“You want to get rid of Santa Claus?” My mouth parted.
“Love, joy, kindness…blah, blah, blah… No one cares about anything but themselves now anyway.” She flicked her hand. “Earth is a cesspool of greed and narcissism. Why not reflect what the people want?”
“Canned cranberries, you are totally nuts.”
“Amusing coming from you.” She scoffed. “And don’t act like you know the man. He is not all of what he seems either.” She waved her knife at me. “You are wasting my time. Go.”
“No.” I rolled my fingers into my palms, determination set on my face. Now, even more, I would not help with her plan. She was not wrong. Earth had turned into a gutter of hate, anger, and selfishness, but it was why we needed a figure like Santa Claus. We needed hope, joy, and love even more. “I won’t.”
“I thought you might say that.” Her lips twisted, eyes glinting with malice, her head turning slightly behind her. “Son?”
Dread kicked me in the stomach, my gaze moving past her. Two figures moved out from the darkness. By their outlines, I could tell one was a man, and the one being held was a woman, her head hooded, her arms tied back.
I took in huge gulps of air as my brain spotted the tall, muscular blond guiding her, his tan skin, his seafoam-green eyes looking into mine with remorse.
“Blaze?” Betrayal and confusion burned up my esophagus. He was part of this? He had known his mother was alive this whole time? Was he working with her? I had so many questions, but only one word croaked out. “Why?”
“I’m sorry, Dinah.” Pain flicked across his face. “I care about you so much. I even hoped with more power and sway you would see me. It’s time for a change. Christmas in summer has been ignored far too long. Half the world is in summer, but Santa ignored us, treated us like second-class citizens. The place you went after the holidays. We weren’t equal. Not compared to his precious winter. Almost every song, every movie, food, drinks, even family activities are all based around snow and cold weather. We may have two or three songs. And no good movies.”
“So what? You think getting rid of Santa and betraying your brother will change that?” I screeched.
“Yes. Everything will change once Mother takes control. This place won’t be Winterland anymore. For once they will be beneath us.”
“I can’t believe you.” I shook my head.
“I’m doing this for my people. For all of those on Earth who celebrate in the hot weather but get completely ignored.” Sorrow flicked on his face. “I’m sorry, Dinah. I hoped you’d see it my way, want to help. It’s time for our side to rise up.”
“Rise up? Ignored?” I snorted. “Because you don’t have a good Christmas movie?” I shook my head. “Fuck you. I’m not helping either one of you.”
“Blaze?” His mother nodded at the figure he held, finally taking my notice to her. She writhed in his hold, her words heavily muffled, sounding angry.
Blaze grabbed the pillow cover, ripping it off his captive’s head, her mouth covered with Christmas duct tape.
My world capsized.
My already hazy brain spun, and bile curled up my throat. The girl’s almost identical brown eyes locked with mine, staring back in bewilderment.
Holy fucking nutcracker.
“Alice?”
Chapter 25
Oh. My. God.
My sister.
Alice was here.
In this world. How? What the hell was going on?
“Alice!” My cry rang out into the night. Mayhem wracked my brain, my body lurching for her.
Mrs. Miser/Dr. Bell stepped between us, shoving me back.
Alice thrashed against Blaze, trying to get to me, her muffled screams lashing from behind the tape.
“Alice!” I reached for her. Bell pushed the end of the candy cane under my chin, stopping me. “Let her go! She has nothing to do with this.”
Bell’s head fell back, laughter howling out of her. “Are you serious?” In a snap, anger filled her tone as she stomped over to Alice, jabbing the knife in her side. “She has EVERYTHING to do with it. She’s the one who put her in there. She’s the one who brought Santa back. The darling savior of Winterland.” She snarled at that word. “She is the reason my family lost their home—their power and reign.”
“What?” I glanced from Dr. Bell to Alice. “Savior? What is she talking about?”
I knew my sister enough to see nothing being refuted in her eyes. She almost looked apologetic, like she was the reason I was here.
