Blood of Wonderland

by Colleen Oakes

  Davianna would always be preparing for bed, brushing her thick black hair with her pink shell comb and staring at herself in the mirror, her tear-filled blue-black eyes staring back at her. Dinah knew she had a secret. She could see it in her eyes, in the way she held her body. Together they would climb across Davianna’s heart-shaped bed and her mother would pull her close and listen as Dinah whispered to her all the tiny details of her day—what Harris wore, what Emily said, the things she had learned, how she had cried after she broke a one-hundred-year-old teapot. Every night would end with her mother whispering softly,

  “Someday, my love, you’ll understand everything.”

  Dinah’s father had returned from war a changed man. He was angrier and increasingly cruel toward them both. She saw less of her mother, and when she did, Dinah was alarmed at her shrinking figure and the dark circles under her eyes. The care of Charles was taken from her and given to Lucy and Quintrell. Dinah would still occasionally visit her mother’s chambers at the end of the day, but Davianna would often be sleeping, unable to take her visits, and Dinah would be sent back to her room like a child without supper.

  On the eve of her ninth birthday, Dinah stumbled across a scene that she would never forget. Her daily lessons in the library had been cut short due to the sneezing of Monsignor Wol-Vore, the language tutor, and the princess found herself with a few free hours. Running happily down the hall, her pink dress in tatters behind her, Dinah made her way to her mother’s apartment. The Heart Cards who normally stood guard at the queen’s door were oddly absent, and the door was cracked open a few inches. As she laid her fingers on the cool knob, Dinah could hear her father’s angry voice. She paused at the door.

  “How dare you? You are nothing more than a common whore, lowborn trash that washed up from the sea on the beaches of Ierladia! I am the King of Wonderland, and I will not be made a mockery of. Is this how you repay me? Who is he? Tell me! I should take your head for this!”

  Dinah heard the sound of something crashing—dishes, perhaps. Something hit the door with a loud thud and Dinah leaped back, afraid. She could hear her mother murmuring, attempting to calm her father.

  Then: “Don’t tell me it’s NOTHING!” roared the man who wore the crown. Dinah heard the sharp snap of skin against skin—a slap. She desperately wanted to help her mother, but she was afraid of her violent father. Her hand lingered on the door as she heard her mother weeping behind it. Dinah walked back to her chambers, a coward.

  She never told anyone about that day, not even Wardley. It was strange to think of it now, as she stepped over root after root, the muscles in her thighs clenching with fatigue. A tiny stream crossed in front of them, and Dinah stopped to fill her waterskin. Morte lapped at the water, and Dinah sat down on the muddy bank to rinse off her sore feet. The tinkling of the stream had a lulling power, and Dinah raised her face to take in the warm sun, resting for just a minute, just one more memory.

  Her mother had died on a winter afternoon, when huge mounds of pink snow were piled high against the Iron Gates outside the palace, and inside everyone was trying to stay warm. Her illness had been violent and sudden. One day, Dinah’s mother had been there, her face thin and worried, but alive. The next she was lying in her bed, drenched with sweat so hot that it steamed in the cool air. Her lips, once the color of a ripe fig, were blue and withered, and her eyes were somehow gone already. They looked past Dinah, as if the queen were seeing someone else. The White Fever had raged through Wonderland proper that year, a quick illness that turned a person’s nails white before it swiftly delivered them to the grave. Although it was curious that no one in the palace had gotten it, aside from her mother.

  Dinah hadn’t been allowed to touch her mother, or even to go near her bedside. She stood sobbing in the doorway, Harris’s arms wrapped firmly around her, holding her back, as she watched her mother’s body convulse and twist in pain. Charles was not allowed in the room, and the king was nowhere to be seen as Davianna took her last breath, her eyes finally trained on Dinah as she whispered her good-byes, her body shaking with the effort.

  “Dinah, oh my wild girl. You so are smart, just like him. Be gentle, my dear, take heart. Be a good queen. Take care of your brother.”

  Dinah wept, her fat tears dripping off her chin. “I will, Mother. I will. I love you. I love you.”

  The hint of a smile brushed across Davianna’s face. “I love you too. . . .”

