by A. G. Howard
I cringe, thinking of how close I came to being stuck inside one of her toys. “How can an empty plaything hold a spirit? That doesn’t make sense.”
“Contrariwise. It makes the rightest sense of all. Only toys from the human realm be chosen, and only the most beloved of the lot. Those accustomed to being filled with hopes and dreams and all the affections their children pour into them. For that is the essence of a soul. Hopes and dreams and love. When the most cherished toys are abandoned in junkyards and trash heaps, they become deprived of those things that once filled and warmed them. They become lonely and greedy and crave the essence of the life they once had. So we send our pixie slaves through the portals to carry the toys down for us, and my sister fills them with what they want most—souls. Like thirsty sponges, they hold on to them with every portion of their strength and will.”
Straitjackets for spirits. So disturbed by the image, I don’t utter another word until we come upon a small house surrounded by hedges and ivy on all sides. It appears to be made of leaves.
“Come in, warm your toes, and eat,” Sister One insists. “Then I’ll give you what you came for and send you on your way.”
“I’m in a rush.” I have a headache from all the confusion. Food might help but not the kind they serve in Wonderland.
“You will have tea first, at the very least.”
How can I argue? She has a looking glass hidden somewhere, and a key around her neck. Until she’s ready to send me through the portal, I’m her hostage.
Inside, there’s only one room—furnished like a kitchen except everything is upholstered in cushiony fabric, even the appliances. A puffy white sink, table, and chairs, and a fluffy stove of the same hue, all arranged on a plush white floor that’s springy and warm beneath my wet feet, like a marshmallow. There’s a tall pantry with stuffed velvet doors, also white. Along all four pillowed walls are circular windows with milky curtains. Odd to have windows when there’s nothing to look out at but leaves.
The sterility of the room reminds me so much of a padded cell, I want to run away again. But I can’t miss the chance to use Sister One’s portal and find Jeb.
The most vivid splash of color in the room is a bowl of bright red apples on the table alongside a silver and red chessboard.
“Are you waiting for tea, too?” Sister One asks, directing her query to a large egg-shaped creature sitting in a chair. I jump when he moves. He blends into the background so well, I would’ve missed him if not for his yolk-yellow eyes, red nose, and wide mouth. A band of fabric wraps around his widest end, under his mouth, and just above spindly arms and legs that are hinged and green like a praying mantis’s appendages. Two triangular flaps of blue gingham serve as a makeshift collar. An orange scrap of linen takes up the space where a necktie might’ve been.
“It is hardly clever to ask if one is waiting for tea,” he says, “when he’s sitting at a table set with teacups and sporting a napkin tucked within his collar.” His mouth takes on a sour slant as he polishes a spoon with his napkin’s corner.
Humpty Dumpty? This whole thing keeps getting weirder and weirder.
Draping my wings over the back of a chair, I drop into the seat opposite the egg-man, mesmerized by the hairline fractures across his pearly shell.
He averts his eyes. “Some people have no business attending a dignified tea. Gawking as if I belong in a zoo, when they’re the ones who have all the manners and fashion sense of a monkey.”
“Sorry.” I smooth my ragged clothes and reach for an apple the size of a plum. I’m starving but still nervous about the food. “What will this do? Make me invisible? Or maybe make me sprout a stem and some leaves?”
“Ungrateful little twit.” The egg-man scowls at me. “Looking a gift spider in the fangs. See if you’re invited to tea again.”
Sister One smiles. “I do not play games with my food … unless it’s wrapped within my web,” she says.
I cringe at what I hope is her attempt at a joke, then bite into the crisp fruit and chew while glancing down at my grass-stained feet. It’s only a matter of seconds before my gaze creeps upward again. I can’t resist. “So, you’re Humpty, right?”
“Humphrey.” He sneers. “Youth these days. Can’t even manage a proper introduction.”
I take another nibble of fruit, encouraged that it tastes like the apples in my world. “Your shell. Did you fall from the—”
“Wall?” Humphrey snaps the ending to my question. “No, actually. That was the first time. I tripped over Chessie’s rolling head the second. Kind Queen Grenadine glued me together again, when all the king’s horses and men failed. And if there be any other questions on the subject, I would bid you ask them with a mouth less filled with apple.”
