Dad tells me his real name is David Skeffington.
"Interesting," I say as we stride down the aisle. "And here I thought we'd end up related to Martin Gardner."
Dad frowns. "Who's that?"
"The guy behind The Annotated Alice. Some math wizard." I shrug. "Just shows how preoccupied Mom's thoughts were with Wonderland. When she couldn't find your real name, she gave you one that fit into the Lewis Carroll legacy."
"Little knowing I already did fit," Dad says.
"Why? Who are the Skeffingtons?" I ask.
Noticing the conductor hanging on the wall, Dad doesn't answer.
I help him free the wriggling beetle. "Mr. Bug-in-a-rug wasn't cooperating," I explain, working my captive's tangled fur from the wires and hardware.
"There are other ways to be persuasive." Dad's expression is stern as he lowers the disheveled insect to the floor. "Less violent ways."
I bite my tongue out of respect, though I want to tell him he's oblivious about dealing with netherlings.
After an apology that wins a cautious albeit reverential bow from the conductor and two complimentary bags of peanuts, Dad takes my hand and we step together onto the toy train's platform. The car door shuts behind us with a loud scrape.
I yawn, inhaling the scent of dust and powdery stones in the coolness of the dimly lit tunnel. The whispers of a hundred bugs blend together-a soothing distraction. Red's memories keep nudging me, blurring my mind with disconcerting crimson stains: her flushed face as she tried to hold on to her mother's spirit, the ruby shimmer of her stepsister's hair during a painful croquet lesson as her father slipped away, and the deep bloody hue of whispering ribbons heralding Red's most devastating mistake.
I can't sympathize. I have to be strong.
I grip my abdomen, nauseated and unbalanced. I had no idea the earworm effect would be this powerful. I've got to find a way to control it.
Dad notices me rubbing my stomach and holds out a bag of peanuts. "You need to eat."
I pop a few peanuts into my mouth. The salty crunchiness appeases my hunger, but it doesn't quell the splashes of red drizzling in my mind.
"Tell me where your mom is," Dad says abruptly.
I almost strangle.
"Tell me she's not in the looking-glass world."
After swallowing, I answer, "She's in Wonderland."
He lets out a relieved sigh. "Good. There are creatures in AnyElsewhere that no human-" He cuts himself short, as if remembering Mom's the furthest thing from human. "She's one of them. Like that winged boy who carried me through the portal. She's a netherling."
"Partly," I whisper. The so am I sits on my tongue, unsaid.
"She's stronger than I ever could've imagined," he mumbles. "She can protect Jeb. They have each other to lean on."
He's halfway right. Mom is strong, and I have to believe she's surviving in Wonderland. If only Jeb was with her, he'd be safer, too. I won't tell Dad they're not together yet. First, he needs to digest all he's learned. "They're okay. They all-both are."
Dad's struggling enough with the memory of the winged fae helping Mom break him out of Wonderland's garden of souls. He doesn't need to know Morpheus is part of our rescue mission just now. But later, I'll have to explain the huge role Morpheus has played in my life since childhood. Although I can never confess the part he's slated to play in my future, because I made a life-magic vow not to say a word. I can't even tell Morpheus that I've seen what's coming, even though he's seen it himself.
"The problem is," I continue, "the rabbit hole has been filled in. All the portals are tied together. So if the entrance isn't working, neither are the ways out."
"That's why you brought me here for my memories." Dad picks up the dangling threads of my explanation. "To find another way into Wonderland."
I dread telling him the state Wonderland is in. Worst of all, that I'm to blame for it. That my ineptitude in using undernourished and neglected powers caused this entire tragedy. And that to fix it, I'll have to face my biggest fear.
We have a lot to discuss before I toss Red into the mix.
"So what happened between you and the conductor?" Dad changes the subject, much to my relief. "Why did you bully him like that?"
I drop a peanut into my mouth. "He called me a half-blood snippet," I say between crunches. "I thought my solution was pretty creative." My voice is muffled by the sounds of motors and chatty people drifting from the bridge through the vents overhead.