  The conversation had exhausted the queen, and it wasn’t long after that she fell into a heavy sleep, never to wake again. The rising of her chest slowed until it ceased. The queen was declared dead. Her father, her servants, Harris, everyone who had known her mother, wailed. Even Cheshire’s dark eyes filled with clever crocodile tears. The Cards came and went; a priest, wearing long red robes covered with hearts, rang a tiny silver bell outside her window. Another bell from somewhere down below rang in return. Suddenly bells were ringing throughout the kingdom, and the sound of them rose up through the courtyard and in through the open window as a swirl of pink snow rested on her mother’s lips.

  Dinah screamed and flailed in Harris’s arms when the thin ruby crown was removed from her mother’s head. The priest held it over open flames until the crown glowed a dim red, as if lit from within. She realized with a start that it was a precautionary measure, to cleanse it from the fever. He walked over to Dinah as he blew on the crown to cool it.

  “The queen is dead. Long live the future Queen of Wonderland.” He placed the crown on her head, the heat of it scorching the tips of her ears. Harris carried her out of the room, and as he turned, Dinah was given one last glance at her mother’s face, her beauty siphoned away by death.

  Taking a cue from her father, Dinah had built a wall around that memory, thick as stone and impregnable to wandering thoughts. But here, in the depths of the Twisted Wood, it had been so easy to remember. She could smell the putrid air of the bedchamber, could see the fear in Harris’s eyes as the hot crown was laid on her head.

  Dinah wiped her eyes as she pushed her blistered feet into the cool stream. The relief was instant, and it occurred to Dinah that she could possibly stay here forever, in this tiny lovely part of the wood where all the trees were white and the huge dark blue and deep green veiny leaves stretched out over the ground. But she couldn’t. Not yet. After a few moments, Dinah pulled her feet out of the stream, delicately wrapped them with the remaining strips of linen, and pushed them back into her boots, now instruments of torture. She watched silently as a fiery red hawk danced and dipped over the horizon, such a thing of beauty. She looked hopefully over at Morte, wishing he would lift his leg and have mercy on her. He did not, but rather stared off into the distance, his massive black head tilted with interest.

  “I guess we’ll be walking, then,” groaned Dinah. It was nice to hear a voice—any voice, even if it was her own. They continued walking northeast. Her march to starvation, as Dinah had begun to think of it, dragged on.

  The tracking hawk continued to circle lazily overhead.

  Three

  All day Dinah had felt strange. She had just eaten her last loaf of bread and there were only a few pieces of bird meat left. A creeping feeling made its way from her spine to her forehead. She convinced herself that it was just the sinking feeling of having no more food. Her time was up—she would either need to learn how to hunt or begin eating only fruit that she could find along the way, but that wouldn’t sustain her for long.

  Dinah was losing weight rapidly—already she had tightened her belt loop two notches, and when she had splashed her face in the stream that morning, she was shocked at how thin her face looked, how tired. Her hair was a raggedy tangle that would probably take years to work itself out, and her skin was marked with dozens of small cuts from thorny branches. The cut on her hand was healing well, but her two broken fingers still ached whenever she put pressure on them. The shocking thought that she might not survive this ordeal washed over her like a cold wave. I cannot die from somethin
g as simple as a lack of food, she told herself.

  That day she kept a very sharp eye out for things that looked edible. She found a Julla Tree, but most of its spiky fruit had gone rotten. Dinah managed to grab three fruits that were edible and stashed them in her bag for the following day. She found a strange plant in the ground that sprouted something similar to the cabbage they ate at the palace. Tentatively, she rested a leaf on her tongue only to spit it out immediately. It was bitter and numbed her tongue, and she quickly rinsed her mouth out with water. I’ll die from poisoning much faster than starvation, she thought.

  The wood was filled with such fascinating and terrifying plants: huge rubbery vines that gave a shiver when she passed, and when she touched them, they released a puff of sparkling yellow powder; tubal roses that grew long instead of wide, whose petals collapsed inward when the sun set; carnivorous plants that feasted on small rodents—and once attempted to bite Dinah’s ankle and would have broken the skin if she hadn’t been wearing boots. There were thousands of ever-changing plants and flowers woven among the trees—those trees, always knowing—and none of them to eat. Damn it.

