White Rabbit Chapter 32

32.

           

            Delores opened her eyes. The woodchuck was holding a wooden cup to her lips. She drank. “This is the blood of Christ,” Woodrow repeated.

            “Really?” Delores whispered groggily, exactly what she always wanted to ask at communion to the old priest giving everyone bread and grape juice saying the same bit.

            “No,” Woodrow admitted, “but this is the cup of Christ.” Whatever she drank tasted like raspberries.

Delores, still out of it, looked at him suspiciously.

“Well, it could be. Found it in a creek bed in the other world.” He pointed up. “And it looks really old. Been using it for many years and sure enough, whenever I do, I am always well again soon after.”

            “And you carry it around with you?”

            “Sure. You never know...”

            “You probably shouldn’t say it is the cup of Christ if you don’t really know.”

            “Well, you have to have faith. And it very well could be. The way I figure it, it would be a shame not to say it is the cup of Christ if it is. More so than to say it is if it isn’t. It’s all about faith, Delores. Faith...isn’t that a beautiful word?”

            Delores shivered a little now remembering her virginity which she disposed of, romantically, she thought. Now, though, seemingly like a tampon. “What happened?” Delores asked just as the moon appeared looking on curiously full and fat.

            “You were having a terrible seizure.”

            “What about the blood?”

            Woodrow looked nervous. The moon’s giant face looked nervous and curious. “What blood, Delores?” Denial was Woodrow’s only defense.

            “What blood? My blood. I saw it on the saddle and my legs before I fell.”

            “There is no blood, Delores. No blood at all. We must get you back onto Cleopatra and be on our way. 6:30 comes quickly!” Woodrow hurried and helped her to her feet. She mounted the horse again feeling dizzy and weak. She clutched the sword but it didn’t seem to help much.

            “I recall him, Woodrow,” she said faintly as they began riding. “He was a werewolf. An invisible werewolf!” Whatever the reason for his disappearance, she couldn’t help to still be illuminated by speaking and thinking of him. She couldn’t remember anything after the train station until that day she was running through the woods behind her home in Maine. Also lost were the four months she had apparently lived in Denmark before returning to the Underworld through the Fleet Finch. Those days were like missing journal pages to a third party studying her script.

            “The boatman?” Woodrow asked confused. Cleopatra’s hooves thumped along on the earth that sounded peacefully hollow. Delores remembered the boatman suddenly and his face clearly. She could feel his kindness. He was Alex De Wolfe, not Hugo Finch, or perhaps, Alex De Wolfe was Hugo Finch. Was it all a ruse to lay her, the elaborate story to fuck her? She had known boys to be so illusory. She was angry, then sad, confident, then weak. She remembered everything clearly now up to the train station and she told it all to Woodrow and thus, indirectly, to the moon who had no business knowing but who knew everything. Howard was the moon’s name. It didn’t seem to fit but names don’t always. The name someone is born with, for instance. Allowing someone else to define you at birth seems like the first injustice if any weight at all is given to names. Chuck, the old circus bear, didn’t seem at all like a Chuck. Nor did Alex De Wolfe seem much like Alex De Wolfe. It wasn’t his name. Hugo Finch was his name at birth in 1864, son of Captain John Finch and Clara Moody. Delores wondered how it was that he was the only other being that seemingly traversed from this world to that, or, contrariwise, from that world to this. She was patient in her actions to get to him but inside she could hardly wait to get to that castle.  

            “I am not a virgin,” Delores admitted to Woodrow ashamedly. There was no one combatting them and the path and the outlying woods were motionless and eerie, or still and serene. Woodrow shook his head.

            “That hardly matters, Delores.”

            “But I lied to the Priest.”

            Woodrow gave her a kind look.

            The moon left and the sun appeared. They passed through a red covered bridge with large wooden planks separated an inch apart through which she could see curious eyeballs peering up. Woodrow said they were trolls but they fear horses so they shouldn’t be a bother. Then there was a blue bridge and more eyeballs. Same story. Though she couldn’t see their faces Delores knew that what stared up were ugly vile things. After the blue bridge a green bridge lay ahead but rather than crossing Woodrow said they should go around because green bridge trolls are more mischievous. Delores didn’t listen and continued and halfway through there stood six trolls with hatchets gently tapping them on their hands. Delores removed her sword and charged ahead and slayed two. Woodrow shot one, Cleopatra trmapled another, and the other two vanished. “I will not be bullied!” she cried afterward resolutely. “Never.”

“So be it.” Woodrow panted relieved they hadn’t been overtaken. Green bridge trolls were notorious for being extremely territorial and for clever sabotage, but these fellows didn’t seem too bright, Woodrow considered. Or else they figured Delores would turn around and the traps were laying where she would have had to cross alternatively. Woodrow reasoned that is what it had to be when he looked down and saw a suspicious leaf pile on the nearest path that he could see only due to the elevation of the bridge. In a pit below the leaves there were undoubtedly deadly spikes. He looked at the trees and saw a large wood spear tied back along the path waiting to be triggered and to impale someone in case the pit didn’t work. Trolls killed for the pleasure to kill but they ate what they killed and used bones for tools. He smiled to himself and his faith in Delores was fortified by her courage. It looked suddenly like autumn, leaves were falling and the temperature was very comfortable.

“I am not a virgin.” Delores said again. “I am used.”

            “We weren’t waiting for a Virgin queen. We were waiting for you, Delores. And the Priest condemned you to Torga because in condemnation there is often redemption but not for any sins you were guilty of. He sent you there because all women but for a small minority are sent there. We were heavily taxed, you could say. You know the secret now I presume, that you wrote all of this yourself. Your love did not write it for you. You are the author of your own life, Delores. It was your mood that condemned you. The Priest, me, that moon, all of this, even the trolls, are pieces of you. Little pieces of you.”

