To Mom:
I miss you. Thank you for giving me the courage to fly high and catch my dreams, and for being the wind beneath my wings.
It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.
-Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There
I once thought memories were something better left behind…frozen pockets of time you could revisit for sentimental value, but more of an indulgence than a necessity. That was before I realized memories could be the key to moving forward, to recovering the fate and future of everyone you love and treasure most in the world.
I stand outside the glossy red door of a private chamber on the memory train. Thomas Gardner is engraved on the removable nameplate inserted inside the brackets.
"An unnecessary formality, since he's here in the flesh," the conductor-a carpeted beetle close to my size-said when I first requested the nameplate. I shot him an angry glare, then insisted he do as I ask.
Now, as I press my forehead hard against the brass, letting the metal chill my skin, I consider Dad's name, how it means more than I ever imagined…how he himself is more than I ever could've dreamed.
I almost followed him into the room when we first arrived. He was so shaky, even before we had landed in London.
Who wouldn't be? Shrunk to the size of a bug, flying across the ocean on the back of a monarch. I can still taste the residue of salty air. At dawn, when Dad started to accept we were actually riding on butterflies, we slipped through a hole in the foundation of a giant iron bridge and landed beside a rusted toy train in an underground tunnel. The fact that we were small enough to step into the train made Dad's eyes so wide, I thought they'd pop out of his head.
I want to protect him, but he's not weak. I won't treat him like he is. Not anymore.
He was nine-just two years older than Alice had been-when he wandered into Wonderland and was trapped by a spidery grave keeper, yet somehow he survived. Better he face that memory alone. Otherwise, he might try to protect me. And I don't need protection any more than he does.
It took me losing my mind to gain my perspective. If that's what it takes for my dad, too, so be it.
My fingertip trembles as I trace the letters: T-h-o-m-a-s. Dad will find out his real name today, not the one given him by Mom. All the revelations, all the monstrosities he lived as a child, those experiences will lead us to AnyElsewhere-the looking-glass world where Wonderland's exiles are banished. A dome of iron covers it, holding them prisoner and warping their magic somehow, should they use it while inside. Red and White knights keep watch over AnyElsewhere's two gateways.
My own two knights, Jeb and Morpheus, are trapped there. A month has passed since they were swallowed up. I want to believe they're still alive.
I have to.
And then there's Mom, stranded in a crumbling Wonderland, hostage to the same spiteful spider creature who once held Dad in her webby thrall. The rabbit hole, the portal into the nether-realm, has been destroyed at my hand. AnyElsewhere is the only way inside now.
We're on a rescue mission, and Dad's memory is the key to it all.
I drag my muddy feet along the red and black tiled floor, headed toward the passenger car's front. My muscles ache from riding a monarch for twenty-four hours. It would've taken much longer had we not been picked up by a storm and lifted several thousand feet in the air, covering hundreds of miles in mere minutes-a mad ride my Dad and I won't soon forget.
My hair drapes my shoulders in a wild snarl of platinum blond, limp from rain. The tangles are fitting, since that's how I feel inside: chaotic, yet drained. The netherling half of my heart swells to break free of the human emotions ensnared around it. There will be no respite until I've found my loved ones and made things right in Wonderland.
Even then, I know none of us will ever be the same again.
A half dozen queer creatures occupy the white vinyl seats. They aren't waiting to reunite with lost memories. They're here because they're stranded, too. Since the rabbit hole is gone, they have no way back to Wonderland, their home.
One creature is a pale, cone-headed humanoid whose cranium pops open sporadically so she can argue with a smaller version of herself. Next, the smaller version's cranium opens to reveal an even littler likeness. The tiniest one is a male with a large nose. He bonks his female counterparts with a teensy rolling pin before hiding away again. It's like watching a nightmarish nesting-doll version of Punch and Judy, a vintage puppet show I studied during drama class at school.
Two other passengers are pixies, and I wonder if they were part of the group I met last year in Wonderland's cemetery. They look different without their miner's caps: bald, scaly heads with tufts of silvery hair. A plastic bag rattles between them as they take turns tossing peanuts at the cone-headed creature, inciting more arguments.
