Unhinged: 2 (20 page)

Iron
bridge … Morpheus once told me netherlings have an aversion to iron. It warps their magic somehow, though he’s never given details.

“It’s the only way I could keep the mosaics safe,” Mom says, as if reading my mind.

“Of course,” Morpheus taunts. “Did you visit our favorite haunts in Ironbridge Gorge while you were there? Did you take a train ride and relive some lost memories?” He narrows his eyes. “That’s why you broke the mirror. To cover your tracks.”

She returns her attention to the pans in the sink. “If only I could shut down the portals to and from Wonderland,” she mumbles, more to herself than us. “Then Red and anyone else who wants to hurt Allie would be stranded in the nether-realm with no way back. Just like it should be.”

“As if you would let that happen.” Morpheus replaces his hat. “You speak of us like we’re a different breed. But you’re the same. Fierce … manipulative … and a touch mad. You’re more netherling than human, Alison. You couldn’t handle not having a way back into your heart’s home.”

I slam my hand on the counter to get their attention. “Would someone tell me what’s going on?”

Silent, Mom scrubs at some baked cookie residue with a sponge. Water and soap slosh across the front of her and down the counter.

Morpheus dabs his mouth with the corner of the tablecloth. “Alison’s fooled you into thinking she’s a helpless little rosebud. But
it’s all an act, Alyssa. Your mum is ruthless, and she would’ve made a spectacular Red Queen. She wanted that ruby crown, in fact. Came so very close. But she met your father … failed to fulfill the tests. Otherwise, she would never have given up, would never have stayed in the human realm. And you, little luv”—his gaze locks on my face, jewels blackest black—“would ne’er have been born.”

My tongue is thick and heavy like stone. All the questions I need to ask are wedged beneath it. I back into the entryway where the shadows offer solace, putting distance between me and Morpheus’s ugly accusations.

No. Mom
can’t
have wanted to be queen. That would mean she knows the truth. That everything we talked about the night I got back from Wonderland—the tender moments we shared in the asylum when I told her that our family wasn’t cursed after all—was an act. That would mean she’s been
pretending
to be clueless.

If that’s the case, what else has she been lying about?

I press a hand to my mouth. Morpheus is trying to come between us. I won’t let him.

“No,” I say. “You …” I point to Morpheus. “You told me I was the first since Alice to dive into the rabbit hole.”

He raises a finger. “Not so. What I said was you were the first since Alice who was cunning enough to discover the rabbit hole on your own and leap inside. I led your mum to the rabbit hole, and she let me carry her down. She wasn’t quite as resourceful as you. I believe that was her downfall, ultimately. That and her complete and utter lack of loyalty.”

Mom scowls in his direction.

I swallow a sob. “But Sister One, in the cemetery that day … she said I was the first to come forward and try for the crown.”

The look that passes between Mom and Morpheus is full of knowing.

“Perhaps because your mum never made it quite that far?” Morpheus offers the answer up as a question. A sure sign he’s covering something.

“It wouldn’t matter,” I respond. “Sister One was keeping track of my progress the whole time I was in Wonderland, because of what she stood to gain if I passed the tests. She would’ve been doing the same with Mom. No.” I direct my next words to my mom. “You’ve never been there. You thought the Liddells were cursed. You didn’t know the truth, didn’t know what the tests were for. Not until I told you. Right, Mom? Right?”

She wipes her hands dry on a dish towel and starts toward the doorway. “Allie,” she says as she steps across the threshold, “let me explain.”

Morpheus follows her, his mouth on a severe slant. “You owe her more than an explanation. You owe her an apology for deceiving her all these years.”

“You’re one to speak of deception.” Mom seethes.

“Oh?” In a graceful flash of movement, Morpheus backs her to the wall without even touching her. Again, he keeps that distance between them, some invisible line he won’t cross. “You let
me
take the blame for Alyssa being pulled into Wonderland, for the disorder in her life. But it was you who turned your back on your commitments. You made a conscious choice that affected the future of any child you and
Tommy-toes
would ever have. It’s time you admit it.”

In the dimness, Mom’s platinum hair glows and writhes like slivers of living moonlight—as evocative as the plants in our lunar garden caught in a breeze. I’m paying such close attention to her,
I don’t notice what’s happening with Morpheus until he growls.