“You Liddells have been nothing but a thorn in my family’s side. Both of you have taken everything. Now it’s time to pay it back.” Dr. Bell nodded at the dark abyss. “Time is ticking, Dinah. Go. The Land of the Lost and Broken is waiting. Hope you get through. Her life depends on it.”
Alice’s head shook, her cries loud and passionate, fear filling her eyes as if she knew what was beyond.
“No, Dinah.” Muffled and strained, I could still make out her plea. “Don’t go in there.”
“Shut up, or I will put you in there too. Have your brain pulled out and played with like taffy,” Mrs. Miser snapped. “Time’s ticking, Dinah.”
Alice’s eyes pleaded with me, her head shaking wildly, making me hesitate.
“Fine, you made it come to this.” Mrs. Miser smirked, then stabbed the blade into Alice’s gut. A muffled cry bellowed from her as she bent over in agony.
“Alice!” I screamed, jumping to protect my sister, but the bitch dug the candy cane in deeper with every step closer. Blood dripped on the white snow, painting it red.
“I will put this right through her like a skewer. She deserves nothing less. But you get me what I want, and I will let her live. For now.”
“Mother. What are you doing?” Blaze’s eyes went wide, grabbing my sister, trying to keep her upright.
“What I have to, son. Since you didn’t have enough balls to do what I asked the first time.”
“The first time?” I looked at Blaze.
“He was supposed to get you to remember, to help us.”
“What?” I blanched, peering at Blaze.
Anguish tore over his face, then he turned to his mother. “You never said people would get hurt.”
“Oh, grow up. You still act like a child running around on the beach with no responsibility. You want things to change? You have to make them change. Whatever it takes.” She sneered at him.
Blaze’s shoulders stiffened, his expression torn between hurt and anger.
“Sometimes we have to get a little dirty to get what we want.” She turned back to me. “Men are so weak. It’s why they fear us so much. It’s up to us women to get the job done. Now, Dinah, do you have the fortitude to get the job done? Because if you don’t, your sister dies. You give me mine, and she lives…a sister for a sister.”
“Sister?” I breathed. Her sister was the one trapped?
Through the pain, Alice’s head jerked to her, her eyes going wide. Her eyes snapped to me, her head shaking even more adamantly. “No! Don’t! You can’t!”
“Free her, bring her back to me, and I won’t kill Alice.”
“Noooo!” Alice pleaded, trying so hard to pull out of Blaze’s grip, her energy draining onto the ground.
Mrs. Miser stabbed the cane into the same wound, causing her to scream in agony.
Tears slid down my eyes, panic thumping my heart. I couldn’t lose my sister. No matter what, it was not an option.
“Okay! Okay. Stop!” I pleaded. “Please stop hurting her. I’ll do it.”
Alice’s head shook, but she was sagging into Blaze, losing her life in front of my eyes. “Don’t, Dinah. Please!”
“I have to,” I cried, stepping closer to her. This time Mrs. Miser didn’t stop me. “I won’t let you die.”
“Noooo,” she replied, her lids lowering slightly, blood tapping on the ground, coloring the white like a cherry snow cone.
“I’m sorry.” I leaned in, kissing her cheek. “I have to,” I rep
eated. A few more tears fell as I whipped around, stomping for the entrance.
“Dinah!”
Alice’s cries followed me into the void, gutting my soul as the Land of the Lost and Broken devoured the rest of me.
Even as my boots touched the glowing snow, I had no sense of up or down, my mind already wanting to shatter into a million pieces.
“No.” I bit down, fiercely trying to hold on to my thoughts. My purpose.
The memories of being here before flipped quickly through my head like a picture book, disintegrating at the edges as toys floated closer, stealing my mind. The alien terrain was neither hot nor cold, but I shivered as the grieving toys came for me. Their suffocating woes of being forgotten, replaced, left, burned into me.
The majority of the toys were lost, roaming the endless space for their owner, wondering what had happened, why they were abandoned, with no meaning. But another group had evolved. Developed intent.
Determined to hurt. Kill.