  Grumbling to herself while ignoring the sharp pain in her stomach, Dinah walked on, watching the blazing sun creep from west to east as dusk settled in like a thick blanket. Without warning, she found herself in a small clearing, marked by a unique tree that had small, perfectly round holes drilled into its impossibly wide trunk. Dinah walked up quietly to inspect the tree, noting that it was at least twice the width of her bedchambers. She padded slowly around the smooth trunk, letting her hand linger on its surprisingly glossy surface. The bark had the texture of marble. It shimmered in the setting sun, the light playing across it like a warm ember. Dinah watched with amazement as rays of sunlight shot through the tree, and suddenly it hummed with life, as if lit from inside. The tree was transparent and filled with a frozen golden sap. She could see everything inside it—every fiber, every bubble of air. This was an amber tree, something she had only seen in her picture books, valuable because they were so rare. Once found, they were immediately hacked down and turned into jewelry, furniture, and hand railings for the wealthy. The base of her tea table was made of this rare amber wood.

  Dinah ran her hands over the trunk. It was so beautiful it took her breath away—why would anyone ever chop it down? There was so much more beauty in a living tree than a pendant wrapped around some noblewoman’s neck. The tree pulsed with warmth that Dinah suspected didn’t come from the sun, but rather from inside the tree. Her fingers trembled with the knowledge that its texture was changing underneath her skin. Whereas before it had felt like cool marble, it now was soft, like the jams she spread on toast. When she pulled away, her hands were covered with a dark, drippy syrup the color of molasses. Without thinking, she licked it. After weeks of stale bread and dried bird meat, the syrup was heavenly—rich and sweet, the best thing she had ever tasted. She licked her hands dry, covering her face in syrup, and went back for more until she felt sluggish with the sugar, drunk on this rush of goodness. She stumbled away from the tree past Morte, who had also been licking the trunk.

  Dinah was wiping her hands on the damp grass when she looked up in surprise, her eyes catching a strange form in the trees. There was a house in front of her. Dinah leaped back in shock, her hand on her sword hilt. How had she not noticed it? The house sat snugly between two trees, their roots twisting up through the roof. It reminded her of the Black Towers, of that root twisting itself into her mouth, up her nostril. . . . Dinah heaved up the syrup onto the ground, the thick sludge puddling at her feet. Afterward, to her relief, she felt much better without its weight sitting in her stomach.

  Dinah gaped at the house as she crouched behind the liquid tree. There was no visible light coming from the house, no candles flickering in open windows, no guards against the approaching night. Morte flattened his ears back against his head and gave a loud huff. Dinah felt that familiar dread that had plagued her all day. While longing to plunge back into the safety of the wood, Dinah found herself drawn to the man-made structure. It had been so long since she had seen anything related to humans, and she longed to run her hands over the walls, to feel timber and bolts, blankets and cups. Also, she reasoned, there might be food in the house, something she could not ignore.

  Scrambling on her knees, Dinah found a small rock and threw it at the door. It bounced off with a loud thud and landed beside an empty bucket. Dinah waited a few minutes, but nothing happened, other than the wind tossing the branches of the trees overhead in a lulling whoosh. She drew her sword and approached cautiously, on silent feet. Dinah crouched low beneath the window and raised her head to peer through the beveled glass. She could see nothing through the thick glass, but she could sense that everything was still. With a deep breath, she turned the door handle. The door swung open and rocked on its hinge. Dinah stepped inside. The house was one large circular room with a beautiful high-vaulted ceiling and a dirt floor. On the right, an unmade bed had been overturned and books were scattered about, their pages flapping in the wind. At the front of the room sat a cold fireplace, cozied up to a sitting area that featured a well-worn rocking chair resting against the wall. A blanket had been ripped to shreds and tossed about the room.

