mary patterson thornburg
Pursued by menacing strangers through her small Midwest city, twelve-year-old Alyssha Dodson takes refuge in a mysterious room under a bridge, a place that turns out to be a doorway into another universe.
In the country where she then finds herself, Alyssha learns that the pursuit has not ended. A powerful and sinister man, Lord Raf Var Ne, seeks to gain possession of an object she was given years ago by her older brother a few days before he went missing. Told she can’t return to her own world, she begins a search for that brother, aided by Lord Raf’s charming but impetuous stepson. In the process, the two become involved in a revolutionary conflict.
Underland is the story of a girl’s coming of age in the midst of an adventure like no other.
Mary Patterson Thornburg has lived in southern California, eastern Washington, east central Indiana, and somewhere in the middle of Montana, where she currently resides with her husband, Thomas, and two or three mostly congenial cats. She has written and published poetry, essays, short fiction, a book of poems (Westering, with LaVerne Hanners), and one of Gothic criticism (The Monster in the Mirror). Underland is her first novel.
There were voices in the other room, Pop and a second man—no, Pop and two more men—and something about their tone brought her out of bed in an instant. She froze and listened, trying to hear what the men were saying, but she couldn’t make it out. Then Pop was yelling: “No, I said! I don’t know what you’re talking about!” There was a crash, someone swore in a low voice, someone groaned. Dressed only in panties and the old tee-shirt of Pop’s that was her nightgown, Alyssha ran to her bedroom door and threw it open.
Pop was on the floor by the foldout bed he slept on, scrambling to his feet. A little farther out in the room was a man Alyssha had never seen before, also on the floor, raising himself up on his elbows, his legs jerked out from under him and his breath coming in gasps. A second intruder, between the cupboard and the sink, had pulled the cupboard door partly off its hinges and swept a pile of plates onto the floor. Alyssha had seen this one somewhere before, a snaky-looking individual with dirty blond hair slicked back and a scar on his cheek that looked like a permanent sneer. When she stepped through the door all three turned toward her, the two strangers in surprise, Pop in alarm.
“Get out of here, Sis!” Pop yelled. “Your fire rope—run! Go to the Duchess, go somewhere! Run!”
Alyssha ran—straight for the snaky-looking man who was moving lightly toward Pop. Without a thought she punched him in the belly as hard as she could, and, when he doubled over and grabbed her, she kicked him just below his right kneecap with the outside of her foot and tore out of his grasp.
“Get out of here!” Pop screamed again, and Alyssha did, running back into her room, slamming and bolting the door almost in one motion. There were more sounds in the main room of the apartment. She pulled on her jeans and thrust her feet into her sneakers. Then, as someone began to throw himself against the door, she shoved her window open wide, pushed the screen away, grabbed the knotted rope, and clambered down it to the overhang below. Running for the drainpipe, she tripped on the laces of her left shoe and almost sent herself headlong over the edge, but recovered and grabbed the pipe, sliding down it to the ground and landing with such force that she fell to her back.
Immediately she regained her feet, tied her shoes, and ran down the alley toward Mulberry Street. Behind her, at her bedroom window, she could hear one of the strange men yelling: “You follow her then, if you feel like a monkey. Or use the stairs. I’m staying here till I find that thing, and if it’s in the place I’ll find it.”
When she reached Mulberry, Alyssha stopped and looked back. No one was following her, but she was as sure that one of them would be after her in a moment as if she could hear him pounding down the stairs from the apartment. She glanced around. There was a delivery truck farther down the alley in the next block, and a car was pulling up to the flashing red light on Washington. It stopped briefly and then headed away from her. Otherwise the downtown seemed deserted. It was very early, just past sunup.
She made up her mind in a hurry. Running down the sidewalk along Mulberry, away from her own building, she came to Washington, crossed it, and headed for the river.
