Ascending From Madness

by Stacey Marie Brown

  “Oh god.” I bucked underneath him.

  “I want to take my time.” His fingers slipped under my underwear, finding me, and my hips responded to his stroke, needing more.

  “Hell with that. We don’t have time. I don’t want to be interrupted like last time.” The words stumbled out of my mouth.

  We both paused. Blinking.

  “We’ve been here before,” he said slowly, staring at me.

  “Yeah.” Again, it was something I knew without really knowing how.

  Suddenly car lights flashed across my bedroom window, stilling me. I knew it was far too early to be my parents or Dinah returning home.

  “Shit.” I clambered off the bed for my closet, grabbing jeans and a sweater, my body utterly furious with me for denying it yet again. Swearing at me in Yiddish and pig Latin.

  He tugged his pants up, peering out the window.

  “It’s Jessica.”

  “Fuck a nutcracker.” I tugged back on my shoes, adjusting the ice pick inside my boot, and ran to the window. All her guards and nurses climbed out of a SUV heading directly for my house.

  “We really need to get to Winterland. That’s the only place we will be somewhat safe from her.”

  “How?” I exclaimed peering around. “Any suggestions? Know of a magical portal we can…” I trailed off, my mouth parting. “Holy bloodsucking holly.”

  Portal. A memory of when Jessica had drugged me returned. A piece of the puzzle fitting in place. That’s the word she used.

  “Only one has enough magic to do that. No one, especially a human, should be capable of traveling through a portal. How were you able to fight the Land of Lost and Broken and enter the Valley of Mirrors? How did you do it, Alice? How did you pass through the mirror?”

  “Mirrors,” I whispered to myself. Bea’s odd statement trickled in right after.

  “You are the key.”

  “Key?”

  “Look, Not-Alice… the clues are all around you. You need to open your eyes and see them. Not only what is there, but what isn’t.”

  “Mirrors,” I exclaimed again, hearing people move up the driveway.

  “What?”

  “The mirrors!” I jerked my head up to Matt’s, realization settling into my stomach. “Somehow, I can travel through them. I am the key. I opened it… that’s how we traveled here. How we get back. Why she wanted me.”

  “By mirrors?” he said, but then his nostrils flared, his head jerking at a noise coming from the backdoor downstairs. “Jesus, I never thought about it, but at our house, there is only one, in her private bathroom. She locks the door every day, saying she didn’t want Tim getting into the medications by accident that she kept on hand.”

  “She wasn’t worried about him. She was worried about you,” I said, but my attention was already moving away from him, latching onto the large mirror hanging on my wall.

  “Five milkmaids a-laying.” I stared at the glass.

  “I’m pretty sure that’s not how it goes.”

  “Believe me, no one cares.” I stepped by him, stopping in front of the mirror. “I can’t believe it. It was right in front of me the whole time.”

  “What was?”

  “Our way back.” The vision of standing on that frozen lake, diamond-encrusted framed mirrors suspended over the ice. They were all identical to this one.

  A loud crack of wood boomed through the silent house, like someone was busting through our garage door. Footsteps pounded across the floor.

  “Shit!” We both jerked to the door in unison.

  “Alice. Scrooge.” Our names rang through the house, Jessica’s voice full of taunting confidence. “You disappoint me. Thought you two were a lot smarter than this. The pull of Timmy or your family was too much. Love makes you weak. Predictable. How easy you make this.”

  “Do you know what to do?” He moved over to the door, shoving my dresser in front, blocking the entrance. It wouldn’t hold them back for long.

  “No.” I stepped onto my chair, grabbing the frame, the thing weighed a ton. I remember it took my whole family to install it after I bought it at a Christmas market which had come through town. I had instantly been drawn to it. Knew I couldn’t go home without it.

  Like it wanted me.

  I grunted, trying to lift it. Scrooge darted over, grabbing the other end, both of us laying it on the floor.

  Boots pounded up the stairs, skating fear over my skin and down my throat. With a bang, my door bounced off my dresser, the guards trying to push in.