The pixies' long tails twitch and their spider-monkey faces twist to studious expressions as I meet their silver gazes. They have no pupils or irises, and their eyelids blink vertically like theater curtains.
They whisper to one another as I cup a hand over my nose to stifle the rotten meat stench oozing in silvery slime from their hides.
"Alice, sparkly talkeress," one says in a breathy voice as I come within hearing distance. "No ostlay isthay times?"
The dialect is an odd mix of pig latin and nonsense. He wants to know if I'm lost this time.
"Not Alice, stupidess," the other shushes before I can answer. "And only thinkers ostlay here. Thinkers and omentsmays."
I continue down the aisle, too absorbed in my problems to engage.
The beetle conductor scribbles something on a clipboard while chatting with the last three passengers. These are round and fluffy, with eyes affixed to tall, fuzzy stems that look more like rabbit ears than eye sockets. They watch as I pass, their pupils dilating with each rotation of their ears.
The fattest one sneezes in answer to a question the conductor asks, and a cloud of dirt puffs up from its fur.
"Blasted dust bunnies," the beetle bellows, and drags a vacuum cleaner from a holster at his waist, proceeding to suck the dirt from his carpeted hide.
I settle in an unoccupied row up front and hunch down by a window, waiting for the conductor. He was supposed to check on something-lost memories I need to see. They're not mine. I'll be spying on someone else's missing moments.
Mom felt guilty for visiting Dad's lost memories behind his back. Her wisdom makes me cautious. But the one whose mind I'll be violating doesn't deserve my respect. She's vicious and vengeful. She almost stole my body, and has managed to tear apart my life and most of Wonderland's landscapes.
Morpheus always says that everyone has a weakness. If he were here, he would tell me to find hers, so when I face her again I can crush her.
I intend to do just that.
The carpet beetle's vacuum whines, muffling the arguing, sneezing, and shushing going on around me. I lean back and look up at the chandeliers made of fireflies-each half the size of my arm-bound together by brass harnesses and chains. The glowing insects dip and dive, painting brushstrokes of yellow light across the red velvet walls. I tilt my head and stare out the window. More firefly fixtures illuminate the darkness, rolling across the tunnel's ceiling like glittery Ferris wheels.
I suppress a yawn. I'm exhausted, but too keyed up to close my eyes. I can't seem to settle in time and place. Just yesterday, I was at a table in the asylum's sun-filled courtyard, tricking my dad into eating a mushroom that would shrink him. That seems like an eternity ago, but not nearly as long as it's been since I've hugged Mom…argued with Morpheus…kissed Jeb. I miss Mom's scent, how she smells after working in the garden-like overturned soil and flowers. I miss the way Morpheus's jeweled eye markings flit through a rainbow of emotions when he challenges me, and I miss the arrested expression Jeb always used to wear when he painted.
The littlest things I once took for granted have become priceless treasures.
My stomach growls. Dad and I didn't have breakfast, and my body tells me it's lunchtime. I tuck my hand into the apron tied over my stiff, mud-caked hospital gown and roll the remaining mushrooms between my fingers. I'm hungry enough to consider eating one but won't. The magic within that made us small enough to ride butterflies will make us big once we're done here. I need to preserve them.
My outline reflects back from the windowpane: blue gown, white apron, frazzled blond hair with a streak of crimson down one side.
The first pixie was right. I'm the epitome of Alice.
A nightmare Alice.
An Alice gone mad, who thirsts for blood.
When I find Queen Red, she'll beg me to stop at her head.
I snort at the silly rhyme, then sober as the beetle turns off his vacuum attachment. He straightens his black conductor hat and hobbles over on two of his six twiggy legs. The other two sets serve as arms, cradling a clipboard.
"Well?" I ask, looking up at him.
"I found three memories. From long ago, when she was young and unmarried. Before she was"-he looks around and lowers his voice to a whisper-"queen."
"Perfect," I answer. I start to stand but settle in my seat again as he pushes my shoulder with a spiny arm.
