Wicked Wonderland

by Eva Chase

  The floor slanted up and angled into a series of stairs, like Theo had said it would. They were so tiny I had to take two or three at a time. I leapt from one to the next, my breath getting short.

  And then, all at once, they swung around, flinging me onto my hands and knees onto ground that felt like hard-packed dirt. When I looked behind me, the stairs I’d been climbing veered upward away from me as if I’d been hurrying down them all along.

  I pushed myself onto my feet. The ceiling was so low that even at my not particularly impressive height, I had to hunch or my head would have bumped the ceiling. An earthy smell saturated the cool air. Theo had said someone he called “Rabbit” used the mirror I was searching for to pick up ingredients for the club’s refreshments. I wasn’t sure how literal that name was, but this tunnel sure could have passed for a rabbit hole.

  Go left of the stairs until you’re back where you began, then right, and you’re there. If I’d managed the rest of this journey, I could handle that.

  The light that had seeped down the stairs faded away as I ventured down the tunnel to the left. My fingers ran over the wall, jumping over bumps that I couldn’t help thinking must be tree roots. Where the hell was I now? I wanted to say I couldn’t possibly still be beneath the club building, but on the other hand, it wasn’t even possible that the club building could have been spinning like a top, or that I could have walked into it by just deciding there was a door, so what did I know?

  I slid my feet carefully over the floor, afraid I’d trip over something in the darkness. The tunnel split, the walls falling away on both sides. I turned left and followed that branch as it curved.

  A faint glow came into sight up ahead, growing as I approached. The stairs. They looked like the same stairs, anyway, although I couldn’t figure out how I could have gone in a complete circle when I hadn’t encountered any other branches in the path. Maybe it was better not to question things here.

  I was back where I’d begun, anyway. I was just about to pass the stairs and head down the other tunnel when a rustling sound reached my ears. A thin voice was muttering somewhere in the distance.

  “Just a little more. Just a little more, he always says. It always is a little more, but never enough. And now I’m late again.”

  My stomach flipped over. I scrambled backward deeper into the passage where the darkness was thicker and flattened myself against the wall.

  The rustling came louder. A stout figure with a rounded belly and a rabbit’s head, his fur gleaming pure white, hustled out of the tunnel I’d meant to go down. I braced myself, but to my relief he dashed up the stairs instead of continuing toward me. I waited until the patter of his footsteps dwindled, and then I let out my breath.

  If I’d gotten to this junction even half a minute earlier, I might have already been too far down the tunnel to avoid him. I’d have been caught.

  What would the Caterpillar’s people do to me if they found me wandering around in their sort-of basement? Theo hadn’t mentioned that. Neither had Chess. The guards upstairs hadn’t seemed all that threatening, but I didn’t think I wanted to count on anyone’s mercy.

  I listened for a moment longer and then darted to the tunnel Rabbit had emerged from. It veered sharply and ended in an earthen hollow of a room, only slightly wider than the tunnel had been. A tall mirror like the one in Aunt Alicia’s house, this one oval and framed with tarnished gold carved into the shape of roses, reflected the shadows.

  I hesitated, just for a second. Theo had said a looking-glass doorway in Wonderland should take anyone traveling from here to wherever they intended to go, as long as they’d been to that place before. Rabbit wouldn’t have been passing through to Aunt Alicia’s house, but I should be able to.

  Stepping toward the mirror, I pictured the little attic room—the messy shelves, the rocking chair, the toy chest. The railing of the wrought-iron staircase disappearing into the floor. The staleness in the air. With a deep inhale, I brought my hand to the glass surface.

  My fingers slipped right through like it was a pool of water. The rest of my body was yanked after them as if compelled by some new form of gravity. I shot through a rush of cold as if I’d fallen back into that pond, and for a second I was afraid I had, that this mirror had tossed me right back to the start of my journey in Wonderland. Then I tumbled onto the floor in Aunt Alicia’s attic.

