a foothold and then a second. She began to climb toward the green heaven.

 
    CHAPTER 15
    M rs. Brummidge poured; Mrs. Brummidge squeezed the lemons; Mrs. Brummidge scooped the sugar; Mrs. Brummidge took a great wooden spoon and stirred the concoction. “Whilst you was out reading and losing track of Alice,” she said to Lydia, “that governess from the Vicarage came sniffing about for Ada Boyce, who’d been sent here with a jar of marmalade. But we never seen her, nor the marmalade, which will be welcome should it ever arrive.”
    â€œYoung ladies these days,” said Lydia, deciding how to proceed. “One would think there were gypsies about, the way small girls disappear.”
    â€œWell, our Alice has her own compass, no doubt about that and don’t we know it well. But Ada Boyce is docile as a lambkin.”
    â€œA mammoth, compromised lambkin.”
    â€œDon’t be snarky. Ada’s lighting out on her lonesome vexes her governess no end. You’ve not seen the poor afflicted child, did you?”
    â€œWell, I did. And then I did not,” said Lydia. “I said as much to Miss Armstrong as she flurried by me after having accosted you for news. She’s a high-­spirited ostrich, not made for patience, I think.”
    â€œWell, that household, ” said Mrs. Brummidge darkly.
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œI once went by to borrow some malt vinegar? That time the grocer was gone away? Due to his old gaffer’s getting his head split open by a falling chamber pot? The kitchen door of the Vicarage was open to the sun and their cook didn’t hear my knock, so I stepped inside.” Mrs. Brummidge looked this way and that, as if there were agents who might hear her spilling testimony against the House of Boyce. “She was drinking tea from the spout . Oh, it’s an ill-­run house, from garret to cistern. I don’t wonder Miss Armstrong flusters so.” At this she caught herself. Too much had been said. She finished up with the lemon barley. She whisked a tray from the shelves beneath the window. “Rhoda, look smart.