Dad brushes crumbs off his Tom's Sporting Goods polo. "Just like the lies you and your mother came up with were creative."
Ouch. I shove another handful of peanuts in my mouth, wishing things were like they used to be between us. How strange that somehow the lies became the foundation to our relationship. Without them, our bond is shaky…precarious.
I ache to reach out and hug him, but the void between us is too vast.
"If we're going to help her and Jeb," Dad continues, "I need honest answers from you. The whole truth. No more sugarcoating."
I study my bare toes, wincing as we step down onto pebbles and broken rock. My soles aren't the only things feeling exposed and tender. "I have no idea where to start, Dad."
He frowns. "I don't expect answers right this minute. We have to find Humphrey's Inn first."
"Humphrey's Inn?" I bite my inner cheek. The only Humphrey I've ever met is the egg-man creature in Wonderland, the one called Humpty Dumpty in the Lewis Carroll novel. "What's that?"
"It's the one clue I have to my family's whereabouts. It was my home here."
"Here, as in London?"
"As in this world. Humphrey's Inn is some kind of halfway house between the magi-kind and mortal realms. It's hidden underground."
His outright acknowledgment of a magical otherworld leaves me reeling. Maybe I was wrong about him being oblivious in dealing with netherlings. Maybe I even suspected as much, but it's still hard to grasp how deeply Wonderland runs through my blood-on both sides of my family.
That thought triggers another splash of Red's memories. I waver in place.
Dad steadies me. "You okay?"
"Just a headache," I answer as the sensation subsides. I'll have to make a concerted effort not to think of my great-great-great-grandmother until I can figure out a way to suppress these episodes. "You were telling me about the inn."
"Yeah. It's somewhere in Oxford."
"Seriously? That's where Alice Liddell grew up. Where she met Lewis Carroll."
Dad rubs the stubble on his chin. "Somehow, way down the line, the Skeffingtons were related to the Dodgsons, which was Carroll's surname before he took on a pseudonym. I hope to get more details once we find the inn."
I don't press any further. I can't imagine the information overload he's experiencing.
Off in the distance, the monarchs that provided our rides are hanging on the tunnel walls, wings flapping slow and relaxed. The firefly chandeliers reflect off their orange and black markings. It reminds me of tigers gliding through the silhouettes of jungle trees during a nature show.
The butterflies whisper: We know the way to Humphrey's Inn. Would you like an escort, little flower queen?
Goose bumps coat my arms when I think of jostling through another bout of wind and rain. It's not fear. It's electrified anticipation-like standing in line for a favorite roller coaster. My wing buds nudge. The right one isn't fully healed yet. Maybe I can let it out while riding, exercise my wings without the danger of falling.
Yes, please take us. I send the silent answer back to the butterflies.
"Are they talking to you now?" Dad asks when he catches me staring at them.
I swallow. It's hard to get used to not pretending with someone I've been fooling my whole life. "Uh-huh."
He studies me, his complexion almost green in the dim light. I wonder if it's hit him yet, that we allowed Mom to be locked in an asylum for something that was really happening and not a delusion.
"The butterflies know where the inn is," I say.
Dad makes a disgruntled sound. "After we get there, can we please return to our normal size?"
"Sure. I've got just what we'll need." I pat my pocket where the mushrooms wait, surprised to feel the conductor's pen alongside them. I'd forgotten I still have it.
Dad slips out his wallet and sifts through receipts, money, and pictures. He pauses at the family portrait we had made a few months ago and traces Mom's outline with a shaky fingertip. "I can't believe what she did for me," he murmurs, and I wonder if I was supposed to hear, or if it's a private moment. I've never doubted how strong Dad's love is for her, but only recently did I learn how strong hers is for him.
I'm curious how much he's remembered, if he understands that she was going to be queen before she found him.
