Beauty In Her Madness (Winterland Tale Book 3)

by Stacey Marie Brown

  Oxygen staggered in and out of my chest as hate coursed through me, my jaw clenching, my chin up high. “Fuck you,” I snarled.

  “You couldn’t handle it, little one,” he scoffed, letting me go. His lips tugged up with disgust. “You’ve changed, and not for the better.”

  Changed? He kept talking as if he knew me. This man was insane.

  “You are free to go.” His tone was icy and unwelcome. I hesitated for a moment before I darted for the door. “Oh, and Dinah?” I paused a second, glancing back at him. “You wanted to know who I am?” A slow, cruel smile hinted on his lips. “I’m your worst nightmare.” His words sliced through me.

  Brutal. Cold.

  Turning, I fled down the stairs. Terror bolted me forward, the seams around my sanity fraying with every step.

  What if you already are crazy, Dinah?

  I remembered hearing my sister say once, “Only the insane are so sure of their sanity.”

  The pounding of my heart and feet beat like a drum in my ears, my legs carrying me out of the place. I didn’t take much time to study my surroundings as I fled, but it was what I’d consider a fortress or small castle. Arched doorways and stone everywhere you looked with a few rugs, leather furniture, and tapestries on the walls, otherwise cold and unadorned.

  Bursting out the front door, my bare feet sank into snow. I prepared for stabs of pain to shoot up my legs or crash into my exposed skin, but I felt nothing.

  The moonlight glittered off the snow like diamonds, highlighting the land before me. Twisting to look back, I noted the castle wasn’t huge, but it stood proudly with snow-covered turrets next to a river with a forest circling it.

  I faced forward, pumping my arms, my legs stretching over the terrain, carrying me away from my captor and into the woods. I locked the notion away that he so easily had let me go until I could examine it later. Getting to safety was my priority. Rivers usually led to civilization—a road or a village where I could get help.

  But where was I? How did I even get here? Did I black out? Did Scott know I was gone? Was he searching for me? Was I still dreaming?

  The bottoms of my feet felt every crunch of snow and every rock underneath. My lungs expanded to take in more air, my leg still smarting from hurting it at work. The one thing with dreams, your senses were not used. You couldn’t actually see, touch, feel, or smell; your brain just tricks you into thinking you were. But my senses were alive, and everything hit me with sharp acuteness. The air struck my cheeks, sweat trickling down my back, the smell of snow and trees.

  “Wrong way.” A strange voice came over the wind, tickling in my ear. “You go that way and you die.”

  “Oh my stocking,” I yelped, whirling around looking for the perpetrator, terror punching my stomach. What the hell was that?

  “Doom! Death!” Another gust of wind hissed in my ear as more licked my skin, spouting similar phrases. “Stop now before it’s too late.”

  “Stop!” I batted at nothing, my heart thumping wildly.

  “Ignore them, my dear. The warning winds are so gloomy,” someone spoke behind me.

  A scream tore from my lungs as I leaped around, my eyes landing on a shape sliding out from behind a tree.

  Oh. My. God. Fear clamped down on my throat, ripping oxygen from my lungs. My body went still, my lids blinking.

  “You have grown, Ms. Dinah, though I think your mind has ungrown.”

  No. There was absolutely no way a six-foot, three-tiered snowman was talking to me. This had to be a dream. Or I was officially insane.

  The snowman’s coal mouth stretched out in a wide grin, his stick arms motioning over me. “One wears an elf costume when one should not, and now it should be, and you do not.”

  “Oh my god!” I jolted back at hearing him speak. I had no doubt I was talking to Frosty the Snowman with his large button nose, scarf and top hat, and famous corncob pipe. “This is not happening. Wake up, Dinah. Wake up.”

  “Awake or sleep. Being conscious or unconscious has nothing to do with it.” His cob pipe slid to the other side of this mouth. “Happening is all around you…happening.”