Rushing forward, I fought against the pressure pounding in my head, the misery weighing down my body.
What am I doing here again?
A sob huffed from my mouth as I focused on trying to remember.
“Alice.” I gritted my teeth, pushing on, following an instinct. “Remember Alice. Keep saying her name. Don’t forget!”
Half of a tattered Monopoly board knocked into my shoulder, and a scream tore from my soul as if I were the one being torn in half. I was assaulted with images of people screaming at each other, accusations of cheating. Anger. Greed. A man ripping the board in half and chucking it across the room.
A headless stuffed dog brushed over me, transmitting pictures of an older boy cutting its head off, laughing, as a little girl sobbed uncontrollably.
Pain. Devastation.
My mind blanked as I hit the ground, folding over my knees, gasping for air, my chest aching, my muscles feeling too heavy to carry on. I wanted to curl up here—sleep forever.
Get up. You are supposed to do something… Though I couldn’t remember what. It felt significant, but the more I tried to reach for it, the more it slipped away.
Tired.
Sleep.
My lids closed, welcoming anything to take me away from this agony.
A tapping poked my cheek incessantly, keeping me from diving into the nothing, peace lying on the other side.
Taptaptaptap.
I groaned, my lids fluttering.
Taptaptaptap.
“Stttoooppp.” Irritation grumbled in my voice, and I opened my eyes.
A teeny gray mouse stood on my face, wide eyes, huge ears, one with a cut in it. Its little hands and fingers moving frantically, making me dizzy. Tired.
My lids shut again.
Taptaptaptap.
“Ugh!” I forced my eyes open again; the little guy’s fingers moved even more frantically. He bounced on his toes.
Familiarity, not just with the little mouse, but the way his hands moved, trickled in the back of my mind. My attention focused more on his fingers.
“Get up! You can’t give up, Ms. Dinah.” The shapes he made, I read across, stringing into words. “Please, you must remember.”
Chip. The name bounced on my tongue, a flash of the little guy sitting on my knee, to the blurry moment I thought I saw him in Blaze’s hut.
“You…you came with me?” I stuttered out slowly.
“Of course.” His hands moved. “You are my friend. Friends help each other.”
Warmth in the vacant place of my chest sizzled energy and determination into my system.
“How-how are you not affected?”
“What do toys care about a mouse? I am insignificant to them.”
“You aren’t to me.”
Bashfulness twitched his nose, wiggling his whiskers.
Pulling myself up, clouds tried to pack into my head again. Taking a deep breath, I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to recall why I was here.
“Alice,” he signed, the name triggering something deep inside me. “You said, Don’t forget Alice.”
“Yes.” I nodded, picking him up as I stood. Alice…my sister. “Alice.”
Chip settled on my shoulder, holding on to my hair as I moved with refreshed determination, a pull leading me.
A wall of toys hovered in a line, and I knew I had reached my destination. Their whispers in my head telling me not to go in continued like a looping record.
“Do not do it, Dinah.”
“No, stop.”
“Don’t let her free.
“Darkness! Doom!”
Chip wiggled into my neck when I crossed the invisible barrier, goosebumps rippling over my skin. The complexities of human emotions pierced my chest.
“Elf balls.” My teeth ground together, the orbs slinking through the darkness to me. They were ready to fight me. I could feel their emotions, their fear and determination to keep me away from my goal. I didn’t want to do this either, knowing whatever that bitch wanted released was not good.
“Alice.” I progressed closer to the mass of glowing spheres. Souls. “I have to do this for Alice.”
A few flickered brightly as if they recognized the name.
“Please.” I tried to step around, but the mass moved together, blocking my way. “She will die!”
I could feel the hesitation, but they still stood their ground.
“Dinah, come to me.” A woman’s voice slithered to me, wrapping around me. “Free me.”
Stepping forward, the orbs buzzed around me like angry bees, their protests screaming in my ear as they brushed my skin, their energy burning.
“Ahhh!” I bent over, feeling Chip tuck against my neck, his soft fur and little hand pressed into my pulse, giving me comfort and determination.