"First you ruin the one way back to Wonderland, making me a babysitter of dust bunnies and smelly pixies. Now you want I should endanger my life by showing you…"-he studies the passengers behind me, his crisscrossed mandibles trembling-"her private memories." There's a clicking sound surrounding his whisper, like snapping fingers.
I grind my teeth. "Since when do netherlings respect anyone's privacy? That's not in your code of ethics. In fact, most of you don't know what ethics are."
"I know all I need to know. I know that she's not forgiving, that one." He's avoiding her name, keeping her anonymous.
I follow his lead. "She'll never know you showed me."
The conductor flips pages on his clipboard and scribbles something with his pen, stalling. "There's another issue of concern," he says louder this time. "The memories are repudiates."
"What does that mean?"
"She wasn't forced to forget. She chose to. Took a forgetting potion."
"Even better," I say. "She's afraid of them for some reason. That's to my advantage."
The clicking sound grows as his mandibles quiver. "Ideally, you could use them as a weapon. Repudiated memories are tainted with volatile emotional magic. They want revenge against the one who made and discarded them. But you would have to carry them to her, keeping them dormant in your mind. Being a half-blood, you aren't strong enough."
I bristle at his condescension. "Mortals have their own way of making memories dormant. They write them down so the past doesn't preoccupy their thoughts. All I need is a journal."
He holds his pen an inch from my nose. "That won't work with enchanted memories, lessen your book is filled with enchanted paper to bind them. Sadly, I've ne'er heard of such a magic journal. You?"
I glare in silence.
"I thought not." The beetle taps my nose with the pen's tip.
Snarling, I snatch it away and shove it in my pocket, daring him to get it back.
"Fool girl. When repudiated memories nest inside a mind, they become like earworms, playing over and over to a painful degree. Best-case scenario, they cause you to sympathize with your prey so you're worthless against them. Worst case, you're driven to madness. Are you willing to risk losing so much?"
I rub my hands along my bent knees, then tuck the excess material of my hospital gown under my hips. No matter how terrifying it is to imagine someone else's hostile memories eating away my mind, finding Red's weakness is the only way to defeat her.
"I've already lost everything and I've already gone mad." I meet his bulbous gaze. "Need a demonstration?"
Multiple eyelids flick across his compound eyes. Bugs aren't supposed to have eyelids or lashes, but this isn't a typical bug. He's a looking-glass insect, or reject, depending on if you choose Carroll's terminology or the carpet beetle's.
The beetle was swallowed by tulgey wood and turned away at AnyElsewhere's gate. He was then coughed back up as a mutant. Which is exactly what almost happened to Jeb and Morpheus. Thankfully, they were accepted into the looking-glass world, although the thought of them alone there opens a whole new level of horror. Morpheus won't be able to use his magic because of the iron dome, and Jeb is only human. How does either of them stand a chance in a land of murderous, exiled netherlings?
A silent scream of frustration burns inside my lungs.
I lower my voice so only the conductor can hear. "I used to collect insects. I'd pin them to corkboards. Had them plastered all over my walls. I've been thinking of taking it up again. Maybe you'd like to be my first piece."
The conductor either grimaces or frowns-a tough call with all those moving facial features. He motions toward the aisle. "This way, madam."
We head toward the private rooms. Two doors down from Dad's, the beetle stops, looks over his shoulder to assure we weren't followed, and drops a brass nameplate into place: Queen Red.
My wing buds tingle, wanting to burst free. A brew of magic and rage simmers just beneath my skin. Ready, waiting.
The conductor starts to unlock the door, then pauses. "I attended a garden party at her palace once." He's whispering again. "Watched her shave the skin off that Door Mouse's friend…that hare fellow."
I cringe, remembering when I first saw the hare at the tea party a year ago, how he appeared to be turned inside out. "March Hairless? Red skinned him?"
The beetle nods so frantically his cap nearly falls off. "She caught him nibbling the rose petals. Granted, they'd been planted in honor of her dead father. But still. She used a garden hoe to do it, like a vegetable peeler…flayed his hide. Blood spritzed all over the guests. Ruined everyone's best white suits and all the daisies. Ever hear a rabbit scream? You don't forget a sound like that."
