by A. G. Howard
“She has your chin,” the stranger says, as if oblivious to my spontaneous deformity. “But the wings and eyes . . .”
“Those are her mother’s,” Dad says proudly, as if he, too, is blind to what’s happening.
Maybe the reaction is that I’m hallucinating. I try to lift my swollen hand, but it sits next to me like a boulder. I squeeze it to a fist and give it a hard jerk. It pummels Dad’s stomach and sends him rocketing off the couch. He lands in a pile of throw pillows.
Nope. Not hallucinating.
Another sneezing fit overtakes. Once it stops, I sigh, relieved to find my hand is normal and all of my other body parts to scale.
The stranger helps Dad up. Dad brushes off his flannel pants, and they both look down at me with wide brown eyes—as if I were a science experiment.
I pat the top of my head, the one part of me I can’t see. “Oh, no. My head’s the size of a blimp, isn’t it?”
The stranger chortles. “Not at all, child.” He slaps Dad’s back. “She’s definitely got the Skeffington sense of humor, yes?”
Chessie flutters into view, smiling mischievously. I’m so happy to see him I shout his name.
The tiny Barbie ballet bag hangs around his neck and a ragged hole gapes in the bottom. The mushrooms are gone. But thankfully, the outline of the diary still wrinkles the satiny fabric from inside. Red’s magical memories survived.
I feel my collarbone to find the necklace still in place, although the key is as big as a regular one after growing with me. Since the book is still toy-size, it must have fallen out of my leotard’s bodice before I drank the tea. Maybe it’s better that the diary is small. It will be easier to handle if the emotions get unruly again.
Chessie unscrews his head and it rolls toward me along the floor, the bag’s strings tangled around his cranium. A silly laugh escapes him as his decapitated body gives chase.
Dad and the stranger smirk.
How can my dad be so comfortable around all this weirdness? And the stranger, too? They’re both wearing the same goofy Elvis grins.
In fact, they look so much alike they could be . . .
I swing my legs around. The bright colors of the room disorient me. “Dad? Is this . . . ?”
“Oh, sorry, Butterfly.” Dad sits down next to me again, putting his arm around the tutu at my waist to avoid crushing my wings. “This is Bernard.”
“Call me Uncle Bernie,” the man insists.
Chessie’s nose bumps my plastic boot and comes to a stop. I tug the ballet bag’s strings, and his head spins like a top. As I wrap my fingers around the diary, the stranger’s words register: Uncle Bernie.
A smile spreads over my face. There’s a knowing behind his eyes, an unconditional affection that I didn’t do anything to earn, other than being born.
“You’re brothers.”
Bernie’s grin widens. “That we are. Nice to finally meet you.” He places a hand on Dad’s shoulder. “Our family . . . they’ll be overjoyed. We’d given up hope.”
A strangled sound I don’t recognize breaks from my throat.
“She needs water,” Dad says to his brother.
His brother.
Uncle Bernie nods and promises to return. I watch his back—broader than Dad’s—as he steps out into a cushioned hallway lined with dozens of upholstered doors similar to the one in our room.
Chessie screws his head on once more, flitters his wings, and follows my uncle before I can thank him for healing me and watching over the diary.
The door shuts, leaving Dad and me alone with nothing but the popping of lit candles. I can still see the worry lines on his forehead, etched in place by Mom and Jeb’s absence over the past few weeks. But there’s happiness softening the ones around his eyes.
All my life I thought we had no extended family. Then last year I realized Mom and I were related to magical creatures from Wonderland. Now, I have an uncle. A human uncle who looks like the Prince of Thieves.
I must have other relatives, too. Cousins and aunts, even grandparents.
Which means Dad has nephews and nieces. Parents of his own . . .
“When are we going to meet them?” I ask, not sure he’ll pick up on my inference.
“My mom and dad are gone.” Regret echoes in his voice, becoming my own. “But I have two sisters, and they have children. As do Bernard and his wife. We’ll meet them after we find your mother and Jeb. Other than the netherlings passing through, only members of the Looking-glass Knighthood stay at this inn. My brothers, uncles, male cousins, and nephews. The women and youngest children stay elsewhere in Oxford.”
