White Rabbit Chapter 20

20.

The Marlowe family left the funeral and went home, not bothering to attend the burial; the laying in the Earth of the casket, the consecration, was not a matter of any importance to them, at least not to mom and pop. Delores’ mother was a master of making excuses to bow out of anything and usually the excuse revolved around Delores’ illness or her own migraines that never existed. She even kept a bottle of Excedrin for effect. They were always good for quick escapes. As the smooth car traveled away into the dark back through the same fields of snow and ice and deplorable January emptiness, Delores drifted asleep. When she woke up she was again in the Underworld right where she had left off. The sempstress that had been clearly identified as her grandmother in her memory was standing right in front of her making a few adjustments to a black dress that Delores was wearing. She wasn’t wearing an undershirt and her silvery scars lined her inner arms but none bled. She half expected to be still bleeding but it was so long ago. Delores didn’t say anything. She didn’t wrap her arms around the sempstress’ neck and shout hallelujah! Or, grandma I missed you! She didn’t know if the sempstress knew who she was so wisely she let it be for fear that she might fracture the reality of this world. And the player piano played in the corner a random peppy song that sounded like 1920 something. The oval floor mirror hobbled over and plopped down in front of Delores so that she could see the dress for herself. She looked stunning, even in her own eyes. Her hair was black and straight, pinned back on the sides, falling to her bare shoulder blades. Her eyes were painted with thick black eye shadow and she wore no lipstick or rouge but her face was unblemished. Her earrings were a peripatetic display of four or five black and ruby-colored gems at different lengths on silver chains from each, like particular classroom mobiles Delores faintly remembered. The strapless bust corset dress was a high cut above her knees, the skirt of which was a frilly mix of a different fabric for which she knew not the name. It was a black ballerina dress, wicked looking, with large sequins like scales on the corset region, black feathers pluming from the bust. And to make the ensemble complete were the black furry boots.  

“What do you think of yourself, Delores?”

“My mother wouldn’t approve.”

The sempstress smiled. Mannequins watched, at least those with heads. The others pretended to know what was going on. “You’re mother has nothing to with this. Is this not what you drew yourself to be married in, as your ideal dress?”

“Yes, a dysfunctional marriage. I am not of the conventional brand. But how could you have known?”

“Logic and reason, Delores,” the sempstress smiled, “they don’t exist. Think of them as The Easter Bunny and Santa Claus.”

Delores nodded. “I look remarkable!” She felt like herself for once. People go all of their lives without feeling like themselves having been pounded into something they were supposed to be for someone else. For the first time in sixteen years Delores was herself. She felt at last as she wanted to appear, exactly. She never smiled much and so her face hurt suddenly from the unfamiliar expression. “Is this mirror tricking me? How is that you dyed my hair. I don’t feel as though I have moved! Yet, it is different. So black!” She ran her hands through it and checked them as though the color would bleed out but of course it didn’t. Of course, it stayed. It all stayed.

            “Delores, when will you learn to stop questioning happiness?”

            “I believe that I suddenly have.”

            “Well, you are not there yet.” The sempstress added gingerly.

            “Where?”

            “To your happy ending. You are roughly at page 124 of maybe 180. Of course on page 124 it is impossible to say that it is at 180.”

            “56 to go.”

            “Maybe. Not sure on that.” The sempstress added. “I don’t make it that far.”

            Delores put her hand on the sempstress’ pale arm. “I never would have imagined that I am in a love story that someone wrote for me.”

            “Someone?” The sempstress smiled. “My dear, you wrote this for yourself. You do not remember? All of those days and nights alone when you wrote each little piece in despair leaving blank pages to fill in later. This is an amalgamation of real life and your love story, Delores. It isn’t entirely perfect for life does have a way with interfering, but if it is real it will be. But you wrote this. All of this.”

            “I am so confused. I am forgetting things.”

            “We all forget things, dear.”

            “No. You don’t understand. I can’t remember anything that happened from,” she paused to think of the time and careful words, “my grandmother’s funeral to falling down the rabbit hole when my parents said we were moving to Denmark. And then I wake up in Denmark, having been there for four months. But what happened between time? What happened? Wait, I remember something. I am ashamed to say that I tried to hang myself in the basement a day after the funeral but nothing else. Nothing else.”

            “Dear.” The sempstress said consolingly. “Don’t fret over it. There isn’t a thing that you can do now besides change all of it. It doesn’t make any sense but you wrote this part for yourself and maybe along the way what is missing will come back to you. Maybe you don’t want it to.  Please, follow me.” The sempstress took Delores outside to a small barn with wood siding that needed painting. Long streaks of peeling paint ran down the sides but it added to its bucolic appeal, as did the old rusty bicycle that sat aside it in the weeds. Delores remembered both the barn and the bicycle from her grandmother’s. She walked inside for only a moment and walked back out to Delores leading a black horse by black reins. “Here is—”

            “Cleopatra!” Delores shrieked hugging the horse.  

            “You are remembering more!” The sempstress smiled.

            “It appears that I am.” Delores replied modestly.

