I Am Alice

Imagine you had to sacrifice yourself to save the world, to save the person you love. But the person you love has to be the one to do it, to take your life. And it would be a painful death, and you could not scream out in pain as they cut off your thumbs with a knife. And they cut out your still-beating heart. Could you do it?

This one hits the ground running! Alice is in Hell, there to retrieve the Blade of Sorrow. Luckily, Thorne is there, ready to be her spirit guide like Virgil leading Dante, or that fox leading Homer Simpson. Both are soon pursued by the Kretch (and its demon father) as they travel through the realms of the dark gods.

Three blades forged by Hephaestus are required to defeat the Fiend: The Blade of Destiny, the Bonecutter, and Dolorous, The Blade of Sorrow. Alice must have her thumbs cut off by Tom without crying out, and her heart must be cut from her living body. It must be done at a special location: The Wardstone. (And finally the meaning of the series title, “The Wardstone Chronicles” is revealed!) With witches, skelts, demons, giant spiders, and the Kretch, this book has monsters galore!

Delaney calls it “The Dark,” but explains that it is in fact Hell. In his interpretation, you can die in hell, die a second time. Your soul would simply cease to exist. It is more akin to the Greek Underworld rather than the Christian realm of torture for your sins, (but then, much of this series is based on Greece and its mythology). When Alice was in the Dark before, a prisoner of the Fiend, the torture she had to endure was vinegar in her wounds. Now, I realize that it’s a book targeted at kids, but given the whole cutting off of thumbs thing, you can’t go all terrifying one minute then tone it down the next. It feels too inconsistent.

In fact, Delaney kind of pushes it with the whole Alice being a reluctant witch. Everything she remembers Bony Lizzie having her do was not to her taste, reminding us that Alice must be a good person despite her father (The Fiend). Geez, she’s a better person than I am. It was unnecessary to reiterate how averse to Lizzie and her activities she is so often. She’s just trying to survive one horror after another that’s been her lot to endure; that’s plenty to make me empathize with her character.

Alice and Thorne cross the land of the skelts and the realm of downcast witches in order to find the portal into the land of The Fiend. Visits to old friends coincidentally abound in a flashback to the early days like the Spook Bill Arkwright and the seer Judd Atkins.

We are treated to a nightmarish flashback to when Alice was “apprenticing” with Bony Lizzie, training to be a witch of the Malkin Clan (though she’s half Deane). Here we meet Salty Betsy Gammon. It’s great characters like her and Thin Shaun (Rage of the Fallen) that really create the magic of this series. Alice and Lizzy travel through Bill Arkwright’s territory (another spook trained by Old Gregory) to the North of the County. Chilling scenes of Salty Betsy’s underground lair, thirteen black candles on a canal barge, and mud-covered water witches will haunt you.

In reply the water witch merely gave a sort of grimace; it twisted her face so that her mouth opened, revealing more of her sharp, yellow teeth. She was covered in slime and dripping with water. She smelled bad, too—the stench of mud, rot, and stagnant ponds.

Alice pulls a Lara Croft to get out of some serious trouble, looking more like the Alice from Resident Evil than the Alice we know, as she uses super-powers to kick some serious butt. Delaney almost changes the nature of her character for this scene, something like that wasn’t in the romantic Alice we met in the first book who put her mark on Tom.

This chapter in The Last Apprentice was, I believe, originally slated to be a stand-alone novel, part of The Spook’s Tales along with I am Grimalkin, because it’s about Alice and her strength and her unconditional love for Tom, and about her learning her dark trade as a prequel to The Wardstone Chronicles. Each scene is more terrifying than the last. Alice faces so many demons that she loses her cool, and she also faces up to all those whom she betrayed. Lizzie, Mother Malkin, Morwena… even Tusk is back for a piece of her.

Can she make it through the center of Hell, to the throne of the Fiend himself and bring back the Blade of Sorrow? It should be easy, right? The Fiend isn’t there. His head is in a sack carried by Grimalkin, the witch assassin, and his body is nailed to the ground in Ireland.

Here’s the rub—- It hasn’t been stated in such a straight forward way in previous books, but every time Alice uses her magic she grows closer to the dark. Soon she will belong to the Dark entirely.

Every time I used my magical power, the crescent mark on my thigh had grown bigger and bigger; it was now close to becoming a full moon.

Something weird is going on with the skelts. It’s almost as if they are trying to help Alice and Thorne as they make their way to the Fiend’s throne.

Again in flashback, We see Alice tested to see if she will become a part of the Malkin Clan and to see how powerful a witch she might become in her prime.

Delaney takes a lot of liberties in these flashbacks, creating relationships that seem unlikely, and too many times Alice finds it necessary to say “So there I was, about to die.” But it feels so good when Alice wins.

Regardless of my nitpicking, I regard this as one of the best series for young adults ever. It is frightening, plays at your heartstrings, and leaves you shaking at the edge of your seat time and again. I’m frightened now. It tears me up inside, but I know it has to come. I almost desire it. I do, in fact, I welcome the end which I must now face. The final book of the Wardstone Chronicles… The Spook’s Revenge.