While Dad goes with Uncle Bernie to collect weapons and practice a few more fencing moves, I wander the halls in search of Chessie.
I'm afraid to call his name aloud, considering Hubert's reaction to me and how so many netherling guests share his prejudice. Instead, I call to Chessie in my mind, hoping I have the ability like Morpheus does. Hoping it's a netherling talent I can master.
A door opens and I duck into the shadows. A maid comes out, pushing a cleaning cart. Ski-shaped runners provide momentum in place of wheels, so the cart moves smoothly over the cushioned floor. A combination of ground pepper and cleaning products stings my nostrils as she passes by.
The maid's profile reminds me of a bulldog-complete with a flat, wet muzzle that causes her to snort with each breath. Her body resembles a pig's, aside from her lobster-claw hands. Tufts of fur speckle her greenish cheeks, elbows, and knees from beneath a short-aproned uniform.
On her cart, three transparent hooded coveralls are crumpled in a pile, revealing subtle folds and pleats that disrupt the atmosphere. It looks like Bill the Lizard is sending his simulacrum suits out for cleaning.
"It connects with the wearer's mind and reflects their surroundings. Observers are deluded into seeing only the body parts that are bared…. Comes in handier than you'd think."
Yeah, I bet it does, Hubert. If Dad and I were invisible, it would be easy to smuggle us into AnyElsewhere's gate. And since we're going into a war zone, we could use some camouflage.
I fall into line behind the maid, debating how to get the suits. I might have to resort to magic.
"Excuse me," I say softly.
She turns, snarling. Embossed letters glimmer on her brassy name tag: Duchess. Come to think of it, she does favor the duchess sketch from my mom's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland book. I'm not sure why a duchess is cleaning rooms at an inn. Unless I got her stuck here, too. In which case it's better not to introduce myself.
"What do you want?" Her question is more of a growl. Her teeth remind me of peppercorns, just like those of the piggish creature I met at the Feast of Beasts last year: the duchess's son. He gave us the pepper to wake the tea party guests. The family resemblance is unmistakable.
"I could use some clean towels," I say. While she's distracted with the lower shelf, I'll snag the suits from the top and run.
"These are velvet robes, not towels. Complimentary to our most valued customers. The boss keeps count of them. If any go missing, they come out of my paycheck." She waves me away with her feather duster.
I catch the feathers and she clamps the handle, engaging in a tug-of-war.
"Your boss wouldn't mind if you give me one," I insist. "We've become fast friends." The lie sounds as stale as it tastes on my tongue, but it doesn't matter because a cloud of orange, glittery mist appears behind the maid's shoulder-silent and stealthy. Before Chessie's body even materializes, I know it's him.
I bite back a smile. He did hear me.
I send a silent explanation of what I'm after and Chessie bows, grinning that wide, mischievous smile. He's always ready to leap into the thick of things without question, just for the fun of it. No wonder Morpheus considers him a worthy sidekick.
"About the robes," I say to the piggish maid. "I only need one. You can just tell Hubert it sprouted legs and walked away." I give Chessie a subtle nod. With a swish of orange and gray stripes, he tunnels into the pile of folded velvet robes on the corner of her cart.
"Do I look asleep to you?" the duchess asks me.
"No. Why?"
"Because the saying goes, 'Let sleeping dogs lie.' Well, I'm not asleep, so I don't intend to lie." She jerks the feather duster from my grasp. "Now, off with you."
The instant the "off with you" escapes her mashed-in muzzle, a velvety robe scurries across the floor, long sleeves draped behind. The maid yelps, her orange eyes bouncing from me to the escaping robe.
"Looks like you won't be lying after all," I say.
She throws down her duster and gives chase. The robe floats like a magic carpet with Chessie propelling it underneath. The maid has to get on all fours to catch up.
As soon as they turn a corner, I grab the transparent coveralls and race the opposite direction toward an intersection of three halls. I have a passing thought of Chessie and send him a soundless thank-you. I'm not worried for his welfare. He won't be captured unless he wants to be.
I round a corner and bump into Dad.
"Whoa there." He catches my shoulders. "Where have you been?"
"Trying…to find you," I fib between gulps of air. The fabric billows in my arms but can only be felt, not seen.
