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“You really should focus on the path, child. Some muse has been filling your head with nonsense. Part three—”

“Where am I?” Rose demanded, losing her patience.

“Isn’t it obvious?” JC sounded surprised. “You’ve fallen down a rabbit hole.”

“Hmmm.” Rose admitted, it did look a bit like a rabbit hole. “Well, what I need is help finding—”

At that moment a rapidly approaching patter of feet made her turn to see that a white rabbit, the size of a Shetland pony and wearing a waistcoat, was barreling toward them.

“So sorry,” it panted. “I’m late. I’m late!” And in an instant, it had bundled past them with barely time for them to flatten against the tunnel’s walls. In fact, the man was too slow, and the rabbit sent him sprawling. “Sorry, Mr. Campbell!” The rabbit’s apology dwindled into the distance.

Rose seized her chance and gave chase, evading the fallen man, whose air of gravitas had vanished as his hood fell back to reveal a very ordinary-looking elderly fellow. “Sorry!” She dodged his reaching hand. “Not interested!”

“You’re doing so well!” Mr. Campbell shouted after her. “That’s Supernatural Aid ticked off! Next comes Crossing of the First—” But distance swallowed his words, even as the white rabbit dwindled ahead, its speed far greater than Rose’s.

“Well…” Rose came to a halt in the pitch-darkness, leaning forward, hands on thighs, panting for breath. “Well, fiddlesticks to that. This place can fiddlesticks right off.” Once more, she wished she had harsher language at her disposal.

She heaved in a few more deep breaths and, still breathing hard, she reached out her arms and advanced, feeling for the wall. She took two steps and fell down a well.

Chapter 14

Red

I found myself falling at a peculiarly slow rate of knots and immediately took a deep breath to make sure I wasn’t drowning. The leisurely drop provided ample time to notice that the interior of the well I was tumbling down was most un-well-like. The walls were variously hung with maps, shelves, cupboards, coatracks, and the like, along with pictures (mostly of upstanding Victorian gentlemen), and daguerreotype photographs (of streets, carts and cart horses, factory chimneys).

It felt curiously familiar and, furthermore, I was far from sure where the idea that I was falling down a well had come from, since the only thing it had in common with a well were its dimensions and the eventual possibility of hitting water.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” I muttered, uncertain why. And then, when the realization struck: “Alice in Wonderland.” I appeared to be reenacting my own theme-park version of the film I’d seen a few years back. I also had a dim recollection of seeing a black-and-white version as a small child. It occurred to me that I was dreaming, but also that I’d been standing in Books’s bookshop just moments before…

Had I fallen and hit my head? Or had there been another more significant earthquake that had brought the ceiling down on the second try?

The fall was taking a long time. By my reckoning I was going only slightly faster than a brisk walk. Where the light was coming from, I had no idea. There wasn’t a circle of light overhead—another strike against the idea that it was a well.

I toyed with the idea of arresting my descent by grabbing hold of a passing shelf. But then I’d just be stuck halfway down a well. It all felt rather surreal, which fitted with the idea that I was dreaming. But then again, as I remembered the film, Wonderland was as surreal as the name implied. I recalled something about playing cards armed with poleaxes.

It really was a long, slow fall, and to help pass the time, I snatched a book from one of the shelves. The dust jacket was gone, and the leather covers worn smooth. It started with rather too much melodrama for my taste:

“If a baby died. If a mother’s heart were cut out and the father chased away by a black hound, never to be seen again. Wouldn’t you want there to be a villain? Wouldn’t you want there to be a knife and a hand upon that knife, and a purpose behind that hand, and at the center of it all a soul to carry the weight and bear the punishment?”

“I guess so,” said Rose. “No, wait, I wanted the truth. Wasn’t that why we had to come all—”

Unexpectedly, I hit a pile of branches and leaves, bouncing the book out of my hand. I stood, scratching at where a stick had jabbed my leg. A distant light beckoned, and almost as if feeling the tug of an old story, I followed the new tunnel away, leaving behind the thing that definitely wasn’t a well.

The tunnel brought me to a long, low hall lit by many lamps hanging from the ceiling. The walls were set with many doors, and I didn’t remember any of it from the film at all…A thorough investigation revealed all the doors to be locked. Turning from the last of them in frustration, I found myself looking at a little three-legged table made entirely of glass.

This reminder of the unreality of the place set me wondering once again what the hell was going on. Somehow the setting kept persuading me to buy into the dreamlike quality pervading it, but I’d been in the shop, dammit, and none of this made sense. I’d read plenty of books where the main character is sucked into a new world. But reality didn’t work like that, and I wasn’t about to fold all my beliefs and understanding just because this particular Monday morning wasn’t playing ball.

A glint of gold on the table drew my eye. A tiny golden key, far too small for a door, unless it was for a doll’s house. I picked it up between finger and thumb…

“Hello.”

The unexpected voice made me start, squeal in a manly way, and lose hold of the key.

“Fucksake!” I spun around. “Wait! You’re her!”

“And you’re him!” the girl from the cover said. “The boy from the book place.”

“Bookshop,” I corrected her, immediately feeling like a pedant. “You could see out?”