I stare at him, dumbfounded.
Dad catches both my hands. “We’re descended from the same lineage as Charles Dodgson. After he discovered the way to Wonderland, and after Alice found her way back out of the rabbit hole—”
“Wait,” I interrupt. “Charles discovered the way to Wonderland? I thought Alice told him about the rabbit hole. That she inspired his fictionalized account. Are you saying he actually knew the place was real?”
Dad shrugs. “The only history we’ve retained is that the men in our family were called by Charles to guard the gates of AnyElsewhere. To be appointed as knights. His published works help fund us. It’s been our duty for over a century. The boys are tested when they’re seven years old. There’s usually only one son born with the gene. My brother and I were the exception. We both had it.”
“What gene?”
“A second sight like Charles had. An ability to see the weak points in the barrier between the nether-realm and our world. It has to do with infinity mirrors.”
The only infinity mirrors I’m aware of are in funhouses at carnivals and county fairs. I swallow hard, wondering how such a childish diversion could be the gateway to a horrific place like the looking-glass world. But then again, maybe that’s fitting, considering Wonderland is built upon children’s dreams, imagination, and nightmares—considering those things are its very foundation.
“So . . . you had that ability?” I ask.
“Have it,” Dad corrects. “I forgot after my memories were erased. But it’s all come back. I was captured by the spider creature a few months after I started training to be a White knight.”
My chin quivers. I should be in awe just imagining him as a knight, but there’s sadness in his voice. I lean in to hug him. He wraps his arms around me, careful to avoid smashing my wings.
He regrets missing out on the life he was meant for. Just like Mom missed out on hers.
My birth, my entire existence, has been at the expense of their noble and royal callings. Not to mention, a black stain on the once beautifully bizarre landscapes of Wonderland that are now withering because of me.
“I’m sorry,” I say, wishing I could blot out all of my wrongs with an apology. But it’s not possible.
I think of the tiny diary in the ballet bag. Red’s regrets were so acute, she cast them aside, abandoning the memories that made them. But there’s no “forgetting potion” I can take. And even if there were, I wouldn’t. Nothing can be erased if I’m going to put things right for everyone. And I will, no matter what it costs me in the end.
“Don’t be sorry.” Dad’s breath warms the top of my head. “I do wish I’d known my relatives. But I wouldn’t change anything else. If I had been a White knight, I would never have met your mom. We wouldn’t have had you. And, for the record, I wouldn’t trade my two girls for anything in any world.” He presses a kiss against my hair.
I snuggle close, struggling to make my voice work. “Thanks, Dad,” I whisper, comforted by the waxy-crayon scent of his shirt. Even if he’s able to accept the turn his past took, I can’t accept the one our present has.
“Okay.” His voice deepens to sternness and he eases us apart. “Let me have a look at you.” His brow crinkles as he runs his thumb across the top of my scalp. “That healing trick really worked. You were bleeding so much, I thought you’d at least have a concussion.”
He must’ve been so scared watching me dive into the storm and hit the tree. “How did you know I could be healed?”
“I didn’t. I wanted to get you to a hospital. But we were both too small and the mushrooms were gone.” A muscle in his jaw feathers. “I asked the butterflies to bring us here. I hoped they would understand, and that someone at the inn would know what to do.”
It had to have been terrifying to feel so helpless, to go against the grain of logic and surrender to faith in the senseless. Dad’s got more guts than Mom and I ever gave him credit for.
I squeeze his wrists. “You did great.”
“That little cat-bird fellow did great.” Dad opens my palms and traces the scars there. “That’s what your mom was trying to do when you were little and she hurt your hands. That’s why she kept saying she could fix you. She wanted to heal you. And I pushed her away.” His watery eyes meet mine. “I’m sorry, Allie.”
“You didn’t know. We never told you.”
He frowns and presses his forehead against mine. “Well, you can make it up to me. First off, I don’t ever want to see you throw yourself into the sky again.”
I smile at him through my tears. “C’mon. I have wings.”
