by A. G. Howard
As we step through, moving chandeliers—made of clusters of lightning bugs strung together with harnesses—roll like miniature Ferris wheels across the ceiling. They flash along dingy tiled walls, faded advertising posters dated circa 1956 to 1959, and the pile of old, discarded toys in the tunnel.
In spite of a rash of nerves, I manage enough bites of mushroom to shrink alongside Thomas so we can board the rusted toy train that holds all of Wonderland’s forgotten and lost memories.
The fuzzy carpet beetle conductor is expecting us. He opens a door marked Thomas Gardner and leads us into a small, windowless room with a tapestry rug under a cream-colored chaise lounge. An ornate floor lamp casts a soft glow on the walls. On the other side, a small stage with velvety curtains waits to showcase Thomas’s memories.
“Please, do have a seat and take some refreshments,” the beetle offers, more cordial than I remember. Word has spread about Alyssa’s bloody rampage in the looking-glass world. She’s earned the reputation of a severe yet wise Red Queen, and this warrants us, as her parents, the respect of all the netherlings.
Thomas and I sit side by side on the chaise. There’s an end table to the left and a lace doily beneath a plate full of moonbeam cookies. I take one and hold it out for Thomas to sample. He bites off half, brushing away the glimmering moonbeams that fall with the crumbs onto his pant legs, and gestures for me to eat the rest.
Waves of nausea roll over me. I try to attribute the sensation to hunger and nibble on the flaky cookie and delicate almond icing, tensing as the conductor punches a button on the wall with a spindly arm. The stage curtains open, revealing a movie screen.
“Picture your husband’s face in your mind whilst staring at the empty screen, and you will experience his past as if it were today.” The bug turns a dial that snuffs out the lamp and then closes the door.
I clasp Thomas’s hand in mine. The one time I visited this train, I was spying on his past without his knowledge, and the things I saw horrified me so much I wanted to hide them from him forever. Now he’s here, encouraging me to look deeper. Even with the comfort of his presence, my trepidation is almost smothering.
I push past it, remembering him as the child I saw that day I came alone—when his name was David Skeffington and he was eight years old. But this time, I imagine him a few months earlier, while he’s still living with his mother, father, two sisters, and brother in Oxford.
An image appears on the screen in living color and reaches out for me. It pulls me apart at the seams—every piece of me fraying—until I come together again, on-scene, looking out of little David’s eyes and sharing his youthful thoughts, emotions, and senses.
He has a happy childhood, rich with sentimental moments . . . following his father on daily chores at their goat farm, playing with his sisters and brother upon the hills surrounding his home, family excursions and picnics, bedtime stories recited by a mother’s gentle and melodic voice. But one night, he’s visited by an imperial group of knights dressed in red and white tunics—the same ones who came for his brother two years earlier.
His mother weeps at their arrival, shouting that they’ve never visited a family more than once, but his father comforts her, assuring her he’s had the suspicion all along and called them himself. Then he leads David into a darkened room to be interviewed.
One of the knights, a white-bearded man in a red tunic and chain mail, opens a multi-mirror contraption in the darkness. He flips a switch, igniting the white lights along the frames. Each mirror is set at a precise angle to reflect the other, causing the illusion of infinity.
“Take a walk in the mirror maze, lad,” says the knight. “Tell me what you see.”
David wanders within and around, at first seeing nothing but a thousand images of himself. Then he catches movement in one of the distant reflections—a silhouette of something inhuman. He turns on his heel to find such distortions in each plane of silver-backed glass. With just the blink of an eye, the shadows resolve to clarity and a strange, terrifying world opens up. Large, ugly birds with two sets of wings, lumbering along an ashy terrain in lieu of flying. Crimson bats twice the size of condors swooping overhead, capturing anything brave enough to share the flaming sky with their long, fanged tongues. He starts to back away, but terror evolves into fascination, and lures him closer as some smaller creatures—puppylike beings, colored and shaped liked snowflakes—drift across the lands. They turn themselves inside out, their innards a ball of snapping teeth that devours anything in its path. Blood splashes everywhere as they feast on the four-winged birds. David winces, half expecting to get splattered by the warm and coppery spray, but the massacre is contained within the reflections. Fear and revulsion clench his throat, but he watches one instant longer, as the smallest creature of all, shaped like a butterfly with a scorpion’s tail, flutters down—an elegant angel of death—and turns all the bloody, snarling balls of teeth to statues of stone.
