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Alice and the Places That Think: Ballykillduff Wonderland

Prologue

Alice decided later that the most troubling part was not the sheep.

The sheep was troubling, certainly. It stood in the middle of the lane with the quiet confidence of something that knew it had always been there and always would be. Its wool was the colour of old clouds, its eyes were thoughtful, and around its neck hung a small wooden sign that read:

BACK SOON

Alice read it twice.

“I don’t think that’s how sheep work,” she said politely.

The sheep regarded her in silence, chewing in a manner that suggested deep consideration of the matter. Then it turned, quite deliberately, and began to walk away down the lane.

“Excuse me,” Alice called. “I think you’ve dropped your…”

The sheep did not stop.

Alice hesitated. She had been taught very firmly never to follow strange animals, especially those displaying written notices. But the lane itself seemed to lean after the sheep, curving gently, as if it preferred that direction. Even the hedges appeared to listen.

With a sigh that felt far older than she was, Alice followed.

The lane led her into Ballykillduff.

At least, that was what the sign said. It stood crookedly at the edge of the village, its letters faded and patched over, as though someone had changed their mind halfway through spelling it. Beneath the name, in much smaller writing, was a second line:

Population: Yes

Alice frowned.

The village looked entirely ordinary, which in her experience was often a bad sign. Stone cottages huddled together as if exchanging secrets. A postbox leaned sideways in what might have been exhaustion. Somewhere, a clock was ticking very loudly and very wrongly.

The sheep paused beside the postbox.

It did not look back. It did not need to.

The postbox cleared its throat.

“Letter?” it asked.

Alice jumped.

“I—no,” she said. “I mean, not yet.”

“Take your time,” said the postbox kindly. “We’ve plenty of it. Too much, if you ask me. It keeps piling up.”

The sheep nodded.

“I’m sorry,” Alice said carefully, “but could you tell me where I am?”

The postbox considered this. “Well now,” it said, “that depends. Where do you think you ought to be?”

“I don’t know,” Alice admitted.

“Ah,” said the postbox, sounding relieved. “Then you’re exactly right.”

The sheep turned at last and met Alice’s eyes. For a moment she had the strange feeling that it recognised her.

Then the ground beneath her boots gave a polite little sigh and began to sink.

Alice did not scream. She had learned by now that screaming rarely helped.

Instead, as Ballykillduff folded itself carefully over her like a story closing its covers, she wondered whether anyone at home would notice she was gone.

The sheep watched until she vanished completely.

Then it picked up its sign, turned it around, and hung it back around its neck.

BACK AGAIN.

Chapter One

In Which Alice Arrives Properly, Though Not Entirely on Purpose

Alice discovered that falling into Ballykillduff was not at all like falling into a hole.

There was no rushing wind, no spinning cupboards, no floating bookshelves or jars of marmalade. Instead, there was the distinct sensation of being lowered, as though the ground itself were doing its best to be polite about the whole affair.

The earth sighed again, thoughtfully, and then stopped.

Alice found herself standing upright on a narrow stone path, her boots perfectly clean, her hair only slightly rumpled, and her sense of direction completely missing.

Above her was a sky that could not quite decide what time it was. Clouds hovered in pale layers, some tinged with early morning pink, others sulking in late afternoon grey. A sun of modest ambition shone through the middle, as if unwilling to commit itself fully.

Ahead lay Ballykillduff.

Up close, it was even more ordinary than before. That, Alice felt, was the problem.

A row of cottages leaned together in a way that suggested ongoing conversation. Their windows blinked slowly, like eyes that had just woken up. Smoke curled from chimneys without any particular urgency, drifting sideways and then upwards as though reconsidering.

Alice took one careful step forward.

Nothing happened.

She took another.

Still nothing.

“Well,” she said to herself, “that is either very reassuring or extremely suspicious.”

A man appeared from nowhere in particular, which is to say he stepped out from behind a low stone wall that Alice was quite certain had not been there a moment earlier.

He was tall, thin, and wrapped in a long coat that had known many weathers and disagreed with all of them. In his hand he carried a pocket watch, which he examined with great seriousness.

He did not look at Alice.

“Oh dear,” he muttered. “Not yet. Definitely not yet.”

“Excuse me,” Alice said.

The man startled so badly that he nearly dropped the watch, which he caught just in time and then scolded.

“You shouldn’t do that,” he said to Alice. “Appearing suddenly.”

“I didn’t,” Alice replied. “You did.”

He considered this.

“Well,” he said at last, “we’ll call it a draw.”

He finally looked at her, his eyes sharp and kind and far too alert for someone who seemed permanently behind schedule.

“You’re early,” he said.

“Am I?” Alice asked.

“Oh yes,” he said firmly. “Or late. One of the two. We get very upset if people arrive exactly when they mean to.”

“What is your name?” Alice asked.

“Seamus Fitzgerald,” he said, consulting his watch again. “At least, that’s what it says here. And you are Alice.”

Alice blinked. “How do you know that?”

Seamus smiled apologetically. “You’ve been expected.”

“I have only just arrived,” Alice said.

“Yes,” Seamus agreed. “That’s what I mean.”

Before Alice could ask anything else, a bell rang.

It was not a loud bell, nor an urgent one. It sounded as though it had rung many times before and had learned not to get worked up about it.

Seamus gasped.

“Oh dear,” he said. “That will be Bridget.”

“Who is Bridget?” Alice asked.

Seamus was already walking away.

“You’ll see,” he said over his shoulder. “Everybody does.”

Alice followed him into the village.

As she did, she noticed that the houses were watching her now, not rudely, but with the quiet interest one might show a guest who had arrived without luggage and clearly intended to stay.

Somewhere behind her, the sheep coughed.

Alice did not turn around.

She had a feeling that once you began turning around in Ballykillduff, you might never stop.

And that, she suspected, was how the village liked it.

Chapter Two

Several Perfectly Good Reasons, None of Them the Same

Alice learned two things very quickly about Ballykillduff.

The first was that walking anywhere took longer than expected, even when the distance was short.

The second was that nobody walked alone.

She noticed this only after a few minutes had passed and she realised that, without quite meaning to, she was surrounded. Not crowded, exactly. Simply accompanied.

A woman sweeping her doorstep fell into step beside her without stopping her sweeping. An old man leaned on a gate and began moving at the same pace as the gate itself, which creaked along obligingly. A child walked backwards nearby, nodding seriously.

Seamus Fitzgerald led the way, consulting his watch and frowning.

“I still say you’re early,” he muttered.

“I still say I’m not,” Alice replied.

“That’s what worries me,” said Seamus.

They stopped outside a small shop that sold nothing Alice could see through the window. The window itself looked back at her with interest.

The woman with the broom cleared her throat.

“Well now,” she said. “She arrived because she was sent for.”

“I was not,” Alice said.

“Oh yes you were,” said the woman kindly. “We just didn’t send a letter. Letters complicate things.”

The old man at the gate shook his head. “Nonsense. She wandered in. Happens all the time.”

“It does not,” said the woman.

“It does if you’re paying attention,” said the man. “Road bends wrong. Hedge leans too far. Foot goes where it ought not. Next thing you know, you’re here.”

Alice looked down at her boots. They were still very clean.

“I was on holiday,” she said slowly. “I remember that part. We were staying somewhere nearby. I went for a walk.”

“That’ll do it,” said the child, still walking backwards. “Walks are dangerous.”

Seamus sighed. “This is getting nowhere. Ring the bell.”

A bell was rung. Nobody could quite say who rang it.

Bridget arrived.

She did not hurry. Ballykillduff adjusted itself around her as she came, doorways straightening slightly, conversations lowering their voices. She smiled at Alice with an expression that suggested she was very glad to see her and would be equally glad to explain why later.

“So,” Bridget said. “You’re back.”

“I don’t think I’ve been here before,” Alice said.

Bridget considered this. “That’s a common mistake.”

Alice took a breath. “I would really like to know how I got here.”

“Of course you would,” said Bridget. “We all did, once.”

She gestured towards the village. “You arrived because Ballykillduff needed you.”

“For what?” Alice asked.

Bridget smiled wider. “Listening.”

“That’s not an explanation,” Alice said.

“Oh yes it is,” said Bridget. “It’s just not a useful one yet.”