            “Though, it is not always good to remember everything.” The sempstress said before going back inside of the barn as Delores mounted the horse as she had so many times before in her youth. Cleopatra was all black now, top to bottom. There wasn’t any white on her, not her eyes, nor her teeth. She was frightening to look at but she still possessed a tranquil temperament. The sempstress quickly returned with the oddity of a large sword in her hands tucked neatly in a black sheath. She held it out to Delores as Delores sat firmly in the saddle of her calm companion as she had when she was a kid. “How do you feel, dear?”

            “Wonderful.” Delores replied. “Confident.”

            “You must put your feet in the stirrups.”

            Delores smiled and immediately did as she was told but an odd feeling overcame her, the feeling of cold metal on her bare feet though she wore boots and though the stirrups were leather. “I am scared.” Delores admitted suddenly.

            “Shhh! Do not be, my dear.” Her grandmother insisted unconvincingly. “Distraction is the best defense against your fear. You will need a guide, love, to get from here to the castle. Who do you choose?”

            “The castle?”

            “To your happy ending. Fifty pages and counting. There is always a castle. Who do you choose?”

            “I can choose anyone?”

            “Yes. Anyone.”

            “Even Hugo Finch, the boatman?”

            “He who awaits you in the castle? No, love. Anyone besides him my dear, I am afraid to say.”

            “Then I should choose, Woodrow.”

            “The woodchuck? Splendid choice.” And the sempstress pointed to a gathering of barberry bushes that began to rustle and out popped Woodrow unaware of where he was in his same green cloak wearing his bow and arrow strapped across his back.

            “I say I never get used to this world. One moment I am having tea with—”

            “Woodrow!” Delores cried happy to see her old friend even though their parting wasn’t one of elation.

            “Delores Marlowe?” he cried. “You made it. From Torga?! No one has ever made it from Torga!” he stated baffled.

            “But I didn’t make it to Torga, Woodrow!”

            “The boatmen!” Woodrow interrupted happily. “Now you see I told you that I would pick you out a good boat. Didn’t I?”

            “You did!” Delores laughed.

            “So you have been here all this time?”

            “All of what time? Isn’t it still 6:30?” she smiled.

            “You’re right that it is!” he laughed. “You’re right that it is!”

            “But no. I was swallowed by a whale and sent back to the Overworld, most unfortunately. And I hear now that Mr. Hugo Finch is in some castle and that I need a guide to get there. Mr. Finch that is the him. My him. So being that your served me well the first go round, I figured you capable to do the same again. Of all the tour guides in the world, both of them, of anyone, I chose you!”

            “Well,” Woodrow replied embarrassed, “I am flattered.” Then he looked at the Sempstress oddly for a moment and seemed nervous.

            “What is it?” Delores insisted sensing something.

            The sempstress answered quickly preventing the woodchuck from being able to flub it up. “Well, off you go then. Woodrow will explain everything to you on the way in due time. Goodbye, Delores. It was so lovely to meet you!”

            “But,” Delores steadied the horse that began to trot around impatiently, “will I see you again? I mean…”

            “You can never be certain Delores, but not in this book. Life though, and death, is a library. It is hard to tell where we might turn up again; you in my readings and I in yours.”

            Delores held on to the sword and the reigns confidently abysmally confused. It was as though she were in a dream but still fully conscious. “But what is it that I am to do with this sword?” she asked again perplexed.

            “My dear, you will encounter evil on your journey to him. You must use the sword to slay that evil and the one that seeks to destroy you.”

            “The one?” Delores responded with a sense of déjà vu.

            “There will be evil that seeks to corrupt you, ruin and defile you, but one that seeks to conquer you. The White Queen. You are, needless to say, the black. So you must move nimbly, wisely, being ever prudent of time and space. The rest Woodrow will explain to you.”

            Woodrow looked uneasy as he skillfully mounted the horse like an old pro choosing to ride in front of Delores on the horse’s long stout neck. Cleopatra didn’t seem to mind him. She hated being called Cleo. She was something of an animated statue. Delores remembered driving home from the funeral asking her mother what happened to her and her mother vilely with pleasure said that “it” was probably sold for glue. Delores despised people who called animals “its.” There were the same people who robbed them of having souls. The same people who pretended humans were so fucking special and everything was made to please them, even the ones that don’t believe in God, but specifically, the ones that believe in God and dominion and all that bullshit. Those people are the “its” as far as Delores is concerned; “its” of the worst sort. She hated her mother and clamped down on the sword hoping one of the beasts that she would encounter might be her with six gruesome heads as large and as fierce as she could imagine for then she could kill her. She couldn’t kill her in real life for she was so weak and pathetic. The sempstress added as though not to forget, “Delores you will be in considerable pain. I cannot lie to you. But you must tolerate it and move on or else he will not be there when you arrive. When you are unsteady and need confidence, grip the sword, dear. Squeeze it and you will find that it will help and you will neither lack the will or the assurance to go forth.”

            “I will remember.” Delores replied. And she gripped the sword and felt better suddenly. She removed it from the sheath and the long silver blade glimmered in the bright sunlight.

            “That snoop moon is likely to be out soon.” Woodrow said looking up.

            “That was beautiful, Woodrow. It rhymed.”

            “Keep your wits, Delores. It’s going to be a bumpy road.”