Alice in Ballykillduff and the Almost-Remembered Tartaria
Alice in Ballykillduff and the Almost-Remembered Tartaria
Chapter One
In Which the Grass Takes a Position and Ballykillduff Misplaces Itself
It is a curious thing, and not often admitted aloud, but Ballykillduff was the sort of village that behaved as though it had ideas.
Not grand ideas. Not political ones. Ballykillduff did not stand on soapboxes and announce opinions to passing carts. It preferred its thinking quiet and sideways, in the manner of a kettle deciding to whistle a moment before it boiled, or a gate choosing to stick only when someone important approached.
The village was full of small decisions that nobody remembered making.
A lane would curve, not because it was built that way, but because it had reconsidered. A hedge would grow in a slightly more defensive shape than the season required. A postman would arrive at the correct house, having taken the wrong route, and never once suspect anything unusual had occurred.
Alice had noticed these things for some time.
Alice, of course, was not originally from Ballykillduff, which is the sort of detail Ballykillduff tolerated as long as nobody spoke too loudly about it. She had been there long enough to be treated as nearly ordinary, which in Ballykillduff was considered the highest compliment available.
On the morning this story begins, Alice had been sent on an errand that was supposed to be simple.
She was to bring eggs to Mrs Gaffney and, if she had time, to call at the Old Creamery to see if anyone knew why the Creamery’s chimney had been smoking in a suspiciously thoughtful manner.
Mrs Gaffney’s eggs were in a basket on Alice’s arm. There were three of them, because Ballykillduff preferred odd numbers. Even numbers, the village said, tended to look too finished.
Also in the basket was a jam sandwich, wrapped in paper, and a question Alice had been carrying since Tuesday.
The question was not written down. It was merely present, like a pebble in a pocket, and it had been troubling her because it refused to become a proper question. It was more of a half-question. A question with its hat on backwards.
It went something like this:
Why did Ballykillduff sometimes feel as though it was waiting for something?
Alice was considering that question when she found herself behind the Old Creamery.
This was not where her errand required her to be. But the lane had offered her the turn with such confidence that she took it without noticing she had done so. Only when she stood in the damp grass behind the Creamery did she realise that she had not meant to come here at all.
It was quiet.
Not the usual quiet, full of birds and distant voices and the polite gossip of leaves. This quiet felt arranged. It felt like the hush in a room just before someone reveals a surprise.
The Old Creamery itself was a squat stone building with a roof that looked as though it had been repaired by committee. The back wall was mossy. A wooden cart sat beside it, half sunk into nettles, as if trying to become a plant.
And the grass behind the Creamery was leaning.
Alice stared at it.
The grass was not being blown by wind. There was no breeze to justify such behaviour. The sky was pale, the air was still, and the grass leaned anyway, not as if it were falling, but as if it were listening.
It leaned toward a particular patch of ground, slightly to the left of where nothing at all was happening.
It leaned with intent.
Alice felt a prickly sensation at the back of her neck, which in her experience meant either that someone was watching her or that Ballykillduff had begun to be clever.
“Do stop that,” she said to the grass.
The grass leaned a little further, as if it had been waiting for permission.
Alice moved closer. She stepped carefully, because the ground looked ordinary but was giving off a faint impression of not being trustworthy.
The air in front of her did something that air should not do.
It creased.
This is difficult to explain without folding the reader, but imagine a page in a book that has been turned too many times and has developed a permanent bend. Now imagine the world itself doing that. The space above the grass pleated inward, as though reality had been stored too tightly and was only now being unfolded.
There was a sound like paper being rearranged.
And where there had been nothing, there was now a sign.
It was propped on two posts that looked faintly surprised to be involved. The paint was neither fresh nor peeling but in a state of having been remembered vividly and then forgotten in a steady, polite manner.
Alice read it slowly, because she had learned in Ballykillduff that quick reading often led to misunderstanding, and misunderstanding, in turn, led to further reading.
The sign said:
TARTARIA
(FORMERLY ELSEWHERE)
Alice read it twice.
Then she looked around, because she half expected someone to be hiding behind the Creamery wall, giggling. But there was nobody. Only the nettles and the cart and the listening grass.
“Formerly where?” Alice asked, because it seemed a reasonable thing to ask of a sign that had introduced itself so confidently.