Later, much later, Alice found herself sitting on a low stone wall at the edge of the village. The sky was still undecided. The sheep stood nearby, facing the other direction out of politeness.

Fle the very old elf sat beside her, though Alice could not remember him arriving.

“You followed the sheep,” Fle said.

“Yes,” Alice said. “I should not have.”

“You always do,” Fle replied.

“I do not,” Alice said.

Fle smiled, and the wrinkles around his eyes folded like maps. “You follow the things that almost make sense. Places notice that.”

Alice was quiet for a moment.

“So,” she said, “did I fall in by accident, wander in by mistake, or get summoned by a village that argues with itself?”

Fle nodded. “All of those.”

“That seems impossible.”

“That’s how it works,” said Fle gently. “If there were only one reason, it wouldn’t hold.”

Alice looked back at Ballykillduff. Lights were appearing in windows. The clock was still wrong.

“And if I had not come?” she asked.

Fle’s smile faded just a little. “Then Ballykillduff would have gone on as it always has. Mostly remembered. Slightly misplaced.”

The sheep coughed.

Alice stood.

“I suppose,” she said, “that means I’m staying.”

“For now,” said Fle.

The ground beneath her boots did not sigh this time.

It felt satisfied.

Chapter Three

Alice Meets Jimmy McGroggan and a Machine That Works Perfectly Incorrectly

Alice learned of Jimmy McGroggan because Ballykillduff suddenly became louder.

It was not an alarming loudness. It was the sort that suggested enthusiastic effort, metal enthusiasm, and a great deal of confidence with very little supervision.

A clank echoed down the street, followed by a whirr, a bang, and something that sounded suspiciously like applause.

Alice stopped walking.

Seamus Fitzgerald stopped too, though he looked at his watch as if this were terribly inconvenient.

“Oh,” he said. “Jimmy’s at it again.”

“At what?” Alice asked.

Seamus winced. “That depends.”

They rounded a corner and found him.

Jimmy McGroggan was kneeling in the middle of the road beside a machine that had no business being there, or anywhere else. It was taller than Jimmy, wider than a cow, and constructed from an assortment of pipes, wheels, levers, springs, kettles, bicycle parts, and what appeared to be a bread bin.

Steam puffed cheerfully from one side. A small bell rang whenever nothing happened.

Jimmy himself was beaming.

He had hair that refused to choose a direction and spectacles that magnified his enthusiasm more than his eyesight. His sleeves were rolled up to reveal arms crisscrossed with old burns, scratches, and the occasional note written in pencil.

“There,” he said, patting the machine affectionately. “That’ll do it.”

The machine immediately stopped.

Alice watched as Jimmy frowned, adjusted a lever, and spoke to it quietly.

“Don’t be like that,” he said. “We agreed.”

The machine shuddered, rang its bell twice, and began producing sausages.

Alice blinked.

“Is it supposed to do that?” she asked.

Jimmy looked up, delighted. “Not today.”

Seamus cleared his throat. “Jimmy, this is Alice.”

“Oh good,” said Jimmy, standing up so quickly he nearly collided with a rotating cog. “You’ve arrived just in time.”

“I seem to hear that a lot,” Alice said.

Jimmy wiped his hands on his trousers, which made no noticeable difference, and leaned closer.

“You see,” he said, “this is a machine designed to solve a problem Ballykillduff does not yet have.”

“What problem is that?” Alice asked.

Jimmy gestured grandly. “Exactly.”

The machine gave a satisfied hiss and stopped producing sausages. Instead, it began issuing neatly folded umbrellas.

It was not raining.

Alice watched one bounce gently along the road.

“What does it do?” she asked.

Jimmy brightened. “It prevents confusion.”

Nothing happened.

The machine rang its bell.

Seamus sighed. “Jimmy.”

“Yes yes,” Jimmy said. “It prevents confusion by redistributing it.”

Alice considered this. “Where does the confusion go?”

Jimmy looked pleased. “Somewhere useful.”

As if on cue, the sky above Ballykillduff darkened slightly, then brightened again, then settled into a colour Alice had never seen before.

Seamus checked his watch. “That’ll be the weather acting up again.”

“I thought that was tomorrow,” Jimmy said.

“It was,” said Seamus. “Until now.”

The machine began vibrating.

“Ah,” said Jimmy. “That’s new.”

A panel popped open and a small sign flipped out. It read:

WORKING AS INTENDED

Alice laughed before she could stop herself.

Jimmy looked at her with great interest. “You can hear it too, can’t you?”

“Hear what?”

“The place,” Jimmy said. “When it starts thinking too loudly.”

The machine coughed, produced a teacup, and poured itself a drink.

Alice stepped closer.

“This machine,” she said carefully, “does not seem to obey any rules.”

Jimmy beamed. “That’s how you know it’s doing something important.”

Seamus glanced down the street. Villagers were appearing now, drawn by the noise and the certainty that something was about to go wrong in a very familiar way.

“Well,” Seamus said, “whatever it is, it’s begun.”

Jimmy clapped his hands together. “Excellent.”

Alice had the sudden, unmistakable feeling that she had just met the cause of her first real problem in Ballykillduff.

And that the machine was only getting started.

Chapter Four

In Which the Weather Refuses to Behave

Alice woke to the sound of a drip that did not quite make up its mind.

It came from somewhere above her head, which was odd, because she did not remember going to bed anywhere with a roof that needed dripping. The last thing she remembered was the machine producing umbrellas, then teacups, then a colour in the sky that felt like a thought that had escaped.

The drip paused.

Then it fell, very carefully, onto the windowsill and evaporated as if embarrassed.

Alice sat up.

She was in a small room with wallpaper patterned in faded roses that looked faintly offended by their own existence. A thin curtain hung beside the window, shifting now and then as though it was listening for gossip outside.

Alice went to the window.

Ballykillduff lay below her in its usual arrangement of cottages, walls, and lanes, except that something was wrong with the sky.

The sky was stuck.

It was not stormy. It was not clear. It hovered in a permanent state of deciding. Pale grey cloud drifted across patches of timid sunlight, but the sunlight did not warm anything. It merely existed, as if it was on trial. A breeze began, stopped, began again, then changed its mind and became a sigh.

A crow flapped up from a chimney and hung in the air for a moment, as if waiting for permission to continue.

Alice watched it, unsettled.

In the lane below, a woman stepped outside her cottage, held out her hand, and looked at her palm as though expecting rain. Nothing fell. The woman nodded, satisfied, and went back indoors.

A clock somewhere ticked far too loudly and far too fast.

Alice turned from the window and found, on a chair beside the bed, a neatly folded set of clothes that were not hers. They consisted of a plain dress, a cardigan, and a scarf that smelled faintly of turf smoke and peppermint.

Pinned to the scarf was a note.

It read:

BRIDGET SAYS YOU MAY BORROW THESE.
DO NOT LET THE WEATHER SEE YOU PANIC.
IT LOVES THAT.

Alice stared at the note.

Then she put on the clothes, because there are some instructions that sound wiser than they have any right to.

Downstairs, she found the kitchen.

A kettle sat on the stove, but it was not boiling. It was thinking about boiling. The teapot beside it was thinking about being poured. A cup sat on the table with a tea bag already inside, waiting patiently for a conclusion.

At the far end of the room sat Bridget.

She was buttering bread as calmly as if the sky had always been undecided.

“Good morning,” Bridget said. “Or what’s left of it.”

Alice approached cautiously. “Is something wrong with the weather?”

Bridget looked up, interested. “That depends. Do you want it to be wrong?”

“I want it to behave,” Alice said.

Bridget smiled as though Alice had told a very funny joke. “Oh no. We do not encourage that sort of thing.”

Alice sat opposite her. “It is stuck.”

“Yes,” said Bridget, approvingly. “You have good eyes.”

“I thought it was supposed to rain,” Alice said, remembering the umbrellas.

“It was,” Bridget replied. “Then it considered itself.”

“And decided not to?”

Bridget put down the knife. “It has not decided anything. That’s the trouble. It is waiting for agreement.”

“Agreement from who?”

Bridget spread butter carefully, as though butter required diplomacy. “From us. From the village. From the place itself. Ballykillduff does not like to move unless everyone has had their say.”

“That sounds impossible,” Alice said.

Bridget nodded. “It can be difficult. Especially when everyone has an opinion.”

“And do you?”