I swallow my bite. “The king tried to help you? I thought he was a greedy dictator.”
“Greedy?” Sister One clucks her tongue, cinching an apron around her waist, then pulling a pan of fragrant cookies out from the stove. “Utterly ridiculous. He’s very sympathetic. He brought this one to me so I could keep him in cushions to prevent further cracking, in case the glue doesn’t stick. We can’t have Humphrey’s spirit leaking out to wreak havoc in Wonderland’s commons.”
Wonderland and common … two words that should never be in the same sentence.
“So, Humphrey’s here because he’s partly dead,” I say after finishing the rest of the apple. “Partly dead like Chessie.”
“Yes.” Sister One scrapes the cookies onto a plate. “In fact, Grenadine herself brought Chessie’s head here. Many years ago, when her stepsister, Red, was on her bloody rampage. But she’s no doubt forgotten by now that he’s here.”
Wait. Morpheus made it sound as if Chessie came to this place on his own … found solace here. He never mentioned that Grenadine tried to help keep the cat alive. I dab my mouth with my napkin. “Partly dead …,” I mumble, mind whirling in confusion.
“What business is it of yours how much dead I am?” In a fit of temper, Humphrey slams his spoon to the cushioned floor. The utensil bounces back like a boomerang and thumps his side. Following a crackling sound, the fissures in his shell branch out to form new ones. Slimy, clear liquid drizzles from the fissures. His cheeks turn a deep pink and he glowers at me. The slime starts to sizzle and harden to cooked egg whites.
“You’re hard-boiling your innards again,” Sister One scolds.
“Now you’ve gone and done it!” Humphrey aims the accusation at me. “What glory is there to be had in bettering an egg, hmm? Will you make of me a soufflé or perhaps have me coddled?”
“Coddled?” I ask, confused. “You mean like a parent coddles a child?”
He wriggles in the chair until his short legs almost dangle over the edge, causing the new cracks to stretch farther yet. “Coddled in water, you speck. Cooked just below boiling until my brains are scrambled. What sort of empty-headed rot are you? Do you not have a proper vocabulary? And why are you even here? Don’t see any cracks in your shell.”
Sister One clucks her tongue again and reaches into her apron pocket, proffering a tube of glue. “You should be gracious to her. She’s the One.” She gestures her chin toward me as she helps him apply the adhesive. “She woke the dead.”
He stares, wide mouth gaping almost to the floor.
I can’t stop the blush rising through my face. “Morpheus said that the king is bad. That he wants the crowns to both kingdoms for his wife, Grenadine, and will do anything to get them.”
“Ha!” Humphrey says. “As seen through the eyes of a murderer.”
“A murderer?”
“There’s no proof of that,” Sister One says, patting down Humphrey’s shell to adhere it to the glue. “Morpheus carried Red’s corpse to me many years after her banishment. But he shared nothing about the circumstances surrounding her demise, or where he found her. I’m not surprised he’s lashing out at Grenadine and her king. He’s always held a grudge about what happened to Alice after Grenadine hid her. The queen’s intent
ions were good, to keep the child safe until they could capture Red. But after Red was banished to the wilds, Grenadine lost the ribbon into which she’d whispered Alice’s whereabouts and so forgot where she’d put her. Alice became a cautionary tale told to netherling children as they were tucked into bed. The real child was forgotten. By all but Morpheus. Seventy-five years in a cocoon, and he still remembered her upon waking.”
“Wait.” I grip the table, fingernails puckering the cushiony top. “None of this makes sense. Alice went back into her world. My world. She had to …”
“Oh, no. She was here. Upon his metamorphosis, Morpheus left no sandbar unturned in his search for her. He found her hidden away in the caves of the highest cliffs of Wonderland. She’d been captured and kept in a cage by a reclusive old bird, Mr. Dodo. But Morpheus’s precious friend was no longer a child. She was a sad, confused, old woman by that time.”