Dad's jaw clenches as he slides the picture back into its sleeve. "We don't have the right currency. We'll have to use my credit cards. It should be around dinnertime when we arrive. While we eat, we'll discuss things." He looks tired, yet more alert than I've seen him in years. "We'll plan our next move. But it's important we lay low and try not to draw attention to ourselves. Considering my family's profession, they could've made some very dangerous enemies."
An uneasy knot forms in my throat. "What profession?"
He tucks his wallet into his pocket. "Gatekeepers. They're the guardians of AnyElsewhere."
My knees wobble. "What?"
"That's enough discussion for now. I'm still processing."
His curtness stings. But what right do I have to feel wounded? I made him wait seventeen years to learn the truth about me.
"Okay." I stifle an apology and study my ragged gown. "It won't be easy to stay under the radar while wearing asylum clothes. You'll need to change, too."
"Any ideas?" Dad asks, then holds up a hand. "And before you say it, we're not stealing something off a clothesline."
It's like he read my mind. "Why not? Motivation always justifies the crime." I clamp down on my tongue. That's Morpheus's reasoning, not mine. It's both frightening and liberating that his illogic is starting to make perfect sense.
Dad narrows his eyes. "Tell me you did not just say that."
I push away the desire to argue my point. Justifying crimes may be the law of the land in the nether-realm, but that doesn't make it lawful to my dad at this moment. "I just meant it would be borrowing, if we bought new clothes later and returned the others."
"Too many steps. We need a quick fix. Makeshift clothes."
Makeshift clothes. If only Jenara were here with her designer talents. I miss her more than ever. Over the past month in the asylum, I wasn't allowed any visitors other than Dad. But Jen sent notes, and Dad always saw that I got them. Jen didn't blame me for her missing brother, in spite of the rumors that I was in a cult that victimized him and Mom. She refused to believe I'd be involved in anything that would hurt either of them.
If only I deserved her faith.
I wish she was here. She'd know what to do about the clothes. Jenara can make outfits out of anything. One time, for a mythology project, she transformed a Barbie into Medusa by spray-painting the doll silver and crafting a "stone" gown out of a strip of aluminum foil and white chalk.
Dolls…
"Hey!" I shout up at the closest Ferris-wheel-firefly chandelier. "Could you guys give us some light, please?"
They roll across the ceiling and stop overhead, illuminating our surroundings. This place was once an elevator passageway where train passengers would wait for rides up to the village after arriving on the train. Distracted parents and careless children left behind toys which are comparable to our size: wooden blocks that could double as garden sheds, a pinwheel that could pass for a windmill, and a few rubber jacks bigger than the tumbleweeds I've seen bounce alongside the roads in Pleasance, Texas.
A sign hangs over the toys. The words LOST AND FOUND have been marked out and replaced by TRAIN OF THOUGHT.
Past a pile of mildewed picture books, there's a child's round suitcase propped up so the front is visible. The style is retro-pink, cushiony vinyl with a ponytailed girl standing in front of an airplane. Her faded dress was blue at one time. Under the zipper, scribbled in black marker, is a child's handwriting: Emily's Dress Shoppe. Sprawled on the ground beside the case is a half-naked vintage Barbie.
"Doll clothes," I whisper.
Dad squints. "We need things that'll fit when we're normal-size, Allie."
"They grow and shrink with you. It's part of the magic."
He glances down at his muddy, torn work uniform. "Oh. Right…"
"C'mon." I catch his hand and weave toward the case, suppressing yelps as the rocky terrain jabs my feet. Dad stops long enough to take off his shoes and help me step into them.
They're too big, of course, but the tender gesture reminds me of times when I used to stand on the toes of his shoes so we could dance together. I smile. He smiles back, and I'm his little girl again. Then his expression changes from awe to disappointment, as if he's coming to terms all over again with what I am, what Mom is, and how long we've kept it hidden from him.
My stomach feels like it's caving in. Why did we rob him of such a big part of ourselves? Such an integral part of him? "Dad, I'm so sorr-"
"No, Allie. I can't hear that yet." His left eyelid starts to twitch and he looks away, his socked feet cautiously feeling around the debris.
