Wicked Wonderland Page 11

  The key wasn’t going to do me a whole lot of good here in Wonderland, though. I wiped the last flecks of dirt off it and tucked it carefully into my tote bag, on the inner side where I could feel the lump of it brushing against my hip as we walked.

  I wasn’t sure how much more walking I was up to doing right now. Even in my sneakers, my feet were starting to ache. Possibly my calves too. We’d already walked the whole morning.

  Hatter strode along a step ahead of me, appearing for all the world as if he planned to march straight back to the city without a second’s pause. Was he really in that much of a hurry to get rid of me? I hadn’t been sure how serious he’d been about me causing his unhappiness—his wryly deadpan voice sounded an awful lot like his politely irritated voice—and he actually had looked kind of joyful being out here, which was the only reason I’d asked.

  My stomach grumbled, and a fresh twinge ran up the backs of my legs. My body didn’t care what he thought of me right now as long as it got a little relief.

  When we’d come far enough into the stretch of small statuesque hills that I couldn’t see the upended trees behind us anymore, I cleared my throat. The landscape here was still pretty weird. Just ahead of us a knoll with the shape of a gigantic human head was staring at me, and the scrawny bushes dotting the grass warbled as if their bright orange-and-yellow leaves were actual flames. But I was used to weird by now.

  “Didn’t you mention something about bringing a lunch?” I said.

  Hatter was just glancing back with one eyebrow raised when a sound rippled over the hills that raised the hairs all up my arms and the back of my neck. It was a burbling sort of moan, like a rushing river in pain, cut off for a second with a ragged pant of breath that brought to mind razor-teeth. A thunderous crash sent the air shuddering.

  “What the hell is that?” I said, my head jerking around.

  Hatter had paled. “Nothing we want to meet,” he snapped, and grabbed my arm. He dragged me off the path into the narrower gaps between the oddly shaped knolls. The burbling moan reverberated over the hills again, already louder.

  I found my feet and dashed with Hatter around a huge grassy rooster, curled cat, and a splayed hand. He yanked me down behind a more distant knoll that weirdly looked pretty much like a little hill, just with a completely sheer slope on the far side.

  “What—” I started to whisper, and Hatter cut me off with a finger to my lips. He stayed crouched next to me, his hand falling to my side, his eyes twitching with each new sound as he tracked them.

  The thing we’d run from snarled and groaned. The ground shook under our feet. I edged a little closer to Hatter instinctively, and his hand shifted over my back in half an embrace, one I wasn’t sure he was even conscious of. My pulse thumped at the base of my throat.

  A flame-leafed bush clinging to the hill near us shivered, a smoky smell curling from its foliage that only increased the fiery illusion. There was a scraping sound like the scrabble of claws. Something hit the ground in a series of thuds. Teeth gnashed.

  Hatter tensed as if to tug me away again, but the next moan reached us from farther away. The sounds dwindled until I was sure the thing was gone.

  I sagged against the side of the hill in relief. “You didn’t tell me there were monsters out here.”

  Hatter jerked his arm back to his side and moved to peer around the knoll. His face was still sallow.

  “I didn’t know there were,” he said. “There never were before. That sounded like… like a jabberwock. They only roam the outer edges of Wonderland—which we’re still quite a ways from. There shouldn’t be…” He halted, frowning.

  “Well, at least it didn’t manage to have us for lunch, right?” I said, managing a weak laugh. A bit of grass and earth fell away under my hand as I straightened up, leaning on the hillside for balance. The gap revealed not more soil but a smooth section of stone, with a seam where it fit against another bit of stone. Huh.

  I swiped at more of the earth, since really I’d rather give the jabberwock or whatever the heck had crashed through here plenty of time to get on its way before we returned to our path anyway. When Hatter glanced over, I’d already cleared off three whole stone blocks and the edges of those around them.

  “It’s not a hill,” I said. “It’s part of a wall. Or are they all made out of stone underneath?”

  “Not in my experience,” Hatter said. “Someone might have lived out here a long time ago.”