Dad wouldn't condone stealing. That will change once we're in AnyElsewhere, where his conscience will take a backseat to self-preservation.
Jeb pops into my head. He's like Dad in so many ways. Protective, moral, and kind. Has he lost his strict sense of black-and-white, of right and wrong, to adapt to a world of netherling criminals? He's had to. He's a survivor. His childhood proves that.
I just hope he hasn't forgotten how to forgive. And I hope Morpheus will forgive me, too.
Even if they have, things will still be complicated, because of the vision the Ivory Queen showed me before she went back through the rabbit hole on the day of prom, and what a life with Morpheus could mean to Wonderland.
That puncturing sensation jabs inside my chest, reminding me again of Red. Of what's important now. Any decisions about my future will have to wait until Red has corrected whatever she put wrong in me and I destroy her.
"This way." Dad holds my elbow. "Bernard's waiting for us in the mirror room."
Ignoring the sting behind my sternum, I drag the duffel from Dad's shoulder. He's so busy watching room numbers that he doesn't notice me rearrange water bottles, protein packets, trail mix, fruit, first aid supplies, flares, and assorted iron weapons so I can tuck the stolen fabric beneath them.
Borrowed fabric. When I get back, I'll return the enchanted clothes with an apology.
My breath stalls as I realize there's no "when" in our scenario from this point on. Before Dad and I can face the looking-glass world and rescue the guys, or help Mom and repair Wonderland, we have to first make it through the portal and the gate.
Everything-our lives, our loves, our futures-hinges on one word alone: IF.
Dad takes the duffel bag back as we step into room 42.
He's filled me in on what will happen once we enter the gate of AnyElsewhere: how we'll jump into an otherworldly funnel of ash and wind that carries prisoners to the center of the realm and the guards from one gate to another.
First, though, we have to take the mirror portal to the gateway.
I expected the chamber's walls to be covered with mirrors. Instead, it has cushions. The circumference is larger than our private room, and there's no furniture, only a circular, enclosed contraption in the center of the floor. It's so tall, it nearly touches the ceiling.
Bright colors shimmer on the metal exterior, and lines of fat white bulbs dot each separate panel-extinguished and lifeless. It resembles a small version of a Gravitron ride. That was always the first line Jenara, Jeb, and I would hit when the county fair came into town.
A sharp twinge of longing echoes through me with the taste of cotton candy and the smell of corn dogs. It was like magic, the way we'd stand against the inside of a cylinder and the ride would spin fast enough for the floor to drop out, yet we'd stay in place against the walls. I know now it wasn't magic that held us up; it was centrifugal force. I also know now what real magic is-and that it comes with a cost.
The ache for simpler times with my two best friends is so acute, I step forward and run my fingers along the cool, slick panels to distract myself. A loud whirring sound activates as the motor kicks on and the lights start to blink-bright and garish. Dad jerks me back.
"What did I do?" I ask.
"Nothing. It's okay. Right as rain." He's smiling with a faraway look on his face. His eyes glisten with boyhood wonder in the blinking lights.
"Dad, you never told me…how did you end up going through the gate that leads to Wonderland?"
His fingertips take over where mine left off, stroking the metal panels. "Uncle William was teaching me how to open it, just the two of us, when he fell to his knees. He was struggling to breathe. I was too small to drag him to a wind funnel, and I knew if I took one for help, he'd be dead before I got back with someone." Dad purses his lips, as if the confession has a distinctive flavor-sour and biting. "He started turning blue. I panicked. I'd heard stories about Wonderland. That the creatures had healing powers. I let myself through the gate…thought I could get help faster that way. I knew they could be evil, but I'd also heard some were kind. Unfortunately, I met with evil first." He presses his forehead to the machine, lights flashing along his skin as he squeezes his eyes shut.
I put my hand on his shoulder, haunted by the image of him trapped inside Sister Two's lair, wrapped in web with glowing roots attached to his head and chest. His dreams were being siphoned away to feed the restless dead. He'd been Sister Two's prized dream-boy for ten years before Mom rescued him. This isn't the time to tell Dad that he might be facing that same evil again once we get to Wonderland. That Sister Two might have Mom in her webby clutches, unless she was able to escape somehow.