  “What?” I shook my head, his words twisting in my brain, making me rub my forehead. Was he speaking English? “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Sense? You will come to see, as the other one did; it is all relative. What is sense if something is merely sense to one, but not others? Is your sense the same as mine?”

  A groan hummed up my throat as I peered around. Why wasn’t I waking up? “I’m going mad,” I whispered to myself. Alice saw Christmas characters when she went crazy.

  Now I was.

  “Oh, good.” He folded his branch arms. “The quicker you go mad, the saner you will be.”

  My body wanted to curl up on the ground and rock until this nightmare was over, but all my instincts were telling me I was awake. This was real. And I needed to run.

  “You too have a lot of muchness.” Frosty grinned wide at me. “I should have known you would be right behind the other. Though her mind was much more open to going mad. It’s the only way, my dear. Your mind has been closed and locked so tight for so long, I hope it can find its way again.”

  “Again?”

  “There was supposed to be only one her, but I think you are your own her, aren’t you? A spirit we did not foresee, but a story needing to be told just the same.”

  My brain ached from trying to figure out his riddles and comments.

  “I think you are going to bring much madness to Winterland.”

  “Winterland? Is that where I am? Is it in Connecticut?” I’d never heard of it, which didn’t mean anything.

  “Oh, my dear Ms. Dinah. You are a long journey from there.”

  Awareness kicked in, terror seeping down my spine. “How do you know my name?”

  “Children’s minds are pure of adult weaknesses, letting love and belief into their heart before they close it off…but here you are again. Following your family’s footsteps.”

  I took a few steps back. What was he talking about? Did he know my family?

  “Oh, I see sanity knocking.” He shook his head. “Too bad. You’re much more fun when you’ve lost all your marbles.”

  “Will you two shut your snowballs? Trying to sleep here,” an old, dried-up voice boomed, making me jump back as limbs from the tree behind Frosty started to move, drawing my attention up the trunk of an enormous noble fir. My mouth parted, and I almost peed myself.

  Two huge golden eyes blinked open, a vast hole smacking like lips, the wooden gaze coming down on me. “Oh, it’s you.”

  “What is all the racket? It’s the middle of the night.” Another crackled voice groaned near me, the branches creaking and moving.

  Fright descended deep in my gut as I took off running, howling into the night. My mind emptied of thought, terror filling it. Acting purely on instinct, I sprinted away, not having any idea where I was going.

  “Don’t go that way.” Wind snapped in my ears. “Certain death. Turn around! It’s a trap!”

  A guttural noise heaved from my throat, and I ran faster, leaping over a log. My foot hooked on a broken branch, pitching me forward with a cry. I flung out my arms to break my fall, but instead of the ground before me, all I could see was a deep, dark hole.

  And I plummeted.

  Down into pure darkness.

  “We told you…” the wind sang in a taunt before everything went black... again.

  Chapter 5

  I jolted awake, my limbs flinging out as I sat up, gasping for air. My hands dug into the white comforter, rays of sun pooling across the bed from the window. Sounds of the shower running came from the bathroom, and Scott was singing—badly.

  Home. Safe. It was all a dream.

  I let out a deep exhale, my shoulders sagging in relief, though I still peered around the small bedroom in search of anything to suggest it really happened. Everything was in place. Everything where it should be.

  “A dream. J
ust a dream,” I muttered to myself, shaking off the eerie feeling still coating me. I pushed off the blanket, my toes lowering to the dingy carpet.

  My airways stuttered as I looked down at my feet. On the top of my right foot, a red scrape crossed over it, exactly the place my foot caught on the branch in my dream.

  Slowly, I reached down, sliding my thumb over the torn skin, my nerves flinching at the contact. When I was a child, I would sometimes sleepwalk, Mom finding me in the morning in odd places, but I grew out of it. Now along with the childhood dreams, had sleepwalking returned as well? It was the only explanation for my injury. While dreaming that crazy tale, I must have really tripped over something.