In a dazed euphoria, David winds his way out of the maze and relays all the death he’s seen. The knights converse among one another, then turn to his father.
“This is unprecedented: your second son to have the sight,” the white-bearded knight says. “He sees the weak points in the barrier between the nether-realm and the human world even more clearly than his brother. You know what this means, Gregor.”
David’s father nods. He looks both sad and proud as he pats David’s head. David isn’t sure what to feel. But one thing he does know: He’s no longer considered a child. He’s a warrior, and will be trained as one.
His father packs his bags, they kiss his sobbing mother and sisters one last time, and then it’s off to live with his uncles and cousins in Oxford, England, at Humphrey’s Inn. David’s searing grief over saying good-bye to his family and old life is stanched only when his older brother, Bernie, comes to greet them at the door.
The scene shakes and shivers as we pass through several months of lessons: studying AnyElsewhere, the looking-glass world where Wonderland’s exiles are banished. He learns it’s connected to Wonderland by the tulgey wood and to the human realm by infinity mirrors, and that a dome of iron surrounds the prison, warping any incarcerated netherlings into grotesque creatures should they try to use their magic while inside.
During his training, David buries himself in studies of the mutated creatures to earn the honor to be a part of the special faction of knights who guards the two gateways—the one from the human realm and the one into Wonderland. But the violent and gruesome subject matter saturates his nightmares and dreams with vivid and bizarre imagery. Still, he advances, taking self-defense classes and redefining his language—learning how to wield the mind as armor when riddles are the weapon.
The shifting scenes of David’s life pause at Hubert’s restaurant as his feet skate through ash in the fighting pit while diners watch him learn to fence from above. I feel Thomas’s . . . David’s . . . heart rate climb, feel his eagerness to make his father proud, his competitiveness toward his brother and cousins, and a self-conscious awareness as all eyes fix on him—the youngest and newest candidate. But in time he learns to block everything out but the game. He becomes confident, graceful, and adept, betters all of his opponents—including his own father—and by his ninth birthday, he’s ready for his first sojourn to AnyElsewhere, to experience the secrets inside firsthand. Most of the boys are taken in at age thirteen, but he merits an earlier initiation, for not only has he learned to defend himself, but he also has the daring, wisdom, and acumen of someone five years his senior.
A vivid rainbow smears the screen as the memory tilts and turns on David’s ride within an ashy white wind tunnel shaped like a tornado. The funnels provide safe transportation across the prison world for the knights, since they’re the only ones with the magical medallions that control the winds. Gusts rip through David’s hair and clothes as he’s carried along with his uncle William to the Wonderland gate, where David will be taught the secrets of his guardian status. Triggered by the medallion
at his uncle’s neck, the funnel opens up and spits them out, one by one, far above the gate kept locked against the tulgey wood and Wonderland. A giant slide of ash rises up to catch and guide them to the platform, keeping them a safe distance from the glowing vortex of nothingness that separates the gateway from the world’s terrain, and holds the prisoners at bay.
David watches it all through illuminated, leather-framed goggles. Being his first time within the domed world, he was determined to miss nothing, even the ride over. His father gave in and let him wear the goggles he and his brother used to keep dust out of their eyes and light the way when they were riding motorbikes at night along dirt trails on the hills of Oxford.
Because of his unhindered vision, he sees—as his uncle is dropped from the funnel behind him—that the chain holding the medallion at the old man’s neck breaks and the necklace starts to fall. David reaches up to catch it. Once they’re safely beside the gate, he returns the necklace to his uncle. The old man pats him on the back as he tucks it into his chain mail.
