By Michele M. Taylor
Harlem, 1952.
Alice walks like she’s got secrets in her shoes and dust on her dreams. Blonde hair tied with a ribbon, blue dress smudged at the hem—storybook perfect, if you don’t look too close. America’s Black mecca doesn’t care for close looks anyway. It’s a neighborhood that keeps its eyes half-lidded and its truths deep pocketed.
She doesn’t belong here—not by skin, not by story—but belonging ain’t never saved anybody.
It’s just past midnight when she sees him—the man in the white gloves and the too-fast feet. A coat like shadows stitched shut. She’s been watching him for weeks, slipping in and out of alleys like he’s late for something that won’t wait. Tonight, he drops something: a card. Red wax seal. A rose, crushed flat.
She picks it up. It smells like burnt sugar and blood. On the back, in fine black script, it reads: THE LIBRARIAN’S ASSISTANT.
A voice behind her hums low. “You oughta leave that be, little rabbit.”
She turns. Nobody’s there.
She pockets the card. Her fingers brush her father’s pocket watch—cracked glass, frozen hands, stopped at the hour the ambulance never came. It doesn’t keep time, but it doesn’t need to. Not in the Jungle, where time doesn’t drift—it chooses. Where death doesn’t stumble—it arrives on purpose.
The funeral parlor on Lenox doesn’t take visitors after sundown, but the door opens for her like it knows her name.
Inside, she’s met with velvet walls, cold air, and stairs that creak like they’re remembering old sins. She follows the scent of gin and dust to a door marked only with a heart. She knocks once. Waits.
The room beyond doesn’t fit in this world.
Cigarette smoke floats like ghosts between chandeliers. Velvet booths curl like tongues. A jazz singer croons into the dark, voice wrapped in static. At the back table sits a woman in a crimson coat and a crown made of knives—thin, silver things that catch the light like promises.
The Queen.
“Alice,” she says like she’s plucking a string. “Still clinging to your mother’s name. Or have you finally let it bleed out?”
“Names are for people who plan to stay.”
The Queen smiles, all teeth. “Then maybe you’re ready.”
She snaps her fingers. A teacup appears—cracked porcelain, filled with something that smokes and fizzes. “Drink?”
Alice doesn’t move.
The Queen smiles like a guillotine. “Smart girl. Poison’s expensive these days.” She lifts the card instead. The wax seal catches the light. That smile flattens. “Where’d you get that?”
“Followed the Rabbit.”
A long pause, then, “You want answers?”
Alice nods.
The Queen calls without looking, “Bring him up.”
They drag the traitor in—bleeding from the lip, wrists bound with piano wire. Alice’s eyes widen. She knows him. The librarian’s assistant. Used to sneak her books through the back door when no one else would. Taught her how to dog-ear secrets and underline truth.
The Queen’s voice is velvet and vinegar. “He’s been selling names to the Painted Court.” She tosses Alice a gun. “Handle it.”
Alice flinches. “I-I’m not…”
He looks up at her, eyes glassy. “Kid… you don’t have to do this.”
But the Queen is already turning away.
“You picked up the card,” she says. “Now you finish the message.”
Alice hesitates. The gun is heavy. Familiar, in a way it shouldn’t be. The assistant doesn’t beg. He just closes his eyes.
She pulls the trigger.
The sound is soft. A breath exhaled. His body slumps like an apology. A red bloom on his chest.
She stares at the blood. At the nothing she feels. At the way her heart just… keeps beating.
“No tears?”
“No point.”
A beat. Then the Queen smiles again, wider this time.
“You’ll do.”
***
They burn her name in the backroom, behind red curtains and silence.
“Alice is dead,” the Queen says, slicing the air like it offended her. “She was a bedtime story. A mistake.”
“And what am I now?”
The Queen leans in, eyes like polished razors.
“Liza.”
The name lands like a blade. Short. Sharp. Edged.
Liza doesn’t flinch. Just tucks her father’s broken watch deeper into her dress. It doesn’t tick. It doesn’t need to. Not here in a place where time isn’t kept.
Outside, Harlem yawns its hunger.
The streets stretch long, shadows bending like a question mark with no answers. Sirens cry soft in the distance—too far, too late. Liza passes a fire escape where kids used to laugh. No one’s laughing now. Just rust and silence and the echo of shoes that don’t belong.
A mural peels off a brick wall. Someone’s painted over it. White graffiti, fresh and angry:
RUN RABBIT
She stares at it. Touches the stone. Cold as memory.
In her hand, the card glares faintly. The rose seal hums once, then dies. On the back, the name shifts. TWEEDLE DEE. Below it, TWEEDLE DUM. The next hit. The Queen’s will.
She’s not sure if she’s still a girl. Not sure she cares.
The city doesn’t feel different. But she does.
The silenced gun rests cold and steady against her leg, hidden beneath the ruffles of her dress. It’s weightless to her now, like it’s always belonged there, like it’s part of the design.
Liza walks south, past flickering streetlamps and alleys that whisper things no one wants to hear.
She walks like silence.
Like something sharp in a world gone blunt.
And somewhere behind her, the name “Alice” fades—like chalk on Harlem’s hard bone.
She doesn’t look back.
She doesn’t need to.
Liza steps forward into the night. The hunt has begun.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Wow. I absolutely loved this, Michele! So gritty. Palpable and real. Thank you so much for bringing this to life. What a beautiful addition to the Alice theme this month.
Thank you! This exercise inspired three more chapters to this story, and more in the making.
Dark and deep and lyrical. Wonderful voice and setting. Grimly beautiful and poetic. Lots of story in so little words. Nicely done!
I’m so happy to hear you enjoyed!
From the first line, this story is special. What a Hammett take on a Carroll story. As they’d say in a noir: “This story’s the thing.”
Thanks, Jim!
It’s morphing into its own novella at this point :)
Wow. This is incredible writing.