The letters on the sign shifted.
Not dramatically. Not in a magical flourish. They shuffled like polite feet at a crowded table.
A second line appeared, as though the sign had been saving it for later.
HERE,
BUT YOU WERE BUSY THEN
Alice frowned.
“I do not remember being busy enough to miss an entire country,” she said.
The sign made a faint creaking noise that might have been laughter, or might have been the posts complaining under the weight of being meaningful.
Alice took another step closer.
At once, the ground beneath her boots dipped.
Not collapsed. Not opened. It dipped in the manner of a courteous bow, as though the earth were apologising for the inconvenience of moving her about without warning.
Alice felt herself slide.
Not fall.
Sliding is a much more insulting sensation, because it suggests that the world is moving you around as if you were an object it has misfiled.
The Old Creamery withdrew behind her, discreetly, like a person stepping away from a conversation before anyone can ask questions.
The grass straightened, as if its part had been played.
And Ballykillduff, having done something impossible, immediately pretended it had done nothing at all.
Alice arrived in Tartaria without any particular feeling of arrival.
There was no wind. No tunnel. No dramatic rush of air or tumbling cupboards. Instead, she had the distinct sensation of being placed in the wrong drawer.
She stood on a wide avenue paved with stone that shimmered faintly, as though it remembered being important. Ahead rose domes like inverted teacups, their surfaces smooth and pale and humming softly, like kettles that refused to boil in public.
The city was calm.
Not peaceful. Calm is different. Peace suggests comfort. Calm suggests rules.
Everything looked tidy in a way that made Alice uneasy at once. Nothing creaked. Nothing wobbled. Even the air seemed organised.
She took a step forward.
The street adjusted itself slightly, accommodating her foot as if her presence had been expected. This courtesy did not reassure her.
A lamppost glowed softly though it was day. A small plaque on it read:
HERE
Further along, another plaque read:
HERE ALSO
A third read:
HERE, PROVISIONALLY
Alice did not like that last one at all.
Before she could decide what it meant, a man rolled past.
Not walked.
Rolled.
He sat on a desk fitted with wheels, pushing himself along with a polished shoe. Papers were stacked on the desk in very confident piles. The man wore a coat with more pockets than necessary and an expression of permanent administration. His moustache reached the place before the rest of him, like an announcement.
He stopped and regarded Alice over the top of a ledger that appeared to contain nothing at all.
“Good morning,” Alice said, because it seemed safer than silence.
“Yes,” said the man. “Provisionally.”
He cleared his throat in the manner of someone about to inform the world of its errors.
“I am Mr Quillip Spoke,” he declared. “Assistant Deputy Clerk of Arrival and Departure, Temporary and Otherwise.”
“That sounds exhausting,” said Alice.
“It is,” said Mr Spoke. “But we rotate the fatigue.”
Alice hesitated, then asked the only question that seemed sensible.
“Is this Tartaria?”
Mr Spoke consulted his ledger. Then he consulted the space beside it, as though expecting another ledger to appear. Finally he nodded.
“Yes,” he said. “And no. And usually.”
“That is not an answer,” said Alice.
“It is the best answer we can offer,” Mr Spoke replied. “Tartaria is a place with complicated filing.”
Alice tried to understand that, but it slid away.
“Why has no one heard of Tartaria?” she asked.
Mr Spoke’s moustache drooped, which was an impressive thing for a moustache to do.
“We were too efficient,” he said. “Nothing squeaked. Nothing collapsed. History prefers drama.”
The domes hummed a little louder, as though in embarrassed agreement.
“You may proceed,” Mr Spoke added briskly, “but do try not to understand anything too quickly. Sudden comprehension causes incidents.”
“What sort of incidents?” asked Alice.
Mr Spoke rolled away without answering.
As he went, his desk left faint tracks, which rearranged themselves into something like footnotes and then vanished.
Alice stood alone again, holding her basket and her unfinished question.
Behind her, Ballykillduff was already pretending not to remember her.
Ahead of her, Tartaria hummed like a secret trying not to be spoken.
And somewhere in the calm, tidy distance, Alice felt the unmistakable sensation of being noticed by something that preferred people to remain uninteresting.
She did not like it.
Which, in a story of this sort, is usually an excellent beginning.