  I rolled over and pushed myself into a sitting position. Everything looked the same. Everything smelled the same. It wasn’t even night here—morning sunlight was still beaming through the room’s little window. The black kitten pranced across the floor and swatted at my pant leg.

  A giggle spilled out of me. All I could do was hug my knees and laugh and laugh, as if I was releasing all the insanity I’d just been through.

  Wow, that had been intense. In both good and bad ways.

  The kitten chirped a mew. I scooped it up and cuddled it against my chest. “This was all your fault,” I informed it. “If you hadn’t gone scampering up here…”

  But did I really wish that it hadn’t?

  No. I glanced back at the mirror. Scary, yes. Intense, yes. But that experience had also been the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me—even if it was already hard to believe it had really happened.

  I wouldn’t have traded it for anything. Well, almost anything.

  And now I had questions that needed answers.

  My cell phone reception wasn’t the best out here in the country. Mom’s voice crackled over the line, occasionally fading out completely.

  “Are you sure you’re comfortable staying there on your own? You could always hire someone to pack things up.”

  “I don’t want to pack things up,” I said. “Not yet, anyway. I’m still looking through everything.” I skimmed my fingers over the spines on one of the library’s shelves. The bookcases here were a lot tidier than the ones in the attic had been. Aunt Alicia’s taste in literature—or, at least, that whoever in the family had built this collection—had been pretty diverse. The shelves held everything from Victorian poetry to modern philosophy, and novels spanning two hundred years.

  “I just want to be sure you’re okay. Losing your job like that, and Brian—I know it’s got to be hard—”

  “I’m fine, Mom,” I said, gently but firmly. “You know, I’m not even upset about Brian anymore. It was shitty the way I found out he was a total asshole, but I realized I never felt like I could totally be myself around him. So it’s a good thing that I get to move on. And I’ve already got a couple of job prospects to look into.”

  That wasn’t strictly true, but sometimes I had to lie a little so Mom didn’t spiral off into her worries. I’d had a job of some kind since I was fifteen, and I’d always been careful with my money. I’d find something before I was in any financial trouble. There wasn’t any reason for her to worry about me, but sometimes I thought she’d gotten so in the habit of having to worry about Cameron that she couldn’t remember how to turn that part of her brain off when it came to her other kid, despite my best efforts.

  The part about Brian was true. My mind wandered to the memories of those clubs Melody had dragged me off to before. Maybe I should give them another chance. See if I could find some hot dude who got my motor going here in reality. It’d be nice just to see what it’d be like enjoying myself, having fun with someone, not jumping straight to focusing on what kind of future we might have.

  More of Aunt Alicia’s charcoal sketches hung on the walls between the bookcases. I stopped in front of a larger frame that held a vast Tenniel family tree. She must have gotten this done herself, or at least updated it. It showed eight generations of my father’s family, all the way down to me and Cam in the bottom right corner.

  “Why do you think Aunt Alicia never had us visit her out here?” I said, easing into the subject I’d really wanted to talk about. “When we were still seeing her, I mean. There’s tons of room, and it isn’t that far from the city.”

  “Oh, Alici
a was always a little strange about certain things,” Mom said. Her voice got a little terse, like it often did the rare times Aunt Alicia had been mentioned since their falling out. “I suggested it once, and she looked outright horrified by the idea. Said something about how it wasn’t really suitable for children, old furniture and antiques and so on.”

  I frowned. “I haven’t seen anything that looks that fragile.” Not so much that she couldn’t have trusted a nine-year-old and an eleven-year-old around it, I didn’t think. Well, maybe my brother was a different story. He might have broken something just to get a reaction. But nine-year-old me had been almost as cautious and neat as I was now.

  If her concerns had anything to do with the mirror upstairs, obviously she hadn’t mentioned that to Mom.

