The White Rabbit by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Format: epub
Published: 2010-02-13T06:55:31+00:00

Chapter Five

Rabbit was jubilant. He'd found her!

Oh, not just Ali, though he was surprised how relieved he was by that, too. That he could examine later. This little nugget, though! It almost made up for the months of torture, of wondering what had happened to her.

He'd had a bad moment when she'd handed him that photo, had nearly given the truth away. Only quick thinking and that crack about cave trolls had saved him.

Hatter and Bud were as shocked as he had been.

"The queen's sister? Are you sure?" Hatter demanded, his eyes wide. "We've been searching for her for years and you find her hitchhiking beside the road?"

Bud shook his head in disgust. "I guess this means Rabbit wins the bet."

"Forget the bet!" Rabbit said impatiently. "It doesn't matter who found her first. The important thing is that she's alive and we can replace the queen with her." They'd been planning a bloodless raid on the queen, had hoped to take her out when she was most vulnerable without involving an entire army. She'd alienated so many of her advisers, driven so many people out of the castle that she was dangerously unguarded, and so arrogant she didn't realize her vulnerability. Virtually no one but Cat and her old maid was allowed in her presence anymore. It had been less a matter of capturing her and more a thing of having an acceptable substitute that had worried them. Having her sister here would solve all that. All they had to do was convince her that it was better to stay here than it was to go back to her own world.

That might take some doing, Rabbit admitted to himself. She wasn't going to be crazy about being at the head of a revolution.

"How do you know it's her?" Hatter wanted to know. "We need some kind of proof."

"She's carrying a picture of her and her parents around," Rabbit said sardonically. "She's standing right in the middle of them. What else do you need?"

"But does she know who they are?" Hatter persisted. "You've got to admit this is a little strange, her showing up out of nowhere and waving around a picture of the king and queen. The real princess disappeared years ago, when she was just a little thing. We've been looking for a much older woman."

Rabbit frowned. "She was stuck inside a mirror world somewhere. It sounded like she had a grandma for a guardian, but I wonder. I'd heard the king and queen's families were dead. Could the old woman have been an overprotective nursemaid or something?"

"That makes sense. There were several attempts on their lives while they were still living. Maybe they sent the girl away for safekeeping?" Hatter suggested.

"Hold on!" Bud raised his hands as if to ward off that logic. "The king and queen died years ago of old age. How could they have a daughter Ali's age? It doesn't make sense."

"Sure it does. She was gone for two months by our time, but only a few days passed in her world.

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