Chapter Two
In Which Forgetting Is Explained, Taught, and Found to Be Unreliable
Alice walked into Tartaria because the street expected her to.
This was not immediately obvious. The avenue did not tug at her boots or rearrange itself dramatically. It simply curved with such quiet confidence that every time Alice meant to stop, she found herself continuing instead.
The domes hummed overhead. The sound was neither musical nor mechanical. It was the sort of hum produced by a place that was very busy thinking and did not wish to be interrupted.
Every few steps, Alice passed a lamppost. Each glowed faintly, though the daylight had not dimmed at all. Each bore a small metal plaque.
The first read:
HERE
The second read:
STILL HERE
The third read:
HERE, FOR NOW
Alice paused at the third and frowned.
“I do not like the sound of that,” she said to no one in particular.
The lamppost did not answer, which Alice decided was probably for the best.
Ahead, the street widened into a small square. At its centre stood a building that looked like a school, though it had clearly been constructed by someone who did not entirely trust permanence.
The walls were chalk.
The roof was chalk.
Even the steps were chalk, though they seemed faintly proud of having held together so far.
Above the door, written in a hand that suggested disappointment with the reader, were the words:
THE ACADEMY OF NECESSARY FORGETTING
Alice stopped.
She had not intended to attend any sort of academy that morning, necessary or otherwise. Her errand had involved eggs and Mrs Gaffney and possibly a chimney. None of these things were educational.
The door opened anyway.
“Well?” said a sharp voice. “Do come in or don’t, but do try to decide. Hesitation causes dreadful gaps.”
Alice went in.
The classroom smelled of chalk dust and consideration.
Rows of desks faced a blackboard that stretched from floor to ceiling and then slightly further, as though it had been interrupted mid-thought. Seated at the desks were children of various ages, all staring intently at their own hands.
At the front stood a woman with hair like a startled hedgerow and spectacles that appeared permanently unimpressed.
She turned at once and fixed Alice with a look that suggested Alice was already behind.
“You are late,” the woman said.
“I only just arrived,” Alice replied.
“That is what everyone says,” said the woman. “I am Miss Bramblehook. Sit down and forget something immediately.”
“I beg your pardon?” said Alice.
Miss Bramblehook sighed and tapped the board with her chalk, which squeaked in a manner that made Alice’s teeth feel uncomfortable.
On the board was written:
LESSON ONE:
WHAT IS REMEMBERED TOO WELL BECOMES DANGEROUS
Alice took a seat at an empty desk, which obligingly produced a slate.
“What do we write?” Alice asked.
“Nothing,” said Miss Bramblehook. “Erase something instead.”
“I cannot erase what I do not know,” Alice said.
“Excellent,” said Miss Bramblehook. “You are already learning.”
She turned to the class.
“Why did Tartaria vanish?” she asked.
A boy raised his hand.
“We behaved ourselves,” he said proudly.
“Incorrect,” said Miss Bramblehook. “We behaved too well.”
A girl raised her hand. “Nothing went wrong.”
“Worse,” said Miss Bramblehook. “Civilisations require at least three minor disasters and one embarrassing argument to remain visible.”
Another child spoke without raising her hand at all. “Nobody argued about us.”
Miss Bramblehook nodded grimly. “That,” she said, “was the final mistake.”
The chalk walls shivered faintly.
Alice raised her hand. “If Tartaria vanished, how are we here now?”
Miss Bramblehook considered her.
“Tartaria did not vanish,” she said. “It slipped.”
“Slipped where?” Alice asked.
Miss Bramblehook underlined a word on the board.
IMPERFECTLY
“We were remembered incorrectly,” she said. “And that saved us.”
She paced the room, chalk clicking like a metronome with opinions.
“Rule One of Tartaria,” she announced. “A place survives only if it is remembered badly enough to resist correction.”
“If remembered too clearly,” she continued, “it becomes fixed. Studied. Explained. Removed.”
“If forgotten entirely,” she added, “it never mattered at all.”
Alice frowned. “And if it is remembered wrongly?”
Miss Bramblehook smiled. It was not a comforting smile.
“Then,” she said, “it lives.”
The lesson ended when the idea of a bell passed through the room.
No sound occurred. Only the feeling that something had finished.
“Class dismissed,” said Miss Bramblehook. “Forget what you have learned.”
