by A. G. Howard
“Sorry,” I say between gulps. As I speak, silver beams radiate from my mouth, reflecting around the room. “I was hungry.”
“Yes, well, that’s what they’re there for. Just expected royalty to have a bit more couth is all.”
I cover my mouth to hide a hiccup. Light flashes from between my fingers.
The beetle clears his throat. “You get to choose which head to ride in.” He looks at his passenger manifest. “Would you prefer your mother or your father?”
“My mother? I thought this was my dad’s memory,” I ask, confused.
“It’s a memory they share. So there’s a residue of your mother’s insights imprinted on his. Whomever’s eyes you watch it through affects the perspective.”
I bite my lip. This is my chance. A unique opportunity to understand what took place all those years ago, why Mom made the choices she made. Everything will be the truth, because memories don’t lie.
“I want to see it through my mom’s point of view.” I croak the answer, not sure what’s about to happen or how it’s possible to step into another person’s past.
“Noted.” The conductor scribbles something in his journal, then punches a button on the wall with his spindly leg. The stage curtains open, revealing a movie screen. “Picture her face in your mind whilst staring at the empty screen and you will experience their past as if it were today.”
He turns a dial that snuffs out the lamp and then closes the door, leaving me alone. I do as instructed, envisioning Mom’s youthful face, picturing her as she looked in photographs from years ago when she and Dad were dating, when she was sixteen, the age she was when she went to Wonderland.
An image comes to life on the screen in vivid color, but instead of staying in its place, it stretches toward me … reeling me in. I feel my seams fraying—my cells and atoms breaking up and floating apart, then re-forming on the screen. I’m looking out of my mother’s eyes, sharing all of her thoughts and sensory cues.
We’re in the garden of souls. She’s alone, following Morpheus’s instructions, only two squares away from becoming the queen.
I had no idea she ever made it this far …
“Harness the power of a smile,” she whispers to herself. “Where are you, Chessie?”
I recognize the surroundings, although they’re new to her. She took a wrong turn and hasn’t realized it yet. A stale-smelling chill hangs on the air, and snow blankets the ground. Everything is silent—not at all like the cries and laments I remember from my visit. Dead weeping willow trees, slick with ice, are hung with an endless array of teddy bears and stuffed animals, plastic clowns and porcelain dolls, clinging to the branches on webby nooses. Each one holds a restless soul, yet all of them are sleeping peacefully.
Mom’s on a mission to win the crown. It’s all she’s been thinking of for the past three years. The determination in her pounding heart overpowers her fear as she treks farther into Sister Two’s lair than I ever went, far past the trees and slumbering toys. She’s seeking the source of the glowing roots that connect every tree and branch. The light pulses with a steady rhythm, like a heartbeat.
She’s led to a shelter of ivy. Inside, there’s a thick sheath of web alive with light and breath. She draws closer, morbidly intrigued by the humanoid form wrapped inside. The glowing roots are attached to its head and chest, siphoning the light from the creature.
Glancing over her shoulder to be sure she’s alone, Mom peels gossamer threads from the creature’s face. Her breath freezes in her lungs. It’s not just humanoid, it’s an actual human. A boy who looks close to her age.
My dad.
But she has no idea she’s going to love him. Not yet. All she knows is, he’s beautiful.
She traces his features with a fingertip. His lashes tremble, and his eyelids open to reveal soulful brown eyes. He doesn’t seem to see her. To see anything.
But in his eyes she sees the same loneliness she’s faced her whole life, bouncing from foster home to foster home while struggling to hide her differences from those around her. Here in Wonderland, she feels like she could find a place, be accepted, although it’s not the same for him. He’s lonely and afraid, even if he’s in a trance and doesn’t realize it. One can’t hide loneliness like that.
Snow crunches behind Mom, and she turns to face Sister One—the good twin.
The netherling’s translucent skin is flushed, and she’s out of breath. Her long, peppermint-striped hoop skirt is soaked with snow at the hem. “You weren’t to come here,” she scolds Mom between breaths, shoving tendrils of silvery hair off her face. “You must wake the dead in my gardens. I was to get the smile for you.”