  “You can’t run from me. I’m queen for a reason,” she stated. “Now come out. Don’t make this messy for your family, Alice. You know they will believe me over you. You are only going to break their hearts more.”

  I touched the glass feeling nothing but the hard, reflective material.

  “Please tell me you know how to open it again.”

  “No.” My voice rose, the guards ramming into the door, inching the dresser farther out. Anxiety drew drops of sweat down my back. “I have no clue. Last time… I just stepped in.”

  “Think, Alice.” Urgency made each word a demand. He pushed back into the dresser, trying to keep them from breaking in.

  “I can’t! It’s impossible.”

  “Only if you think it is.”

  Bam. Bam. Bam.

  Matt grunted, his boots slipping over the wood floor as her soldiers barreled against the door.

  “Think. Concentrate!” He growled, pushing all his weight against the dresser.

  “Okay. Okay.” I tried to breathe, closing my eyes, fear making it hard for me to latch on to anything.

  Focus, Alice!

  I knew everything was hanging on me. Our safety and lives depended on it. Pushing out the noise and terror, I drifted back into my mind to the frozen lake covered in mirrors. The tick of the clock downstairs was all I heard, the feeling of everything disappearing around me.

  I could see me standing on the frozen lake like I was looking through one of the mirrors, seeing myself on the other side. Dressed in red pants and a tank, my long hair tumbled over my shoulders. I looked lost. Sad. Feeling I had no hope or ties to anything.

  “Alice.” A voice called out to the girl, lifting her head. Following her gaze, I saw blue eyes, his outline filling up the mirror. Scrooge. He stretched out his hand, beckoning her to come to him. “Let go, Alice. Let the madness in…” The other me stepped closer as if he were what she longed for most in the world. “Once you let it in, everything will be right again.”

  I could see it on my—her—face. She held no doubt. No fear. She believed. Nodding, she reached for the man in the mirror. Her fingers went through the glass like water, his hand wrapping around hers. A buzzing of energy rippled the mirror, hitting the one I was watching through. Even through the glass, I could feel the magic of her belief.

  She stepped through and was gone.

  My lids burst open, my gaze landing on Matt’s, his face twisted with effort as he tried to hold the guards back, but they had already gained enough territory to stuff in an arm.

  I knew what I had to do, but this time it would be me leading him.

  “Scrooge.” Standing up, I reached my hand out to him, letting go of every doubt and fear I had. “Do you trust me?”

  “Yes,” he responded, his brow wrinkling, not ready to leave his post.

  “Let go.” I flicked my chin behind him.

  He watched me for a beat before he pushed off the dresser, moving to me, he took my hand, his eyes never leaving mine.

  The dresser squealed across the floor as they pushed in, but I stayed focused on Scrooge, tossing out everything logical and practical and just believed.

  “Ready for the impossible?”

  “Always.” He smirked.

  Together we took a step…

  “Nooooo!” I heard a woman scream. Jessica’s cry followed us as the world dropped away, and we plummeted.

  Down.

  Down a dark, dark hole.

&n
bsp; Chapter 24

  My skin screamed as my form plunged into dark, icy water, my fingers losing Scrooge’s as I sunk, my limbs flaying trying to fight the pull into the depths of the water. My lids popped open, the water clear, but eclipsed with darkness, swirling with my activity.

  My head jerked around, trying to find Scrooge. He was nowhere around me. Where did he go? Peering down, my eyebrows wrinkled. It looked brighter down there, light shining through, reflecting, like it was the surface. I tipped my head up. I noticed the ground not far from my head, but I was sinking away from the bottom, not toward it.

  What the hell?

  What felt like up was down and down was up. How was it possible? Gravity tugged me the opposite way I felt I should go.

  Curious and curiouser.

  “Sometimes looking at something from a different perspective changes everything.”

  Spinning around, I faced the other way, adjusting and letting go of what my mind had set as up and down. Like a camera flipped, alternating the scene for the viewer, everything righted itself, switching my up to down.

