by ERIN BEDFORD
“Don’t worry that fiery little head of yours. They are safe and sound in my humble abode and awaiting your return. You, on the other hand, have a Hatter to get to.” Chess’ tail pushed me along the corridor.
“Won’t the queen find out you were helping me?” I shoved a hand at the fur stroking my lower back. My refusal before apparently hadn’t dissuaded him from trying his luck again.
Chess wrapped his tail back around his waist, and for the first time his face showed irritation. “She will if you keep dawdling, Katherine.”
“Hey! How do you know my full name?” I pointed an accusatory finger at him.
“I know quite a many things.” He paused as we approached a split in the corridor. “Not all of them pleasant. Though, if you didn’t want anyone to know, you shouldn’t talk to yourself like no one is listening.” His eyes searched around the corridor. “Someone is always listening. Now if you are finished wasting time, I can hear the guards moving around above.” His ears twitched on his head as if listening to some noise I couldn’t hear. “More than likely getting ready to remove that pretty little head of yours.”
He turned down the right corridor with a little less swagger in his step. I supposed he couldn’t be cheerful all the time. I wasn’t in much of a cheerful mood myself. I was in a world I didn’t know with people who could turn on me at any moment. No one at home knew where I was, and I doubted they’d be able to find me even if they knew I was missing.
Nothing was like I had read about. Even the White Queen was all backward. I thought taking people’s heads for small offenses was only something the Red Queen would have done. Though, to her, I supposed it wasn’t such a small offense. Not that I wasn’t sympathetic to her loss, but I liked my head right where it was, and the thought of losing it didn’t sit well with me.
I took a few big steps to catch up with him but stopped again when a small noise called out.
“Hello? Is anyone there?”
There weren’t any doors down this way so it couldn’t have been a prisoner. But both sides of the corridor were lined with curtain-covered frames. The majority of the curtains were brown and frayed, and then some of them were vibrant red and blue. Did the different colors mean something or did they just run out of brown ones? I gave a curious glance at each of them, but I kept my distance in case something unwarranted jumped out at me.
I waited a few moments, straining my ears to find where the voice had come from. I almost walked to where Chess was waiting, his foot tapping his impatience when the voice called out again.
“Hello?” The voice came from behind one of the red-covered frames next to me.
I stepped up to the frame, observing the cloth covering it. The blood red cloth was thick enough to provide adequate coverage but thin enough that the embellishments on the frame bumped up beneath it.
I reached a hesitant hand up to pull the curtain back, my heart beating in my throat. This wasn’t the beginning of a horror story at all. All that was missing was suspenseful music. And just as my hand was about to close around the cloth a clawed hand captured mine, causing me to jump.
“You don’t want to be doing that, Lady.” Chess laced his fingers with mine and tried to lead me away, but I wouldn’t be discouraged.
“Who’s that?”
“No one of importance.” He huffed, placing himself between the frame and me.
“Then why does it matter if I see or not?” I tried to glance around his shoulder, willing the curtain to let me see contents of the frame.
“Is anybody there?” The voice was feminine and low as if they were trying not to be heard. “It’s so lonely in here. Please help me.”
“Chess.” I placed my hands on my hips giving him my best stubborn stare. “I’m not leaving this spot until I see what is in there.”
“Believe me, Lady.” Chess placed a hand on my own. “Anyone who is in there deserves it.”
“Like I deserved to lose my head?”
“This–” He gestured to the hallway filled with cloth-covered frames. “–is the Hall of Mirrors. This is where all the very naughty Fae are kept.”
“Oh.” Well, that changed things. I couldn’t imagine leaving someone asking for help, but I also didn’t know what kind of Fae could warrant them a place like the Hall of Mirrors. For all I knew it could be a trap. I let myself be led away when the voice cried out again.
“But I’m not a Fae! I’m human!”
“What?” I jerked my arm away from Chess, who cursed and tried to grab at me.
It was too late. I had already gotten ahold of the curtain and was yanking it free. The red silken cloth fluttered down to the ground like liquid fire and revealed someone I’d never thought to see.
13
Hall of Mirrors
THE MIRROR WAS square and surrounded by an iron frame. Even in the dim lighting I could make out the swirling glyphs similar to the ones on the rabbit hole and on the prince’s face. The mirror didn’t reflect back my face or the dungeon behind me. The surface was filled with an inky black substance, which surrounded the person inside. If I hadn’t already been searching for her, I probably would have never been able to tell who it was.
“Alice,” I breathed out.
Or what I thought was the head of Alice. Long blonde hair floated around her as if she were submerged in water. A dull blue bow still adorned her head, though a little worn around the edges. Pretty marble blue eyes gazed out at me in the grown up face of the beloved childhood heroine.
“Yes, that’s my name. Alice Liddell.” Her voice tinkled like little bells full of innocence.
I turned to Chess, bewilderment filled my face. “How is this possible? The book came out in 1865. She should be dead, but she looks to be younger than me!”
“Well, I’m certainly not dead. I’m right here talking to you, aren’t I?” Alice’s brow furrowed. “Unless I am dead and this is my punishment for running away so often. Mother must be so worried.”
Worry etched her pale face for a mere second before she beamed at me. “But the tea party was such fun! We would laugh and eat. Oh and the rhyming! I love the rhyming, though, I can’t think of any rhymes right now. I really should go visit them again.”
Alice looked to Chess with a pout, her eyes lingered on him longer than I liked. “Can I come out now? I promise to be good. I would like to say goodbye before I have to be home for supper.”
Suspicion began to inch onto my face as I watched Chess shift in place, uncomfortable with the young woman’s pleas.
