by Eva Chase
“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 grateful 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?
“It’s just a guy,” I said. “One of the neighbors, a few properties over.” A quick step through a mirror, and you’re there. “I spent a little time with him, and it was… exciting. But I don’t really know him. He was pretty off-the-wall—I never knew what he’d say or do. I’d kind of like to go see him again, but maybe it’d be stupid going over to hang out with this stranger—what if he turns out to be crazy in a dangerous way?”
“Already into the rebound!” Melody crowed with a gleam in her eyes. “Go, Lyssa. I knew you had it in you. You’re really thinking about going over there for a booty call?”
“Something like that,” I said. Ever since I’d fallen back out of the mirror, the urge had been gradually creeping over me to climb the wrought-iron stairs again, to dive back through into that startling world where for at least a little while I’d felt so free.
“Well, I do think it might be good for you.” She tapped her lips with her spoon. “Did he do or say anything that made you nervous when you were talking to him before? Or are you just nervous now because of what you don’t know?”
I thought back over my ramble through Wonderland. I’d been scared because I hadn’t known where I was, and then disoriented because I’d been faced with so many strange things, but nothing there had hurt me. Even during my escape home, the guards in the club had been tame, and the more I remembered my close call with Rabbit, the more absurd my fears had seemed. He’d been, like, half a head shorter than me. I probably could have knocked him over and run for it if I’d needed to—if he’d even tried to stop me.
No, my worries had all been in my own head, not any outside menace. Like Mom’s about me.
“I think it’s just what I don’t know,” I said. “He was off-beat, but in a fun way, once I got on the same wavelength. If that makes sense.”
Melody’s grin could have rivaled Chess’s. “I think you need to boink this guy. Maybe multiple times. You’re always cautious about men, Lyss. If nothing he did gave even you bad vibes, I think you’re good. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?”
“Right.” A wave of relief swept over me. Suddenly I was grinning too. Some part of me had needed her permission to completely commit.
She motioned at me with her spoon. “I must also fulfill the gal code of mutual security. You text me when you’re heading over there, and then text me when you get back. If I don’t hear from you by twenty-four hours after that first text, I’ll summon the National Guard. Deal?”
“Deal,” I said, giving her a thumbs up. My full day in Wonderland had taken barely any time in the real world. I could make it back before she got worried no problem.
“Now tell me more about this guy,” Melody said, leaning forward avidly. “I need a full body description.”
Three different images popped into my head automatically: Hatter, Chess, and Theo. Well, they’d been a major part of my Wonderland experience, hadn’t they? And all definitely appealing in their different ways. I could mix and match a little to satisfy my best friend’s curiosity.
“He’s got curly dark brown hair,” I started, still smiling, “and intense green eyes, and this grin that’s totally contagious…”
When I returned to the house, my nerves came back. I refilled the cats’ food dish with kibble and topped up their water, even raised the toilet seat just in case I was gone for longer than expected. I pawed through the clothes I’d brought with me three times before settling on a casual teal halter dress that still wasn’t anywhere near as flashy as usual Wonderland wear, but at least I’d blend in better, and the cotton should dry quickly after my swim in the pond.
My hand wavered over my make-up bag for a few seconds, but I didn’t have anything waterproof. The three guys who’d been cycling through my thoughts for the last day and a half had all seen me bare-faced already. They didn’t need to witness the raccoon-eyed version.
I walked out of the bedroom and walked back in a minute later. I wasn’t sure if I could bring anything with me, but I could at least try. I tucked a cardigan and a change of clothes, plus deodorant and, after a brief debate, my toothbrush into a plastic bag that I knotted and then stuffed into a canvas tote I could carry over my shoulder.
Just in case. Just in case.
My nerves were still jumping. I bit my lip, wondering if I’d forgotten anything. I should probably have a snack before I left, to make sure I wasn’t starving the second I made it to any of the guys. I’d probably looked like a pig grabbing two of Hatter’s favorite scones yesterday. Should I bring some food with me? I couldn’t think of anything I had in the house that would pack well.
Restless, I wandered through the house until I ended up in the library. I’d
left the desk open, the box sitting where it’d been when I’d found it. The note said the exact same thing it had yesterday about having been “there” and the key.