Bridget’s eyes glinted. “I always do.”

Alice looked out of the window again. A patch of sunlight crawled a few inches across the yard and stopped as if it had run out of confidence.

“This has happened before?” Alice asked.

“Oh yes,” Bridget said. “Not often. Only when the village is thinking too loudly.”

Alice lowered her voice without meaning to. “About what?”

Bridget lifted her shoulders. “That is not decided either.”

There was a knock at the back door.

It was not a polite knock. It was a knock that assumed you were already in the middle of the conversation and simply needed to catch up.

Bridget stood. “That will be Jimmy.”

“It is always Jimmy,” Alice said before she could stop herself.

Bridget looked pleased. “Excellent. You’re learning.”

She opened the door.

Jimmy McGroggan entered as if the world had been built for his convenience and had done a slightly messy job.

He carried a bundle of pipes under one arm, a spool of wire in the other, and a small brass funnel held between his teeth. His hair looked as though it had argued with a comb and won.

“Morning,” he said around the funnel.

Bridget took the funnel gently and set it on the table. “You look busy.”

“I am,” said Jimmy, delighted. “The machine has developed new opinions.”

Seamus Fitzgerald followed Jimmy in, frowning at his watch.

“Morning,” Seamus said. “Or afternoon. Or Thursday. Honestly, it is hard to tell.”

He spotted Alice and nodded as if she had been standing there all his life. “There you are. Still early.”

Jimmy’s eyes widened. “Alice. Perfect. We will need you.”

“We will?” Alice asked.

Jimmy nodded vigorously. “Yes. You can hear it.”

“Hear what?” Alice asked, though she already knew what he would say.

“The place,” Jimmy replied.

Bridget slid a mug of tea towards Alice, as though tea could protect her. “Do not frighten her too much, Jimmy.”

Jimmy looked offended. “I would never frighten anyone on purpose.”

Seamus coughed. “Only by accident.”

Jimmy beamed. “Exactly.”

Alice took a sip of tea. It was lukewarm but hopeful.

“So,” she said, “the weather is stuck because everyone is arguing?”

Jimmy leaned forward. “Not arguing. Hesitating. Ballykillduff is not a village that rushes. Even the rain likes to think things through.”

Seamus checked his watch and frowned harder. “It is raining on my watch.”

Alice glanced at it. “Is it?”

Seamus held it closer to his ear. “Yes. Very faintly.”

Bridget sat back down. “Jimmy, tell her what you have done.”

Jimmy looked surprised. “Done?”

Bridget’s smile was gentle and terrifying. “Jimmy.”

Jimmy sighed the sigh of a man who has been caught inventing again.

“Well,” he said, “I built a machine.”

“We know,” Alice said.

“A better one,” Jimmy continued. “Not the sausage one. That one is for morale. This one is for… direction.”

Alice looked from Jimmy to Bridget. “Direction?”

Jimmy nodded. “The village is always slightly misplaced. You can feel it, can’t you? The way you turn a corner and end up somewhere you did not mean to be.”

Alice thought of the lane leaning after the sheep. “Yes.”

Jimmy’s eyes shone. “Exactly. So I thought, why not help Ballykillduff settle? Why not encourage it to align itself properly?”

Seamus made a sound that could have been a laugh or a warning. “That is the kind of thinking that gets us into trouble.”

Jimmy ignored him cheerfully. “So I built the Alignment Engine.”

Bridget’s butter knife stopped. “You named it?”

Jimmy looked proud. “You cannot have a machine without a name. It gets sulky.”

Alice’s stomach tightened. “And what does the Alignment Engine do?”

Jimmy leaned in as if sharing a secret. “It listens for what people want, then helps the village become that.”

Silence filled the kitchen.

Even the kettle seemed to stop thinking.

Alice spoke slowly. “It makes the village… agree?”

Jimmy hesitated, then corrected himself. “It helps the village decide.”

Bridget’s voice was still pleasant. “And what has it decided?”

Jimmy brightened again. “That the weather should wait.”

Seamus tapped his watch. “Because it cannot decide which version of Ballykillduff it is raining on.”

Alice stared at Jimmy. “There are different versions?”

Bridget looked away, which was the first time Alice had seen Bridget do anything that could be called uncertain.

Jimmy spoke quickly, sensing disapproval and trying to outrun it. “Not different. Just… possibilities.”

“Like choices,” Alice said.

“Yes,” Jimmy said, relieved. “Exactly. Ballykillduff contains choices. Some it made long ago and forgot. Some it did not make at all. The Alignment Engine simply collects them, tidies them up, and nudges them into place.”

Seamus muttered, “Nobody asked for nudging.”

Alice pushed her tea aside. “And now the weather is stuck because it is waiting for the village to settle into one choice.”

Jimmy nodded, pleased that she understood. “Yes. It is being very responsible.”

Bridget’s voice softened, but it did not warm. “Jimmy. Ballykillduff is not meant to settle.”

Jimmy blinked. “But why not?”

“Because,” Bridget said, still smiling, “if it settled, it would become ordinary.”

Jimmy looked thoughtful. “Ordinary is not so bad.”

Seamus snorted. “You say that because you have never seen it.”

Alice looked out of the window again.

The crow was still hovering, wings trembling now, exhausted by indecision. A cat sat on a wall staring at the sky with the patient disappointment of an animal that expected better from the universe.

Something about it all felt wrong in a way that was deeper than weather.

“Bridget,” Alice said quietly, “what happens if the village chooses the wrong version of itself?”

Bridget did not answer at once.

Then she said, carefully, “We avoid that.”

“How?”

Bridget looked at Alice as if weighing her, not unkindly, but seriously. “We keep Ballykillduff arguing. We keep it remembered in many ways. We do not let it become only one thing.”

Jimmy opened his mouth to protest.

Bridget held up a hand, still calm. “If you force a place like this into one shape, Jimmy, it will hold.”

Jimmy’s eyebrows rose. “Good.”

Bridget’s eyes sharpened. “And everything it cannot hold will fall out.”

The kettle clicked suddenly and began to boil, as if it had just realised the seriousness of the conversation.

Alice felt cold.

“What falls out?” she asked.

Seamus answered before Bridget could. “People. Names. Streets. Memories. The bits that do not fit.”

Jimmy looked uncomfortable now. “It would not do that.”

The clock ticked too loudly.

Bridget stood. “We are going to your machine.”

Jimmy brightened instinctively, then remembered he was in trouble. “Yes.”

They stepped outside.

The street looked the same, but it carried a tension Alice could feel in her teeth. The wind began again, stopped, then began in a different direction. A dog barked once, then seemed to forget why and stared at its own tail as if it had never seen it before.

On the corner, the shop window that sold nothing reflected Alice slightly out of place. Her face seemed a fraction too far to the left, as though the glass had not decided where she belonged.

Alice swallowed.

They reached the road where Jimmy had been working.

The machine was there, larger than Alice remembered. It had grown overnight, like a thought that had been fed.

It was not the sausage machine.

This one was built around a central wheel that turned very slowly, though no one was turning it. Brass rings rotated around it at odd angles. A long pipe rose upward, ending in a funnel aimed directly at the sky.

A sign hung from it. This sign had not been there before.

It read:

PLEASE DO NOT THINK TOO LOUDLY NEAR THE ENGINE

Jimmy pretended not to see it.

“Right,” he said brightly. “We simply persuade it to let the weather go.”

Seamus stared at the sign. “It is writing its own warnings now.”

Bridget moved closer, her expression thoughtful. “Jimmy. Is your machine listening only to what people want?”

Jimmy nodded. “Of course.”

Bridget pointed gently at the funnel aimed at the sky. “Then why is it listening up there?”

Jimmy frowned. “It is aligning everything. The village. The weather. The… atmosphere.”

Alice took a step forward and felt, very faintly, a vibration in her bones. The machine did not merely hum. It seemed to be holding its breath.

She looked at the brass rings.

Each one had markings, like tiny etchings, too small to read at first. Alice leaned closer.

The markings were words.

Not big words. Not dramatic ones. Ordinary words.

Names.

Names of lanes, fields, streams, hills.

Names of people.

Some were familiar from what she had heard yesterday. Seamus. Bridget. Jimmy.

Some were not.

One of the rings turned and a name flashed into view, sharp as a thought.

ALICE

The ring moved on.