I follow and sniffle, telling myself it's the dust making my eyes water.
When we arrive at the doll-clothing case, it's as tall as a two-story building, and the zipper handle is the length of my leg.
"How are we supposed to open this thing?" I ask.
"Better question: How are you supposed to fit into her clothes?" Dad points to the dust-caked Barbie. "You're barely the size of her head."
The doll's irises are painted as if she's looking off to one side. Paired with her catty makeup, she appears to be sneering at me. Exasperated, I thrust my hands in my apron pockets. My knuckle nudges the conductor's pen. Digging deeper, I hit the mushrooms and an idea forms in my mind. "Let's sit her against the case."
Dad shoots me a puzzled glance but doesn't hesitate. He grabs her shoulders and I take her ankles. A yellowish spider the size of a cocker spaniel scuttles out, grumbling at us for ruining its web. It disappears into the pile of books. Once we have the Barbie seated upright, I settle beside her.
I hand Dad a mushroom and kick off his shoes so he can put them on again. Next, I take a mushroom for myself and nibble the speckled side. I grit my teeth against the discomfort of sinews extending, bones enlarging, and skin and cartilage expanding. The surroundings shrink as I continue to eat until I'm head to head with the doll.
Dad follows my lead, nibbling his mushroom until we're both big enough to unzip the case and wear the 1950s-style Barbie and Ken outfits that slide out.
I shove aside silver bell-bottom pants and a black-and-white striped swimsuit, uncovering a leotard and matching attached tutu the same watery green as Jeb's eyes at times when he's upset. The exact shade they were when he caught me and Morpheus kissing in my room before prom.
Regret gnaws at my stomach. All these weeks, Jeb's been thinking I betrayed him. In the last moment we shared at prom, he grabbed the pendant at my neck-a metal clump that had once been my Wonderland key, his heart locket, and his engagement ring-and kissed me. He promised we were far from over. Even after I'd destroyed his trust, he was still planning to fight for me.
A ticklish sensation brings my attention to my ankle where a spiderweb dangles at the edges of my wing tattoo. I got it months ago to camouflage my netherling birthmark. Here in the shadows, I realize how much the tattoo really does look like a moth, just as Morpheus has always said. I can almost see his lips curl up in smug delight at the acknowledgement.
That strange unraveling pain gnaws in my chest again. It hits most often when I'm teetering between my two worlds.
What did Red do to me?
Red…
Her repudiated memories thunder through my skull once more. I groan softly.
"Did you say something, Allie?" Dad looks up from the Ken clothes he's sorting through.
After rubbing my temples, I lift out a sleeveless shirtdress with snaps down the front and a cherry and green-stem print that matches the leotard. "Just that I think I found something." I hold it up for Dad's inspection.
"Looks good. I'll be over here." Dad grabs his bundle and goes to the other side of the case.
I peel off my asylum clothes, careful not to let the remaining mushrooms spill from the apron pocket. I'll have to find another way to carry them.
Before I undress, I search for some lacy lingerie. I've been wearing generic cotton underthings since I've been at the asylum. Something pretty would be nice. Unable to find anything, I settle for what I have on and slip into the green leotard. The ballet outfit's best feature is the open back. It will make it easy to free my wings. The satiny fabric smells of crayons and gumdrops, making me long for my childhood before Mom was committed.
Next, I shrug into the shirtdress and secure the metal snaps along the cherry-print bodice, leaving the skirt open to display the three tiers of green netting that puff out above my knees.
A fuchsia ribbon serves as a belt. Pink stockings complete the outfit. They fit perfectly from my thighs to my calves, but the toes are pointed. I fold the excess under before slipping into a pair of squishy, knee-high red boots.
Red boots. Red's memories bash against my cranium until I feel so much sadness for her I drop onto the pile of leftover clothes. I fist my hands against my head until it passes. When I open my eyes, I'm half-buried in Barbie shoes and accessories, as if I thrashed around half-consciously.