Mom swallows. “Who is this?”
Sister One glances at the cocooned victim. “My sister’s humanling. His dreams keep her spirits’ discontent at bay. Surely Morpheus has told you how the cemetery works.”
Mom clenches her jaw. “Knowing how things work and seeing them in action are two entirely different things.”
Sister One stands taller, exposing the tips of her eight legs beneath her skirt. “Keep your eye on the prize, little Alison. If you’re to be queen, you must accept the way of our world. Some things cannot be changed without terrible consequences.”
Mom looks back at the teenage boy. “But he’s close to my age. Morpheus said when they get too old to dream, your sister poisons them and gives their bodies to the pixies.”
“Aye. The pixies use the bones for our stairways, and the flesh feeds the flower fae. Everything serves a purpose. Nothing is wasted.”
“Nothing but a human life.” Mom’s surprised by her own reaction: disdain and disgust. She thought she could accept the dark and gruesome rituals of this place, but her heart softens. “Let me have him. She’s going to dispose of him anyway. Let me take him back to the human realm and give him a chance to live.”
“Contrary that! I’m already to face the wrath of my sister for the smile I’m to steal for you. And you wish me to cross her further by taking her most prized pet? She treasures this humanling above all the hundreds of others she’s had. I’m not sure she plans to ever dispose of this one. She might use him until the day his heart stops and he’s a dreamless corpse. Sad, that. But it’s just the way of it.”
Mom straightens—determined. “How is this any different from what you’re already doing? You’re stealing for Morpheus, right?”
Sister One purses her lips. “Not for free! In exchange for something valuable. Hardest part of my job, tracking down stowaway souls. He knows it. I never wanted to cross no one no how, especially my sister, but for those souls …”
Mom holds her hand over her heart. “I can pay you. If you let me take the boy, I vow on my life-magic that when I come back to claim the crown, I’ll put all of my royal resources behind you. My guards will be at your disposal to track down delinquent souls anytime you catch wind of them. You’ll never be forced to make deals with anyone again.”
Before I can hear Sister One’s answer to Mom’s proposition, the scene stretches around me, then blurs as I’m dragged out of the memory and dropped back into my seat, surrounded by darkness. I barely have time to catch my breath before another memory flips on, bright colors smearing across the room to pull me inside.
My mom is in the Ivory Queen’s glass castle, next to the portal, waiting to step into the human realm. Morpheus stands beside her, carrying my dad over his shoulder. Dad floats in and out of consciousness. He’s dressed in a frilly white shirt with slits at the shoulders and a pair of black pants, too long by a couple of inches. His bare feet stick out of the hems, twitching.
Ivory faces them, regal and glistening like the crystals of ice on her glass walls. “You did the right thing by bringing her here, Morpheus. Your goodness shall be rewarded.”
He rolls his eyes. “That has yet to be seen.”
Ivory smiles affectionately at him. “I will personally assure that it is.”
He holds her glance long enough to make her blush before s
he turns to my mom.
“In order to protect the boy’s sanity and our realm,” Ivory explains, “I had to erase his memories. All nineteen years of his life, even from before he was captured by Sister Two, since we don’t exactly know when or how he stumbled in. When memories are ‘unmade’ by way of magic, the void left behind is unbearable to humans. So best he never knows he had them to begin with. Were he ever to see a netherling in true form, or even just glimpse their magic, it could make him realize he was missing something. And then a ripple effect would begin. Do as Morpheus says. Abandon him in a hospital and come back to claim your crown. Forget you ever saw him.”
My mom nods, but something is slowly changing in her heart. Something she’s not even aware of yet.
She and Morpheus step through the portal into her bedroom. He drops Dad on her bed, then starts back toward a tall, flat mirror hanging on the back of her door.
“Morpheus,” Mom says, sitting on edge of the bed, “I want to at least find his family. We can look at his memories. Go to the train …”
Morpheus glances over his shoulder at her, wings low. “You’ve given him a chance to live. That’s enough. It is more than any of us would’ve done.”