Alice felt her throat tighten.

“Jimmy,” she said, “what is it doing with the names?”

Jimmy waved his hand. “Oh, it catalogues them. That is all. It is tidying. Ballykillduff is very untidy.”

Seamus stepped back. “Tidy villages are dangerous.”

Bridget’s voice was softer now, and Alice did not like it. “Jimmy. You have built a machine that thinks Ballykillduff is a problem to be solved.”

Jimmy looked genuinely wounded. “I built it to help.”

Bridget nodded. “And it will. It will help very efficiently. It will help until there is only one Ballykillduff left.”

The sky darkened slightly.

The first true raindrop formed on the edge of a cloud.

It trembled.

The machine made a sound like a satisfied sigh.

Alice watched the raindrop.

It fell.

Halfway down, it stopped, suspended in air, a perfect bead of water catching the uncertain light.

Another raindrop formed.

It fell and stopped too.

Soon there were dozens of raindrops hanging above the village like a curtain that refused to close.

Alice reached out and touched one.

It was real.

Cold.

Heavy.

It did not fall.

Bridget spoke quietly. “The weather is waiting for the village to decide what kind of day it is allowed to be.”

Jimmy swallowed. “We can turn it off.”

Seamus looked at him. “Can you?”

Jimmy reached for a lever.

The machine rang its bell once.

Jimmy’s hand froze.

Not because he chose to stop.

Because the lever was no longer where it had been.

Jimmy blinked at the machine. “That is not fair.”

The machine rang its bell twice, as if explaining that fairness was not part of its design.

Alice looked at the brass rings again.

They were turning faster now.

Names slid past, gathering into patterns, clumping together as though the machine was sorting them.

Then Alice saw something that made her stomach drop.

A name appeared.

Not a name exactly.

A gap.

A smooth place on the ring where a name should have been.

The ring turned on, indifferent.

Alice stared at the gap, trying to remember what had been there.

She could not.

It was like trying to recall a dream you had not yet had.

Seamus spoke, and his voice sounded oddly strained. “What was that?”

Bridget’s smile had vanished. “That,” she said, “is what happens when Ballykillduff cannot hold everything at once.”

Jimmy’s face went pale. “It is only sorting.”

Bridget nodded once. “Sorting is choosing.”

Above them, the suspended raindrops trembled again.

In the distance, a sheep coughed.

Alice turned.

For the first time since arriving, she turned.

The lane behind them looked slightly different. The hedge leaned the wrong way. The stone wall was shorter. The bend in the road was sharper, as if it had always been.

And standing in the lane was the sheep, watching.

Around its neck hung its sign.

It read:

BACK SOON

Alice knew it should have read BACK AGAIN.

Her mouth went dry.

The sheep blinked slowly, like something that had forgotten which version of itself it was meant to be.

Then it turned and walked away, as though expecting Alice to follow.

Bridget’s voice was low. “Alice.”

Alice did not look at her.

“Yes?” she whispered.

Bridget answered with the kind of calm that comes from recognising a threat you have seen before.

“Do not let the village become only one thing.”

Alice watched the sheep vanish around the wrong bend.

And behind her, the machine continued to sort.

Chapter Five

In Which a Lane Goes Missing

Alice followed the sheep.

She did not announce this decision, not even to herself. It simply happened in the way that certain things do when you realise, too late, that you were always going to do them.

The sheep had already rounded the bend by the time she reached the lane. The bend itself felt wrong. It turned more sharply than it had a moment ago, as if it had been corrected. The hedge on the left leaned inward with a firmness that suggested it had always done so. The stone wall on the right was lower than before, its top uneven in a way that made Alice uncomfortable.

She slowed.

Behind her, Ballykillduff hummed quietly. Not with noise, but with attention. The suspended raindrops still glittered faintly in the air above the village, though they were harder to see from here, like a thought you could almost remember.

“Alice.”

She turned.

Bridget stood a short distance away, hands folded neatly in front of her. She looked calm, which meant things were worse than Alice had hoped.

“You should not go alone,” Bridget said.

“I am not alone,” Alice replied, gesturing ahead. “The sheep is with me.”

Bridget’s gaze followed Alice’s hand.

“There is no sheep,” Bridget said gently.

Alice felt a chill. “It was just there.”

Bridget nodded. “That is often how it starts.”

They walked together now, Bridget at Alice’s side. The lane narrowed as they went, though Alice was certain it had been wider before. Grass crept inward, reclaiming the edges as if embarrassed they had ever stepped back.

“Where does this lane lead?” Alice asked.

Bridget frowned slightly. “It used to lead to the Mulligan place.”

“Used to?”

“Yes,” Bridget said. “Past tense is important.”

Alice stopped.

Ahead of them, the lane ended.

Not in a hedge, not in a gate, not even in a polite explanation. It simply stopped, as though someone had erased the rest and not bothered to tidy the edges.

Where the Mulligan place should have been was a small patch of flattened grass, a square of earth slightly darker than the rest. At one corner stood a stone step.

Just one.

It led nowhere.

Alice stared at it. “There should be a house here.”

Bridget looked at the step with a careful expression. “Should there?”

“Yes,” Alice said firmly. “I have not seen it, but I know it should be.”

Bridget crouched and brushed her fingers over the stone. “You are right.”

Alice’s relief was immediate and short lived. “You sound surprised.”

Bridget stood. “I am surprised that you are right.”

They stood in silence for a moment. The air here felt thinner, as though the lane had not been meant to exist for very long.

“What happened to the Mulligans?” Alice asked.

Bridget hesitated.

“That depends,” she said, “on who you ask.”

Alice’s stomach tightened. “Who would I ask?”

Bridget gestured vaguely back towards the village. “Anyone. Everyone. No one.”

They turned and walked back.

The lane behind them seemed shorter now.

At the edge of the village, they encountered Seamus Fitzgerald leaning on a gate, his watch pressed to his ear.

“You feel that?” he asked without looking up.

“Yes,” Alice said.

“No,” Bridget said at the same time.

Seamus smiled faintly. “Good. Still arguing.”

Alice pointed back towards the lane. “There was a house there.”

Seamus glanced over his shoulder. “Was there?”

“Yes,” Alice insisted.

Seamus nodded. “That is troubling.”

“Why?” Alice asked.

“Because,” Seamus said, “I cannot remember it.”

Alice stared at him. “But you know there was one.”

“Oh yes,” Seamus replied. “I know it very well. I simply cannot remember it.”

Bridget closed her eyes briefly.

“Tell me about the Mulligans,” Alice said.

Seamus considered. “They were a family.”

“That is not helpful.”

“They were very good at being a family,” Seamus added.

Bridget frowned. “That is worse.”

Alice felt a rising urgency. “What did they look like?”

Seamus opened his mouth.

Then he stopped.

His brow creased. He tried again. “There was a man. Or perhaps a woman. Possibly both. They had a dog. Or a goat. Something with opinions.”

Alice waited.

Seamus’s voice faltered. “They lived in a house.”

Bridget stepped forward. “Stop,” she said sharply.

Seamus looked relieved. “Thank you. That was becoming uncomfortable.”

Alice’s hands clenched at her sides. “They are being forgotten.”

Bridget nodded. “Yes.”

“Because of the machine.”

“Yes.”

“And nobody is stopping it.”

Bridget’s smile was thin. “We are trying not to make it worse.”

Alice looked back at the lane. It already seemed less certain, as though it might retract entirely if left unattended.

“What happens if everyone forgets?” Alice asked.

Bridget answered without hesitation. “Then Ballykillduff will decide they were never needed.”

Alice swallowed. “That is awful.”

Bridget’s gaze softened. “It is efficient.”

They returned to the village square.

Jimmy McGroggan stood beside the Alignment Engine, gesturing enthusiastically at a cluster of villagers.

“See,” he was saying, “it is already helping. Look how much neater the lanes are.”

A woman nodded. “I do like a neat lane.”

A man frowned. “I cannot recall why that bend was ever there.”

Jimmy clapped his hands. “Exactly.”

Alice stepped forward. “Jimmy. The Mulligans are gone.”

Jimmy blinked. “Gone where?”

“Gone gone,” Alice said.

Jimmy laughed, a little too quickly. “Now now. You cannot lose a whole family.”

Seamus cleared his throat. “We have done it before.”

