The door’s ridiculously small, so much smaller than I thought it had been when Pearl and the rabbit had slipped through it. Despite my new, reduced size, I have to drop down on to my stomach and begin to awkwardly worm my way through the minute doorway.
With my head and arms on the other side of the doorway, I can’t help but gawk in astonishment at the richly coloured garden that I find myself in.
The leaves alone gleam with every type of green you’ve seen, from a shade approaching blue to a thick, dark olive. The blooms range from a sunburst red to midnight blue, with every kind of yellow in between. Shapes are exotic and varied, as if through the design of someone who’s got nothing better to do than paint unimaginable flowers.
As I start to uncomfortably scramble farther through the door, I suddenly find myself painfully wedged in its frame.
‘Ouch!’ I shriek, glancing back to see that the doorframe has suddenly shrunk even tighter around my waist.
‘Ouch! My teeth!’ the doorway complains, abruptly opening wider once more as it howls in agony.
*
‘Just what sort of coating is that?’ the doorway grumbles irately, revealing white, wooden teeth. Teeth that have thankfully cracked on my jacket’s studs, buckles and thick leather.
Without wasting time either replying or expressing shock that a doorway is trying to eat me, I hurriedly drag the rest of my body through the frame, before it decides to clamp down on me once again.
‘You tried to eat me?’ I storm at the doorway.
‘You were warned!’ the doorway protests, pulling its mouth and shattered teeth into an anguished, miserable sneer. ‘Didn’t you read the label?’
‘I thought it was a mistake! I thought it was supposed to say “Eat me”.’
‘Eat me? Why would it say that? Why would I want you to eat me?’
As he speaks – it sounds like a he – he runs a strangely realistic tongue over the edges of his teeth, as if checking where they’re broken.
‘Oh, this is going to cost a fortune to repair!’ he wails. ‘Dentists are so expensive these days!’
‘A dentist? Don’t you mean a carpenter?’
I can’t believe this; I’m actually arguing with a doorway.
‘What would a carpenter know about repairing teeth?’ the doorway sharply snaps back, almost damaging his teeth all the more. ‘Do you get your teeth seen to by a carpenter? Oh, and I suppose you’d have a broken staircase seen to by a dentist?’
‘Doors aren’t supposed to have teeth!’ I insist.
‘Who said? Is that some sort of universal law? Doors can’t have teeth?’
‘Well I’ve never known of any other door that has teeth!’
‘Well I’ve never known of any girl coated in bits of steel and old skin!’
‘Oh no, no!’ It’s only just dawned on me. Were all the other little girls eaten by this dreadful door? ‘You didn’t eat all those other girls who–’
‘All those other girls?’ He sounds affronted, like he can’t believe I would ever believe such a dreadful thing of him. ‘Of course not! They were with the rabbit! They had permission to come in here!’
‘But how am I supposed to get permission?’
‘You ask the rabbit of course!’
‘Where does the rabbit go?’ Tired of my pointless conversation with this ridiculous little doorway, I glance back towards the heavily flowering garden, remembering once more why I’m actually down here. ‘Where does he take the children?’
The garden seems to stretch for mile after mile. Even stranger, however, is that despite my assumption that I must be somewhere deep underground, a wonderfully blue sky stretches endlessly up above me.
‘Into the garden, of course!’ The doorway is still touching the broken tips of his teeth with his tongue. ‘Look, if you could leave me with something to cover the dental costs, I’m quite prepared to forget this whole unfortunate –’
‘Forget it? You can forget thinking I’m going to pay you anything. You tried to eat me!’
I rise to my feet, glowering sternly down at the door.
The doorway gulps, as if realising he’s now in danger of my heavily booted foot making his teeth even worse.
Not that I would, of course. Well, not unless I absolutely had to….
‘Er, well, okay,’ the doorway stammers abjectly. ‘Er, you haven’t, by any chance, got a piece of cake I could eat in your place, I suppose?’
‘Yes, I have as it happens,’ I answer brightly, reaching for one of the slices of cake I’d slipped into a pocket.
I’m just about to feed it into the hungrily waiting doorway when I stop, my hand and the cake I’m holding in it hovering halfway between us.
‘Wait a minute? Wouldn’t this cake make you bigger?’
‘Hmnn…how could it possibly do that?’
It seems to me that he’s trying to sound innocent. I put the cake back in my pocket.
‘No; I don’t think you should have this cake.’
‘Suit yourself,’ the doorway grumbles. ‘But have you thought about how you’re going to get back out of here?’ he adds with a mocking grin.
*
Chapter 9
Leaving the doorway to continue his grumbles about his shattered teeth, I set off along a meandering path. It both weaves and rises slowly up and down as it passes between the towering blooms flanking its edges.
The flowers are incredibly, exotically large, yet not outlandishly so, as I would have expected after drinking the magic liquid in the bottle. As I can hear the songs of birds, the droning and chirping of insects, I can only hope they’re also of a size relative to my own shrunken state: the dangers presented by an overly large bird or insect don’t bear thinking about.