  “Morning, babe.” Scott strolled into the bedroom, a towel around his waist, his skin so pale it was almost blinding. Familiar. Comfortable. Safe. He made me feel grounded.

  Scott leaned over the bed, kissing me. “You slept in.”

  “What time is it?” I glanced back at my clock, telling me it was past ten. I never slept in. I was usually up at six, going for a run.

  “Tried to rouse you, get a little action before work, but you were dead to the world.” Scott strolled over to the dresser, seemingly neutral to not having sex. He grabbed a pair of boxers and clothes for work. We both worked as much as we could and didn’t have many weekends together, trying to save money. We planned to get married at twenty-three and buy a house.

  Irritation shifted me on the bed from the blasé attitude we both had about sex lately. It seemed it was more something we did because it’s what couples were supposed to do than actually desiring each other. Scott and I were never the types who couldn’t keep our hands off each other. I mean, we touched all the time, but it wasn’t filled with this lustful desire I saw with my sister.

  Alice and Matt were nymphos. I mean, they couldn’t get through an evening visit without screwing each other in the bathroom, outside, laundry room, or in her old bedroom. Sometimes several times before dinner. Even when they were across the room from each other, you could still feel the connection between them like spiderwebs.

  It was strange because I didn’t really remember them dating. They were suddenly together. In love. He was not someone you could forget; the man walked into the room and absorbed everything. He had that thing about him, but my first time meeting him at my family’s Christmas party was hazy. I heard his wife had died, though my gut kept flipping around the notion he had been there with someone and his little boy, Tim. Tragically, the boy died, which seemed all blurry and off to me too.

  “I’m working a double.” Scott drew my attention back to him. He finished buttoning his shirt, tucking it into his pants. “So don’t wait up.”

  “Oh.” Droplets of anxiety dripped into my belly. “I was kind of hoping to see you tonight. Actually spend some time together.”

  “We can do something tomorrow night.”

  “I work a double tomorrow.”

  “Well, maybe during the week then.” He climbed back on the bed, giving my cheek a kiss. “Stay focused on our goal, right?” He grinned.

  “Right.” I nodded, forcing a smile on my lips.

  “I love you,” he called, already out of the room.

  “Love you too.” The front door slammed, my words getting lost.

  Silence seeped in around me, unsettling me. I was scared to be left alone, hearing voices and seeing things I knew didn’t exist. I didn’t even believe in ghosts, but damn, I wished it was the reason and not because some weak link in my brain was making me see holiday spirits.

  Today was my only day off before another four days of doubles at the cottage, then school would be back in session.

  Being alone today made my heart thump in my chest. My parents were always happy to see me, but there was just one person I wanted to see. A craving as though she were calling to me, that she could help me make it all better.

  I needed my sister.

  More than three hours later, I stepped out into the hustle and bustle of the New York streets. It was loud and chaotic, and you felt if you didn’t practically run, you’d be trampled to death, then hit by a taxi. Yelling, honking, sounds of jackhammers, the frantic boorish energy slapped me in the face and frazzled my nerves.

  Alice loved it here, enjoyed the excitement and energy of the city, while I preferred the quiet small town. Calm, clean, and orderly. New York never turned off.

  Greenwich Village, the wealthy and coveted address, was in the heart, but with the tree-lined brownstone houses, it felt slightly apart from the extreme craziness. Families, cafes, bars, and parks made this prime real estate, which somehow my sister got a slice of.

  The day had grown overcast and frigid. I wrapped deeper into my winter coat, a beanie covering my ears, breath billowing from my mouth. I walked up to Alice’s shop; their apartment was above the hat shop. I stared at her lit-up sign. Alice and the Hatter glittered and moved like it was really being poured into the top hat, the scarf moving like it was blowing in the wind.

  Seeing the top hat still sparked anxiety as I recalled the time Alice sat in her room, drawing them over and over and coloring them with her own blood. To me, the hat represented the decline of her mind. It was when everything changed—the start of her madness—but she seemed to have the opposite feeling. I had no idea what attracted her to them so much, but she wasn’t the only one. It was the biggest seller in her store. Celebrities from the neighborhood buying them drew attention from all over the world to her shop. Her Instagram already had a million followers.

