Tulip Roots for Onions by Alice Klein

Alice Klein's first novel, Tulip Roots for Onions is a charming literary work, set in a provincial English town, in which a young schoolmistress and a lapsed monk rebuild an abandoned garden together. Its eccentrically delightful characters are drawn with a rare subtlety and fluidity.

I first read this novel ten years ago when my old schoolchum Bernard pointed out that his niece, who I remembered only as "Little Alice" had just published her first work of fiction. Both Bernard and I are sadly childless, so I have kept a watchful eye on young Alice's career. When it became clear, after the business which left Hattie in her comatose condition, that I would have to enter the mirror for myself, to learn the truth, and Bernard happened to mention that Alice seemed restless and longing for a change of scene, well, the thing fitted perfectly. Especially as I had begun to suspect that Jacques was not as honest as I might have hoped.

I thought I would be away for only a few days. It feels to me that I have been away for much longer. Years? Decades? Time here goes forward and back, back and forward. Perhaps it has only been an hour or two!

Still, there is only one Path out of here, and I must walk it, however long it takes. The notes we found make that clear. The venue for finding the next card is hard to conceive. It could, after all, be anywhere. It is everywhere. But then, sometimes one can't see the forest for the trees.

I conceive of myself above everything, outside it. On a cloud, looking down upon that place where we dwell. Where four creatures are gathered – and I think, inexplicably, of a convent I once heard tell of, San Miguelion de los Mercados – but the creatures are not important. I am looking for a figure: not quite man, not quite woman. He-She appears. His-Her body is ambiguous. His-Her face is covered by a mask; I had not anticipated that. He-She seems quieter than the others I have met here. Not so intensely flavoured.

How can I take all this? I do not know what to say.

"Put out your hand," he-she says, "and I will give you everything you came for." I put out my hand. This encounter is making me more uncertain than all that have gone before. He-she places a card face-down in my hand. His-her eyes glitter behind the mask.

He-She laughs, though the laugh sounds more masculine than feminine to my ears. "Have you learned nothing, through the years you have been here?"

I turn the card over.

"This…" I say, "this is not the card I wanted. You have made a fool of me." The laugh rings out loud and unmistakeably masculine. Then a voice hisses low in my ear, from behind the mask. "My brother and I," it says, "will take all we need from you and little Ms Klein. Neither of you will escape the mirror, and when we are done, we will take more than just this world." I blink, and he-she-it is gone. I do not understand. None of the inhabitants of this place is supposed to say the names of the cards. There is only only explanation for he-she-it having done so. They, like me, are a traveller. And now they have made a fool of me, I cannot reach the path I was seeking. I do not know what card to look for next, what combination would give me anything of value. Can you help me? I think, perhaps, Alice might find a way to send a message to me, through the mirror. I think perhaps she could.

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