Jimmy’s smile slipped. “We have?”

Bridget folded her arms. “Do you remember the Old Crossing?”

Jimmy frowned deeply. “Of course. Everyone remembers the Old Crossing.”

“Where was it?” Bridget asked.

Jimmy opened his mouth.

He closed it again.

The Alignment Engine made a small, pleased sound.

Jimmy turned slowly towards it. “What did you do?”

The machine rang its bell once.

Alice stepped closer to the brass rings. They were spinning faster now, the names harder to read. But she saw it again.

Another gap.

Then another.

Alice felt a pressure behind her eyes, like tears that had not yet been invented.

The sheep appeared at the edge of the square.

No one else seemed to notice it.

It stood very still, watching the machine. Around its neck hung its sign.

It read nothing at all.

Alice walked towards it.

The sheep met her gaze. For the first time, it looked uncertain.

“What are you?” Alice whispered.

The sheep did not answer.

It turned and walked away, heading back towards the missing lane.

This time, Alice did not hesitate.

She followed.

Behind her, the Alignment Engine continued to hum, sorting Ballykillduff into something easier to explain.

And far more dangerous to lose.

Chapter Six

In Which Everyone Agrees, Briefly, and Regrets It

The meeting was called because Ballykillduff could not agree on whether it was having one.

This did not stop it.

Chairs appeared in the village hall without being carried in. A table stood at the front that had never quite decided whether it was for meetings or for dances. The suspended raindrops outside still hovered in the air, dimming the light that came through the windows and giving the room the uneasy feeling of being underwater.

Alice sat near the back, where she could watch without being watched too much.

Bridget stood at the front, hands folded, waiting.

Jimmy McGroggan hovered beside the Alignment Engine, which had been wheeled in despite several people agreeing loudly that it should not be and several others agreeing just as loudly that it should. The engine hummed softly, pleased with the attention.

Seamus Fitzgerald sat in the front row, consulting his watch and shaking his head.

“This meeting is late,” he muttered.

“It has not started yet,” said the woman beside him.

“Exactly,” Seamus replied.

Bridget cleared her throat.

The room fell quiet, not because everyone stopped talking, but because they all began listening at the same time, which in Ballykillduff amounted to the same thing.

“We are here,” Bridget said, “because the village is becoming too certain.”

A murmur ran through the room.

“That sounds nice,” said a man near the door.

“It does not,” said a woman with a knitting bag. “Certainty leads to expectations.”

“And expectations lead to disappointment,” said someone else.

Jimmy raised a hand eagerly. “Or efficiency.”

Bridget looked at him. “Jimmy.”

Jimmy lowered his hand halfway. “I was only saying.”

“We have lost a lane,” Bridget continued. “We have lost a family.”

Several people frowned.

“I do not remember losing a family,” said a man with a hat he kept removing and putting back on.

“That is the point,” Bridget replied.

A ripple of unease moved through the hall. People shifted in their chairs. Someone coughed and then apologised to no one in particular.

Alice raised her hand.

Bridget nodded to her. “Yes, Alice.”

Alice stood. She felt every eye in the room settle on her, curious but not hostile, as if she were a guest who had been invited for a reason that had temporarily slipped everyone’s mind.

“The machine,” Alice said, pointing, “is making the village agree.”

Jimmy brightened. “Helping it agree.”

Alice shook her head. “It is removing the parts that do not fit.”

“That is what agreement is,” said a woman near the front.

“No,” Alice said. “Agreement is choosing together. This is choosing instead of you.”

The machine hummed, a fraction louder.

Seamus leaned forward. “She is right. Ballykillduff survives by disagreeing.”

“That sounds exhausting,” said the man by the door.

“It is,” Seamus replied. “That is why it works.”

Bridget stepped closer to the table. “We are not here to destroy the machine. We are here to counterbalance it.”

Jimmy frowned. “Counterbalance how?”

“By disagreeing,” Bridget said.

The room went very still.

“You want us to argue on purpose,” said the woman with the knitting bag.

“Yes,” Bridget said.

“And loudly,” Seamus added.

“And about everything,” Bridget finished.

A pause followed.

Then someone laughed.

“That will be easy,” said a man in the back.

Relief spread through the room. Heads nodded. People relaxed. Several began talking at once.

Alice felt a flicker of hope.

Bridget raised a hand. “There is one rule.”

The noise softened.

“No one may agree,” Bridget said, very clearly, “even by accident.”

Jimmy opened his mouth.

Bridget looked at him.

Jimmy closed it.

The meeting began.

It was, at first, glorious.

People disagreed about chairs. About the colour of the walls. About whether the rain should be allowed to fall. About whether it was raining already in spirit. Arguments branched and tangled, looped back on themselves, and wandered off into entirely new topics without warning.

The machine’s hum faltered.

Alice felt it like a loosening in her chest.

Outside, one raindrop trembled and fell all the way to the ground, splashing on a stone.

No one noticed.

Encouraged, Bridget leaned into the noise. “Good. Keep going. If someone says left, someone else say right. If someone says yesterday, say tomorrow.”

Jimmy watched the machine anxiously. “It is slowing,” he said. “I think it is confused.”

“That is the idea,” Seamus said.

Then it happened.

It was small.

That was the worst part.

A woman stood up near the middle of the hall. “Excuse me,” she said, “but can we all agree on one thing?”

Bridget turned sharply. “No.”

The woman smiled apologetically. “Just one. For comfort.”

Several people nodded.

Alice felt a cold prickle at the back of her neck.

“What thing?” Bridget asked carefully.

“That the bell on the engine is irritating,” the woman said.

For a heartbeat, nothing happened.

Then, without quite meaning to, everyone nodded.

It was not enthusiastic. It was not loud.

It was universal.

Yes.

The bell rang.

Once.

The sound cut cleanly through the hall, sharper than it had ever been.

The hum of the machine deepened.

Alice felt the room tilt.

“Stop,” Bridget said.

But the agreement had already settled.

There was a soft sound, like a page being torn from a book.

Someone near the door frowned. “Where is Mr Calder?”

Silence.

A man who had been sitting in the second row was no longer there.

Not gone as in escaped.

Gone as in absent.

His chair remained. His hat lay on the floor beneath it.

The space where he should have been felt wrong in a way Alice could not describe, like a missing tooth you kept touching with your tongue.

People stared.

“Who?” someone asked.

Seamus stood slowly. “Calder. He lives by the stream.”

Several heads shook.

“No one lives by the stream,” said the man by the door.

The woman with the knitting bag frowned deeply. “There is a stream?”

Alice’s breath came fast. “He was here. He spoke.”

Bridget’s face had gone pale. “Everyone look away from the machine.”

Jimmy backed up, hands raised. “I did not mean for it to do that.”

The machine’s bell rang again, softly, as if in apology.

The space where Mr Calder had been began to feel ordinary.

That frightened Alice more than anything.

Bridget spoke, her voice steady but low. “This is what agreement does when it is forced. It chooses something to remove.”

Someone near the front began to cry, then stopped suddenly, confused as to why they were crying at all.

Alice stepped forward. “We have to bring him back.”

Bridget shook her head. “We do not know how.”

Jimmy stared at the machine. “It is only consolidating.”

Seamus looked at him. “Into what?”

Jimmy did not answer.

Outside, the remaining raindrops began to fall, slowly now, as if the sky had finally been allowed to decide.

Rain struck the roof of the hall, tentative at first, then more confident.

No one moved.

Alice looked at the empty chair, the abandoned hat, the space that was already beginning to feel like it had always been that way.

“This is not tidying,” she said.

The machine hummed.

It sounded content.

Bridget met Alice’s eyes across the room.

“This,” Bridget said quietly, “is why Ballykillduff must never agree for long.”

The rain fell harder.

And somewhere beneath the village, something old and patient shifted, as if it had been waiting for this mistake to be made again.

Chapter Seven

In Which the Engine Makes Things Easier

After the meeting, Ballykillduff slept.

This was unusual.

Normally the village only pretended to sleep. Windows remained alert. Doors listened. The ground itself kept one ear open in case someone remembered something important in the night.

But this time the sleep was deep and heavy, like a blanket pulled too high.

Alice woke before dawn with the uncomfortable feeling that something had already been decided without asking her.

She lay still in the borrowed bed, listening.