Mom pushes back a strand of Dad’s hair with a trembling hand. “But just to leave him alone? He’ll be so lost.”
Morpheus turns on his heel to face her, jewels flashing red. “We are out of time. We need to get you crowned before all hell breaks loose in the cemetery. By the end of the day Sister Two will realize the boy’s gone and buckle down her security. Then there will be no stealing Chessie’s smile or Queen Red. Wash your hands of the boy. Don’t make me regret helping you, Alison.”
“But that’s exactly what I did.” Mom’s voice speaks out of sync with what’s happening on-screen, and suddenly the lamp flips on beside me. The curtains fall to cover the screen, and I’m slammed back to reality, slumped in the chaise lounge.
I turn to see Mom standing by the wall next to the closed door. She’s barefoot, wearing my favorite polka-dot dress, and carrying her canvas tote on her shoulder. I have no idea when she came in or how long she’s been reliving the memories with me.
“I made him regret it,” she says again, “and now look what’s become of us all.”
She crumples to the floor in a puddle of purple satin and lime green netting, pretty legs curled beside her, and eyes filled with enough remorse to launch an ocean of tears.
I can’t contain the sobs clogging my chest. I jump up from the chaise and cross the room in four steps. Dropping next to Mom on the floor, my wings sweep out to one side of me. She opens her arms and I cling to her, clutching the slick fabric along her ribs, face pressed against her breasts and surrounded by her perfume.
“It’s okay, sweet girl,” she whispers and kisses my forehead, leaving behind a warm smudge. “It’s all going to be okay.”
I hug her tighter. I should be the one comforting her, but right now I’m that little five-year-old child watching my mommy leave for the asylum. “I thought it was because of me.” I choke on the words. “But you had yourself committed for Dad, too.”
Mom’s body trembles as she takes a ragged breath. “After you were born, everything changed. I kept messing up, letting things slip. He started to have dreams about Wonderland … his mind was seeking memories that were no longer his.” She strokes my hair behind my ear. “Your father was special to Sister Two. He somehow got into Wonderland on his own as a child. She found him, and for the first time, she didn’t have to steal a humanling for her cemetery. She’s never liked that part of her job. Not that she feels guilty for it.” Mom’s voice is bitter. “It’s just an inconvenience.”
I lick away the tears lining my lips. “And he doesn’t remember anything?”
“It’s as if he never lived it. That day I cut your hands”—her voice breaks, buried beneath the sound of both our sniffles—“I wanted to heal you. But I couldn’t. Not without shattering all that remained of his peace. I had to get away. From you both. To keep you safe.”
I nod against her. “I’m so sorry for doubting you. For saying those horrible things.” Wet streams scorch my cheeks and under my nose.
“No,” Mom mumbles, her breath comforting on the top of my head. “I’m the one who’s sorry. If only I’d told you the truth from the beginning. But I kept hoping the nether-call would pass you by. And when it didn’t … I panicked. I didn’t know what to do. I just knew I didn’t want you to get trapped there.”
Ivory’s vision of my future flashes through my mind. Funny, but I didn’t feel trapped in that future. I felt happy, powerful, and treasured. I want to share that epiphany with Mom, but I vowed not to tell anyone. Maybe it’s better this way. It’s one secret I’ll never have to feel guilty for keeping, because I can’t afford to lose my powers by breaking a life-magic vow.
Mom’s hand glides from my back to the base of my right wing. She skims a finger over the gossamer surface. It sends a tickle through my shoulder blade.
“What made them manifest?” she asks. There’s no scolding or anxiety like in the past. Just curiosity.
My snuffles echo as I try to figure out how to answer. What can I tell her about Morpheus, who’s lied and manipulated me and yet managed to coax me into my wings anyway? How do I answer that, when Jeb is down the hall, tormented by half-remembered moments he never lived in this reality? It feels like a betrayal somehow.
I hold my necklaces against my chest. “It doesn’t matter,” I answer. “They’re a part of me. Just like the streak in my hair. Just like the magic in my blood. Traits from your side of the family. It’s time I embrace all of it. It’s time we both do.”
