Ensnared (4 page)

The king’s face flushes. He dismisses Bill, sending him with Grenadine into the palace so they can bring more whispers to life.

“Why would you do that?” Red’s father asks her, reaching for the stolen ribbon.

Red curls her fingers around it. “Perhaps I should appoint Bill to make ribbons for you, so you might remember you have another daughter. One whom you never spend time with.”

The king looks down at his red slippers. “Ribbons wouldn’t help. For I haven’t forgotten.”

Red’s chin stiffens. “She’s not even yours! I am, by blood.”

“Yes, my scarlet rosebud. Every day you look more and more like your mother. And every day I feel the pain of being torn away from her anew. You’re braver than me.”

“That’s why I’m going to be queen,” Red says, trying to harden her heart.

“Yes, because you embrace the things that remind you of her. You drink ash in your tea, to remember how she shushed you when you were a babe. You ask Cook for her favorite Tumtum-berry tarts, so you might remember sharing them with her. And you hum her songs.”

Red doesn’t answer.

“Please understand, dearest daughter. I only avoid you so I won’t drag you down. You’re too important to the kingdom for me to hinder you. So I watch from afar. I’m a lucky man, to have a daughter who has grown into such a strong young woman.”

Red scorns the empty flattery. “Grenadine is the lucky one. Because she has no memory. She can forget any rule that would confine her actions, blot out any failure that would cripple her confidence, misplace any sadness that would inhibit her to love. She has no standards to live by. She’s immune—by her own limitations—to everything that would limit her. She views the world with the wide-eyed cheeriness of a slithy tove pup who has never been kicked or strapped to a chain.”

The king nudges the croquet-ball box with his toe. “It doesn’t make her stronger to forget. You’re the one who’s strong. For you remember, and yet you go on. That is what will make you a wonderful ruler one day, just like your mother—sympathetic and understanding.”

Red’s fist tightens around the ribbon. “Emotions born of weakness. I want nothing to do with them.”

“Oh?” Her father’s stern voice startles her. “Would you disrespect your mother’s memory? All for a small seed of jealousy?”

Red grits her teeth, feeling her mother’s gaze on her even though she’s far away—a crystalline rose inside the garden of souls.

The king narrows his eyes beneath his crown’s shadow. “You have the
same dark strain as all of the Red royal lineage. Your mother was the first to learn to balance madness with wisdom. Do not forsake that legacy. Make her proud.” He holds out his hand.

Tears singe Red’s eyes as she drops the whispering ribbon into his palm, an unspoken promise to honor her mother’s memory, to never forget her example.

My bones jitter and my head hurts as again I’m thrown into the chaise lounge, only to be jerked back on-screen for the final memory:

Red kneels beside a rosebush, breathing in the sweet scent. The blooms are such a deep red, they look like puddles of fresh blood against the unnaturally bright teal leaves. She planted the bush in the courtyard as a tribute to her father after his death. She yearns for his spirit. She wishes he were here in the ground instead of locked inside the garden of souls, though she’s comforted to know he’s been reunited with her mother at last.

“I should be with you both in the cemetery,” she mumbles to the roses. “Now that my life is over.” She rotates a bottle in her hand to reveal the label:
Forgetting Potion.

Her shoulders hunch, as in the distance her stepsister’s giggle rings out, accompanied by the chortle of Red’s husband. Red met him one week after her father died. He had a kind heart like her father’s, and proved to be the only man who could reason with her anger, temper her bitterness. His strength was his compassion, and he adored Red. But the queen became obsessed with her pursuit to bring dreams to Wonderland and neglected her marriage, never even taking the time to give her king the children he yearned for. In her absence, her husband was often left alone with Grenadine.

Gradually, Red watched her husband try to befriend her sister, although Grenadine always pushed him away. When Red’s king would return to her side like a wounded puppy, his sadness stoked her jealousy. She did the only thing she could: She stole her sister’s ribbons to show her husband what a forgetful buffoon Grenadine was.

Every day for months, each time her sister tied bows to her fingers or toes, Red would magically coax them away and send them fluttering into the sky. Soon, they eclipsed the sun like a cloud of glimmering crimson butterflies. Darkness fell upon the kingdom, but Red didn’t care. She had no desire to call the ribbons back or to listen to Grenadine’s mundane and irrelevant reminders.

Red’s ribbon stealing became a game of malice and great satisfaction, until at last Grenadine stopped wearing them altogether. And soon thereafter, she stopped fighting the Red King’s advances.

The two fell in love each day, anew, and Red witnessed it over and over again. Furious, she called the ribbons from the sky. They scattered across the castle courtyard in a sweep of crimson rain. Red stood in their midst as hundreds of whispers spun around her, repeating the same words:
Keep Red’s husband from your heart. She is your sister, a love that’s precious. Always be faithful to Red.

Grenadine had been reminding herself daily to do the right thing, and Red had made it impossible for her to remember. The responsibility for her broken marriage was upon her own shoulders. The only way Red could survive was to become like Grenadine and forget her role in everything. Red determined to remember only the betrayals of others, so their wrongs could harden her heart.

Stroking a rose petal, Red whispers one last time: “Mother, Father, I hope you both can forgive me, because unless I forget, I’ll never forgive myself.” Then she lifts the bottle to her lips.

The image flicks off, the curtains drop, and the lamp snaps on.

Slumped in the chaise lounge, I hold my temples until the drumming inside my skull subsides. I almost choke on the bittersweet tang of roses firmly pressed on my senses. At last I can acknowledge what I’ve never let myself admit: I’m a descendant of Queen Red. She’s an eternal part of me. I can accept it because she did have a heart once. A heart that felt similar losses to mine: the absence of a mother she adored; the fear of losing her father’s admiration; the regret of a mistake so monumental, it cost her the love of her life.

Red locked away her most vulnerable moments so she wouldn’t hesitate in her quest for vengeance. So she could make the descent into ruthless abandon without remorse.

Empathy pricks my conscience, but I push it away. Mercy has no place on any battlefield . . . magical or otherwise.

If I can contain her scorned memories long enough to reunite them with her mind, they’ll rail against her, fill her with regret. Then, while she’s vulnerable, I’ll swoop in and Wonderland will never have to fear her rage again.

Adrift in a dark swirl of emotions, I stand and smooth the wrinkles from my hospital gown. I’m only a few steps from the door when it flings open to reveal Dad—his brown eyes lit with a fiery light.

“Allie, I remember . . . everything.”

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.”