The moths on his hat’s brim flap, as if resurrected. They lift the hat off his head, and he has to leap for it. The corners of Mom’s lips quiver, fighting a smug smile.

She’s manipulating their wings.

I suppress the scream building in me, unable to deny what’s right in front of my eyes: the magic inside her that I thought had never been tapped is alive, because she’s been to Wonderland … and back.

I remember first meeting the flower fae in Wonderland, how they mentioned that I looked like “you know who.” I always thought they were talking about Alice, or maybe Red. But that wasn’t it at all. They were talking about my mom.

I press my spine into the wall hard enough to pinch my wing buds. “The smudged writing in the
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
book,” I say, barely above a whisper. “Morpheus didn’t blur it. It was you. You didn’t want me to figure out you’d been there.”

Morpheus drops his hat into place again. He leans against the wall a few feet from me, one boot heel propped on the baseboard. “Your mum wanted to work with me from the very beginning, when she was thirteen and heard the nether-call. That’s how badly she craved the power of the crown. All I had to do was find a way she could accomplish the impossible tests in King Red’s decree. So for three years, I worked on an alternate route of obstacles to fulfill his requirements by playing on the definitions that he’d written out, getting her approval on each step—”

“You were going to let Queen Red live inside you?” I interrupt, staring at Mom in disbelief.

“Not quite,” Morpheus snaps. “Unlike you, Alison planned to use her wish as I instructed, to banish Red from Wonderland forever.
And we wouldn’t even be in this sorry predicament had you chosen to do the same instead of saving your boyfriend’s insignificant mortal life.”

I want to scratch off the jewels under his eyes for saying that, but I can’t move.

Morpheus waves a hand. “It doesn’t matter now. I made the ultimate mistake, by not having her vow on her life-magic to finish what she started. Alison’s a traitor. She backed out because she met your father. ’Tis telling, though. How she kept all of the heirlooms, taking precautions so no one else could follow the clues I’d given her. Perhaps she wanted another chance to try for the crown one day.”

“That’s not why, Morpheus,” Mom hisses. “And you know that.”

He shrugs. “We could ask Rabid. He was there.”

I shake my head. “Where
is
Rabid?” In all the craziness, I’d forgotten we left him alone in my room.

“I tied him up,” Mom answers. “He’s being entertained by your eels. Electroshock therapy. Penance for his role in what happened to you last summer.”

I gasp at her callousness and start for my room, but Morpheus steps into my path.

“He’s fine,” he assures me, a hand on my shoulder. “Electricity has no effect on our kind.”

I shake him off. “Well, it can’t be good for my eels!” I shout. “They have to be terrified!” Morpheus and Mom both look at me like I’m losing it. If I am, they’re the ones to blame. “Get Rabid out. Tell him I demand to know why he’s here.”

Morpheus raises his eyebrows at me. Then, with an admiring glint in his eye, he removes his hat and bows. “As you wish, Your
Majesty.” He passes a meaningful glance to my mom. “You might try telling your daughter the truth for once. Were you able to decipher any of the mosaics before hiding them?”

Mom shrugs, a sour expression on her face.

“Share what you saw … along with everything else you’ve been hiding. She won’t survive Red’s attack unless she’s equipped with the truth.” Morpheus offers me one last glance—jewels flashing the gentle blue of compassion—then replaces his hat. His boots clomp across the linoleum floor.

Once his footsteps are muffled in the living room carpet, I give Mom my full attention, waiting for that explanation. “The mosaics,” I blurt out, though it’s not at all what I want the answer to.

She returns my stare with one of her own. “I only had a chance to decipher one. There were three Red Queens fighting for the ruby crown, and another woman’s silhouette watching from behind a wall of vines and shadows—someone invested in the outcome … someone who had a deep stake in it all. I could see her eyes. Sad, piercing. I was in a hurry. That’s all I had time for.”

There have been three Red Queens since last summer: me; Grenadine, who I appointed to rule in my stead; and Red herself.

That leaves the question of the fourth player, the one in the shadows.