The children closed their eyes obediently.
Alice did not.
Miss Bramblehook noticed at once.
“Do not make a habit of that,” she warned. “Remembering too much attracts attention.”
“To what?” Alice asked.
Miss Bramblehook hesitated.
“To explanation,” she said finally.
Outside, the air hummed more loudly.
A man stood polishing the base of a bell tower that held no bell.
He was small and round and wore a coat stitched entirely from patches labelled LATER, NEARLY, and NOT QUITE.
He looked up and beamed.
“Oh good,” he said. “You noticed.”
“Noticing seems to be dangerous here,” Alice replied.
“Only when done properly,” said the man. “I am Old Nearly, Caretaker of Things That Almost Happened.”
“Why is there no bell?” Alice asked.
Old Nearly polished the empty space thoughtfully. “There was one. Once. It rang at exactly the wrong moment.”
“What happened?” Alice asked.
“History coughed,” said Old Nearly. “And Tartaria slipped sideways.”
He leaned closer. “We have been almost remembered ever since.”
Alice felt the basket tug faintly at her arm.
“Why am I here?” she asked.
Old Nearly smiled gently.
“Because,” he said, “you are very good at remembering things slightly wrong.”
Alice was not sure whether that was a compliment.
They walked together through streets that rearranged themselves gently, making room for conversations that had not yet happened.
Buildings flickered at the edges, as though deciding whether to remain useful.
They stopped at a great map etched into the ground.
The map was wrong.
Rivers looped where they ought not to. Streets crossed themselves. Entire cities had been rubbed out carefully, leaving polite smudges behind.
At the centre was a blank space.
Old Nearly pointed to it.
“That,” he said, “is where you come in.”
“I see nothing,” Alice said.
“Exactly,” said Old Nearly.
The map twitched.
Alice stepped back.
And for the first time since arriving in Tartaria, she felt something settle inside her that was not curiosity at all, but responsibility.
Because she was beginning to understand that Tartaria did not simply exist.
It depended.
Chapter Three
In Which the City Holds a Meeting, and Alice Is Found to Be Inconvenient
Alice left the Academy of Necessary Forgetting with the distinct sensation that she had acquired something she had not asked for and did not know how to put down.
It was not weight, exactly. The basket still contained three eggs and a jam sandwich, both of which appeared innocent enough. Yet the air around her felt fuller, as though an invisible parcel had been added, neatly wrapped and labelled Handle Improperly.
The street outside the Academy had changed.
This was not unusual in Tartaria, but it was still unsettling. The avenue had developed a fork where there had been none before. One path curved left, another curved right, and a third ran straight ahead before thinking better of it and bending slightly, as if embarrassed by its certainty.
At the centre of the fork stood a signpost with far too many arms.
Each arm pointed in a different direction and bore a painted label.
THIS WAY
ALSO THIS WAY
PROBABLY THIS WAY
DEFINITELY NOT THIS WAY
YOU HAVE ALREADY BEEN HERE
Alice stared at it.
The signpost stared back.
Then, with a sound like a throat being cleared, all the arms rotated at once.
Alice found herself pointing.
“Don’t do that,” she said.
“I must,” replied the signpost. “You have been noticed.”
Before Alice could ask what that meant, the ground beneath her feet slid sideways.
Not violently. Not suddenly. Just enough that she was no longer standing where she had been a moment before.
Instead, she found herself inside a large circular chamber she had not been approaching at all.
The room was designed for disagreement.
Chairs were arranged in a wide ring, each facing a slightly different direction. Some faced inward. Some faced outward. One chair appeared to be facing a different moment altogether.
Seated upon them were people who all looked very certain and very uncomfortable about it.
A woman in a layered dress leaned permanently forward, as though trying to overhear the future. A man beside her leaned just as permanently backward, glaring at the past. Another figure sat sideways, refusing to acknowledge either.
At the centre of the room stood a lectern bearing a plaque.
THE COUNCIL OF INCONVENIENT CERTAINTIES
“Well,” said a sharp voice, “she’s late.”
“I am not,” said Alice automatically. “I arrived exactly when I did.”
Several council members nodded approvingly.
“That sort of answer,” said the sideways figure, “is precisely the difficulty.”