“One day, you’ll be a bearer of a medallion. I’d stake my life on it.” His uncle chortles. David beams at the praise.
Uncle William has always been his favorite . . . He smells like the cinnamon candies Mom used to put in pretty dishes at Christmas, he can outmaneuver anyone in a game of chess, and he always has a jolly good joke to tell. He was the one who took David under his wing when his father had to return to the goat farm. And now he’s insisted on being David’s guide to all the mysteries of this strange, magical world their family has guarded for centuries.
David moves closer to the solid iron gate, so Uncle William can share the secret to unlocking the way into Wonderland. Embedded within the lower third of the three-story barrier, a hexagonal box appears with five puzzles arranged in a nesting doll structure. David watches as Uncle William solves three, triggering the gate’s hinges to open wider at each turn, and revealing glimpses of the dark tunnel behind the gate—a tulgey’s throat. A stench seeps in—rotting, moldering wood. Only two puzzles away from fully opening the gate, Uncle William pales and hunches against the iron for support. Then he clutches his chest and collapses to his knees.
Gasping, David drops beside him. “Uncle, what’s wrong?” He means to shout the words, but he swallowed too much black mist in the nothingness on the way to the entrance earlier. His vocal cords aren’t fully awake, so it comes out a mumble. “Should I call the wind back?” His whisper is indecipherable, even to his own ears.
It doesn’t matter. His uncle is beyond answering him. David is too small to drag Uncle William’s stocky body to the landing spot. And if he were to take a wind tunnel alone for help, his uncle would be left vulnerable in front of the partly opened gate. David doesn’t know how to use the puzzle box to shut the door. He drags out a mechanical messenger pigeon from the old man’s bag. It’s only to be used in emergencies, and should be sent with a recorded message, but—with his voice asleep—all he can do is send it on its own and hope one of their relatives sees it and figures out something’s wrong.
He flips the switch to light its eyes and activate its wings, and sends it into the sky. But he worries that time is waning. Already, his uncle’s skin is a translucent blue, like the color of ice over a pond.
David’s heartbeat pounds in his chest.
There’s one other thing he can do.
Eyes burning behind his goggles, David stares at the partly opened gate. Although the Looking-glass Knighthood has scads of information on AnyElsewhere and its occupants, not many studies have been done of Wonderland. Other than the Alice books, they know very little of the beings there. Though rumors abound of fae creatures with healing powers beyond anything comprehensible to humans.
David may not know how to solve the last two puzzles, but the opening—too slight for a grown man to breach—is already the perfect size for his small frame to fit through.
He hesitates. There are other stories, too, about the fairy-kind. That some are tricky and deadly. But how could they possibly be any worse than the monsters on this side of the gate? And he’s been taught how to best those. Surely his knowledge can get him in and out of Wonderland unscathed.
Jaw clenched, David leaps to his feet and rushes through the gate before fear or reason can stop him.
ANCHOR
In a chain reaction, the moment David steps through the gate, it slams shut behind him. His uncle would be safe from any stray Wonderland creatures until the mechanism reset itself with the tulgey wood’s mouth opening and closing. Only then would the gate allow anyone in from the same entrance again. Even David would have to find a new pathway to it . . . through another tulgey’s throat.
A panicked flush burns David’s face. He feels alone and scared for all of an instant before remembering that he’s been trained as a knight. His plan could work. He just has to find a fae with healing powers to spare and then make a trade of some sort. They’re rumored to collect human trinkets.
David removes his gloves, revealing the ring he received after he was anointed: a shiny band of pure gold, inlaid with sparkly diamonds around its circumference and a large glittering ruby setting, with a white cross of jade embedded in the center. To him, it is invaluable, far beyond its monetary worth, but he is willing to give it away if it means saving Uncle William.
The horrible rotting stench stings his eyes even behind his goggles. He turns on the light around the leather frames to illuminate the mossy trail beneath him, and begins running. After what feels like a quarter of a mile, the air seems to thin. He fights for breath in the enclosed, dark space. His goggles fog and he slides them off his face so they hang at his neck, still lighting his steps.