Mom squeezes me tighter. “I can teach you how to reabsorb the wings into your skin. The eye patches, too. It’s an ability only half-lings have. There’s a trick to it.”
It’s bizarre to be talking to her about netherling traits the same way we would talk about fashion or makeup. “Maybe later. I’m kind of happy to have them right now.”
She presses her lips to the top of my head, and I rub my heart locket and key together between my fingers to make a scraping, metallic song. The irony hits me: It must’ve been so hard for her to learn to accept her human side, just as it’s been for me to accept my netherling one.
I force us apart so I can see her face. She’s used her magic recently. Her skin glitters and her hair moves like an underwater plant. I touch a platinum strand. “I don’t understand. You made a life-magic vow to Sister One and broke it. How do you still have your power?”
“I never broke the vow.” She smirks. “It’s all in the wording. I told her when I came back to claim the crown. Technically, I never did.”
Her knack for word wizardry surprises me—she thinks just like they do, takes everything said as literal, twisting it this way and that until it means what she wants it to mean. Morpheus was right. She would’ve made a magnificent Red Queen.
“You gave up your crown for Dad.” I can barely look at her now without picturing her as royalty. “Turned your back on something you wanted with all your heart, for a guy you didn’t even know.”
She taps the dimple in my chin, the one that’s always reminded her of Dad’s. “That’s not true. The second I looked into his eyes, I knew him. And later, when he woke up on my bed, confused and scared, he looked at me. He held out his hand. Calm. Like he’d been waiting forever to find me. Like he knew me, too.”
“So you pretended that he did know you.”
Her smile softens. “I made up a story about his past so he could have a future. But he’s the one who gave me a future. Accepted me, loved me unconditionally. He’s always felt like home. Something I have never felt in my life anywhere else. Everything paled next to that. Even the magic and madness of Wonderland.”
Tears burn my eyes again. “It’s kind of like a fairy tale.”
She looks down at the polka dots on her skirt. “Maybe. And you’re our happy ending.” Her gaze returns to mine, filled w
ith love. She blots tears from my cheek.
We clasp hands, and the moment spins out between us. I’ll never let this memory be damaged … never forget how it feels, right now, to look at her and know her, to understand her—through and through. Finally, after so many years.
Now I want to understand Dad, too.
“Do you regret it? Not looking into Dad’s past … not finding his family?”
Mom fidgets. “Oh, but, Allie, I did.”
“What?”
“I watched a few of his memories once, when I was pregnant with you. I finally understood the true importance of family, because I had one. And I wanted to give your father’s back to him. I was even willing to tell him he’d had amnesia when we first met, that I’d lied about knowing him. Just to see him reunited with them.”
She grows quiet.
I touch her hand. “Mom, tell me what you saw.”
Rubbing her nose, she sniffs. “Your father was nine when he stumbled into Sister Two’s keep. So I looked a year before that, expecting to see him in a typical little boy’s life. I was hoping to learn his last name, hometown, something.” She shakes her head. Her hand clenches beneath mine.
I wait, afraid to prompt her. Unsure if I want to know more.
“I must not have looked far enough,” she continues. “But I’ll never look again. He’s been places, Allie. Even as an eight-year-old. Places humans aren’t meant to go. Places netherlings hope never to be sent.”
My throat goes dry. “What do you mean?”
“The looking-glass world—AnyElsewhere. Did Morpheus ever tell you about it?”
“Not enough.” Obviously.
“It’s where all of Wonderland’s exiles are banished, where Queen Red was supposed to go, before she escaped. There’s a dome of iron that surrounds it, holding them all in, and two knights who guard each gateway, one Red and one White. The place is Wonderland on steroids. The creatures”—her face pales—“the landscapes, they’re wild and untamed, mutated beyond anything you can imagine. It’s no wonder your father’s dreams were so captivating to the restless souls. His experiences from that place probably fed their hunger for violent frivolity to the brim. Not to mention how formidable his nightmares must’ve been. The rabbit hole was never safer than when he was providing the mome wraiths.”