  The corner of some kind of carving showed on a neighboring stone. I worked the dirt off it. Who would have lived all the way out here instead of in the city with everyone else?

  One large clod fell away, unveiling the rest of the carved symbol. My heart stopped. For a second, I could only stare at it.

  “What?” Hatter said, sounding puzzled.

  That image didn’t mean anything to him at all?

  I traced my finger over the lines. A faceted gemstone—radiant cut, I thought from my occasional daydreaming perusals of engagement rings styles—with a teardrop in the center.

  “This symbol is carved onto the box Aunt Alicia left me,” I said. “The one the key we just got is supposed to open.” My gaze roved over the wall embedded in the hill. “What is this?”

  “I don’t know,” Hatter said, his forehead furrowing as he examined it. “I’ve never seen that mark anywhere before.”

  I straightened up and stepped back, clutching my tote bag close to my side. The lump of the key pressed against my thigh.

  I knew where I had to go to find my answers. The ache in my legs felt distant compared to that mission.

  “Let’s go,” I said. “We can eat that lunch while we’re walking. I’ve got to get home and find out what Aunt Alicia left for me.”

  “We’ll play it a little differently this time,” Chess said as we approached the flashing spinning top that was the Caterpillar’s Club. “The guards didn’t notice that anyone went through the door last time, so they won’t be suspicious unless I try to pull the same trick. You can hang back, and I’ll whisper invisibly in their ears. Lead them on a wild goose chase. When you can’t tell what you’re chasing, you can never catch it.” He shot me his usual grin.

  “Will we wait until they start giving out the night’s special drink again?” I asked. The cooling night air licked over my legs. I’d changed back into my dress since it seemed to fit the club atmosphere better, and I hated to lose it more than the skirt and tank.

  When I’d packed, I hadn’t thought about how I’d bring the stuff back to me. My Otherland tote wasn’t going to fit the club scene at all. I was leaving everything I’d brought with me behind—and bringing back Aunt Alicia’s key, which was dangling under the dress’s bodice from a brass chain Chess had found for me.

  Doing without those few things wasn’t a big deal. Besides, I wanted to get swept up in the dancing during this last chance before I headed home without worrying about holding on to anything.

  “Acting at that point seems wisest,” Chess said. “And while I may not always have the most level of heads, I can occasionally point it in the right direction. We’ll get you home as many times as you need, lovely.”

  He tossed the compliment off his tongue so casually I knew it didn’t really mean anything, but his words sent a flutter through my chest all the same. Hatter might have helped me begrudgingly, but Chess appeared to be getting plenty of enjoyment out of the subterfuge. I didn’t get any sense he saw me as a burden.

  Strains of violin mixed with a frenetic beat, filtering through the walls. The key slid between my breasts, a solid weight warmed by my skin. Maybe I wouldn’t be letting that weight go while I danced, but it wasn’t a burden either. It was a doorway into possibilities I hadn’t discovered yet.

  “Hey!” Chess said, and waved to someone he’d noticed down the road behind us. “Hatter.”

  We slowed so Hatter could catch up, although the slant of the other man’s mouth suggested he wasn’t overjoyed that he’d run into us. I wondered if
I could get him dancing again. Melody would definitely tell him that he could stand to loosen up some.

  I’d felt connected to him in that brief time when he’d shown a little playfulness. I found myself eyeing his hat, considering whether I’d be able to get away with stealing it a second time.

  “Are you keeping an eye on Doria again?” I asked him. It’d been clear last time that he didn’t go to the club to have a good time. “Didn’t you promise her you’d cut her some slack?”

  One side of his mouth curled upward at that. “I promised her she could run wild yesterday. Our deal didn’t extend any further than that.”

  I suspected his daughter would be negotiating much more rigorously next time.

  My heart beat faster as we reached the spinning walls, but I squared my shoulders remembering how easily I’d walked in last time. Picture a door. Believe I could go in, and in I’d go.

