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.”
“Contrary that! I’m already to face the wrath of my sister for the smile I’m to steal for you. And you wish me to cross her further by taking her most prized pet? She treasures this humanling above all the hundreds of others she’s had. I’m not sure she plans to ever dispose of this one. She might use him until the day his heart stops and he’s a dreamless corpse. Sad, that. But it’s just the way of it.”