He leans back. “Yeah, and they’re beautiful. But they weren’t working all that great.” He looks over my shoulder at the gauzy flaps casting shadows on the couch. “Although they appear to be stronger than they were.”
I flutter them. There’s no pain. Even the right one feels powerful. Chessie’s melding must’ve healed more than my skull.
I’ll be able to fly now, just in time to go to AnyElsewhere.
Dad must see my thoughts on my face, because he cups my chin again. “You’re not indestructible, even if you have abilities other girls don’t. No more unnecessary chances. Okay?”
I nod to pacify him. He doesn’t understand how necessary taking chances is to fix things. Even worse, he doesn’t understand that I’m starting to crave the risks.
“What else?” I ask to change the subject.
He drops his hand to his knee. “Huh?”
“You said ‘first off.’ That means something else is coming.”
The worry wrinkles reappear on his forehead. “Right. It’s time for you to tell me the truth. All of it.”
My stomach winds up like a fist. “That’s a lot of years to cover. Where should I start?”
“Baby steps. Your mom’s history. How Jeb’s involved. Does he know what you are? And that winged creature who carried me out of Wonderland’s portal—what part does he play?”
“Wow, Dad. Baby steps?”
“Yep.”
“Baby brontosaurus, maybe,” I tease.
His answering smile encourages me, and I tell him everything. From the moment I first heard a bee and a flower argue in the nurse’s office during fifth grade, to my Alice in Wonderland dream that night, to last summer when Jeb and I went through the rabbit hole and I was crowned the Red Queen after finding out who Mom and I are descended from.
Even when Dad’s face pales, I go on. Because he has to know about Mom’s part, how she once wanted to be queen herself but gave it all up for him. And how Jeb was brainwashed, forgetting our time in Wonderland, but once he remembered, he fought for me and the humans at prom. And that’s why he’s in the looking-glass world now.
“Oh, no. Not there.” Dad’s expression fills with dread. “I was so hard on him . . . when he said he hid you after that incident at your school. He was innocent. He was just protecting your secrets.”
“It’s okay. He knew you didn’t mean it.”
Dad shakes his head. “He’s always been like a son to me. When we find him, I’ll set things right. I promise.”
“I know, Dad.” I appreciate him saying when and not if. “I have to make things right, too.” Though my wrongs against Jeb cut so much deeper.
I inhale a shaky breath before confessing the rest: Morpheus’s part in everything. How he helped Mom come up with a way to win the crown but was betrayed when she chose Dad over her quest. How that betrayal drove Morpheus to visit my childhood dreams, to become a child himself so he could lure me into Wonderland without telling me what I was really there to do.
Dad’s face darkens—an angry distrust shadowing his features. It’s the same look Jeb always gets when Morpheus’s name comes up.
Dad opens his mouth, but I interrupt. “Before you condemn him, you need to know that he saved my life in Wonderland. He saved it here in the human realm, too. In fact, he saved Jeb’s. He’s not pure evil, Dad. He’s . . .”
Glory and deprecation—sunlight and shadows—the scuttle of a scorpion and the melody of a nightingale. Sister One’s description of him has never seemed more apt. The breath of the sea and the cannonade of a storm. Can you speak these things with your tongue?
No. I can’t.
“He’s what, Allie?” Dad asks.
“He’s wicked. He’s dangerous. And he’s far from trustworthy. But he’s devoted to me and Wonderland. In that respect, he’s my friend.” I stop before the rest can escape: He’s lodged himself inside the netherling half of my heart, no matter how hard I tried to deny him access.
“How can you say that?” Dad presses. “After all the grief he’s brought down on our family?”
“Because we wouldn’t be a family if he hadn’t carried you out of Wonderland and kept your identity hidden all these years. He didn’t have to do that.”
Dad’s scowl deepens. “I’m not sure I agree with your reasoning.”
“There is no reasoning when it comes to Morpheus. You just accept him as he is.”
“Well, I don’t accept him. He caused this to happen. He’s to blame for your mother and Jeb being in—”
“You’re wrong,” I interrupt before shame can intrude on my overdue confession. “I’m the one who set everything in motion.”