"Dad, you were just a kid. You made the only decision you could. You were right, too. If your uncle's skin was blue, he wouldn't have lasted until you got back with someone."
Dad sighs and lifts his head. "He'd had a stroke. Bernie told me they found him dead by the gate, and me missing." Squinting, he eases his thumb into a space between two panels and pushes. He steps back before a door flings open and a set of motorized metal stairs drops down.
Uncle Bernie pokes his head out of the ride's entrance. He's wearing a fresh White knight's uniform. "So, you do remember how to get inside. There's a good sign."
Just like that, Dad's sadness melts away. He smirks and hands up the duffel bag.
I stare at him in disbelief. First, I saw him fence like an expert. Now, he's the master of secret doorways. How can this be the same man who raised me? The man who read picture books in funny voices, who packed my lunches and never forgot that I liked graham crackers with my applesauce?
I thought he was so normal. Yet he'd had an extraordinary life ahead of him, before he was lost in Wonderland.
Dad helps me up the stairs behind him. Inside, we face innumerable images of ourselves amid black-and-white checks reflected off the floor. Mirrors upon mirrors slant along the round interior, covering the walls and domed ceiling and forming reflections that cast other reflections until there's no end and no beginning. The illusion of infinity.
Carousel horses-in vivid colors and wild poses-appear to rise from the checked floor, captured in the reflections, yet none exist where we stand.
"The carousel…is it painted on the mirrors?" No sooner do I ask then I realize it's similar to the moth spirits in the mirrored hall at Morpheus's manor in Wonderland, except the horses aren't trapped inside the reflection. They're behind it somehow.
"You see the carousel?" Dad asks. He and Uncle Bernie exchange surprised glances.
"It would seem your girl is more Skeffington than merely her sense of humor," Uncle Bernie teases, patting the top of my head as he scoots around us in the tight corridor.
Dad takes my hand and leads me through the circular surroundings. "What you're seeing is the other side of the portal, Allie. None of the females in our family have ever had that ability."
Uncle Bernie nods. "Could also be Alison's lineage."
As if sensing my quiver at the mention of Mom, Dad squeezes my hand. "The reflected reflections…" He motions around us. "The unending loop of images…they're like an optical code. Only those with the gene can make out the two-way mirror effect. The carousel is outside the entrance to the looking-glass world. The Knighthood put it in place decades ago, piece by piece, because the area surrounding the gate is barren. We needed something to aim for on the other side. Now, once we discern which horses are real and not just reflections, we jump astride them through the portal."
"Okay," I say cautiously. "But why can't you use a room of mirrors for the starting point? Why a Gravitron?"
"Well, this isn't how we've always done things," Uncle Bernie answers as he opens a metal breaker box and flips a few switches. "In the earlier years, before such motorized amusements were perfected, our ancestors used to go to carnivals in search of mirrored funhouses. It was risky. They chanced being seen by other thrill seekers. So they began to build their own infinity-mirror rooms. But it's hard to get enough thrust to leap through the portal. Sometime in the 1950s, we started seeing the Rotor rides. They gave us a way to use centripetal force to our advantage."
"I thought it was centrifugal." I'm feeling woozy, and the ride hasn't even started.
"Centrifugal force is reactionary," my uncle says. "It only exists because of centripetal. If you spin around and stretch your arm while holding a hammer, you're exerting centripetal force to make the object follow a curved path. But you'll feel the hammer pulling your hand from your body. That is centrifugal-a coercion in the opposite direction. Our ride has been adjusted to use both forces against one another so that when the floor drops, your body will lurch forward, like what would happen to the hammer were you to let it go while spinning. It makes entry simpler."
I huff. "Yeah, that sounds…anything but simple." I don't stop to consider how we're supposed to land on top of carousel horses without damaging important body parts. The laws of nature are different on the other side, and that has to play a role somehow. Still, I'm taunted by the memory of the mirror I crashed into on prom night. How the glass shattered and sliced my skin. "If you misjudge, that could be painful."
"Painful, but tolerable." Uncle Bernie closes the ride's door. Orangey sparkles seep through spaces in the panels from outside the ride. "That's how one acquires wisdom. By getting a bonk on the noggin, or a bloody nose. We learn through our mistakes, don't we?"
