Unhinged: 2 (37 page)

My hair slaps around my face. Up, up, up, through the strands of grass and looming flowers until my boots skim the tops of the giant trees. The height is exhilarating, and I’m little enough that no one can see me from the village.

I catch up to the butterfly. Jeb moans and droops in her hold. As if choreographed, we descend on a current of air. I follow her into a crack in the brick foundation of the iron bridge. We maneuver through the hole and burst out into a deserted elevator passageway where arriving train passengers used to wait for rides up to the village. The muffled sounds of cars and people overhead drift in through vents. I hover in midair next to the butterfly, keeping Jeb in my sight.

The tunnel is lit with moving chandeliers, rolling like miniature Ferris wheels across the curved, stone ceiling. As they come closer, I realize they’re actually clusters of lightning bugs, harnessed together. Each rotation illuminates dingy tiled walls and faded advertising from the 1950s. The posters are giant compared to me—as big as buildings.

The train, on the other hand, is just the right size, and it’s now obvious what Morpheus meant about it not being a form of transport. In a shadowy corner, a rusted tin train set is tucked within a pile of toys—some wooden blocks, a pinwheel, some jigsaw puzzle pieces, and a few rubber jacks. The playthings were either forgotten or abandoned by children waiting with their parents at the elevator decades ago. A large sign hangs over the pile. The words
LOST AND
FOUND
have been marked out and replaced by the phrase
TRAIN OF THOUGHT
.

Boxcars, flatcars, and passenger cars connect to an engine and caboose, perfectly scaled to our current size. Through the shadows, I can barely make out the title
Memory’s Mystic Band
painted in black letters across the red engine.

The butterfly deposits Jeb next to one of the passenger cars. I hurry after her, trying to remember how to land. The car door opens. Something that looks like a walking rug wearing a black conductor hat steps out and drags Jeb in. I skim the dirt with my boots to slow my momentum, dropping the backpack. I’m unable to thank the butterfly as she leaves, too busy keeping my balance.

I skate to a stop as the carpet creature shuts the door.

“Wait!” I cry, sprinting toward the train and clambering onto the car’s platform.

After I pound on the door several times, the shaggy creature opens it.

He blocks the entrance; I can’t see around him into the train. “State your name and your business.” His high-pitched voice crackles and snaps as he speaks.

The car’s amber glow illuminates his form: six sticklike legs—two sets serving as arms—compound eyes, crisscrossed mandibles that click when he talks, an oval-shaped thorax and abdomen hidden under a hide of shag carpet.

“Bug in a rug … is that it?” I ask.

His mandibles droop as if he’s scowling. “I prefer ‘carpet beetle,’
madam
. Just because I stumbled into the tulgey wood and was swallowed and turned away at AnyElsewhere’s gate doesn’t give you the right to talk down to me. You think
you’d
fare any better as a reject?”
He sniffs, or maybe huffs—it’s hard to tell with his many moving facial features. “You certainly don’t act like someone who wishes to board this train.”

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.” In my Shop of Human Eccentricities memory, toys and objects were spit back out of the tulgey wood shelves in mutated forms. I had no idea the same thing could happen to
living
things, too.

“You act like I’m the queerest thing you’ve seen come out of those woods.” The carpet beetle drags a vacuum attachment from a holster at his side and flips it on. It whistles and hums, sucking dust from his carpeted coat. “Have you never met the carpenter ant?” He raises his voice over the noise as he cleans himself. “Her whole body is made of tools. She has a saw for a hand! Try making her acquaintance without losing a finger. Or the earwig? Entire body is an ear. Feeds herself through a dirty old ear horn. Least I’m pleasant to dine with. And that hornet fellow … blows out your eardrums with a trumpet call each time his wings flutter. I’m by far the most palatable of the looking-glass rejects. And the cleanest, to be sure.” Satisfied with his vacuuming job, he turns off the attachment and secures it in the holster once more.

Looking-glass rejects = looking-glass insects.

Another near-consistency with the Wonderland novels. Carroll mentioned bread-and-butterflies, rocking-horse-flies, and snapdragon-flies. Maybe they had all been spit back out of the tulgey woods in strange and awful forms.