  Darting for the surface, lungs aching for oxygen, kicking my legs faster, I reached the top. Panic bubbled in my chest when I noticed the layer of ice covering it.

  No! I pounded on it, realization setting in.

  It wasn’t ice, but glass.

  A mirror.

  Panic clipped my chest, the need for air bubbling a cry from my mouth. My fists did nothing to break it.

  Darkness crept around my eyes, my mind growing hazy. Think, Alice! I ran inventory down my body, trying to think if I had anything to help me.

  Holy tinsel! I mentally screamed, my hand going to my boot, pulling the ice pick I had hidden there. The very thing that was supposed to end my life was saving it.

  With all my might, I stabbed at the glass. Over and over.

  Crack!

  The mirror splintered, a large piece shattering, opening up.

  My head popped up as I gasped desperately for air, my hands grabbing for the rim, the ice pick rolling over the glass, freeing my hands. Trembling, I dragged myself up onto the surface, hacking and gulping for oxygen, the jagged edge cutting at my clothes. I slumped on the surface with fatigue.

  Spiked eggnog. I did it.

  It took me a few moments, my fingers digging into the smooth surface, trying to stabilize myself, calming my frantic heart and lungs. Taking a deep breath, I lifted my head, glancing around. Fog rolled across the frosted oval lake, the mirrors hanging around me.

  I was back in the Land of Mirrors.

  And what I thought was a frozen lake was actually a mirror. Identical to the one I had at home. It was as if I stepped through one side and came out the other. A portal right in front of me, waiting for me to figure it out.

  Shakily, I sat up, still sucking in deeply.

  “Scrooge?” my voice cracked over the air. Pushing up, I forced my wobbly legs to stand. My wet clothes clung heavily on my frame, but no coldness touched me. “Scrooge?” Only silence responded to my call.

  “Scrooge!” I screamed, feeling the panic flutter in my throat. What happened to him? He was right next to me when we stepped into the mirror. Staring back at the tranquil waterhole I climbed out of, I could see nothing. Where was he? How did I lose him?

  “No.” I gritted my teeth. I would not lose him again.

  Lost…

  I halted, my mouth parting, my eyes leading over the hill, suddenly knowing where I would find him. Our clock had been reset. Instinct more than memory told me he would be out there, adrift in the Land of the Lost and Broken, unable to recall what had brought him here.

  Santa Claus. This all led back to the man in the red suit, another soul lost amongst the misplaced.

  “You will find him.”

  “Who?”

  “The one who is lost and the one who is broken.”

  Leaning over, I grabbed the ice pick, my course set forward. I knew this place would try to take my mind… make me forget why I was here.

  Gripping it tightly, the pick symbolized everything I needed to remember. The object that was supposed to strip me of my memories, my personality, leaving me a husk was the exact thing to help protect me from the place that wanted to do the same.

  It had only made me stronger.

  I wasn’t the same Alice as when I first came through here. This Alice was not to be messed with. She killed for those she loved. Would fight anything coming her way… and she would not leave until she had a jolly fat man and her sexy tight-assed Scrooge.

  Stomping toward the floating toys, I already sensed the sorrow and grief brushing at my skin, their greedy need to strip me of my hope and take away my power.

  No more. I was done with being a chess piece.

  I gritted my teeth, cresting the hill, watching the objects float around waiting for me.

  “Game on.”

  The attack was immediate. The onslaught of grief and pain clawed at my mind, wanting in. As if the toys could sense my confidence, they headed for me like a magnet, wanting to strip me of the power and either take it for themselves or make me another object bobbing around shattered amongst the unwanted.

  Misery loves company.

  A toy moved by me, sorrow climbing over me like a thousand bugs. My fingers jabbed into my temples as a cry splintered from my mouth. Desolation tunneled a hole through my chest.

  Don’t let them touch you.

  My memory of this place was hazy at best, but I trusted my instincts. Another thing I used to doubt, never fully trusting myself in decisions or questioning what I really wanted. Now my instincts were all I trusted.