  Pausing, I took in the bakery attached to the store. I hadn’t been here since it opened last April. The White Rabbit, with the tag line It’s always teatime swirling around a teacup, was next to the hat shop. A line formed out the door in the icy weather, people braving the elements to wait for the delicious treats.

  Turning for the first door, the bell chimed as I stepped in, the store fuller than I expected, but it was the day after Black Friday. The attention on small businesses and the race to start Christmas shopping had commenced. Two women I had met briefly were on the floor and behind the counter. The store was small but put together so efficiently it appeared larger, my sister’s hat designs filling every space.

  “Welcome…” A short, cute woman greeted me at the door. She was in her mid-twenties, with a heart-shaped face, rosy, chubby cheeks, pert little nose, long blonde hair, and bright blue eyes. Something about her was so warm and inviting, you wanted to hug her like she was your favorite grandma, waiting for you with a cup of cocoa. “Oh, Dinah.” She clapped her hands. “You and your sister look so much alike; I almost thought I was losing my mind there for a moment.”

  “Funny, because I think I actually am,” I muttered.

  “Excuse me?” Her tag reminded me her name was Joy.

  “Nothing.” I forced my mouth into a smile. “Do you know where my sister is, Joy?”

  “I think she’s in the back. We had a rush of orders last night.”

  “Thanks.” I nodded, moving around her, my journey halting when my eyes landed on a child trying on a beanie. A stab of adrenaline pumped fear up my neck.

  Frosty the Snowman was knitted on the adorable hat. The icon was famous, but something about it brought my vivid dream back from the shadows. Alice captured every detail so precisely it was as if she plucked it from my memory, down to the poinsettia flower on his hat.

  Get it together, Dinah. It wasn’t real. Just a silly dream, I mentally yelled at myself.

  Barreling past the counter, I traveled down the short hallway to my sister’s office. Not bothering to knock, I started to open the door.

  “I don’t want to hear it. We go through this every year.” Her annoyed voice stopped me, the door cracked open enough to see a slice of her figure, her back to me. She wore jeans, knee-high boots, and a black fitted sweater, her black hair loose down to her lower back, her arms bent like she was holding something, facing the floor to ceiling mirror in the corner.

  “But she’s being that B-word
again,” a boy’s childlike voice whined. What the hell was a kid doing in her office? “And I don’t mean bossy.”

  “It’s that time of year. You know how she gets. Now take Pen and go. I will help later, okay?” She bent down as if lowering a child to the ground. I couldn’t see much from my angle, most of her hidden behind the desk. “Oh, and tell Hare we need more…” She stood back up.

  “More what?”

  “Everything.” She exhaled.

  “Only if you ask Queen B to tone it down. Happy already went to the pub, and I’m about to join him.”

  “Go!” She laughed. “Pen, go with him. Stay out of Dee’s way.”

  I thought I heard a little voice humming a Christmas song before everything went silent. Alice shook her head, turning back for the desk, an amused smile on her face. Her look snapped to the door, catching on me in the doorway. “Dinah,” she yelped. It was a second, but I could swear fear flashed over her face, her gaze darting behind her before it vanished, a confused grin on her lips. “What are you doing here?”

  “I can’t come visit my sister?” I stepped into the room, my eyes searching for the voices I heard. “Who were you talking to?”

  “Oh…friends.” She tucked a strand of her loose, long dark hair behind her ear as she nodded to her cell phone on her desk. “Speakerphone.”

  “Strange. They sounded like they were right here. And young.” I couldn’t stop looking for some kids to jump out, as if this was some bizarre prank.

  “Nope.” She shook her head. “They’re ancient.” Her arms opened, moving to me. “But hi! It’s really good to see you. I wish you’d let me know. Today is kind of crazy.”