“Now, last chance,” the carpet beetle says. “Name and business. Make it quick.” He turns the pages of a small journal with a spindly foreleg, cradling the book with two others. “I’ve passengers already on the manifest, waiting for their ride. Time’s a-wasting.”

“I’m Alyssa. I’m here with one of your passengers. The human boy you just pulled in.” I try to peer around the bug’s fluffed-out body to see where Jeb is, but he blocks me.

He closes the journal. “Did you say Alyssa? As in Queen Alyssa of the nether-realm?”

“Yes … that’s me,” I answer cautiously.

“Well, why didn’t you say so from the get-go? I’ve been expecting you. This way.” The bug moves, two of his forelegs gesturing me inside.

I step in. The passenger car is resplendent, ceiling aglow with more firefly chandeliers, although these don’t roll. Crimson velvet hangings line the walls. Red and black tiles cover the floor. The front section has rows of empty white vinyl seats like those on a typical passenger train. The back is divided into private rooms, outer walls shiny black with red closed doors—three rooms on either side with a narrow center aisle separating them. I follow the conductor down the aisle.

“Morpheus said you’d be coming on behalf of a mortal guest,” explains the beetle.

My heartbeat skips, hopeful. “You mean Morpheus is here?”

“
Was
here,” my host responds. “This morning. Haven’t seen him since.”

My hope fades. “But he told you I’d be bringing a mortal? How could he have known?”

“Nay. I didn’t say that. He told me you’d be coming
on behalf
of one. Told me the lad’s name, so I could ready his memories for transfer.”

“Jebediah Holt, right?”

The beetle stops next to the first two rooms and turns to face me,
scratching the carpet under his hat as if puzzled. “Never heard that name.”

“He’s the boy who came with me. The one the butterfly dropped off a few minutes ago. Where is he?”

“The boy who came in before you … ah, yes. He’s in this room here.”

The conductor points to the first door on my right. There are brass brackets on each door with removable nameplates. Jeb’s is marked
Nameless
. I reach for the knob, but it’s locked. I try to force the door open, leaning in with one winged shoulder.

“Now, we’ll have none of that.” The conductor grabs my wrist with his spiny leg, and I shudder from the cold, prickly sensation.

I pull away and frown. “I need to make sure he’s okay.”

“He’s about to be.”

“Shouldn’t you at least put his name on the door?”

“His memories can find him on their own now that he’s here. They’ve been waiting for him, after all. But since you are to view memories that aren’t yours, we needed a name to coax them in.”

I look over my shoulder at Jeb’s door as we walk down the aisle. I don’t want anyone else’s memories; I don’t need to know any more secrets; I just want to make sure my boyfriend’s all right. My throat tightens as we come to the last room on the left. I force myself to look at the name in the bracket:
Thomas Gardner.

Even though a part of me suspected as much, I gasp, holding my hand at my numb lips.

The conductor opens the door and leads me into a small, windowless room that smells like almonds. On one side, an ivory tapestry hangs above a cream-colored chaise lounge. An ornate brass floor lamp stands beside it, casting a soft glow. On the other side there’s
a small stage complete with red velvet curtains that appear ready to part at any moment to show a silent movie on a silver screen.

“Have a seat, and the show will begin shortly,” the beetle instructs.

“Right. The show.” I settle into the chaise, arranging my wings on either side of me. There’s a small table to my left holding a plate piled with moonbeam cookies on a lace doily. My mouth waters as I grab a handful. I scarf down three before I realize the bug is staring at me with his compound eyes.

“Sorry,” I say between gulps. As I speak, silver beams radiate from my mouth, reflecting around the room. “I was hungry.”

“Yes, well, that’s what they’re there for. Just expected royalty to have a bit more couth is all.”

I cover my mouth to hide a hiccup. Light flashes from between my fingers.

The beetle clears his throat. “You get to choose which head to ride in.” He looks at his passenger manifest. “Would you prefer your mother or your father?”

“My mother? I thought this was my dad’s memory,” I ask, confused.

“It’s a memory they share. So there’s a residue of your mother’s insights imprinted on his. Whomever’s eyes you watch it through affects the perspective.”

I bite my lip. This is my chance. A unique opportunity to understand what took place all those years ago, why Mom made the choices she made. Everything will be the truth, because memories don’t lie.

“I want to see it through my mom’s point of view.” I croak the answer, not sure what’s about to happen or how it’s possible to step into another person’s past.