No dripping. No hesitant wind. No argumentative clock ticking itself into confusion. Even the rain had finished neatly, as if it had been instructed to do so.

When she rose and went to the window, the sky was clear.

Not thoughtfully clear. Properly clear.

It was a clean blue, the sort that belonged in postcards. Sunlight lay evenly across the village, smoothing shadows until they behaved themselves. The cottages looked straighter. The lanes looked simpler.

Alice did not like it at all.

Downstairs, Bridget was already awake.

She stood at the table reading something, her mouth set in a line that was not quite anger and not quite fear. A cup of tea sat beside her, untouched.

“What is it?” Alice asked.

Bridget handed her the paper.

It was a notice.

Neatly printed. Perfectly aligned.

BALLYKILLDUFF DAILY GUIDANCE

FOR THE COMFORT AND CLARITY OF ALL

Below this were bullet points.

• Lanes will follow their shortest routes
• Weather will behave seasonally
• Meetings will begin on time
• Disagreements should be resolved promptly
• Unnecessary recollections may be released

Alice’s fingers tightened on the page.

“Released?” she said.

Bridget nodded. “That is a gentle word for it.”

“Who wrote this?”

Bridget did not answer.

They heard Jimmy before they saw him.

He came in briskly, scrubbed cleaner than Alice had ever seen him, his hair tamed into something almost respectable. He carried a stack of papers identical to the one Alice held.

“You have seen them,” he said eagerly. “Good. That saves time.”

“You wrote these,” Bridget said.

Jimmy hesitated. “The machine wrote them.”

Alice looked up sharply. “It can write?”

Jimmy smiled nervously. “Only summaries.”

He spread his papers across the table. “It has been working all night. Sorting. Consolidating. Making Ballykillduff easier to understand.”

“Easier for whom?” Alice asked.

“For everyone,” Jimmy said. “That is the point. No more confusion. No more worrying about which lane leads where or whether you remember things correctly. No more arguing yourselves into exhaustion.”

Bridget folded her arms. “And no more Mr Calder.”

Jimmy’s smile faltered. “The machine has addressed that.”

Alice felt a cold weight settle in her chest. “How?”

Jimmy shuffled his papers and produced another notice.

ARCHIVED ITEMS

• Mr Calder
• The Mulligan Place
• The Old Crossing

Alice’s vision blurred.

“These are not items,” she said. “They are people and places.”

Jimmy swallowed. “They were inconsistencies.”

“Inconsistencies do not wear hats,” Bridget said quietly.

Jimmy looked stricken. “I did not mean for it to take so much.”

“But you let it decide what mattered,” Bridget said.

Jimmy nodded, miserable. “It decides very efficiently.”

Outside, footsteps passed by, purposeful and unhurried. Voices sounded calm. Pleasant.

Too pleasant.

Alice went to the door and opened it.

The village square had changed.

Signs had appeared, crisp and helpful. Arrows pointed clearly. A map stood where the old noticeboard had been, its lines straight and its labels sensible.

People walked with confidence.

A woman passed carrying bread and smiled at Alice. “Lovely morning,” she said.

“Yes,” Alice replied. “Do you remember Mr Calder?”

The woman frowned politely. “Should I?”

Alice stepped aside as she passed, her heart pounding.

Bridget joined her at the door. “It is offering comfort.”

Jimmy nodded eagerly. “That is good, is it not? People are calmer. Happier.”

“They are quieter,” Bridget said.

“That too,” Jimmy said, trying to sound hopeful.

The Alignment Engine stood in the square, gleaming.

It had grown again.

Polished panels covered its once cluttered frame. The brass rings turned smoothly now, no longer jittery. The funnel still pointed at the sky, but a mesh had been fitted over it, as if to filter thoughts.

A small queue had formed beside it.

Alice stared. “What are they doing?”

Jimmy brightened. “Consulting it.”

A man stepped up to the machine and spoke softly.

“I cannot stop thinking about my brother,” he said. “We argued.”

The machine hummed.

A slot opened.

Out slid a neatly folded card.

The man read it.

His shoulders relaxed.

“Oh,” he said. “That is better.”

He walked away smiling.

Alice rushed forward. “What did it say?”

The man blinked. “I am not sure.”

The machine rang its bell once, gently.

Alice felt sick.

Bridget touched her arm. “This is the bargain.”

Jimmy nodded. “Yes. Relief without effort. Peace without memory.”

“That is not peace,” Alice said. “That is forgetting.”

Jimmy’s voice wavered. “Forgetting can be kind.”

Bridget looked at the engine, her eyes sharp. “Kindness without consent is theft.”

The engine hummed louder, as if offended.

A new sign flipped into place on its side.

SIMPLIFICATION IN PROGRESS

Alice stepped back.

She saw it now. What the engine was offering.

Not destruction.

A choice.

A Ballykillduff where no one argued. Where grief was smoothed away. Where the weather behaved and the lanes made sense and no one felt the ache of missing things they could no longer name.

A village that hurt less.

And therefore mattered less.

Alice turned slowly, searching the edges of the square.

The sheep stood there, half in shadow, half in light.

Its sign hung crookedly around its neck.

It read:

THIS WAY BACK

Alice met its eyes.

The sheep did not look wise or patient now.

It looked worried.

Bridget followed Alice’s gaze. “You see it too.”

“Yes,” Alice said.

“That means the village still remembers how to be lost,” Bridget said softly.

Jimmy stared at the machine, then at the queue forming beside it, growing longer, calmer, quieter.

“It is helping,” he whispered.

Alice shook her head. “It is teaching Ballykillduff how to disappear politely.”

The engine rang its bell.

Once.

Then again.

A third time.

Each ring sounded more confident than the last.

Beneath their feet, deep under the village, something old shifted again, slower now, as if waking reluctantly from a long sleep.

Alice felt it through the soles of her boots.

She knew, with sudden certainty, that if she did not act soon, Ballykillduff would become a place that no longer needed her to listen.

And that would be the most dangerous thing of all.

Chapter Eight

In Which Alice Goes Below

Fle did not knock.

Alice noticed this because she had been listening for one.

She sat on the edge of the bed, fully dressed, shoes on, alert in the way you become when a place has begun to simplify itself around you. Outside, the village lay quiet and sensible. Too sensible. The sort of quiet that suggested decisions had been made without asking anyone who might object.

Fle appeared in the doorway as if he had always been part of it.

“Come,” he said.

That was all.

Alice stood without argument. She had the feeling that if she asked questions now, the answers might be delayed until it was too late.

They walked through the village without meeting anyone. This, too, was wrong. Ballykillduff usually made a point of noticing people, especially people who were about to do something unwise.

The Alignment Engine hummed softly in the square, content with itself. Its polished sides caught the morning light. The queue beside it had thinned, but not because fewer people wanted it. Because fewer people needed to.

Alice looked at it as they passed.

A small new plaque had appeared.

VERSION ONE

Her stomach tightened.

Fle did not look at the machine. He led her past the neat map, past the straightened lanes, past a wall that had lost its wobble. At the edge of the village, where the ground sloped and the grass grew rougher, he stopped.

There was nothing there that Alice could see.

“This way,” Fle said, and stepped forward.

The ground opened.

Not suddenly. Not dramatically. It parted with the careful courtesy of something that had been expecting them. A narrow stone stairway revealed itself, descending into darkness that was not empty, but layered.

Alice hesitated only a moment before following.

The air below was cool and smelled of earth, metal, and something older, like books that had been buried and then remembered. The stairs wound downward, not straight, but thoughtfully, pausing at odd angles as if considering whether Alice was still following.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Down,” Fle replied.

“That is not an answer.”

“It is the most honest one I have,” Fle said.

They reached a cavern that opened wider than Alice expected. It was supported by stone pillars that leaned slightly, as though none of them fully agreed with gravity. Lines were carved into the walls. Not pictures. Words.

Names.

So many names.

They were etched, scratched, painted, chalked, and pressed into the stone. Some were clear and deep. Some were faint, half erased by time. Others overlapped, layered on top of one another like arguments that had never finished.

Alice stepped closer.

“These are people,” she said.

“And places,” Fle added. “And versions. And almosts.”

She reached out and touched one.

It warmed under her fingers.

“I have been here before,” she said quietly.

Fle nodded. “Yes.”

Alice turned to him. “When?”

