The color from the shoe drained away, starting at the back of her heel, and poured onto the marble walk. In a moment her right shoe was a dull pinkish white and beneath her sole was a giant black stain. It wasn’t a puddle, either—it sank into the marble and set there. Elizabeth gave it a fierce grin. No amount of polishing would ever remove that mark, and every year when she came to Giving Day she’d see it there and know that she, Elizabeth Violet Hargreaves (not Alice) did that.
Although she did regret the time that the servants would spend trying to fix it. Perhaps if she wished hard enough Mr. Dodgson would scrub at it himself, scandalizing all the servants and the other City Fathers.
She lifted her gaze up to the place where Mr. Dodgson stood. Daniel and Margaret and Edith and Polly were still there, taking an inordinate amount of time for a short Giving Day meeting. Margaret had her hands on Polly’s shoulders and Daniel’s were on Edith’s, as if to keep the girls from shooting off into the plaza now that they had their coins in hand. The adults had their eyes fixed on Mr. Dodgson’s face and even from this distance Elizabeth could see the nervous twitch at the corner of Margaret’s mouth.
He really is an old monster, Elizabeth thought. Yes, I think I shall wish that when he sees this stain he will spend all his days and nights attempting to clean it and never succeed.
Elizabeth had never tried one of her wishes on a person before, but she was certain it would work if she put enough force into the wish. She had so much hate swelling in her at that moment that she thought she could set the dais aflame if she looked at it long enough.
When you walk to your home this evening you’ll glance down at the marble when you reach this exact spot. And when you see the stain that has spread all over the marble you’ll call the servants and tell them to clean it. And tomorrow morning when they aren’t able to clean it you’ll fall to your knees and take the rags and polish and say, “I’ll do it myself, I’ll stay here as long as necessary.” And so you will never leave this place—you’ll stay right here scrubbing away until you starve and die.
It was a lot of wish to send out, but Elizabeth wanted it to happen exactly as she saw it in her head. She wrapped the wish carefully in her mind, like a brown paper package delivered by the postman, and she pointed it at Mr. Dodgson.
His head jerked back, as if he’d been slapped, and whatever he was saying to Daniel and Margaret seemed to trickle and die on his lips. The blood drained out of Mr. Dodgson’s face. Elizabeth saw Daniel reach toward the City Father as if to brace Mr. Dodgson and then pull his hand back as if thinking better of it. Mr. Dodgson would not appreciate such familiarity.
Mr. Dodgson shook his head from side to side, as if trying to dislodge an unpleasant thought.
You’ll never dislodge that thought, oh no, that’s what you get for terrorizing my papa.
Elizabeth turned her head away so that Mr. Dodgson wouldn’t see the triumph on her face. If he suspected her of any kind of wrongdoing he might punish her family, and even though her family was sometimes tiresome and often mysterious she didn’t want anything bad to happen to them. They were her family, after all, and she supposed they all loved each other even when they didn’t act like it.
Aren’t you something, sister of Alice.
There was that voice again, that horrible know-all voice that came uninvited and went away only when it felt like it. She resolved not to talk to it this time.
Not speaking to me, sister of Alice?
I’m not sister of Alice. I’m Elizabeth, she thought angrily, and then chided herself for not keeping her promise to herself.
Very well, Elizabeth, the voice said, and Elizabeth was annoyed because it was clear that the voice was only humoring her. She could hear the laughter underneath.
Just then Elizabeth saw a strange thing, a thing that shouldn’t be anywhere but certainly not in the Great Square on Giving Day.
There was a small walkway, almost like a little tunnel, in between each of the City Fathers’ homes. These walkways were always there—there was nothing much to remark in that.
What was remarkable was that there was a man standing in one of them, and he wasn’t wearing the livery of the City Fathers’ servants, and he wasn’t dressed in his best suit like all the men in the square. He wore a pair of trousers that might have been some other color once but were certainly grey now, grey because they’d clearly never been washed, and over them he had a ragged blue coat that was too large at the shoulders.
And still this wasn’t what had drawn Elizabeth’s attention.
The man had his back to her and the rest of the square. And this man had the tail of a bird—a long, white-feathered thing that arced up from under the hem of the coat. Elizabeth was almost certain that the bare ankles visible beneath the trouser cuffs were the same scaly yellow as the chicken feet for sale at the Saturday market.
She took a few steps toward the man-bird, astonished that no one else seemed to notice him. Surely someone that raggedy should have drawn the notice of the guards that patrolled the square. But the only person who appeared to have noted him was Elizabeth.
The man’s white tail floated away into the darkness in the back of the walkway. He was leaving, and Elizabeth hadn’t gotten a proper look at him at all. She wanted to know if he had the face of a bird, too, or just the feet and tail.
She picked up her pace, but the marble made it impossible to run without falling flat on her face, so she had a kind of awkward hurried shuffle that surely appeared ridiculous to anyone who saw her.
When she reached the edge of the square and the regular cobblestones she paused, squinting into the deep pools of darkness between the buildings. She thought she saw the white tail flash in the shadows, but she wasn’t certain. Elizabeth took a few more steps, feeling terribly daring. No one was supposed to approach the City Fathers’ homes without express permission.
She glanced back over her shoulder to see if Mama and Papa were watching, because she was sure to be chastised if they were. Margaret and Daniel had joined them now and the four of them were having a Very Serious Conversation—Elizabeth could tell by the way they all stood close together and bent their heads toward one another so no passersby could eavesdrop. Polly and Edith were on their hands and knees trying to spin their new coins on the marble, and Margaret surely hadn’t noticed this else she would have told her girls to get up before they dirtied their dresses.
Nobody will notice if I just dart away for a moment.
Elizabeth didn’t look around again to see if anyone was watching. She ran into the walkway between the buildings and then paused, waiting for the alarm to be raised.
No one appeared to have noticed her exit from the square.
No one, that is, except for the Voice.
What are you doing, sister of Alice?
I told you I’m Elizabeth, not sister of Alice.