I tap the diary at my neck. Unless, like Red, you choose to forget your mistakes, in which case you never learn.
"There's a trick to it," Dad adds. "If you look closely, some of the horses have shadows cast by the carousel's lights. Others don't. The ones with shadows are real."
I focus on the carousel, shocked by how quickly I pick out the real ones. The thought of being thrust toward a plane of glass at high speed makes my pulse kick so fast, I can feel my blood shuttling through my veins. I might've leapt off a butterfly into a stormy sky earlier, but this isn't like flying. I'll have no wind to coast on. I'll have no control at all.
Now I know how Morpheus felt when he was afraid of riding in a car, and it's not so funny from this side.
The Gravitron's motor hums under my feet.
Dad tightens his fingers through mine. "This is the only way to get in and save your mom and Jeb. Just hold on to me and leap when I leap. It's my turn to sprout wings."
A nervous smile lifts one corner of my mouth.
"Speaking of wings." Uncle Bernie gestures to my back. "You should lose yours for now. The portal is small. We don't want you getting stuck."
I frown. I've grown used to my wings being out-to their promise of power. Reabsorbing them is second nature after all my practice at the asylum, although I miss their weight the instant they're gone.
I clench Dad's hand and don't let go as we press ourselves into position against the mirrored wall. Uncle Bernie holds the duffel bag since Dad and I are the newbies. Or, rather, Dad's adult body is new to it all.
The whir of the motor grows as we spin, around and around until our backs plaster to the mirror behind us, pinning us in place like the bugs I used to collect. My lungs squeeze, as if they're shrinking. I'm so disoriented I can't make out anything but a blur in the reflections. I gulp against the bile climbing into my esophagus.
Just when I think I'm going to lose my eggs Benedict, Dad yells, "Now!"
There's the sound of a lever being thrown. The floor drops and we're thrust forward, Dad and I linked by a chain of hands and fingers, just like that moment in Wonderland when Jeb and I sailed across the chasm on tea-cart trays.
The glass races toward us. I scream as the mirror bends like a bubble, stretches around us, then bursts so we break through and soar into the other realm.
Dad lets go of my hand. For an instant I'm floating, then I drift into place atop a carousel horse moving in sync with the Gravitron on the other side.
A warm, humid stench surrounds us like a stagnant swamp. Dad wasn't exaggerating when he said everything was barren here. The only lights come from the carousel. Up close, they're actually bioluminescent bugs in small glass globes. A fuzzy gray firmament shimmers overhead-a haze of nothing.
Black mist cloaks our surroundings, so thick I can't make out the ground beyond the ride's platform. There's no sound anywhere; even the gears of the carousel trundle along in silence.
Dad and Uncle Bernie fall onto their mounts in front of me. Dad's cousin Phillip, dressed in a Red knight's uniform, is already seated on a bench next to Uncle Bernie's horse. I grab the brass rod that holds my mount secure. Tiny triangular mirrors cover the center pole. Through them I can see the inside of the Gravitron. That's where we came out and where the knights must somehow go back in. It looks physically impossible, considering our size in contrast to the narrow bits of shimmering glass.
The adrenaline pumping inside me starts to slow as the ride comes to a stop. Dad takes the duffel from Uncle Bernie and helps me down. My legs waver as if trying to remember how to walk.
Together, the four of us step away from the light and into the nothing. My boots glide as if on air. I'd half expected to feel a sludgy mud sticking to my soles. The strange fog bubbles up around our knees, then falls to our ankles like a boiling, steamy stew, although nothing is wet. The mist has a sound-absorbing quality, eating up every whisper, breath, or shuffle of clothing and feet.
A glowing white gate looms in the distance. The iron dome rises behind it, dark and threatening, like a gargantuan, overturned witch's cauldron.
I pause. The plan my uncle and his cousin came up with-to distract the gate's eye as Dad and I creep through-is too dangerous. With the simulacrum suits, we're all assured safe passage. But we need to get them on before we're close enough for the gate to spot the four of us.
I tug at the duffel bag on Dad's shoulder, making him stop.
"I have to show you something," I attempt to say, but the sound is sucked away before it even leaves my tongue. Uncle Bernie said communication would be tricky here. I had no idea that meant our words would actually be swallowed by emptiness.