Panic chokes back any response. If Alice really did spend her life in a birdcage here, how am I alive? How are any of the Liddell descendants alive?
Scuttling to the stove, Sister One produces water out of thin air from a spoutless sink and fills a kettle. “Would one of you be so kind as to move the red queen to the next square on the game board?”
Humphrey minds the request, pink cheeks ballooned in concentration. “One more left to go,” he whispers, thumping the last remaining silver square with his clawlike hand.
The game board has sixty-four squares, half of them red and half silver, with pawns, bishops, and rooks in positions that make no sense for real chess. Their arrangement reminds me of the board in Morpheus’s room.
Out of the thirty-two silver squares, a diagonal line of seven glow like burnished metal—the one on which Humphrey centered the red queen, along with six others that lead up to it. On each glowing square, a script appears in floating, curvy letters—again, just like on Morpheus’s chessboard.
This time, nothing stops me from reading them:
Burst Through Stone with a Feather; Cross a Forest in One Step; Hold an Ocean in Her Palm; Alter the Future with Her Fingertip; Defeat an Invisible Enemy; Trample an Army Beneath Her Feet; Wake the Dead.
There’s one silver square left in the back row, waiting to be illuminated. I suspect that until that happens, the final words will remain hidden. “Do you know what the last one is?”
“Harness the Power of a Smile,” Humphrey answers, surprisingly cooperative.
“I don’t understand,” I say, feeling weaker by the minute.
“Don’t you see?” Sister One carries over a tray with the kettle and pours three cups of tea. A soothing, lemony fragrance rises on the steam. “’Tis a record of all you’ve completed. The tests you’ve passed.”
“‘Tests’?” I look at them again, unable to find a tie to anything I’ve done, aside from waking the dead.
Then I remember what Morpheus said in his room moments before I animated the chess pieces: “It’s all in the interpretation.” Illumination comes to me, flowing slowly into my mind:
I’m sitting beside Morpheus on the giant mushroom where I found him after Jeb and I drained the ocean, but I’m a tiny child of four. My seven-year-old guide positions a picture book in front of me. He’s teaching me to decipher riddles.
“This,” he says, pointing to a picture of a woman with puffed-out cheeks. “Something you can hold but cannot keep.” He reads the words under the picture.
I shouldn’t be able to understand them. I’m a toddler. But it doesn’t matter. Because each time I visit him in dreams, I feel older somehow. Wiser. Gifted.
“You know the answer,” Morpheus says, his young voice scolding. “You’re the best of both worlds.”
He takes a deep breath and holds it in his lungs. Lifting my palm to his mouth, he lets it out slowly, closing my fingers around the warm air. When I open my hand again, nothing’s there.
“Breath!” I smile and clap.
Morpheus smiles and nods, pride shining in his inky eyes. “Yes. We can hold it but always have to set it free.”
Back in the present, understanding blinds me, like a flash of sunlight across pupils accustomed only to darkness, dilating my perceptions to perfect clarity: I’m the best of both worlds …
Netherling logic awakened, I see my accomplishments imprinted on the board next to their summaries, like a checklist:
Burst Through Stone with a Feather—Used a quill to shove the sundial statue aside and open up the rabbit hole.
Cross a Forest in One Step—Rode on Jeb’s shoulders as he stepped over the flower-garden “forest.”
Hold an Ocean in Her Palm—Balanced the sponge in my hand after it had absorbed Alice’s tears.
Alter the Future with Her Fingertip—Jump-started the tea party crew’s futures by drying and resetting the pocket watch’s hands.
Defeat an Invisible Enemy—Faced my darker side and suppressed it with the help of Tumtum Tree berries.
Trample an Army Beneath Her Feet—Rode across the card guards on a wave of clams.
Wake the Dead—No explanation necessary …
My dark side is thrilled at what I’ve accomplished, and pride swells my chest.
Then my other side takes the lead. “No,” I say aloud to myself. “Not my accomplishments. Morpheus’s.” Dread winds itself around my heart, deflating me.
