She followed the path through the woods, which were really much nicer than she thought at first. “You know,” she admitted to herself, “it's almost pretty, with the trees and all. So peaceful. I'd almost be willing to buy a summer house here.”
The words no sooner came out of her mouth than screams, wails, and crashing pottery ripped through the air. “What in the hell is that?” She threw her hands over her ears. “Sounds like someone's holding a war down the road!”
Following the screaming brought her to a beautiful pink Victorian house. Fanciful turrets and lavender wood curly-cues gave it the look of a storybook home, but the noise level was definitely not something out of Cinderella. The second the door opened, more screams and grunts flew out, mingling with flying crockery and a well-worn pepper shaker.
A footman strolled down the road. At least, she assumed he was a footman, from his frilly tight white jacket and trousers with the blue and orange stripe. Otherwise, he looked like Jack Narz with silver scales and a cobalt blue fin. He carried a leather packet under one arm.
“Your Ladyship!” He knocked on the door. “Duchess Marcia!”
“Sir.” She never saw a frog with a chin that long before. His lanky legs and arms and the huge blue eyes under thick spectacles made him resemble Jack's brother Tom Kennedy with slightly greenish skin and a green Victorian jacket and trousers. “Duchess Marcia is in dispose. I'll do the honor of accepting any invitations.”
His long silver fingers fumbled with the tie on the leather folder for a few minutes. He finally pulled out a long sheet of parchment paper. “From the Queen of Hearts,” he announced in a sonorous voice, “an invitation to play croquet!”
“An invitation to play croquet,” Tom added, reversing the words a bit, “from the Queen of Hearts! And Duchess Marcia,” he added, “will be more than grateful to accept. She believed she was no longer in favor at court.”
“The queen wants the entire court at today's game.” Jack nodded. “The Red King will be there. They may be considering an alliance.”
“Very well, brother.” Tom took the paper. “I'll show the Duchess the invitation as soon as...” Another dish flew out, nearly taking off Jack's dorsal fin. “I think I'll just return to the Queen and leave you...”
Brett couldn't help laughing when the duo bowed and smacked their foreheads together. “Nice going, guys! Walk much?” She giggled so hard, she had to duck into bushes before they saw her.
By the time she emerged, Jack was gone. Tom sat leisurely on the steps in the sun, even as more dishes spun out the door. “I wouldn't go in there,” he told Brett. “There's no use in knocking. First of all, ma'am, I'm right here. Second, they're making such a ruckus in there, they wouldn't be able to hear you, anyway.”
“Well then,” Brett grumbled, “how the hell am I going to get in there?”
“That's up to you.” He leaned back. “I'll be here until tomorrow.”
“Tom Kennedy,” she groaned, “I need to find my sons today! How am I going to get in there?”
“Are you going to get in?” Tom asked. “If you can name that tune, you might go in, and I could let you in.”
“Tom,” she snapped, “if I wanted arguing, I'd go back with Dickie and the rest of the Wonderland talking zoo.”
He didn't seem to hear her. “I shall sit here, dear lady, for days and days and days.”
“Fine. You sit there.” Brett finally yanked the door open. “Meanwhile, I'm going to find my boys and get to the bottom of this!”
There might have been a nice rustic Victorian kitchen somewhere in the black haze. All she could see was an old stove with pipes coming out and flames belching and a massive copper stew pot. “What in the hell is this?” she managed to gasp between sneezes. “Lady,” she said to the woman swinging the pepper shaker around like a mallet, “I don't know what you're making, but there's way too much pepper in that soup and in this house!” She flung open every window she could to air the place out.
“Ain't your place to say, lady!” Now that the haze was dissipating, she could see everything a lot clearer...starting with the cook was Mary Wickes dressed as a maid in a black dress and white ruffled apron. Thin black curls stuck out from under the starched white cap while a pinched face screwed up in annoyance. “This is my kitchen, and in my kitchen, we use pepper! Lots of pepper!” She shook it in her face, making her sneeze again. “Nothin' finer!”
“You're not going to get through to her,” said the woman perched on the stool next to the icebox, “so I recommend you stop trying. She does what she wants.” Marcia Wallace let out a tremendous sneeze that wracked her skinny frame and shook the roots of her orange curls. “What are you doing here? I already got my invitation.” She held out a white wrapped bundle in her arms that also sneezed. “You the nurse? I've been waiting for hours. He doesn't take pepper well, you know.”
“Marcia?” Brett raised an eyebrow. “Since when did you become a duchess?”
“Since the Queen and King of Hearts said so again.” Duchess Marcia smirked. “You know, you can't go to the Queen's croquet game looking like a reject from a commune. I could get you something a lot more attractive than that hippie get-up you're wearing now.”