Mom watches my expression as I flip through the possibilities in my head. Her scowl softens to a sympathetic frown, and she looks like the woman I once knew: the one who made me Jell-O ice-pops when my throat was sore; the one who kissed my hurts away and sang me lullabies; the one who had herself committed to save me from Wonderland.

But the mom I’m remembering is not her at all. This mom’s hair
is still glowing, her skin glistening like snow under starlight. This mom … this
netherling
… is a stranger to me.

“You were in Wonderland,” I say, voice quivering.

“It’s not like he said, Allie,” she murmurs. “I smeared the clues on the pages. But it was because I met your father and wanted to put an end to the quest forever.” She wrings her hands in the dish towel. “I was trying to decide what to do with the heirlooms. That’s why I hid them. I couldn’t just toss them away—I had to figure out how to fix it so none of our descendants would ever end up in Wonderland again.”

Her answer echoes hollow in the small entryway. Her words send a cold, crackling sensation down my spine. “You knew about the tests. Even worse, you
caused
them. Because of you, Morpheus came up with all those crazy things I did in Wonderland. All so you could be queen. Then you left him high and dry, and I became your substitute.”

Mom kneads the towel. “We made the plan before you were born, Allie. I—I didn’t know it would turn out like it did …”

“Seriously?” The word comes out high-pitched and pinched. “You’re missing the whole point! You’ve been to Wonderland and you never bothered to tell me! You lived what I lived. Do you have any idea how much I needed to know that? To know I wasn’t
alone
?”

Her expression falls, but she stays maddeningly silent.

“Why didn’t you tell me that night at the asylum, when I spilled my guts to you?” The sobs I’m holding back pile upon one another, and my throat hurts more than when I had a breathing tube shoved inside. “Or earlier than that. If you’d just been honest from the very beginning, when you found out I could hear the bugs and plants.” I let one sob loose. It breaks apart into two. “It could’ve changed
everything. Wonderland wouldn’t be in this mess, because I wouldn’t have gone and screwed it all up.”

Mom clutches her dish towel like a lifeline. “It’s not you who caused this. It’s Red.”

“But I
unleashed
her,” I growl. “And because of that, it’s my responsibility to fix things.”

“Sweetie, no …” She drops the towel and reaches for me.

Jammed in the corner, I can’t escape, so I slap her hand away instead.

“Allie, please—” Her voice breaks.

Her wounded voice barely registers. All I see is a traitor. The lilies in my hospital room had been referring to her.
She
was the one who would betray me in the worst possible way.

“You’re unbelievable,” I say through gritted teeth. “You planned to fix things for all of us, huh? You, the one who’s so
afraid
of everything Wonderland related. You, who thought our family was cursed until I told you otherwise. You, who stepped into my mirror today, with a key you’ve kept hidden not for months but for years. Why? Because you wanted to go back again someday and be queen? Were you even planning to tell Dad before you left him?”

She opens her mouth to respond, but I plow ahead before she can.

“All this time you’ve been riding me about my clothes and my makeup … it wasn’t because I looked too wild or immodest. It was because I looked too much like a netherling. It reminded you of everything you lost. Right?”

She sniffles but doesn’t answer.

“You hammered into my head how you don’t want me to make the same mistakes as you … to fall in love too young and lose my
shot at being an artist. I couldn’t understand why you didn’t try to start over again now that you’re out, to have the career you’ve always wanted. But it was never about your photography. Dad kept you from becoming queen. And now I have the crown. You must really resent us.”

“No, Allie …”

I’m deaf to her. I can’t hear past the lies. “How can you hold a grudge against someone as amazing as Dad? He was faithful for
eleven
years. He stayed true to you and waited for you to get well. All those nights he sat alone in the living room … pining for his wife … staring at those stupid daisies that hid all of your secrets. He deserved the truth, Mom.” Another sob escapes my throat. “We
both
did!”

Tears race down her face in the dim light.

She went to the asylum to protect me when I was a child—those memories threaten to soften my anger. But how can I truly know why she did what she did? Maybe she just didn’t want me to become queen instead of her, and that’s why she tried to sever my connection to Wonderland. Maybe it’s her in the mosaic. She’s the one in the shadows, watching and waiting to get her chance to steal the crown.