I study the bug's blinking eyelids. He's losing his nerve. I sympathize, having been on the receiving end of Red's violence myself. She once used my blood veins like marionette strings-the most physically excruciating experience of my life. She even left behind an imprint on my heart…one that I can still feel, a distinct pressure.
Lately, it's more than just pressure. Ever since that fated night when everything went wrong at prom, when I embraced my madness, the press upon my heart has evolved to a recurrent twinge of pain, like something inside is slowly unraveling.
I haven't told Dad. I was busy practicing my magic, concocting my plan. My loved ones need me to win this battle, to be stronger than Red for good this time.
I don't have the luxury of getting a doctor's appointment. And it wouldn't help anyway. Whatever's wrong with me was brought on by magic. Red's magic. My gut knows. And I'm going to make her fix it before I end her sorry existence forever.
More determined than before, I reach for the key the conductor's holding.
He tucks it under his hat and then fiddles with the nameplate, trying to get it out of its slot. "I changed my mind," he says through popping mandibles. "A bug is wont to do that, at times."
"No." I grip his twiglike arm. It would be so easy to snap. A fluttering temptation shadows my thoughts-taunting me to be cutthroat-but I pull back and lay a palm across my chest, pledging. "I vow on my life-magic, I'll never tell her you showed me."
"Best you have a seat and wait for your father," the conductor says. Fumbling around beneath the shag that covers his thorax, he pulls out a package of peanuts and hands them to me. "You must be hungry after your journey. Have some lunch."
"I'm not budging until I see her memories, bug in a rug." I drop the peanuts at my feet and press my back to the door, blocking the nameplate.
The beetle makes an angry gurgling sound. "Doesn't matter if my body is made of rugs. My mind works just as well as yours."
"Obviously not. You've forgotten what Morpheus told you. I'm royalty."
"Ah, but Morpheus isn't here, is he?"
I struggle to think of a comeback, but the memory of why Morpheus isn't here ices through me, making my tongue as ineffective as a slab of frozen beef.
"You're nothing more than a royal pain," the conductor taunts. "You are aware we're under an iron bridge? Netherling magic is limited here. It's why we store the lost memories in this place-to keep them safe. So you can't force me to do anything. And I won't get squashed under the thumb of Queen Red for a scrawny, powerless half-blood snippet."
A hot flash of pride pulses through me, defrosting my tongue. "Maybe you should worry more about being trapped than being squashed."
I call upon the firefly chandeliers overhead, envisioning them as giant metal jellyfish. Chains rattle and bolts snap loose from the ceiling. The harnesses pop open, releasing their firefly captives. Thrilled to be free, the glowing insects bounce and spiral around the car like a planetarium show on steroids. The other passengers screech and burrow under their seats.
Yelping, the conductor tries to back away as the chandelier contraptions swim toward us through the air-their metal tentacles propelling them in a graceful yet disturbing display. I duck and the chains capture the bug, knocking off his hat and thrusting him toward a wall. The bolts snap into place and form a giant metal net. He's pinned inside, high enough that his legs dangle off the ground.
The fireflies hover and cast a soft glow.
Teeth clenched, I fish the key from beneath the conductor's fallen hat along with the bag of peanuts. "There's a new queen in town." I glare up at him. "And because of my human-tainted blood, my magic is unaffected by iron. So Red's got nothing on me." I start toward Queen Red's door.
"Wait," the beetle pleads. "Forgive my impertinence, Your Majesty. You've made a fair point. But I'm the conductor. I must protect the reserves of lost memories from the stowaways. Let me down, I beg of you!"
I swivel on my heel to face the others. They peer out from under their seats-eyes ogling, tails drooping, hair frizzed-sneezing and trembling in fear.
The conductor whimpers as I toss the bag of peanuts at him. It snags inside one of the chains close to his left arms.
"He's on his lunch break," I tell the passengers. "Anyone who leaves their seats for any reason will have to deal with me. Are we clear?"
The stowaways answer with a collective nod and cautiously settle back into their places. A tendril of satisfaction unfurls within me.
Smirking, I slip the key into place, and open the door to my enemy's past.