Old Nearly appeared at Alice’s elbow, smiling in the manner of someone who had brought biscuits to a discussion that did not deserve them.
“Welcome,” he whispered. “Do try not to agree with anyone.”
The forward-leaning woman stood.
“I am Madam Parallax,” she said. Her lips moved a fraction after her voice, which was unsettling. “We are here to decide what to do about you.”
“That seems premature,” said Alice.
“Oh, not at all,” said Madam Parallax. “We have been discussing you since before you arrived.”
A murmur passed through the chamber.
“You see,” said the backward-leaning man, who wore a coat with the wrong number of buttons, “we cannot agree whether you are a solution or a symptom.”
“I don’t feel unwell,” Alice said.
“That,” said the sideways figure, “is also concerning.”
A tall man rose. He leaned sharply to the left, as though the world had slipped slightly under him and never been corrected.
“I am Professor Slant,” he announced. “I specialise in causes that arrive after their effects.”
He pointed at Alice.
“She is a witness.”
“No,” said Madam Parallax at once. “She is a distortion.”
“She is an opportunity,” said a woman who appeared to be made mostly of footnotes.
“She is imaginary,” said a thin man who flickered slightly as he spoke.
Alice blinked. “Am I?”
The thin man examined his hands. “I was fairly certain until just now.”
Old Nearly cleared his throat.
“If I may,” he said, “the girl has not yet done anything.”
The Council gasped.
“That,” said Professor Slant gravely, “is precisely what makes her dangerous.”
The discussion grew louder.
Sentences collided. Conclusions arrived without premises. At one point, the Council appeared to be arguing about something that had not yet been said.
Alice listened carefully.
What she understood, gradually, was this.
Tartaria had not merely been forgotten.
It was being remembered again.
Incorrectly.
Fragments of it were appearing where they did not belong. Maps were twitching. Scholars elsewhere were writing notes they did not understand. Rumours were spreading without stories to support them.
Tartaria, in short, was attracting attention.
“If we are remembered too clearly,” said Madam Parallax, “we will be corrected.”
“And if we are corrected,” added Professor Slant, “we will be removed.”
The thin man flickered more violently. “I have already misplaced several Wednesdays.”
Alice felt a tightening in her chest.
“What does this have to do with me?” she asked.
The chamber fell silent.
Old Nearly smiled apologetically.
“You are very good at remembering things wrongly,” he said.
“That sounds like an insult,” Alice replied.
“It is a qualification,” said Madam Parallax.
A document appeared on the lectern without anyone quite noticing how.
It was blank.
“This,” said Professor Slant, “is the matter.”
“We require Tartaria to be remembered,” said Madam Parallax, “but not neatly.”
“Not completely,” added the footnote woman.
“Not correctly,” said the sideways figure helpfully.
“And certainly not by historians,” muttered the thin man, who was now missing a sleeve.
Alice stared at the blank page.
“What am I supposed to do?”
Madam Parallax leaned closer.
“Carry us with you,” she said.
“In my basket?” Alice asked, startled.
“In your stories,” Madam Parallax replied. “In your doubts. In your contradictions.”
Professor Slant nodded. “Tell it differently each time.”
“Get details wrong,” said the sideways figure.
“Contradict yourself,” added the footnote woman. “Often.”
Alice felt the basket twitch.
“And if I refuse?” she asked.
The hum outside the chamber deepened.
Madam Parallax did not smile.
“Then Tartaria will attempt to remember itself,” she said.
There was a pause.
“That,” said Old Nearly quietly, “never ends well.”
The Council rose, apparently having reached no agreement whatsoever.
As Alice was guided back toward the street, she noticed something troubling.
Several council members were watching her with a mixture of hope and alarm.
The thin man flickered one last time. “Do try to exist,” he said earnestly. “It helps.”
Outside, the city felt sharper.
A building across the way flickered and failed to reappear.
A lamppost relabelled itself twice before settling on something unconvincing.
Alice looked down at the basket.
The jam sandwich was now wrapped in paper she did not recognise.
Somewhere behind her, a ledger snapped shut.
Somewhere ahead, a map was beginning to reconsider itself.
And Alice understood, with a clarity she did not enjoy at all, that she had not been invited to Tartaria.
She had been chosen.
To be continued.
The Crazymad Writer Writes Again 