Alice. I chanted her name in my head. My sister, my entire world and heart.
Grunting, I shoved through the stagnant energy, their howls and pleads echoing in my head, bubbling emotion in my throat.
“I’m sorry. I have to!” Pitching forward, I tore from the throng, stumbling away.
“Dinah.” My name hissed through the dark landscape as I trotted down the path, the pull to the voice feeling like a leash. Unlike the other times I had been here, I was more present. I understood what was happening, but the power of the call was something I still couldn’t seem to fight, as if I were some underling.
The tree came into view. The black box was barely visible now, the tree roots wrapping so thickly around it, pulling it in, devouring it.
“Time is running out.” Mrs. Miser’s warning rang in my head. I had little doubt that if the tree consumed it, it would even be out of my reach.
“Dinah, hurry.” The woman hissed in my ear, her voice dropping me to my knees at the base.
The need to fight against it, refuse, crashed against the image of my sister’s face.
Shakily, I reached out, the tips of my fingers grazing the box. As if I were struck by lightning, my muscles jerked, a scream coming from my mouth as pictures flew through my mind.
A beautiful older woman—red-blood lips, icy blue eyes, white-blonde hair cut into a sleek bob. Images of her laughing as people and animals were beheaded, tortured, controlled. Darkness, anger, pain, and bitterness had corroded into evil. Twisting and eroding her into vindictive maliciousness.
I could foresee her power devastating the land.
It would destroy. Kill.
War would come to Winterland.
And death.
Peoples’ screams of horror, pain, and fear ricocheted in my head, hitting my own soul. If they were from the past or the future, I did not know, but their agony bent me over my knees. I yanked my hand away from the box with a sob. Tears streaked down my face. The choice rammed down on me, ransacking my heart. What should I do?
Save my sister and destroy Winterland?
Or save Winterland and lose my sister?
“The course is already set, Dinah. Winterland will fall.” Her voice was full of c
onfidence. “Would you really let your sister die for nothing?”
My hand pressed against my ribs, feeling my heart rap against my palm from the unfathomable decision of choosing who lives and who dies.
Alice’s face entered my mind, us cuddled together on the sofa watching Christmas movies, her laughing, smiling. Times we fought, times we giggled and joked, times she held me when I cried.
An image of her and Matt, her eyes sparkling with deep love.
My heart broke.
“Alice,” I whimpered. “I’m sorry.” Alice wouldn’t want me to choose her. Grief wailed from me, grinding my soul.
My hand reached out, touching the box. The roots recoiled but loosened as my fingers stroked across them, thrusting the box back into my hands.
“Good girl.”
Power snapped and crackled around me, wrapping me in its embrace. The top cracked, letting me see the true force inside, the memories that had been blocked from me.
A scream belted from my lungs, my body falling back, my spine hitting the ground as my mind cried in agony at the onslaught. The curtain pulled away, showing me the murky shadows, the time around Alice’s incident. The sliver that had been under my skin for two years, sensing something was off.
I sucked in violently as the picture cleared in my head. I saw it from a clear mind now.
The woman with red lips and blue eyes.
I had known her.
She was the new neighbor who had been married to Matthew, had a son Timmy, came to our holiday party. Alice’s therapist, who made peppermint flavoring for us.
Jessica Winters!
Like waking up from amnesia, I saw all the lies. The smoke and mirrors. The way she cruelly deceived and played my family.
The night she stood there, an evil smirk on her face as Alice was carted off…
Oh my god.
Alice had never been crazy.
Everything she saw had been real.
“That’s right, Dinah. But how easily you all believed she was. And it wouldn’t have been long before we made them believe you were too,” Jessica mocked in my ear. “How easily we could make people believe you killed your sister in a moment of crazed insanity. People will think how sad, they were so young, had so much potential, two beauties lost in their madness. They will pity you and then quickly forget as humans do, going on with their insignificant lives. You have more, Dinah. Choose the right path.”
Beauty In Her Madness (Winterland Tale Book 3) Page 25