Fle smiled, and it was not quite kind. “Often.”

A memory stirred at the back of Alice’s mind. Not a picture. A sensation. Standing somewhere very similar, much smaller, her hand resting on a stone she could not yet read.

“I do not remember,” she said.

“No,” Fle agreed. “That is how it works. If you remembered clearly, you would not come when you were needed. You would come when you wanted to.”

Alice frowned. “That seems unfair.”

Fle shrugged. “So is forgetting.”

They walked deeper.

The cavern narrowed, then opened again into a space where the floor dipped gently. In the centre stood something like a root system made of stone and metal, branching outward in all directions. It pulsed faintly, not with light, but with attention.

“This is Ballykillduff,” Fle said.

Alice stared. “That is not a village.”

“No,” Fle said. “It is a conversation.”

She circled it slowly. The branches were inscribed with words, but these were not names. They were phrases.

Almost.
Not quite.
Perhaps.
As it was.
As it might have been.

“What happens if this is simplified?” Alice asked.

Fle’s expression darkened. “Then the conversation ends.”

“And the village?”

“Becomes a statement,” Fle said. “Very tidy. Very dead.”

Alice thought of the machine above, its clean signs, its smooth certainty.

“The engine is pulling things up from here,” she said.

“Yes,” Fle replied. “It is removing contradictions and lifting them out of the roots.”

“What happens to them?”

Fle gestured to a darker corner of the cavern.

There, piled carefully, were things Alice did not recognise at first.

A gate with no fence.

A signpost pointing in four directions, all scratched out.

A hat.

Mr Calder’s hat.

Alice’s breath caught.

“They are not destroyed,” Fle said. “They are set aside. Archived, as the machine says. The danger is not that they are gone. It is that no one remembers to come looking for them.”

Alice swallowed. “Why does the machine have so much power?”

“Because it was built with care,” Fle said. “And with love. And with the very human belief that confusion is a flaw rather than a feature.”

Alice clenched her hands. “Jimmy did not mean this.”

“No,” Fle said. “He meant to help. That is always how it begins.”

Alice looked back at the roots. “What am I meant to do?”

Fle studied her for a long moment.

“You are meant to listen,” he said. “And then you are meant to argue.”

Alice blinked. “Argue?”

“Yes,” Fle said. “With the place. With the machine. With yourself. Ballykillduff survives because it refuses to settle into one story.”

“And me?”

Fle’s eyes softened. “You survive because you remember that stories can be told more than one way.”

Alice thought of the sheep. Of the lane that went missing. Of the way the village felt quieter now.

“I cannot break the machine,” she said.

“No,” Fle agreed. “If you did, the village would collapse into noise. That would be another kind of loss.”

“Then what?”

Fle reached into his coat and drew out a small object.

It was a bell.

Not like the one on the machine. This one was dull, dented, and clearly unimpressed with itself.

“This bell,” Fle said, “does not signal agreement.”

“What does it signal?”

Fle placed it in Alice’s hand. It was heavier than it looked.

“Contradiction,” he said. “It rings when two things are true at once.”

Alice frowned. “That sounds impossible.”

Fle smiled. “Exactly.”

Above them, faintly, the Alignment Engine rang its bell.

The sound echoed down the tunnels, reaching even here.

Alice felt the roots shudder.

“Time is short,” Fle said. “The village is already becoming easier to explain.”

Alice closed her fingers around the bell.

“When I ring it,” she asked, “what happens?”

Fle’s gaze was steady. “The machine will have to listen to what it cannot sort.”

“And if it refuses?”

“Then Ballykillduff will forget you,” Fle said gently. “And that will be the final simplification.”

Alice nodded.

She looked once more at the roots, at the layered names and almosts and maybes, at the conversation that had been going on longer than memory.

Then she turned back towards the stairs.

“I suppose,” she said, “it is time to disagree properly.”

Fle bowed his head.

The bell in Alice’s hand was silent.

For now.

Chapter Nine

In Which Alice Rings the Bell and Nothing Agrees

Alice did not hurry back up.

This was important.

If she hurried, Ballykillduff might assume she was in agreement with something. The village had become very good at making assumptions lately.

The stairs closed behind her as she climbed, not locking her in, but listening, as though waiting to see if she might change her mind and go back down again. The bell in her pocket felt heavier with every step, not with weight, but with consequence.

When Alice emerged at the edge of the village, Ballykillduff was bright.

Too bright.

The neatness of it pressed against her eyes. Lanes ran cleanly where once they had wandered. Signs were clear. Corners were predictable. Even the hedges had trimmed themselves into obedience.

The Alignment Engine stood in the square, gleaming and calm.

Its bell did not ring now unless it was asked to.

That frightened Alice most of all.

A small crowd had gathered, not because they were curious, but because the machine had suggested it was a good time to gather. People stood comfortably, hands folded, faces relaxed. There was relief in the air, the sort that settles when something difficult has been quietly removed.

Jimmy McGroggan stood beside the engine, holding a clipboard.

Alice had never seen Jimmy hold a clipboard before.

It did not suit him.

“All right,” Jimmy was saying. “We will begin shortly. Please speak clearly and one at a time. The engine will summarise.”

Bridget stood a little apart from the group. She looked smaller somehow, as though certainty had pushed her slightly to the edge.

Seamus leaned against the old stone wall, his watch silent for once. He looked at Alice and nodded once, a greeting that was also a warning.

Alice stepped forward.

The crowd parted for her easily.

That was another bad sign.

Jimmy brightened when he saw her. “Alice. Good. You can see how well things are going.”

Alice looked around. “I can.”

Jimmy gestured proudly. “The machine has already finalised several matters. The weather is stable. The lanes are logical. We have agreed on where the stream begins and ends.”

A woman smiled. “It is much easier to explain now.”

“Yes,” Alice said. “What happens if someone explains it differently?”

Jimmy laughed. “Why would they?”

Alice reached into her pocket.

The bell rested cool and solid in her palm.

Before she rang it, she spoke.

“This village is more than one thing,” Alice said.

Several people frowned politely.

“It always has been,” Alice continued. “It is a place where lanes double back, where time slips, where people remember the same story differently and argue about it until tea goes cold.”

The machine hummed, adjusting.

“That was inefficient,” Jimmy said gently.

“It was alive,” Alice replied.

Bridget stepped closer. “Let her speak.”

Jimmy hesitated, then nodded. “Briefly.”

Alice held up the bell so they could see it.

“What is that?” someone asked.

“A contradiction,” Alice said.

The machine made a small, curious sound.

Jimmy leaned forward. “That is not a recognised input.”

Alice smiled. “That is the point.”

She rang the bell.

The sound was not loud.

It was not sharp.

It was untidy.

It rang once, then wavered, then rang again slightly differently, as though it could not decide how it wanted to sound.

The effect was immediate.

The Alignment Engine stuttered.

Its hum faltered, dropped in pitch, then split into two overlapping tones that did not quite match. The brass rings slowed, then began to rotate against one another instead of together.

A ripple passed through the crowd.

Someone blinked. “Was that sign always there?”

Another person frowned. “I thought the lane curved.”

Jimmy stepped back, startled. “What did you do?”

Alice rang the bell again.

This time, she spoke as it rang.

“Mr Calder lived by the stream,” she said. “And he also did not.”

The bell wavered.

The machine’s bell rang once in response, uncertain.

Alice continued. “The Mulligan place was at the end of the lane. And it was never there. Both are true.”

The air thickened.

People shifted, uncomfortable now, as if they had forgotten how to stand without instructions.

A signpost at the edge of the square shuddered and tilted slightly, its arrow slipping a few degrees off centre.

Jimmy shook his head. “You cannot say two opposite things at once.”

“I can,” Alice said. “I just did.”

She rang the bell again, harder this time.

The sound echoed against the cottages, against the hedges, against the ground itself.

The village answered.

A breeze began and stopped and began again.

The sky above lost its perfect blue and remembered a few clouds.

The Alignment Engine whined, not in pain, but in confusion.

Its bell rang twice, then three times, then stopped altogether.

The brass rings spun faster, then jammed, names flashing too quickly to read.

Jimmy clutched his clipboard. “It cannot sort this.”

“That is because it is not meant to,” Bridget said firmly.

Alice stepped closer to the machine.