Brett raised an eyebrow as a sleek cat with thick, shiny reddish fur wound around her ankles, purring. “Well, hello there, kitty. Marcia, does she need to be fed? And why,” she asked when she looked down at the cat and saw her face, “is she grinning like that? I've never seen a cat who grinned.”
“It's a Cheshire Cat,” Marcia said simply, as if that explained everything. “Pig!” she yelled, looking down at the bundle. “That's what you get for grunting, you little...”
“I've only heard of Cheshire Cats in books. Do they always grin?”
“Yeah, most of 'em do, and nearly all of them can.” She smirked. “You don't know much, do you?”
“I know a hell of a lot more than you do, especially about raising kids!”
As Brett tried to figure out another stinging retort, the Cook took the soup off the stove and brought it to the table. “Lunch is ready!” She then proceeded to throw every pot, pan, and bit of crockery within reach in their direction.
“Mary, what are you doing?” Brett had to duck under the living room table. “Since when are we target practice?” She did notice the Cheshire Cat vanishing in a small haze of purple light. “Too bad I can't do that trick. It might save my life right now!”
Marcia continued crooning to the bundle and ignoring the flying crockery. “Marcia, can't you do something?” Brett barely dodged a copper pot that came perilously close to hitting the baby's face. “See? She almost took your child's nose off! Poor kid, going through life without anything to smell with.” She wrinkled her own nose as the pepper shaker came sailing past her. “Then again, considering it smells like pepper and cat hair in here, it might be better off.”
“If everyone minded their own darn business,” Marcia snapped, “the world would go around a great deal faster than it does.”
“Marcia,” Brett began patiently, “that would not be an advantage. It takes twenty four hours for it to be day and night, at least where I'm from...”
“Oh, don't bother me with all that stuff,” Marcia complained. “I'm not the best at math, you know.”
Now that Brett had the chance to really see her, she noticed her friend was rather well-dressed for taking care of a baby. She sported a fancy black gown with lots of ruffles and bows on the wide skirt and bustle. As usual, her shoulders were bare, framed by ebony tulle and sparkling onyx bits. The same ebony stones shown in a small tiara nestled in her curls.
“Why don't you go upstairs to my room and try on one of my dresses? There may be something that fits. We're almost of the same height. Just don't stretch anything, and don't wear anything that might distract from the game.”
“Don't worry,” Brett assured her, “I won't. Mainly,” she added under her breath as she climbed the creaky stairs, “because I don't know how to play the game, or even what game we're playing.”
Marcia really has come up in the world, Brett thought when she hit the small bedroom. It featured a four-poster bed awash in black and red ruffles, soft velvet and ebony couches, and huge wardrobes stuffed with gowns. She managed to dig out a floral dress the color of the sky that more closely resembled the “prairie dresses” all the girls were into than the fancy funeral get-up Marcia wore. It had elegant puffed sleeves and a ruffled collar that played up what little she had going in the chest department. She even found a pair of simple black strap shoes and white stockings.
“Hey Marcia,” she called as she tried to pin up her hair, “thanks for letting me borrow this. Too bad Jack isn't...well, isn't himself down here. He'd never believe this.”
“Jack?” Marcia's thin coral lips immediately turned down. “The Red Knight? How do you know him?”
Brett frowned and pulled up a stool next to her. “I...was...married to someone who looks and sounds like him.”
“The Red Knight was the Queen and King of Hearts' most loyal man,” Marcia harrumphed between crooning to the baby, “until the Red King got his hands on him. Now he only plays the Red King's game.”
“What happened?” Brett didn't like the sound of that. “Why's he working for the Red King now?”
Marcia finally shot out of her seat as the Cook's barrage of crockery crashed next to her chair. “I'll tell you later. Right now, I need to get ready to play croquet with the Queen and King while I'm still alive. Here,” she added, tossing the bundle in Brett's direction, “you take care of him.”
“Whoa!” She just managed to catch it as Marcia ducked out the door. “I think I'd better do the same,” she told the baby, “before we both get killed!” She just missed a carving knife that stuck in the door seconds after she hurried out.
It wasn't until she'd gotten down the path and well away from the house that she managed to take a look at what she was shaking. Darn thing was snorting and grunting like crazy. It sounded less like a baby and more like the pigs her daddy used to keep on the farm in Maine. “Kid, if you're going to grunt,” she said, opening the wrappings, “do it somewhere else. That's rude, you know.”
She shouldn't have been surprised to see a squalling baby turn into a pig right in her arms. “Figures Marcia would somehow manage to become the mother of a ham hock.” It wriggled so much that she finally put it down and let it wander off into the woods. “Well,” she admitted, “it does make a better pig than it did a baby anyway.”
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