  “Like I said, she could be a little strange.” Mom sighed. “Sometimes I got the impression that there were parts of your father’s side of the family she wanted to keep private, just for herself. He wanted to name you after her, you know, and she was adamant that she didn’t approve. He and I settled on ‘Lyssa’ to try to compromise, but I don’t think she was completely happy even with that.”

  I paused as I approached the nook with the secretary desk at the back of the library. “You never told me that before.”

  “Well, it didn’t seem important. I didn’t want to give you a bad impression of her when she was doing so much to help out.”

  “Was that what your big argument was about?” I ventured. “Her keeping stuff to herself?”

  “No, it was… It started over such a silly thing. There’s no point in digging up that history now.”

  Mom always brushed off any questions about how they’d fallen out. I sat down at the desk. Unlike most of the furniture in the house, it was cedar. A sweet woody smell drifted off it as I sat down on the matching wheeled chair and tugged open one of the drawers down the side. It held scattered pens in a variety of color and a stack of linen notepaper.

  Before I could push harder about the argument with Aunt Alicia, Mom veered into a subject she had a lot more practice talking about.

  “Have you heard from your brother at all recently?”

  My stomach twisted. “No. He usually only gets in touch if he’s trying to get money out of me, and since he’s catching on that I’m done with that, he doesn’t try very often.”

  “I just worry… He said some very unkind things to me the last time I saw him. I think he might have started with the drugs again. And after that fight in the bar last month… If you do hear from him, will you let me know right away?”

  I checked the second drawer and found it empty. What awful things had Cam shouted at Mom this time? Memories of some of his vicious rants from the past ran through my mind, and I restrained a wince. “You know that if you bail him out, it just gives him more chances to screw up, right? At a certain point, helping becomes enabling.” A lesson it had taken me a while to learn myself.

  “Don’t be too hard on him, Lyssa. It’s been difficult for him, growing up without a father…”

  Cam had gotten a father for two years more of his life than I had. He’d been expressing how difficult that was in the most spiteful ways possible for almost two decades. Somehow I’d managed to work through my pain without hurting everyone around me as often as I could.

  As I tried to figure out something else to say that wouldn’t make Mom upset, I eased open the lid on the desk, and my gaze fell on a wooden box about as big as a hardcover book. One of those linen notepapers was taped to it, with a scrawl of handwriting that started with my name.

  Lyssa,

  You won’t understand until you’ve been there. Then you’ll be ready to take the key.

  A.

  I stared at the note and tried the box. The lid stuck fast. “I know, Mom,” I said. “I promise I’ll call you if I hear from him. I’d better let you go and get back to the sorting.”

  After I set down the phone, I tugged at the box’s lid again. It was definitely locked. A brass fixture with a little keyhole gleamed on the front. The cherry-wood was smooth and plain other than a simple border around the top and a carving in the middle there, like the outline of a multifaceted gem with a teardrop at its center. Interesting design.

  Aunt Alicia had left this for me—how long ago? The paper didn’t look particularly aged. Maybe right before she’d gone into the hospital, knowing she didn’t have much time left. But where was the key she’d mentioned?

  I looked at the note again. You won’t understand until you’ve been there. After my adventure this morning, my first thought was Wonderland. Had she known I’d end up there?

  And if that was what she’d meant… was the key to open this box back there on the other side of the mirror?

  Chapter Eight

  Lyssa

  “So do you have the entire house catalogued and sorted into boxes already?” Melody asked. When I made a face at her, my best friend laughed. “Oh, come on. I know what you’re like. You’re happiest with a place for everything and everything in its place.”

  I speared a chunk of cantaloupe from my fruit salad. We’d met up for brunch at this quaint place in a small town about halfway between Aunt Alicia’s house and the city. Red-and-white checkered curtains hung on either side of the front window, and the soft strains of a Patsy Cline song was piping from the speaker mounted in the corner. The smell of fresh-baked bread permeated the whole place.

  It was mellow and cozy, the kind of atmosphere I usually would have sunk right into. So, why was I so on edge?