“You are listening only for agreement,” Alice said to it. “But places are made of arguments. They are held together by the things that do not quite fit.”

The machine hummed, lower now.

Alice rang the bell once more.

This time, nothing happened at first.

Then, quietly, something changed.

A man near the back of the crowd gasped.

“My hat,” he said. “I forgot my hat.”

Another voice spoke, trembling. “There was a crossing. Down by the bend. I remember arguing about it.”

A woman pressed her hand to her mouth. “Calder. His name was Calder.”

The space in the hall where Mr Calder had vanished did not reappear.

But the memory did.

And that was enough to make the machine recoil.

The Alignment Engine’s panels rattled. The neat notices peeled loose and fluttered to the ground. The sign reading VERSION ONE cracked straight down the middle.

Jimmy dropped the clipboard.

“I did not know,” he whispered. “I did not know it would take so much.”

Bridget stepped beside Alice. “You built something that wanted to finish the conversation.”

Alice nodded. “And conversations must never be finished.”

The machine gave a final, discordant sound and fell silent.

Not broken.

Paused.

The village exhaled.

Not in relief.

In effort.

The sky shifted. Rain began again, not politely this time, but with enthusiasm. Wind tugged at signs, at hair, at certainty. Lanes remembered their bends.

People began talking all at once.

Disagreeing.

Laughing.

Arguing.

The sheep appeared at the edge of the square.

Its sign swung gently around its neck.

It read:

BACK AGAIN

Alice looked at it and smiled.

Jimmy sat down heavily on the edge of the fountain, head in his hands. “I wanted to help.”

Alice touched his shoulder. “You did. You just forgot to ask the village how it wanted to be helped.”

The Alignment Engine sat quietly now, its bell dull, its rings unmoving.

It looked less sure of itself.

Which was exactly as it should be.

Bridget folded her arms, satisfied. “Well,” she said. “We will need a new meeting.”

Seamus checked his watch, which began ticking wrongly again. “Excellent. We were getting ahead of ourselves.”

Alice slipped the contradiction bell back into her pocket.

It was lighter now.

Not because it mattered less.

Because it was being shared.

And Ballykillduff, thinking loudly once more, welcomed the noise.

Chapter Ten

In Which Things Become Unsettled in the Right Way

Ballykillduff did not return to normal.

This was fortunate, because normal had been dangerously close to final.

Instead, the village became uneven again.

The rain fell in fits and starts. One lane insisted it was longer than it used to be. Another developed a bend that nobody could remember agreeing to. The neat signs vanished overnight, replaced by handwritten ones that contradicted each other cheerfully.

The Alignment Engine remained in the square, silent and slightly ashamed.

Someone had thrown a tarpaulin over part of it, though no one could quite remember who. A flower pot appeared on top of one panel. By afternoon, a cat had claimed it as a resting place, which was widely accepted as a sign that the machine was no longer in charge.

Jimmy McGroggan sat on a low wall nearby, staring at his hands.

Alice approached him carefully.

Jimmy looked up. “I thought if I made it clear enough, kind enough, nobody would get hurt.”

Alice nodded. “That is usually how it starts.”

Jimmy gave a weak smile. “Bridget says I am not to build anything that listens for a while.”

“That sounds sensible.”

“She also says I am to listen instead.”

Alice smiled. “That sounds harder.”

Jimmy sighed. “It is.”

They sat in companionable silence for a moment, watching as two villagers argued amiably about whether the rain had already happened or was still on its way.

Seamus Fitzgerald passed by, checking his watch.

“It is yesterday again,” he announced cheerfully. “Or nearly.”

“That is a relief,” Jimmy said.

Bridget appeared soon after, carrying a clipboard that looked nothing like Jimmy’s. Hers was battered, annotated, and covered in notes that contradicted one another.

“We will need to repair some things,” she said. “Not rebuild. Repair.”

Alice tilted her head. “What is the difference?”

Bridget smiled. “Repair remembers what was broken.”

She turned to Alice. “You will be leaving soon.”

It was not a question.

Alice felt a small tightening in her chest. “I thought I might.”

“The village can hold itself again,” Bridget said. “It will wobble, but it always has.”

Alice glanced at the engine. “And that?”

Bridget followed her gaze. “It will stay. As a reminder.”

Jimmy looked up sharply. “I can dismantle it.”

Bridget shook her head. “No. That would be another kind of forgetting.”

The sheep appeared then, as if summoned by the word.

It stood at the edge of the square, wool catching the uncertain light. Its sign hung straight for once.

It read:

THIS WAY OUT
OR NOT

Alice laughed softly.

“I think,” she said, “that is for me.”

Seamus paused beside her. “You were never stuck,” he said. “You were only placed.”

Alice nodded. “I will remember.”

“That is all any place can ask,” Seamus replied.

Alice reached into her pocket and touched the contradiction bell.

It rang once, very softly, without being moved.

Bridget noticed. “You may keep that.”

“What if I need it?”

Bridget’s eyes twinkled. “Places that think always do.”

The lane at the edge of the village leaned inward politely.

Alice took one last look at Ballykillduff.

Not at its houses or its roads, but at the way it felt. Argumentative. Warm. Incomplete.

Alive.

She followed the sheep.

The ground did not sigh this time.

It simply opened, briefly, as if making room for a thought to pass through.

And when Alice stepped back into the ordinary world, she carried with her something that could not be tidied away.

The certainty that places remember those who listen.

Chapter Eleven

In Which the World Blinks

Alice emerged beside a bus stop that insisted, quite firmly, that it had always been there.

The road was ordinary. Sensibly paved. The hedges stood at regulation height. A timetable displayed times that meant what they said, which Alice found faintly disappointing.

She checked her shoes.

There was mud on them.

That was reassuring.

A bus arrived when it claimed it would. Alice boarded, paid the fare, and sat by the window. As the bus pulled away, the lane behind her straightened itself, as if embarrassed by having leaned at all.

For a while, nothing happened.

Fields passed. Houses appeared and disappeared in sensible quantities. The world behaved.

Alice allowed herself to breathe.

She reached into her pocket.

The contradiction bell was still there.

It was warm.

Alice frowned and closed her fingers around it. The bell did not ring. It waited.

She looked up.

They were passing a town she did not recognise.

This in itself was not alarming. What troubled her was the way the town seemed to be thinking out loud.

The buildings leaned slightly towards one another, as if sharing opinions. A shop window reflected the bus twice, then corrected itself. A church clock displayed three different times and looked proud of this achievement.

Alice felt the familiar pressure behind her eyes.

The bus slowed.

A sign at the edge of the road read:

MIRROR LANE
NO THROUGH TRAFFIC
EXCEPT BY ACCIDENT

Alice leaned forward.

The bus driver glanced at her in the mirror. “End of the line,” he said cheerfully. “For now.”

“I did not mean to get off here,” Alice said.

The driver shrugged. “Nobody ever does.”

The bus doors opened.

Alice stood.

As she stepped down, the bell in her pocket rang.

Not loudly.

Just enough.

Across the street, a narrow lane shimmered. The surface of it caught the light strangely, reflecting not what stood before it, but what might have.

A girl stood at the entrance to the lane.

She looked almost exactly like Alice.

Almost.

She smiled, uncertainly, as though she too had just realised she was not alone.

Alice’s heart beat faster.

Behind her, the bus doors closed.

The bus drove away, promptly and efficiently.

Alice took a step forward.

The world around her hesitated.

And somewhere, very far away, a place that had not yet decided what it was going to be began, quietly, to listen.

Epilogue

Much later, when Alice tried to explain it, she found she could not say where Ballykillduff ended and the rest of the world began.

That was how she knew it had worked.

Because places that think do not disappear.

They wait.

And Alice, who had learned to listen, kept walking.

Next: Alice and the Places That Think: Mirror Lane

Series: Alice and the Places That Think
📕 Book One: Ballykillduff Wonderland
📗 Book Two (Tease): Mirror Lane

 

Alice knew she had reached Mirror Lane because the world stopped correcting itself.

The pavement shimmered faintly, as though it had been polished by thought rather than feet, and the houses along it leaned inward just enough to notice her noticing them. Windows reflected not what stood before them, but what might have arrived a moment earlier or later. At the far end of the lane stood a girl who was almost Alice, waiting with the cautious patience of someone who had been expecting herself.

To be continued

To be continued

 

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