"Everything okay over there?" Dad asks from his side of the case.
I grunt softly, clearing everything off me. "Having trouble with my stockings." Maybe stealing Red's memories was a big mistake after all. I'm going to end up wearing a straitjacket again-this time for real.
As I stand, my foot kicks a Barbie-size diary with a key that must be one quarter the size of a straight pin to a normal human.
The conductor said it would take enchanted paper to contain repudiated memories. A year ago in Wonderland's cemetery, Sister One told me that toys from the human realm were used to trap souls in her twin's lair.
Sister One said that when the most cherished toys are abandoned, they want those things that once filled and warmed them. They become lonely and crave what they had. And if someone gives them those things, they'll hold on to it with every portion of their strength and will.
I flip through the diary. A few of the tiny pages have been written on-hearts and initials and flowers, because writing actual words this size would be difficult for any child. The last two thirds of the pages are bare.
Maybe this diary has missed being written upon.
Morpheus himself said toys harbor the residue of a child's innocent love, the world's most binding magic. If that's true, then maybe these pages are enchanted enough to contain Red's memories, to keep the emotional ties out of my mind.
I bite my lower lip. Look at that, bug in a rug. I just found a magic journal.
"Almost done?" Dad moves around on the other side of the case, as if he's pacing.
"Just a sec!" I scramble to find the apron I was wearing earlier and pull the pen from the pocket.
"Netherling logic resides in the hazy border between sense and nonsense." I mouth Morpheus's words so Dad won't hear.
I jot down Red's memories on the remaining pages, writing as fast as I can. The emotions drain from me onto the page, a cathartic experience, like journaling to soften the blow of something tragic.
When I'm done, I close the book. It wriggles in my hands, opening enough to rustle the paper. The memories are trying to break free. Clamping my fingers tight around the covers, I clasp the latch and lock it with the key and the wiggling stops.
My head feels better, my thoughts clearer, and my sympathies are dulled. The transfer must've worked. I can still recall Red's forgotten past, but they feel like events that happened to someone else, not ones I experienced and felt myself. The memories grow distant, silencing the sympathetic thunder in my head.
"Allie, we need to get going."
"I'm looking for something to keep the mushrooms safe," I stall.
As I dig, a pink ballet bag with a drawstring appears. I tuck the diary inside and thread a piece of cording through the diary's key to fashion a necklace. Ever since the prom disaster, I've felt lost without my Wonderland key. This one isn't ruby-tipped and won't open another world. Still, it's a comfort to have it dangling at my collarbone.
Setting aside two mushrooms for me and Dad, I stuff the rest into the bag with the diary, pull the drawstring shut, knot it securely, then hang it over my shoulder.
With a plastic brush, I work the tangles out and braid my hair down both sides. I stare at a crocheted hat and scarf made of soft purple and scarlet yarn, testing to see if Red's memories stay dormant. I have to be sure before we leave. I can't risk losing control when I'm thousands of miles in the air.
When nothing happens, I pull on the scarf and hat.
I step around to the front of the case. Dad's waiting in a Ken outfit: black-and-white plaid jacket, gray flannel pleated pants, and white dress shirt.
I pat the skin under my eyes, worried my netherling markings are showing after all the magic I've performed. "Do I look okay?"
"You look beautiful, Butterfly," he says. His fingertip traces the edges of my eyes, following a phantom pattern that can only mean my markings are in full bloom.
His use of my nickname fills me with gratitude. He's trying to accept me with all my peculiarities, even though he's been dealt a huge shock.
I straighten his collar and brush dust off his jacket. "Best thing about these clothes? We know we're the first people to ever wear them," I tease.
Dad snorts. The sound echoes in the tunnel as we nibble our mushrooms-the smooth sides-until we shrink enough to fit on the butterflies' backs again. We climb atop our winged mounts, flutter through the hole in the bridge's foundation, and take to the sky for Oxford.