  “I think it’s pretty normal to feel more comfortable when things are in order,” I said. “You can only be carefree until the moment you have to tear apart the house to find your electric bill or your power’s going to go out.”

  “Hey, I’m not going to argue with you. You’ve definitely rubbed a few good habits off on me.” Melody grinned. “I’m just saying there are levels of orderliness, and we know which end of the spectrum you’re at.”

  “Fair. I have looked through everything now.” Looking for that key, in case it was in the house after all, and for any other messages Aunt Alicia might have left behind. On both counts, I’d come up empty. “But I haven’t moved much around. It just feels… right, the way she left it. Everything already has a place.” I shifted in my chair, leaning back and then forward again. “How about you? Did you get started on the designs for next season?”

  “Not yet.” Melody sighed. “I want to do something really exciting and fresh, but it’s hard continually pushing myself past what I’ve already done. And now that I’ve got the deal with that store… I think it’s put this little voice in my head that’s nagging me about whether they’ll like the new line too.”

  “Of course they will,” I said, waving my fork at her. “They love the stuff you’ve already done, and that’s all totally you, and whatever you come up with next will be too. And if they don’t love it, I’ll go in there and tell them they’re out of their minds.”

  My best friend shook her head, but she was smiling again. “I’d almost like them to turn it down just so I can see that happen.” She paused, studying me as I fiddled with my napkin. Her forehead furrowed. “Is everything okay, Lyss? You seem a little agitated or something.”

  I groped for something to say and jabbed my fork into a sliver of pineapple. “I guess it’s just weird, being in a new place, everything in my life so different all at once. I’m still settling in.”

  It wasn’t just that, though. The flood of pineapple juice in my mouth brought back the mix of sweet and spice in Hatter’s ridiculous honey coriander pineapple scones, which had also been somehow delicious. And more vibrant than the piece of fruit I was chewing right now.

  Ever since I’d left the house, I couldn’t stop noticing how much duller this world was compared to Wonderland. Every sensation was subdued. Every color was muted.

  The slow pace of the everyday rhythms around me, the predictable patterns everyone around me was following—I should have been grat
eful to have them again. This was what reality was supposed to feel like.

  All full of things I could label and stick into neat little boxes.

  Maybe the reason I’d been able to let go in Wonderland was that it’d been so obvious I couldn’t stick to my usual habits there. How could I let loose and go wild in reality when everywhere I looked, I was reminded of the rules I was meant to follow, the boundaries that defined what would be considered normal?

  I couldn’t tell Melody any of that. Oh, I fell through a mirror and ended up in this wacky place where everyone acts crazy and only cares about having fun. I hadn’t even believed it myself until I’d been there for at least an hour. She’d laugh as if it were a joke and then take me to the mental hospital when she realized it wasn’t.

  That bizarre trip was the first major event in my life I hadn’t told her about, and the lie by omission sat heavy in my gut.

  “Are you sure that’s all it is?” Melody said. “If you found something freaky—like, your grand-aunt’s secret S&M playroom or something—you know you can tell me. I promise not to judge the dead.”

  I had to laugh at that. “No, I haven’t been traumatized by any shocking sexual revelations.” Just revelations of another sort. And not exactly traumatized. I stirred the last few berries on my plate. Even if Melody would never believe what I’d experienced yesterday, I could trust her to give me good advice. I just had to find the right way to ask for that advice without setting off warning bells that I was going ‘round the bend.

  “Mel, you’ve taken lots of chances other people might have thought were kind of crazy, but you’ve always made it work. How do you decide when to go for it and when it’s really too risky?”

  Melody’s eyebrows shot up to her bangs. “Hmm. Sounds like there is a story here. What happened, Lyss? What have you gotten up to? Did you let loose a little after all?”

  I rubbed my mouth, feeling awkward under her scrutiny when I couldn’t really answer those questions. What was an easy story to give her?