  To the left was a kitchen but it had been recently ransacked. Milk dripped from an overturned jug onto the floor, where a basket of food had been tossed aside. Hunger making her impulsive, Dinah raced toward it. She pushed past the overturned table, stepping over the blue-and-white-spotted teakettle smashed on the floor. She didn’t care—all she saw were two loaves of bread, some onions, carrots, and what looked to be a burnt husk of thick deer meat. Ravenous, Dinah threw these things into her bag as the sun dipped behind the cottage, filling the room with a shadowy light. She gnawed at the bread. Who had been here? Yurkei? Had an animal gotten in—a wolf? Something worse? Dinah looked around. No. The chaos seemed a little neat for an animal, a little too intentional. What animal would leave food but rip pictures off the wall and flip a bed over?

  Morte gave a nervous whinny from outside and pounded the ground with his heavy, spiked hooves. The dishes inside rattled. Dinah took one last glimpse around the kitchen before ducking out of the round house. She said a silent thanks to whoever baked this bread and grew these onions as she made her way behind the house, back into the wood. Morte dutifully followed behind her before they both stopped short. There was a long field that stretched hundreds of feet behind the garden, and a body was there, lying facedown in the dirt. He had been quite large but obviously strong—huge muscles, still as stone, looked as though they had been carved out of his back. He wore a floppy hat and a lavender linen tunic, his feet bare and dirty. A farmer, Dinah thought, pressing her fingers across her trembling lips. Broken jars of the amber tree syrup littered the ground around him. Dinah felt all the air rush out of her lungs as she comprehended what she was seeing. Out of the man’s back arched a long arrow. It nestled between his great shoulder blades, a small blotch of blood surrounding the entry point. He had bled out from the front, the ground stained a deep red all around him. The blood was still wet, but it was cooling quickly and becoming one with the sticky syrup, a sickening, swirling mixture of red and amber.

  The fact that this hadn’t happened long ago alarmed Dinah, but not as much as the red blown-glass heart that topped the end of the arrow. She had seen these arrows before, adorning the backs of many Heart Cards that guarded the outer gates of the palace. She stood, the world spinning around her. It wasn’t the Yurkei who had been here. The Cards had found her. Dinah swung the bag around her back and ran straight toward Morte. “Up!” she barked. Her panic was evident and for this he didn’t hesitate, lifting his leg as she neared him. Dinah stepped without fear onto his spikes and vaulted herself onto his back, her legs curling around his massive neck.

  From what she could tell, the tracks of the Cards (huge, impossible not to notice once she was looking) were heading north, and so she turned Morte east. From
there, they ran. Her heart thudded in her ears as Morte raced through the ever-blackening wood. Farther and farther in they dashed, making an incredible noise, yet what chance did they have not to? Dinah could barely see, but Morte seemed to have perfect night vision—he easily navigated branches and deep holes in the earth without trouble. Every few seconds, she would glance back, praying that she wouldn’t see a white Hornhoov emerging from the darkness. They had made it a few miles from the house when she heard the first faint shouts and clinking of armor. Fear surrounded her and made it hard to think. The sounds seemed to be coming over a dark ridge in the distance.

  Tears welled up in her eyes and her hands shook as she clutched Morte’s mane, turning him around, racing away. As he ran, the sun disappeared over the Yurkei Mountains and all was black. The Twisted Wood became nothing more than shadows, an inky shade of trees and branches. Dinah could barely see Morte’s head in front of her as he dived through the trees, straining to outpace the growing sounds of horses and men. The cacophony was coming from all sides now, so foreign and abrasive to her ears after so much silence. Morte’s arrival desecrated the quiet wood, violating the peace of the trees, the hum of the insects. She couldn’t see where her pursuers were, but they were getting closer—and there was nowhere to run where they wouldn’t hear Morte crashing through the brush.

  Dinah drew her sword and the ring of metal echoed through the trees. She wouldn’t be able to fight through many of them—any of them, maybe—but she would not be taken to the Black Towers. She would force them to kill her, and she would try her best to kill her father. That was her only purpose on this night; if this was going to be the way it ended, so be it. She would avenge her brother, his keepers, and lastly her mother, slowly killed by her father’s neglect and cruelty. Dinah sat still and held her breath for a moment. Then her father’s voice carried through the darkness, commanding his troops, the sound sending a dagger of fear straight through her.