I can’t hear any sounds of playing children, however. Nor anything else that might help me pinpoint wherever Pearl and her strange little rabbit has got to.
Thankfully, for the moment there only appears to be one path. If I continue to follow this, I must surely come across Sis and, hopefully, perhaps even the missing girls too.
Why hadn’t Sis told Dad about this place? Especially after the disappearance of her friends?
Then again, who’d believe her? I certainly wouldn’t have.
And how would an adult get past that carnivorous door? Even if it were broken down, what effect would that have on the rest of the garden?
There’s a new sound in the garden: the languid clop of horses’ hooves. It’s coming from some other path, hidden amongst the brightly coloured bushes and plants, but seemingly running off to one side of my own path.
I break into a sprint, hoping to come as soon as possible to a point where the paths merge. It sounds as if the horses are heading in a similar direction to me, but the paths might easily diverge, or break off into different courses altogether.
‘Girls! Is that you? Are you there?’ I yell out, hoping anyone there can hear me.
‘Of course we’re here!’ a young, happy voice chuckles back.
‘Do you want a ride?’ giggles another joyously.
*
As I run down the pebbled path, I begin to hear the ever louder strains of a happy tune, music that’s obviously being muted by the surrounding, soaring plants.
So as the veiling plants at last begin to clear, the music hits me full on as I break out into a kind of extended theme park; one complete with winding pathways leading off in multiple directions towards every type of young children’s ride you could possibly think of.
There are swan boats on snaking canals, minute vintage-style cars on raised wooden roads. There are whirling carousels, elevated rides, flying elephants and squirrels swinging high above me, suspended from spinning towers. There are kiosks too, of course, emanating the rich, sweet fragrances of freshly cooked donuts, candyfloss, popcorn and toffee apples.
The only thing missing is people. It’s all running as if controlled by ghosts, as if for the enjoyment of invisible spectres.
The path
spreads out from beneath my feet, tentacles stretching out throughout the park, heading off towards even more rides partially hidden beyond further clumps of flowers and trees. Down the nearest path, I can thankfully hear the sounds of swiftly approaching hooves, the giggling of overly-excited children.
The horses round the corner of a thick clump of red trumpet-shaped blooms, their colours every bit as bright as the surrounding flowers they emerge from.
They’re ponies, not horses: and a young girl’s idea of the very cutest ponies too. All long manes and tails, with skin in garish shades of purple, pink, blue, red and green. Decorated with heart, star and moon motifs.
No one’s riding them, however; the girls must have dismounted, perhaps having decided to play some silly prank on me.
‘Girls! Please come out!’
I almost add, ‘Your moms are worried for you,’ but realise it’s not going to have much of an effect on them. They’ve obviously been so engrossed playing in this magical place that any consideration for their parents has completely escaped them.
The ponies exchange puzzled glances; then giggle.
‘Come out?’ one of them asks, her voice that of a young girl.
‘We’re here: can’t you see us?’ another asks with a politely subdued chuckle.
‘Do you want a ride?’ says a third.
‘You can speak?’ I ask, gawping ridiculously in surprise.
As soon as I’ve said it, I wish I hadn’t.
Of course they can speak, idiot!
Haven’t you just spent the last few minutes having an irate conversation with a doorway that tried to eat you?
The ponies laugh good-naturedly.
‘Why shouldn’t we be able to speak?’
Some of them observe me now with pitying glances, like they’re wondering if I’m not just a little stupid.
‘Have you seen a little girl around here?’ I ask, realising it’s probably best not to try and explain why I thought they wouldn't be capable of speaking. ‘With a white rabbit?’
I briefly wonder if I should explain that I don’t mean she’s holding the rabbit, but I really can’t see the point. I mean, they’ve probably all had long conversations with the rabbit, haven’t they? They might even have tea and cakes with him on a regular basis, going by how nothing around here seems to make any real sense.
‘We’ve seen lots of little girls around here recently,’ one of the ponies answers gleefully.
‘Although not very recently,’ another adds, sadly hanging her head.
‘They’ve disappeared.’
‘There’s no one to ride us anymore!’
‘Do you know where they disappeared to?’ I ask hopefully.
‘Of course!’
‘They went out towards the hut.’
‘The hut?’ I repeat, wondering if this could have some connection with the wendy house; if it is, it might even be another way out of this weird garden. ‘Was it, by any chance, a yellow hut?’
‘Why yes! It was!’
‘How did you know?’
‘Just a guess,’ I reply. ‘Could you show me the way there, please?’
‘We can do better than that!’
‘We can take you there!’
‘Which one of us would you prefer to ride?’
*
This doesn’t quite fit with my own image of myself; riding a pink pony, with flowers down its flanks. Its long mane whipping around me in the breeze, like freshly blown candy floss.
Perhaps I should have picked the one that more closely matched the colour of my hair.
We trot hurriedly through the rest of the park, passing other rides and amusements: clockwork cars that run along the path itself; miniature trains that wind slowly along elaborately patterned tracks; paddle boats and an old steamer casually floating on extensive lakes; and Cinderella-like carriages, pulled by prancing white horses.