  “Fuck off.” I stabbed my pick at a purple and pink stripped stuffed cat with huge yellow eyes, pushing it off in the opposite direction and knocking it into an army of tiny green plastic men like a bowling ball.

  “All of you. You get near me, and you lose another part.” I snarled, holding up my weapon. Some seemed to listen, but the draw to me seemed more powerful than my threat to others.

  Ducking, I zoomed past a headless doll, her woe and anger dipping my knees.

  “No,” I hissed, trying to steal myself against the onslaught, but I could still feel pinches of my willpower being taken. It was like when you forgot a simple word for something, the moment of blankness, your mind scrambling to track it down before it came to you again. But each time remembering became harder and harder.

  Bobbing, weaving, and slipping by the ambush of toys, I pushed forward, stabbing anything that got close to me.

  Perhaps it was my determination to find Scrooge caging my mind with protection. Or maybe the magic I was injected with back at the asylum still hummed within me. Something seemed to be helping me battle against the vast hole of wretchedness wanting to take my memories, my drive, my soul away from me. Either way, I knew in my gut this time they would not fully reach me.

  Anger. Purpose. Stubbornness. And love… I could feel it swathing me. The extra muchness, which stomped my feet forward, helped guide me to him, wherever he was. I came for him, and I would not leave until I found him. But the vastness of the place began to chip at my determination. Stumbling endlessly through a sea of nothing was like being put in the middle of the Sahara Desert, where you walked forever, but nothing changed.

  On and on, time only counted by putting one foot in front of the other, my body sagging with exhaustion, sorrow, and fear. Yet I pushed on, clinging to any snippets of Scrooge I could still remember.

  Then a chill crept over my body, jolting my head up.

  A line of toys hung at an invisible wall, but not one went past it. Ceaseless, dark emptiness stretched beyond, but I could tell it was anything but vacant. The air vibrated with palpable energy and despondent wails I could not hear but could feel with every nerve in my body. In my soul.

  Don’t go in there, Alice, a voice whispered in my head and I turned to look at a legless Transformer. It’s not for the living. Unless you want to get trapped there as well.

  �
��What’s in there?”

  Things that were torn in two and can’t ever be put together again, it said. Things beyond repair. Beyond any realm.

  I sucked in a breath, knowing exactly what he meant.

  Ghosts.

  Souls of those who lost everything, so broken by heartache and loss they succumbed to the despair.

  I knew what I was seeking would be there.

  If I went in, there was a good possibility I would become another soul trapped in this place.

  Rolling my shoulders, my grip on my weapon tightened. A slow smile spread over my face, and I stepped in.

  Chapter 25

  Like stepping into a walk-in freezer, icy air drove through my damp clothes and gnawed at my exposed skin, running a chill down my spine. The hair on my arms stood on end as I felt things brush against me; the air was heavy, weighing down my shoulders.

  Like with the toys, I could feel the pain of each soul that brushed against me, see bits of their memories. If I thought the toys held sorrow, they were child’s play compared to the souls knocking into me as if I were a pinata.

  Regret. Guilt. Torment. Anguish. Despair. The toys didn’t understand regret or guilt, which was a completely human emotion, and it raked through me like razor blades.

  Sobs choked up my throat as they rattled the cage that I tried to protect myself in. Their claws stretched through the bars, swiping at my soul.

  “Stop!” I stumbled forward, tears running down my face, but only more seemed to come at me. And these I couldn’t fight as I did the toys because I couldn’t see them.

  “Please,” I wailed, rushing forward. “Scrooge?” I called out, hoping he was not among the sea of invisible souls floating around me. A needle in a haystack. How would I find either him or Santa?

  “Scrooge! Matt?” I called out, not knowing which broken part of him was misplaced in here. “Santa?”

  The names seemed to stir the souls into a tizzy, swirling the air into a blurry mass. A dim glow ignited the night, flicking and dancing around me, like hundreds of lightning bugs.