  I took another step, and with a whine that whipped past my ears, I was standing on the undulating floor. The lights cascading over the room were all different shades of blue, green, and purple today, making the place look like some sort of underwater exhibit. A minty citrus smell tickled my nose. The dance floor was crowded, but not outright packed. We’d come early tonight.

  Even if my feet protested after my long walk with Hatter, I’d wanted to squeeze as much joy out of my last hours here as I could, in case I didn’t make it back to Wonderland. I knew without needing the experience that the pricks of pain in my body would fade away as soon as I was spinning to the music.

  Chess leaned close to speak by my ear. “Caterpillar’s here today. He doesn’t always come out. He who watches prefers not to be watched.” He made a slight tip of his head toward a tall, thick figure standing near the other end of the room.

  At first, with so many people around us and the lights flickering this way and that, I thought the name Caterpillar was just an odd nickname for a totally human guy. Then the man moved, or more like waddled, around the fringes, his bulbous head bobbing out of time with the music, and I realized why he was so tall. His body had an extra segment in his torso, a second chest with its own set of arms just below the first. All of them were gesturing around him as independent limbs. That wasn’t any Halloween costume.

  My stomach lurched with horror. Walking animals and animal-human blends was one thing. An elongated dude with extra arms was a whole other level of strange. I jerked my eyes away.

  “If we’re lucky, he’ll finish his chat with Rabbit and head back upstairs,” Chess said. From the corner of my eye, I made out the white-rabbit head of the fellow I’d nearly run into in the passages under the club two nights ago.

  I grasped Chess’s arm, scanning the crowd for the thinnest patch where we could find a spot, wanting to get on with the dancing and wash the image of Caterpillar from my mind. My gaze caught on a startlingly white shirt flashing with different colors beneath the strobe lights while its wearer moved with the beat. Even if the shirt hadn’t been unusual, I thought I would have recognized that powerfully assured form anywhere.

  “Theo’s here,” I said.

  Chess’s eyebrows drew together and then arched up. “So he is,” he said. “I suppose even the Inventor needs to blow off steam the old-fashioned way every now and then.” His tone was oddly hesitant, but when I glanced up at him, he gave me his usual grin. “Shall we?”

  Hatter’s bronze-brown hat gleamed where he was circulating through the dancers farther to the right. Awareness of the three guys prickled over me with a faint tug, as if I were suspended between them, pulled in all directions simultaneously. I’d never been in the same room with all three of the men who’d shaped my time in Wonderland before.

  How could my heart thump like this for all of them?

  But Chess was the one standing next to me, the one with his solid arm slipping around my waist, the one who’d gone out of his way for me from the start. I shimmied with him into the mass of dancers.

  My feet stung and my calves ached as I shuffled and dipped, but just as I’d expected, the discomfort melted away with the thump of the beat through my body in the wide room. Chess moved with me, a dreamy expression coming over his face. I gave myself over to that song and the next. Then Chess set his hand on the small of my back, drawing me closer to him with a deliberateness that made my heart pound faster than the music.

  “Caterpillar’s coming this way,” he said, just loud enough for me to hear with his lips brushing my cheek, and my pulse skipped with a completely different emotion: panic.

  “It’s okay,” Chess went on, his body still swaying with mine. “Just follow my lead. He might not even stop at us.”

  Caterpillar was stopping an awful lot of places. I caught glimpses as Chess turned us and edged a little deeper into the crowd. The overgrown man hefted his jointed body through the dancers, touching a shoulder here, an elbow there, bending his looming head to make some comment. It was pretty much only women he spoke to, I noticed. Just the club’s proprietor making friendly with his clientele?

  Chess spun us again, but Caterpillar veered at the same time. A smile pushed into his rounded cheeks as he looked down on the other man.

  “Cheshire!” he said, in a booming voice that overshadowed the music. “Never quite as good a party without you.” His beady eyes shifted to me, his gaze skimming down my dress. “I don’t believe I’ve seen your dance partner around here before.”

  “I found myself a Dreamer today,” Chess said quickly. “Lovely, isn’t she?”