The trot increases to a faster canter as we at last leave the park behind us, entering once again the winding, rising and falling paths that weave through the gloriously coloured garden.
The farther we travel, the faster the pace, until we break into such a furious gallop that I’m soon having difficultly staying astride my mount. She stretches out her head before her as she ferociously pummels the earth. The wind swirling around us beats at my face, whips her mane more violently about me, and seems to be getting stronger the faster we travel.
‘Slow down, slow down!’
I yell out in fright as it dawns on me that we’re hurtling along at speeds no normal horse could ever hope to manage. The wind we’re riding into feels increasingly as if it’s solidifying, it’s hurting so much as it pounds against my face.
I close my eyes against the fierce blasts, squinting them only slightly open every now and again to gain an idea of where we might be heading. The towering plants around us whirl and snap, like a jungle caught in a tropical storm. Blooms are torn from stalks, taking to the air like colourful parachutes. Leaves are rapidly stripped to little more than skeletons of their former selves.
With this sense of a storm comes darker skies, the gathering together of black clouds high overhead. There’s no rain, as yet, but the air snaps and crackles, full of the electricity that heralds a violent hurricane.
We’re riding relentlessly into this vicious gale. Every pony is now stretched out, stretched to its limits. Their bright colours, their motifs of stars, crescents and hearts, have all been stripped away.
Next, the wind begins to shred at their flesh. To rip it apart. To make it blow behind them in the powerful gusts like bloodied streamers.
The ponies don’t care. They ride on, as if feeling no pain. As if thrilling to this experience.
As if they themselves are responsible for whipping up this wind, this storm.
The flesh is torn from them, revealing bared, scarlet muscles, silvery blue nerve endings. The muscles are next to tear, to be stripped away. Followed by innards, intestines and stomachs.
Soon I’m riding nothing but a pale imitation of a horse, a skeleton dressed with nothing but butchered shreds.
The other horses around me now look the same.
They have their own riders now.
Famine.
War.
Pestilence.
Death.
*
Chapter 10
‘Where are we going? What’s happening?’
What a ridiculous cry.
What sort of an answer am I expecting?
There no longer seems to be any sense of earth beneath us. We’re riding the storm, as the crests of waves ride a storm-tossed sea.
Wherever we’re heading, I don’t want to go there.
I slip to one side in my saddle. I throw myself off the back of my terrifying nightmare.
Then I’m falling.
Through clouds.
Through massed, flying locusts.
Through darkness.
*
The highest branches of the tightly packed trees I fall amongst are thankfully slender, thankfully pliable – and easily breakable.
Even so, as my body strikes and hurtles through them, they lash at my flesh, like they have a mind to strip me as clean as those nightmarish ponies. The more branches I fall through, the more I fear I’m going to end up as nothing more than a shattered skeleton.
The branches whip painfully at my skin. When they snap, then they scratch as I plummet through them.
Yet they slow my fall. They save my life.
When I finally break through the very last of these pummelling branches and stems, I drop the rest of the way into the fern-packed undergrowth, landing with a heavy punch that knocks the wind out of me.
With an agonised groan, I thankfully slip into unconsciousness.
*
When I finally awake, still a little dazed, I find myself deep within a thick forest not dissimilar to the one running along our back yard, or along the edges of our own particular part of town,
If
anything, thankfully, this forest isn’t quite as bad as the one bordering our home. At least I can carefully, tentatively move between the trees, without being held back by such tightly packed branches that it would take forever just to move a few yards.
Yet every move I make is painful. I’m badly bruised by my fall. My skin is badly scratched.
I should be grateful. I should be dead.
The trees might have softened my fall, but I could still have ended up with a broken back, or broken legs.
Far ahead of me, I can see that the sun has managed to break through the ceiling of higher branches. The upper parts of the trees glow ethereally in a bright amber band. It’s a sign, I’m sure, that here the forest opens up even more. It might even be a pathway, running more or less at a tangent to my own, more difficult course.
As I quicken my pace towards this beckoning light, I pick up the first strains of a child singing.
‘Three-six-nine, the goose drank wine, the monkey chewed tobacco on the streetcar line…’
*
Ignoring the whipping and scratching of the stiffer stems blocking my way, I force my way as quickly as I can through the undergrowth.
I’m heading towards where the singing seems to be coming from, towards what I’m still hoping is a path.
The singing is that of a girl: a happy girl.
‘…My mama told me, if I was goody, that she would buy me, a rubber dolly…’
My first glimpses of the singing child are easy to make out amongst the dark browns and greens of the forest; they’re flashes of a scarlet red, the red I presume of her clothes.
As I rapidly draw nearer to what indeed seems to be a path, I see that she is indeed wearing red.
A red riding cloak.
Little Red Riding Hood?
Oh, you’re kidding me again, right?
*
Chapter 11
The red-cloaked girl is happily skipping along the path.
Just as the tale tells us, she’s carrying a basket; a basket full of fresh loaves and freshly cut flowers.