I take the duffel bag and pull on one pair of simulacrum coveralls over my clothes. The transparent fabric hangs off my shoulders and waist. I pull the pant legs' extra length over my feet and tie it in place to cover my boots.
Next, I concentrate on my settings and hold out my arms. The fabric shrinks, fitting my other clothes perfectly. As I keep my thoughts on my surroundings, the background begins to move through me. Only my bare hands can be seen, sticking out from the enchanted cuffs. The rest of my body appears to be gone. By pulling the sleeve cuffs over my fingers, I become nothing but a floating head.
Phillip and Uncle Bernie nod.
Within minutes, Dad has his invisibility gear on. Since he can't speak, he can't question where I got the camo or yell at me for how I went about it. He tucks the duffel under his arm inside the coveralls, so it's hidden from view. The hoods drape our faces so we can see through the fabric, but not be seen.
Our escorts start toward the gate. We follow, spaced far enough apart that we won't accidentally bump elbows or trip over each other's boots. As we get closer, what I thought were bars become scaly tentacles, white and writhing like albino snakes. An unexpected emotion overwhelms me. Not fear. Not trepidation.
It's an all-encompassing sense of loneliness as vast as the nothing around us.
Somewhere inside that gate are my two knights-the dark and the light. Morpheus has to be disappointed in me, for my colossal failure in destroying the entrances and exits to his beloved Wonderland. Then there's Jeb, who believes I threw away the most pure and devoted love I've ever known.
All these weeks I've been concerned for their physical well-being. But what about their emotional states? Jeb thinks I betrayed him. And Morpheus will thrive on feeding that misconception every chance he gets.
Maybe it's not the murderous prisoners or strange wildlife I should be worried about. It would be laughable to think that Morpheus took Jeb under his wings and helped him. All I can hope for is that by some miracle they parted ways without killing one another.
Again, my heart tugs in two directions-a literal, physical sensation that burns. I grit my teeth under my invisible veil, forcing myself to stay in step with our escorts.
We approach the gate. It stands over three stories high. Uncle Bernie strokes the serpentine bars. Even a nest of anacondas couldn't compete with their size. The scales pucker and release, muscles rippling underneath. There's no question how this gate kills its prey. One squeeze would crush anyone who violates the entrance.
These bars could obliterate armies. They probably have.
The image is so gruesome, I whimper-grateful for the sound-absorbing mist. In the gate's center, one snaky appendage pulls free of the others. A white, oblong protrusion resembling a Venus flytrap drops down in front of my uncle and Phillip. It's half the size of a human. As it opens, the jagged edges form eyelashes and a lone eyeball peers from inside, silver with a slitted black pupil, like a snake's eye. I suppress a shudder.
The lashes blink, slow and studious.
Uncle Bernie and Phillip stand their ground in front of us. The leafy creature hovers across them from head to toe. It lifts high enough to look over their shoulders and I hold my breath, afraid it will somehow sense me or Dad.
It squints before snapping closed and weaving back into the other tentacles. The snaky bars wind together on either side-like curtains being drawn. We step through as a united front, my hair bristling as I jab my elbow into my side to keep from brushing the scales.
I don't suck in a breath until the gate slithers into place behind us.
Dad and I draw back our hoods and share a sigh of relief. His brother and cousin pat my shoulder before stepping up to the top of the stone platform on either side of the threshold next to the knights they'll be relieving. A twister of ash and wind sweeps down in the distance, similar to the white tornadoes I've seen on weather shows.
There's more of the misty nothingness between the platform where we stand and AnyElsewhere's landscape. The vapor glows green, as if radioactive. According to Uncle Bernie's earlier rundown, instead of absorbing sound, it sucks up everything that attempts to cross it.
Both gates are separated from the terrain in such a way. The green glowing vortex holds the prisoners at bay, makes it impossible for them to storm the gates. They would have to control the wind funnels to get across. The other eyeball, the one that used to guard this side of the gate, was mentally connected to the funnels. The knights have formed medallions of the creature's remains and now harness that power to safely travel into and out of AnyElswhere.