  Follow my lead, he’d told me. Would it be a problem if Caterpillar found out I’d come through a looking-glass? Maybe he’d realize I might be aiming to leave through his?

  Ignoring the heavy thud of my pulse, I forced myself to giggle. “Dreamer? What are you talking about? This can’t be a dream. It’s too fucking amazing!”

  Caterpillar chuckled. “An attitude I approve of. I can make it an even better dream if you’d like.”

  I cringed inwardly at the thought of what he might mean, and Chess’s hand tensed against my back. “No poaching, now, Caterpillar,” he said, keeping his tone light.

  “Oh, no, of course not,” the club’s owner said, with a puff of his chest that suggested he considered himself very generous to make that concession. “What do you think of Wonderland, my dear girl?”

  I looked around the room as if still star-struck by it all, which wasn’t that hard an emotion to fake. “It’s so bright and flashy! I love it! If this is a dream, it’s the best one I’ve had in a while.”

  “I can’t ask for a better compliment than that.” Caterpillar made a beckoning gesture, and one of the servers I’d seen two nights ago sauntered over with a platter of those vibrant mushroom slices. He plucked up a pink-and-violet one and offered it to me. “Don’t miss the refreshments. You’re in luck—we’ve got a particularly potent batch tonight.”

  Chess had warned me not to eat the mushrooms last time. He didn’t seem to have any clever ideas for getting me out of this predicament, though. Caterpillar was watching me intently. It would be odd for a person who thought this was a wacky dream to refuse, right?

  I accepted the mushroom slice gingerly. Suddenly I found myself thinking of Melody’s old trick when teachers had caught her chewing gum back in high school.

  Dear Lord, let this not be water-soluble. I popped the slice into my mouth and immediately pressed it hard against the roof of my mouth with my tongue. It stuck there, bleeding a faintly cloying flavor into my mouth, as I pretended to chew and swallow.

  “Wow,” I said, swaying with the music again. “I can already feel that kicking in.”

  If my voice was a little thicker because of the thing in my mouth, the Caterpillar didn’t notice or assumed it was the drug’s effect. He bobbed his head with a pleased expression and lurched on through the crowd.

  Relief shot through me with a rush of exhilaration. I’d done it. I’d gotten through the conversation—fooled the guy who ran this whole club. And suddenly my head felt as
if it were expanding, drifting up from my shoulders.

  I jerked around and spat the mushroom slice into my hand before flicking it away among the bounding feet. The floaty feeling eased off with a shake of my head. Chess smirked and twirled me by the hand.

  “You were perfect,” he said.

  “You better believe it,” I said. “Now let’s really dance!”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lyssa

  My skin was damp with sweat beneath my dress, and my spirits were soaring with the music when a much more welcome face than Caterpillar’s appeared beside us. Theo gave Chess an affectionate clap on the back and smiled warmly at me.

  “All’s well here?” he asked.

  “Everything’s great!” I announced, spinning and reveling in the way my skirt flared out. I might have sounded a little loopy, but what did that matter? The whole point of this night was that it belonged just to me, an interval of brilliant freedom before I tumbled back into real life.

  “Why don’t you take over with this one for a while?” Chess said with a teasing glint in his eyes. “She’s wearing me out.” He squeezed my hand and then let it go as quickly as he’d taken it. “I’ll see you when you don’t see me.”

  Before I could say anything in response, he’d faded into the crowd. Was that the last time I was going to see him before I left? I’d have liked to at least say goodbye in case I didn’t make it back… although, every minute longer I spent on this dance floor, I was imagining slipping back through the looking-glass for future visits.

  If I dropped in once it was already evening, I wouldn’t be imposing on anyone’s hospitality. I could just pop right into the club and pretend I was having a recurring dream.

  Theo leaned toward me and eased back with the rhythm of the music. His gaze held mine as if there wasn’t anything else in this place he could possibly want to look at. Like in everything else I’d seen him do, every step he made emanated strength and confidence.