21. A Light in Darkness
Slowly, I regained consciousness. I didn't open my eyes right away. I kept them shut, trying to piece together fragments of things I remembered: twirling a sword, the scar on Jack's face, the satisfied look on the Queen's face.... A courtroom? Why had I been in a courtroom?
Then it all came back to me. Jack and I had been sentenced to death for supposedly stealing tarts. I squeezed my shut eyes, praying, wishing, desperately hoping that everything had been a terrible dream.
Slowly, reluctantly, I opened my eyes. And I realized that every last bit of it was real.
For there I was, lying on the hard cold floor of a dungeon cell. The air was freezing. My head was really sore. It was quiet, eerily quiet. I tried to move, but my wrists and ankles were bound with chains. I struggled, instinctively trying to free myself.
"Alice," Jack's concerned, soothing voice was near me. "Alice, you're going to hurt yourself."
With difficulty, I rolled over to face him. He was lying next to me, his eyes sad, but relieved.
He reached out and carefully and gently grasped both of my hands. "Are you all right?" he asked.
"I- I guess so," I said. My voice was shaky. The full force of the situation I was in had finally crashed down on me. I was locked away in a cell, waiting to be executed. However, I knew I had to appear strong for Jack's sake. If he saw how much all of this was hurting me, he wouldn't wait for the Queen to cut off his head. He'd do it. So, I took a deep breath and steadied myself before I asked, "What happened?"
"One of the guards hit you over the head with the bottom of a sword," Jack answered.
Well, that explained the bump that I felt forming on my head. "How long have I been out?"
"I don't know. We don't have a clock. But it seemed like a really long time," Jack answered. I could tell that he'd been awake the entire time, whether it was an hour or a day. I tried to sit up, but it was too hard.
"Here, let me help," Jack, who had propped himself up against the wall, said, inching his way over to me. "Dad, could you give me a hand?"
I hadn't realized that Conrad was in the room until Jack spoke to him. Well, it seemed plausible that the only three living human beings down here would be together. Plus, she knew that it would be torture enough watching each other suffer.
Conrad made his way over to me, and the two of them helped me to a sitting position. "Thanks," I said gratefully, stretching my legs in front of me.
The three of us sat there silently. I watched as a mouse scurried across the floor.
Finally, I asked the question that had been nagging at me: "When?"
Jack took a deep breath. He knew what I meant. "Tonight."
My life was going to end in a matter of hours. I pursed my lips, and when I opened my mouth again, a sigh escaped them.
"At least we're together," I said. I slid closer to Jack and lay my head against his chest. He stroked my hair.
"I just wish it didn't have to be like this," Jack said sadly.
"True love never stands a chance," Conrad said forlornly. I looked at him. "Romeo and Juliet, Cleopatra and Marc Anthony, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, my beautiful wife and me, the two of you.... It never ends well. True love never seems to win."
If it had been any other time, I would have smiled. I guess a love of reading ran in the family.
"But what about all of the love stories that end happily? Cinderella? Beauty and the Beast? Rapunzel?" I argued.
"Those are fairy tales, Alice," Jack reminded me. "They always end happily."
"Well, what about this? Before I left home, the prince of one of our countries married a girl with not a drop of royal blood in her family, completely breaking tradition. He didn't care. He loved her. If that isn't true love, I don't know what is," I said, thinking of Prince William and Kate. I had cared about their over-publicized wedding for that very reason.
"And how long do you think that marriage is going to last?" Conrad asked.
"I don't know! It could last a long time. Or..... It could fall apart in a year." I couldn't let this argument be lost. I was on true love's side, something I'd always believed in, even if I never believed in finding it myself.
"What about Bella and Edward? Peeta and Katniss?" I suggested desperately.
"Who?" Conrad and Jack asked at the same time.
"Uh, never mind." I suppose Twilight and The Hunger Games didn't make it into Wonderland.
"Look, so what if a few love stories have unhappy ending? That doesn't mean that true love never lasts," I said.
"Yeah. But the odds weren't in our favor," Jack said in a depressing tone. "Ours has a time limit."
The sad, depressing tone in his voice made me snap out of it. "That is it!" I exclaimed. "I don't want to spend our last hours sad and depressed!" I cried. "I'm glad that you're here, that we're together again, and that I'm going to die holding your hand. I want to spend every last second until that moment with you. I will not sit here feeling sorry for myself and neither will you!" I looked over at Conrad. "That goes for you, too!"
The two of them stared at me, a shocked look on their faces.
"Please?" I added, in a softer tone.
The corners of Jack's lips turned up into a small smile. "You know, you always say how quiet you are, and how you never spoke up in class and didn't say anything to anyone in the halls. I even recall that you said that you felt invisible." His smile grew. "But, Alice, you've been anything but quiet since you got here."
Conrad chuckled. "I believe it. Especially after that speech you just gave."
Jack started laughing, too. I smiled, and then I couldn't help but join in. We must be hysterical, I thought. After all, who could laugh while they were sitting in a dungeon, waiting to be killed? Only crazy people. Still, I kept laughing. I was happy that I had made them laugh. Plus, it felt good to laugh. To feel the muscles in my face stretch into a smile, something that they hadn't done in what seemed like forever.
We kept laughing, the sound bouncing off the cold stone walls, echoing in the eerie darkness. If you walked into the dungeons at that moment, amid all of the creepiness, you would have been confused as to how such a joyful sound could exist in a place like this.
I laughed until my side hurt. Slowly, our laughs turned into chuckles, then quiet giggles, then nothing.
I was still smiling, though. I settled back against Jack's chest, curling up by his side.
"I love you, Jack," I whispered.
"I love you more," he murmured.
"I doubt that," I said.
"Oh really?" he questioned playfully.
"Mm-hm."
"And why is that?"
"Because no one could love anyone more than I love you," I said simply.
"Ah, but that's where you're wrong."
"Well," said Conrad, putting an arm across Jack's shoulders and looking down at me. "I wish I could've had you as a daughter-in-law, Alice."
Jack didn't protest. I could see in his eyes that marrying me was what Jack had wanted all along. He had known that this wasn't just some silly teenage infatuation. We were meant for each other.
"If we make it through this....." Jack looked at me, his eyes hopeful. "Would you?"
I touched his cheek. I knew my answer even before he asked the question. "Yes."
"Maybe you will," Conrad said reassuringly.
"Maybe we will," Jack corrected. I had known all along that he had never given up on freeing his dad.
"We can try." I was supposed to put inflection and strong, confident feeling, but all that was ruined with a yawn. I didn't want to sleep. I wanted to spend every last second of my life with Jack. Awake. Besides, I felt like I'd just slept. But still, I yawned.
"Sleep, Alice. We'll still be here when you wake up," Jack told me.
I smiled. I slowly closed my eyes. And I fell asleep to the soft brush of Jack's lips kissing the top of my head.