“Noted.” The conductor scribbles something in his journal, then punches a button on the wall with his spindly leg. The stage curtains open, revealing a movie screen. “Picture her face in your mind whilst staring at the empty screen and you will experience their past as if it were today.”

He turns a dial that snuffs out the lamp and then closes the door, leaving me alone. I do as instructed, envisioning Mom’s youthful face, picturing her as she looked in photographs from years ago when she and Dad were dating, when she was sixteen, the age she was when she went to Wonderland.

An image comes to life on the screen in vivid color, but instead of staying in its place, it stretches toward me … reeling me in. I feel my seams fraying—my cells and atoms breaking up and floating apart, then re-forming on the screen. I’m looking out of my mother’s eyes, sharing all of her thoughts and sensory cues.

We’re in the garden of souls. She’s alone, following Morpheus’s instructions, only two squares away from becoming the queen.

I had no idea she ever made it this far …

“Harness the power of a smile,” she whispers to herself. “Where are you, Chessie?”

I recognize the surroundings, although they’re new to her. She took a wrong turn and hasn’t realized it yet. A stale-smelling chill hangs on the air, and snow blankets the ground. Everything is silent—not at all like the cries and laments I remember from my visit. Dead weeping willow trees, slick with ice, are hung with an endless array of teddy bears and stuffed animals, plastic clowns and porcelain dolls, clinging to the branches on webby nooses. Each one holds a restless soul, yet all of them are sleeping peacefully.

Mom’s on a mission to win the crown. It’s all she’s been thinking
of for the past three years. The determination in her pounding heart overpowers her fear as she treks farther into Sister Two’s lair than I ever went, far past the trees and slumbering toys. She’s seeking the source of the glowing roots that connect every tree and branch. The light pulses with a steady rhythm, like a heartbeat.

She’s led to a shelter of ivy. Inside, there’s a thick sheath of web alive with light and breath. She draws closer, morbidly intrigued by the humanoid form wrapped inside. The glowing roots are attached to its head and chest, siphoning the light from the creature.

Glancing over her shoulder to be sure she’s alone, Mom peels gossamer threads from the creature’s face. Her breath freezes in her lungs. It’s not just humanoid, it’s an actual human. A boy who looks close to her age.

My dad.

But she has no idea she’s going to love him. Not yet. All she knows is, he’s beautiful.

She traces his features with a fingertip. His lashes tremble, and his eyelids open to reveal soulful brown eyes. He doesn’t seem to see her. To see anything.

But in his eyes she sees the same loneliness she’s faced her whole life, bouncing from foster home to foster home while struggling to hide her differences from those around her. Here in Wonderland, she feels like she could find a place, be accepted, although it’s not the same for him. He’s lonely and afraid, even if he’s in a trance and doesn’t realize it. One can’t hide loneliness like that.

Snow crunches behind Mom, and she turns to face Sister One—the good twin.

The netherling’s translucent skin is flushed, and she’s out of breath. Her long, peppermint-striped hoop skirt is soaked with snow
at the hem. “You weren’t to come here,” she scolds Mom between breaths, shoving tendrils of silvery hair off her face. “You must wake the dead in my gardens. I was to get the smile for you.”

Mom swallows. “Who is this?”

Sister One glances at the cocooned victim. “My sister’s humanling. His dreams keep her spirits’ discontent at bay. Surely Morpheus has told you how the cemetery works.”

Mom clenches her jaw. “Knowing how things work and seeing them in action are two entirely different things.”

Sister One stands taller, exposing the tips of her eight legs beneath her skirt. “Keep your eye on the prize, little Alison. If you’re to be queen, you must accept the way of our world. Some things cannot be changed without terrible consequences.”

Mom looks back at the teenage boy. “But he’s close to my age. Morpheus said when they get too old to dream, your sister poisons them and gives their bodies to the pixies.”

“Aye. The pixies use the bones for our stairways, and the flesh feeds the flower fae. Everything serves a purpose. Nothing is wasted.”

“Nothing but a human life.” Mom’s surprised by her own reaction: disdain and disgust. She thought she could accept the dark and gruesome rituals of this place, but her heart softens. “Let me have him. She’s going to dispose of him anyway. Let me take him back to the human realm and give him a chance to live.”