He rounds a bend and an opening comes into view, offering a hazy light to see by and a fresh stream of air. Panting, David turns off his goggles so he won’t be conspicuous when stepping from the unhinged jaw onto the ground outside.
He draws his sword as he catapults over the teeth and lands inside a thicket. A loud creaking sound makes him spin to face the tree he just exited. The jaws snap at him. He jumps backward, barely escaping before the teeth retract into the trunk to form what appears to be a benign wooden grain in the bark—though David knows better.
Tall neon grasses feather around his boots as he circles the thicket, looking for a path out.
Some tangled bushes behind him quiver. Clenching his jaw, he centers himself in the middle of a small clearing out of reach of the foliage and trees surrounding him, although there’s still a canopy of branches overhead he keeps in his sights.
The bushes shake again, and he holds up his sword, mentally preparing for one of the netherlings who’ve been spit back out of the tulgey in strange and horrible forms. Possibly a fire ant with a body made of flames, or a rocking-horsefly, with wooden rockers affixed to its six legs.
Instead, a strained yelp erupts on the other side of the bushes, followed by an outburst of hysterical miniature voices, all the more unsettling for their childlike banter.
“Stupidesses! Stupid, stupid, stupid! She usn’t like runner-aways!”
“Atchcay the umanlinghay!”
“Yesses! Or be our necks deadses and stomped.”
“Missing stakes happen.”
“Mistakens or notses, Twid Two asks usses to tie it up.”
“Onay oremay eamsdray!”
“She will hang usses by our necks . . . deadses-deadses-dead are we!”
David picks through his language training. It’s like pig latin mixed with nonsensical jargon. Three of the phrases he can make out clearly enough: The miniature-voiced creatures are chasing a runaway humanling, they’re concerned about a lack of dreams, and they’re about to have nooses around their necks.
The voices grow louder and the bushes rattle again. David ducks behind a large rock to watch. He can’t let himself be captured or hurt . . . Uncle William needs him to find help and hurry back. The leaves on the bushes part, and something plunges through.
David gasps to s
ee a naked human boy, maybe six years older than him, stumble into the soft light of the clearing. He’s the color of milk, all but the shock of black hair on his head. It’s as if the blood has drained from him . . . not just from his face, but his torso and arms and legs, too. Then David realizes the boy’s not completely naked after all. His body is coated with something—gossamer, sticky, thick. Silken fibers hang from him in places like threads, as if he’s fraying.
Web?
David gulps, louder than intended.
The boy turns toward him, but his glazed eyes look through him. Nothing seems to register on his face. There’s no expression other than a blank, somber stare.
A webby rope grows taut on the boy’s ankle, dropping him to the ground face-first. He garbles into the grass—a strange, animalistic sound devoid of any sense—as if he’s forgotten how to talk.
The chatty little creatures of earlier scurry in—five of them—still arguing among themselves. They look like silvery spider monkeys with hairless hides. Bulbous eyes the color of nickels, with no pupils or irises, glimmer like coins in a wishing well.
Glossy slime oozes from their bald skin. The silver, oily droplets trail their footsteps and long, thin tails. All of them are wearing tiny miner’s caps. The lights bob around the clearing, a disorienting display, like glowing bubbles.
As they pass David’s rock, a putrid, meaty stench follows in their wake. They surround the fallen boy, hissing. One of them unwinds the web from the victim’s ankle and uses it to tie his hands at his back. The boy snaps his teeth in a vicious and feral attempt to break loose, though his face retains that unchanging, empty stare.
The closest creature tumbles back and then laughs—jagged, spiky teeth spreading wide in its primate face. It emits a disturbing sound somewhere between a purr and a growl, then jumps atop the boy, proceeding to stuff his mouth with web. The other silvery monkeys cheer their partner on, driven to glee by the defenseless boy’s choking sounds.