It was simple. I’d hop into Wonderland and have a little more fun, prepared this time. I was almost certain now the key had to be there. Maybe one of the guys would know about it—it appeared at least Hatter had met Aunt Alicia whenever she’d gone through the mirror. I’d have to badger some more information about that encounter out of him too. Getting back home hadn’t turned out to be hard at all, and I knew exactly how to do it now. If for one or two nights the situation at the club wasn’t great for sneaking past the doors, no big deal. I was prepared for that too.
There really was nothing else to take care of. No reason not to go now. Other than my own mundane hang-ups.
I had to do this. I needed to know what Aunt Alicia had left for me in that box—I needed to understand why she’d left this place to me with that mirror for me to find.
Melody had been right. It was time Lyssa Tenniel went a little wild.
I raised my chin and headed down the hall to the spiral staircase. In the attic, the mirror drew my gaze immediately, as if tugging me to it. I paused just long enough to text Melody like I’d promised.
Off on my thrilling adventure. Wish me luck!
You’ve got this, girl! she wrote back a moment later.
I set the phone on top of the toy chest, slung the tote bag over my shoulder, and walked right up to the mirror. The reflection hazed, my image wisping away. My hand rose to touch the glass. The chill gripped me—and yanked me through so fast I lost my breath.
Wonderland, here I came.
CHAPTER NINE
Theo
O ver the years I’d determined the exact line around the palace grounds where the smell of roses would become too overwhelming and my lungs would clench, my mind start to fog. One benefit of an unchanging world: I never had to fear that this day the wind might shift in a new direction or that more flowers would have bloomed on the bushes to spill their fragrance into the air.
The Queen’s tyranny did come with small blessings.
I adjusted my position on the tree branch I’d propped myself on, right at the edge of safety, tracking the movements of a few of the courtiers as they meandered through the gardens. The heart-shaped diamond brooches they all wore on their dapper suits and elaborate gowns glinted brighter in the sunlight than any other jewelry they wore. To fail to polish one’s brooch enough was to risk being accused of treason.
The Queen’s tyranny also came with plenty of downsides.
The device I held, like an elongated trumpet with its mouthpiece at my ear and its bell pointed at the gardens, swiveled as I tweaked its levers. The bell twitched toward the courtiers. I’d also long since perfected this particular invention. I could hear the strolling party’s conversation through the hedges, over the high brick wall, and across the field and the sparse strip of forest between that wall and me, as clearly as if I were perched in the tree right above them.
“Wasn’t that luncheon delightful?” one of the men was saying. “I swear, the Queen truly does have the most excellent taste.”
“Oh, indeed,” the woman next to him gushed. “I could have eaten that ham for hours.”
Whether the meal had truly been all that exceptional was up for question. The speakers would be perfectly aware of the guards posted here and there around the grounds. Come on now, I thought at them. Talk about something a little more important.
“I expect the festivities tonight should be exquisite,” a second woman said, fanning herself. “Tonight’s musicians are among my favorites.”
“Perhaps we could have a dance then,” the man said, and the woman dipped her fan over her face with a coy giggle.
They didn’t seem conscious of anything amiss. I scanned the grounds from my vantage point. The low hill this tree stood on the crest of gave me a decent view over this half of the palace grounds, but only half. On the other side of the sprawling scarlet fortress of minarets and domes lay the Glittering Lake and the woods for hunts. But most of the conversation happened on this side.
There. A couple of guards in their pleated red-and-pink uniforms had drifted together near one of the grounds’ inner gates. I swiveled my listening horn until the bell faced them.
“No trouble so far today.”
“None here either. We’ve no reason to expect any, do we? No sign of the Spades in some time.”
“Oh, I’m sure they’ll stir up more treachery. And just as sure we’ll crush it. I expect they’re still licking their wounds from the last time.”
“May another day pass in peace, then.”
“Thank the Hearts for it.”
“Yes, thank the Hearts.”
They ambled apart again. My mouth tensed as I pushed myself upright.
I supposed this status quo would look like peace to them. That was how they slept, wasn’t it? Telling themselves no one would ever be hurt if we’d all just play our parts and stay in our places. Blaming violence on those who hadn’t learned all the rules or chose to ignore them. Everything would be perfectly peaceful if all Wonderland’s people could turn off all but their simplest desires.