            “And all I have to do to go back is —”

            “Yes, as you know.”

            “Though there must be a reason I am here. I assume there to be anyway.”

            “Maybe to find Mr. De Wolfe, Mr. Finch, or whoever it is at the end of this path in that castle. To rescue him from his captors, perhaps.”

            “His captors?”

            “Yes, Delores. Werewolves are jailed here by the government.”

            “The Torgans?”

            “Yes. The Torgans. Since you left they are the government of all. There is no Ethereal, no Katerin, only Torga. One empire. One bowl of repulsive mush.”

            “Under Torgan rule?”

            “Yes. The rule of logic and reason. And worse. Common sense. There is talk even of using time…”

            “Time?”

            “Yes. Eastern standard.”

            “The worst. But I wrote it. Why the Hell would I write…”

            “We don’t have to be victims of logic or reason because we live under a government ruled by it.” Woodrow fetched something out of his cloak pocket.

            “Common sense will not take me alive.” Delores smiled the defiant sliver of a smile in spite of her mood. It began to rain. Woodrow turned around on the horse and faced Delores seemingly trying to muster the courage to confess something. Cleopatra trotted along as troll blood dripped off her nose.

            “Do you have something to say?”

            Woodrow didn’t reply directly but he closed his eyes, bowed his head and unclenched his tiny woodchuck fist. In the palm of his hand lay a silver coiled chain with a pendant in the likeness of the Eiffel Tower.

“A gift for me?” Delores smiled gratefully.

            Woodrow stumbled on his words nervously, “Yes. Um, well, um, not from, um, me. This was, um, from him or, um, whoever gave it to you, um, before, before, you came, here.” He didn’t have to be honest. He could have lied but then again he thought she might remember it or remember more seeing it.

            “Who?” Delores asked still feeling rather weak.

            “I presume your, um, male friend. I stole it from you when you lay unconscious in my bed the first go round. I am sorry. I was only hoping to pawn it for compensation. I didn’t know you then. Then, um, I forgot I had it. Then, uh, then, well, um…” Woodrow was being self-serving despite his honesty. He gave it back because he had faith that Delores would soon be Queen and the Torgans’ rule would end.

            Delores took it and held it up and smiled at it as in swung with the measure of Cleopatra’s stride. Her smile quickly vanished and was replaced by a look of concern. She confessed she didn’t remember getting it or, worse, who had given it to her. “It must have happened after the bus station. You say I was wearing it when you met me the first time?”

            “Yes.” Woodrow replied still nervous and embarrassed. “Thievery is not my usual practice. Well, besides for a few pocket watches and wallets now and again but only when I go to Torga. Not from my own kind. It’s a dirty world over there.”

            “Torga? When I asked you as I was to be put on the boat what Torga was like you told me that you didn’t know because you had never been…”

            “Oh, dreadful! I am a liar, too!” Woodrow sobbed. “I am learning more and more about myself everyday much to my embarrassment and dismay. I am sorry Delores. I found it easier to lie to you so not to worry you. I lied for you.”

            “It is quite alright, Woodrow. I am finding that no one likes to be truthful with me. I am quite accustomed to it.” Delores put the pendant to her neck and it seemed to make her feel at ease for a moment. She tried to recall how she received it but couldn’t. Woodrow climbed around her back and helped her with the clasp. “Torga, you see,” he began, “is a place of despair and tragedy where women are sexually exploited by the rich and powerful Torgans.”

            “Sex slaves?”

            “Yes. And much worse.” Woodrow gulped. “There are no female Torgans. They don’t reproduce naturally. The impregnate the woman of their choice and in six months the baby makes its way from the womb.”

            “Makes it way?”

            “Yes. It eats his way out at the expense of the mother’s life. There are no female Torgans so they rely upon kidnapping females of other species to populate their planet. And now that they have taken over the entire Underworld, no woman will be spared unless she can fight them off.” Woodrow returned to his position on Cleopatra’s neck. Delores held the reigns tightly.

            “How is it that they have taken over the entire Underworld?”

            “They were not satisfied with the amount of women that were being sent to them so they sailed across the Torgan Sea through Katerin and took Ethereal with relative ease.”

            “And I wrote this?” Delores was perplexed.

            “You mustn’t blame yourself, Delores.”

            “Well, who did they overtake? What defenses opposed them?”

            “We were defended only by teddy bears and archers.”  

            “Teddy bears and archers?!”

            “Well, they are called teddy bears. They are more ferocious and capable than that name might lead you to believe. Thy fought valiantly but were overmatched.” Delores remembered being escorted to the sempstress by a band of bears but she didn’t know that they were teddy bears. Woodrow went on, “They love to fight but the Torgans made an alliance with the warthogs and the vampires. And when the werewolves were all gone for that week, who always align themselves with the teddy bears and the archers to defend Ethereal, we were left, well, vulnerable. By the time the werewolves returned, we were lost, the archers and teddy bears were imprisoned on the other side of the Torgan Sea. The werewolves who returned were either killed or captured. The teddy bears remain imprisoned but the archers were executed. They randomly catapult their heads every once in a while as a warning to anyone out there who might think of opposing them.”

            “Werewolves! Well, where did they go?” Delores asked.

            “There was a convention in Minnesota.” Woodrow replied glumly.

            Delores shook her head in disbelief.

            Just then a ball of fire tailed out of the sky screaming for earth and thudded on the ground spooking Cleopatra. Delores pulled the reigns back and settled the horse. She pulled her sword from the sheath preparing for battle. Woodrow readied his bow but then quickly relaxed when he saw the ball roll to a rest beside of them. “Oh, and sometimes they set the archers’ heads on fire.” A pair of wide eyes in the burning ball looked at the trio lifelessly.