“Allie, no. I get that in some way you had a hand in the rabbit hole being clogged. But I also know it was an accident.”
“It’s more than that.” I grind out the words between clenched teeth. “I unleashed Queen Red but was afraid to face her. I failed to go back to Wonderland, so she came to our world. And now Mom, Jeb, and Morpheus are all victims of my cowardice.”
The righteous indignation on Dad’s face melts away. A knock at the door causes us both to jump. Uncle Bernie peeks in with the water he promised.
“Bad timing?” he asks.
Dad waves him in, and I take the glass. The drink slides down my throat cold and clean, although it does nothing to calm my stomach. I still haven’t told Dad the worst part of all. How I unleashed a power at prom that I knew almost nothing about, and caused Mom to be dragged into the rabbit hole before it caved in on itself.
“You don’t look so good,” Uncle Bernie says, pressing the back of his hand to my brow. “No doubt a residual effect of the mushroom tea.”
I let his explanation hang in the air, though Dad and I both know it’s so much more than that. I preoccupy myself with the tiny diary. Taking the drawstring from the torn ballet bag, I thread it through the book’s locked latch to form a necklace. Then I drape it over my head so the diary is beside the key that’s three times bigger. I’ll have to resize one or the other when it’s time to open the pages and unleash the volatile memory magic upon an unwitting Red.
“You both need to eat something,” Bernie suggests. “And the dining hall is empty enough now that she’ll be safe.”
My uncle leaves our room and Dad looks pointedly at me. “You shower first. We’ll finish our talk over dinner.”
The dining hall is carnival gaudy like our chambers, with the addition of a dozen cushioned table and chair sets and the aroma of food. Only one table is occupied, and the guests are netherlings.
They’re fixated on the pit a few feet below restaurant level where four human knights are fencing. It reminds me of the staged jousting dinner matches in the human realm, à la Las Vegas.
One set of knights wears red tunics under
chain mail mantles, and the other team wears white. Each duo consists of an older man and a boy somewhere between eight and twelve years old. The older knight on the white side is Uncle Bernie. The boys fight as the elders coach them. Their swords bend, and puffs of gray ash sweep up, almost cloaking them at times.
“So, dinner with a show?” I whisper to Dad.
“They’re using foils . . . flexible swords with blunted points,” Dad says while watching the activity in the ring with a faraway glint in his eyes. “It’s part of fine-tuning our concentration, making us perform in front of patrons at a young age. We have to keep a cool head while being aware of the eyes on us, and the scent of food . . . the sounds of voices. We can’t get distracted.”
“What’s with the ash?”
“Ash covers a large portion of AnyElsewhere’s terrain. So we learn to move in it without slipping or slowing down.” After kissing my brow, he gestures toward an empty table in the corner. “Order something. I want to say hello.”
He makes his way down stone stairs toward his relatives. Our relatives.
The knights set aside their daggers and swords as he walks over. He fits right in with the white ones, dressed in the same tunic and tan suede pants.
I glance down at my red tunic. The long underwear beneath my pants, although a far cry from the lacy underthings I was hoping for, feels soft against my freshly scrubbed skin. They must’ve given me a boy’s size, because the fit is decent. Best of all, the shoulder seams are torn to make room for my wings. I’m still wearing my Barbie boots, the only shoes that fit.
I look as mismatched and jumbled on the outside as I feel on the inside. Dad’s relatives wave, not even fazed by my eye patches and wings.
I wave back, feeling shyer than I’d like.
They all turn their attention to Dad as he shrugs into a chain mail mantle. He takes the sword offered him and walks into the middle of the pit with his brother. They bow; then, in a blink, they’re fencing. Ash flies up around them with each lunge and parry.
Dad seems out of his element, his movements jerky and imbalanced. He gets tripped and pinned to the ground by Bernard’s sword a few times. But soon, it’s like a switch flips on. His thrusts with the sword become fluid and natural. His fingers, wrists, body, and arms settle into a cadence as graceful as a waltz. The clang of swords rings in the air. It’s a good thing he’s stayed in shape via racquetball and jogging, or he’d never have the stamina for this.