Of course, an awful lot of its people had learned to do just that. I might find the royal approach horrifying, but I couldn’t deny its efficacy. Not when I needed to see it fully and clearly if I were going to overthrow it.
There was still no conversation about any odd changes. No speculation about a girl who might have tumbled through a looking-glass into this world—or out of it. Hatter and Chess had done well enough by Lyssa. No one had noticed her passing through.
This time.
The Otherland’s looking-glass, the one she’d have fallen through, seemed to have an irresistible draw. The earlier girls who’d come were before my time, but I’d heard about them, and they’d returned enough times to make an impression. Never enough of a difference to turn the tide, but the situation wasn’t exactly the same this time. This time I was here, and I had my plans.
I folded up my hearing trumpet and tucked it into my satchel. My descent from the tree was perhaps not the most graceful ever. The thump of my feet sounded loud in the sparse forest. I’d only taken a few steps back toward the city when a distant rustling told me the sound hadn’t gone unnoticed. Just my luck that some guard would have decided to be overly ambitious in his patrols today. The people still could chance their motions from day to day.
I strode on between the trees as if I hadn’t noticed the pursuit. As if I had no reason to think anyone would take any issue with my stroll through the woods. Which, indeed, I didn’t. These weren’t royal grounds. They were open to anyone in Wonderland.
“Halt, please!” a voice called out. I stopped and turned with eyebrows raised in puzzlement.
The guard who hustled over to me stood at least a few inches shorter than me in his uniform. The stripes of red and pink followed the tunic’s pleats, with a crimson heart shape embroidered on one of the pink strips, as if it weren’t already clear enough which part of the land this figure belonged to. He was a young one—not much older than Hatter’s daughter, I judged, relaxing a little more. Too young to cause much worry.
“Oh,” he said when he reached me, his eyes going a bit round as he took in my own uniform-of-sorts. In a land so addicted to vivid color, white and gray made a bold statement of its own. “Inventor. I didn’t realize it was you.” He paused. “What are you doing out here?”
“Just taking a survey of the forest,” I said in the authoritative tone that came as naturally as breathing. “For a new plan of mine. I thought perhaps a change in scenery would bring extra pleasure to the Clubber crowd. A dance festival out in the open air for a night or two, just to liven things up.”
“That does sound nice,” the boy said, with the awkwardness of one who’d never been to Caterpillar’s Club or possibly even talked much with any of Wonderland’s ordinary folk. He’d know that keeping th
em entertained and distracted was of high priority, though.
“I’ve seen all I need to,” I added, letting just the slightest note of dismissal enter my voice. “I was on my way back to the Tower to work out the rest of the plan there.”
“Yes, of course.” The guard made a nervous gesture for me to continue on my way.
He was young but ambitious. I supposed that was why he’d ventured so far from the walls around the palace in the first place. After a minute, I heard the rattle of a pebble dislodged by one of his feet and knew he was following me.
The royal court respected me as Inventor. I’d proven my skills in keeping the city’s people content and occupied. But those with power were always suspicious of others with power. The Knave had come sniffing around the Tower more often in the last few years. He couldn’t tie me to the Spades, but he’d clearly have liked to.
It would take more than a fledgling sentry to topple what I’d built, though. Ambitious or not, the training of the guards remained the same, and their usual habits always seeped through. I had little trouble losing my follower with an abrupt detour through the city park and a pass through the cake shop.
The twins were standing outside the fondue bistro, which meant they had news. I shifted my satchel from one shoulder to the other as I passed. Just a few minutes after the elevator whisked me up to my floor of the silver tower, they arrived in my office. Both were smiling.
In this stark setting, the twins managed to look even more garish than most of their fellow Wonderlanders did. Though identical from the bright red hair that scattered their heads to their boyishly round cheeks, they took a strange enjoyment out of dressing as reverse reflections of each other. Today their stout frames were clothed in overalls—scarlet for Dee and moss-green for Dum—and ruffled shirts—moss-green for Dee and scarlet for Dum—with sneakers matching their respective shirts and jaunty scarfs matching their overalls.
“She came,” Dee said. “Just like you figured she would.”