Jeb was right all along. The things I’ve been doing weren’t to fix my great-great-great-grandmother’s messes. They were elaborate tests. Why didn’t I listen to him?
“What am I being tested for?” I take my teacup and hold it in trembling palms, willing the heat to seep inside me and stave off the chill in my heart.
Humphrey meets Sister One’s gaze as she hands him a cookie dusted with cinnamon and sugar.
“That list represents the criteria for a queen,” she answers. “The requirements were written after Grenadine took the throne. King Red heard rumors that his former wife had escaped Wonderland’s wilds and remarried. Fearing the possibility of female offspring, he insisted that if anyone was to ever step forward as Red’s lineage and try to take the crown from Grenadine, she would first have to pass eight impossible tests to prove her worth. The Red Court agreed to make the tests a royal decree. You are the first to ever pass them … well, almost all of them. Of course, you are the first of Queen Red’s offspring to come forward and try.”
I’m about to object, to say that it’s impossible because I’m not of royal lineage. I’m about to stand on my chair and stomp like a two-year-old, to refuse to believe that any of this is real …
Until Morpheus’s lullabies trickle through my mind, complete at last: “Little blossom in white and red, resting now your tiny head; grow and thrive, be strong and keen, for you will one day be their queen … Little blossom in peach and gray, grew up strong and found your way; two things more yet to be seen, until at last you’ll be their queen.”
Shivers run like icy drizzle through my wings. “No, no, no. I’m not—I didn’t actually pass anything,” I say to my hostess. “I stumbled into accomplishing each one … by accident, really.”
She and Humphrey have no comment. They’re too busy counting squares and sipping their brew.
They know, just like me, that nothing I did was by accident. Morpheus orchestrated all of it—set up familiar Wonderland scenarios by using Lewis Carroll’s book and soliciting the help of other netherling natives, then stood back and watched as I completed each “test.”
At the tea party he said he wanted to return me to my proper place, my home. Which realm does he consider home for me? Gritty discomfort fills my throat, as if I’ve swallowed the entire desert. I gulp down half my tea.
Jeb …
I need him to put his arms around me and promise it will be okay; I need him to make me feel human again.
“I want to use the looking glass to find my boyfriend.” I stand so fast, one of my wings hits the table and tips the kettle of tea.
Humphrey pats the spill with his napkin before the steaming p
uddle can reach his lap. “I was right! You do mean to coddle me!”
Sister One leads me to the tall pantry and opens the left door, revealing a looking glass. “Your mortal escort is already where you’re going. My pixies were in the chasm gathering Grenadine’s dead army when they saw your mortal leave in chains with Morpheus and the elfin knights. Thanks to your help defeating the card guards, the White army successfully raided and took control of the Red castle tonight in search of their Ivory Queen.”
The beat in my chest almost comes to a halt. “Morpheus has Jeb imprisoned at the Red castle?”
She pats my hand without answering. “You’ll need this.” From one of the pantry shelves, she pulls down a tattered teddy bear. She doesn’t have to explain. I already know it holds the part of Chessie that will somehow be my final test—his smile—although I’ve no idea how I’m supposed to harness it.
“Remind Morpheus that my end of the bargain is met,” Sister One says as she waves her hand across the looking glass. It crackles like ice, revealing a chamber in a castle with lush red carpets and curtains of gold. There’s a canopied bed and a fireplace; a tall Victorian parlor chair, with its back to me, faces the hearth. A silver fedora trimmed in red moths hangs from one arm of the chair. Smoke rises into the air and a gloved hand stretches into view, a hookah’s hose perched elegantly between two fingers.
Morpheus.
If I refuse to bring the teddy bear, does that mean I level his plan to dust? And Jeb—how will we get home? I bite my lip and tuck the toy beneath my left arm, snug against my rib cage.
Sister One draws out a tiny key and turns it so the surface opens to the portal. Her eight feet tap impatiently.
Everyone in this place has an agenda. In exchange for her precious spirits, she’s delivering me straight to the one who’s manipulated and used me this entire journey. My entire life.