After a short discussion with the knights, Uncle Bernie steps down and offers a mechanical pigeon to Dad. "Push the button under its throat." He demonstrates. "When the beak glows, you can record a message. Once you find the boy and make it to the Wonderland gate with the supplies, send us a message to let us know everyone's okay. The pigeon will find us. It's gilded with iron, to deter any of the prisoners from intercepting. You have one day. If we don't hear back within twenty-four hours, we'll follow the pigeon's homing beacon and find you."
Dad takes the iron-gilded bird, tucks it into our bag, and tries to talk. Nothing comes out.
Uncle Bernie nods. "You haven't built up a tolerance to the black mist you inhaled." He speaks loudly over the twister coming our way. "Your vocal cords will stay asleep for a half hour or so." He gestures behind us and we turn to see the funnel hovering close. Winds gust around us, slapping my braids against my face and neck.
"You remember how to do this?" my uncle shouts to my dad.
Dad nods.
"Step in and hold tight to each other," Uncle Bernie directs. He lifts a medallion at his neck, holding it up. An off-white oval shimmers in the center and red strands run through, jagged and fine like blood veins. Tarnished, brassy metal frames the strange stone. "We would give you a medallion of your own, but we can't risk it getting into the wrong hands. Since you have someone to find, I'll have the funnel drop you in the middle of the world, where we release the prisoners. Beware, though. The landscapes are unpredictable lately, and since the twisters are tied to them, they've become unruly. So we can't be sure exactly where you'll end up. We've provided a map. Look for both of the glowing green gates from where you land. They are the north and the south. Use them as the key to the map. Above all else, stay together."
Dad nods. Uncle Bernie hugs us both and nudges us toward the approaching funnel. I watch Dad's hand disappear into his suit as he tightens the duffel on his shoulder. He stares into my eyes. I want to crawl into his hug and hide, like I did as a little girl.
But I'm a woman and a queen now. And I'm the one responsible for all of this. There's no hiding anymore. I tip my chin. I'm ready.
We pull down our hoods to keep ash out of our faces, then leap inside together, holding tight as our feet lift and our bodies swirl. Within minutes, the funnel opens to reveal a snow-capped hill coming up fast beneath our feet. Scraggly, leafless trees dot the landscape at the base. I can't see the iron dome overhead. There's a false firmament between it and the ground that looks like an orange sky. A smoky tang stings my nose through the fabric, as if there's a fire somewhere close.
We're ejected onto the top of the peak, and the impact breaks us apart. Dad grabs for me but rolls down the opposite side of the incline, his hood opening so I can see his face and neck. It's a haunting image, as if he's been beheaded. I dig my nails through the fabric cloaking my hands in an effort to clutch the snow. But it's not snow at all. The hill is coated with ash like the funnel we arrived in. The terrain crumbles beneath my fingers and sends me skidding out of sight of Dad.
I remind myself he's been here as a child and survived, and this time he has the advantage of invisibility and a duffel filled with weapons.
My body twists sideways and the hood wraps tighter as I'm dragged along the dusty landslide. My bones clatter with the rough ride until a rock the size of a medicine ball slams into my stomach at the bottom of the hill. The impact knocks the air from my lungs.
I struggle to catch my breath.
"Well, bloody holiday. What have we here?" The deep, British accent strokes my eardrums like velvet.
I peer through my hood's fabric. Morpheus stands on the other side of the rock, gaze turned down on me. He glows in the orange dimness, a soft blue light radiating from his hair. A lilac shirt under his navy tapestry jacket complements his alabaster skin. Striped pants hug his streamlined silhouette. He wears a fedora cocked to one side. Although I can't make out the moths clustered around the hatband in this strange lighting, I know they're there.
He holds a cane. The eagle-head handle is so realistic it could be on a plaque at a taxidermy shop. Feathered wings wrap the shaft, and four paws sprout from the base, each one covered with golden fur like lion's feet. Talons splay from the toe-pads in place of claws.
Morpheus is as stylish and eccentric as I remember. Somehow, this place hasn't broken him. I'm so happy, I want to hug him-until I notice the angry red jewels blinking at the tips of his eye markings.
He tucks the walking stick beneath his arm and kneels close, wings drooping. Anger hardens his exquisite features. "Here I'd hoped never to see your face again."