“Chess?” I prompted him to answer her. I wanted to know myself. Why would she ask him?
“It’s not my decision. I didn’t put her there.” He crossed his arms and turned his eyes to the end of the corridor. No doubt keeping an eye out for the guards he heard earlier.
“Then whose is it?”
“The one who put her there, I just said that.” The feline growled, his eyes still on the hallway. “Don’t you want to know why she is here? In the part of the dungeon meant for the worst of the Fae? The ones not even trusted enough to be cast out to the Shadow Realm?”
“But she’s not Fae. She’s human!”
How could they do this to their own people? It was inhumane. I couldn’t imagine being stuck in a mirror with no one to talk to, no way to tell the time or day. It would make anyone a little mad.
“Yes, I’m human. I don’t belong here!” Alice echoed me, her head bobbing up and down in its frame.
Chess’ eyes flashed with the first hint of anger. “She’s no more human than I am.”
“What do you mean?” Why was he so mad? Did Alice touch a nerve somewhere in the teasing feline? I had so many questions and every answer brought on more.
“Alice, as you’ve pointed out, is quite older than she looks.” He finally made his way to the frame, his eyes trained on Alice’s face. She stared back at him, the picture of perfect innocence. “But what Alice forgets to mention is that she has been with us for a long time. Longer than I have bee
n the mediator that is for sure. Haven’t you, Alice?”
“Have I? Perhaps I have, it is a little difficult to tell time in here.” Sarcasm dripped from her words, making her seem much older than I thought before.
Was I a fool to be tricked so easily? I should have learned by now that not everything was as it seemed and sometimes it was even worse. But my poor judgment aside, something was still bothering me.
Mop had implied many times that Alice had lost her head. Was this what he meant? A collection of heads incased in mirrors seemed creepy even for Fae standards. The little standards that I knew they had.
I turned to Chess and questioned, “Why keep their heads?”
“She’s not just a head.” Chess scoffed and gestured to the mirrors along the wall. “The head is all you’re able to see. You could think of it as a window into her cell.”
“So there’s more of her?” I craned my neck to try and see around her, but all I could see was blackness.
I had already learned nothing good came out of the darkness. The creeping whispers that resided in the edges of the light promised horrors beyond even my imagination. But from the laughter coming from my flirtatious savior, it couldn’t be all bad.
“Of course there is more of her. Did you think we just cut off people’s heads?” A slight gleam of amusement glittered in his green eyes.
“Well, yeah.” I shrugged. “When they said you’d lose your head I thought it was literal.”
How could I not think that when everything there was taken so literally? How was I supposed to know the rules if everyone kept changing the game? I needed a ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Underground.’
“Not so.” Chess stepped up to the glass of the mirror tapping it with a claw, causing Alice to flinch back, crying out in protest. “The inside of the mirror resides in another realm.”
“Another realm? I thought there was only the three?”
“There are, aside from the human world. Think, Lady.” He tapped the side of my head, causing me to wince and swat at him. “Where would the Fae put their trash so no one will find it?” The words sounded bitter coming from his mouth.
Once again I had the urge to ask Chess about his past. Why was he the mediator? If he was half-Seelie and half-UnSeelie, where were his parents? Why did he have scars all along his chest? So many questions to ask and not one of them easily answered. But one of my questions he had already answered.
“The Between.”
“Brains and beauty. A terrifying combination.” Chess flirted but his heart wasn’t in it.
“But the Between I saw didn’t look like any of this.” I gestured to the empty space around Alice’s head. “What I saw was all white and empty and went on and on.”
“Exactly.” Chess tilted his head, the silken strands of his pale pink hair spilling over the side of his face. I had to clench my fists to keep myself from running my fingers through it. “You are still thinking like a human and not like one of us.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, distracted by the magnificence of his hair. My own tangled mop would never cascade like that. I found it hardly fair that a cat had better hair than me, Fae heritage aside.
“You are thinking of the Between as something tangible, as a place you can mark on a map and be done with it. It is everywhere and nowhere all at once.” He held his hands out, bobbing them up and down to illustrate his point.
“But that doesn’t make any sense.” I knew it was a stupid statement the moment it came out of my mouth. When had any of this made any sense?
“Of course it does. When traveling between worlds there is a line you have to cross that melds one world into the other. That is the Between.” He gestured to the contents of the mirror.
“So the area with the doors, before I entered the Underground, was the Between that separates the human world from the others?”
“Right again, my pet.” He smiled, gesturing for me to continue on my thought.
“So then your home, the willow tree, is the Between that separates the Seelie and the UnSeelie?” My brow furrowed in confusion. “Where in the Between is Alice then?”
At that moment Alice piped in, terror making her voice quake. “They whisper in the dark, such horrible suggestions. All the things they want to do to me if only I would let them in.”
“The shadows,” I whispered, barely loud enough to be heard. Who knew if they were listening? I didn’t want to take the chance.
“They know what you fear the most, what will make you scream and quiver.” Alice’s eyes filled with tears. “I didn’t mean to do it. I swear. It was an accident. Please don’t let them get me!”
“It would serve you right.” The feline growled at the sobbing head, all teasing cast a side. “You wanted to be Fae, and you got it. I’d think you’d be a little more grateful.”
“What’s the point of living forever if I’m stuck in here?” Pretty tears glistened on her face. I have never cried so pretty.
“That’s not my problem. And we have dallied enough. Let’s go, Lady.” Chess stuck his nose in the air, turning on his heel to go further down the corridor.
“Chess, we have to let her out,” I called out to him. “Nothing could be bad enough for this kind of torture. We don’t even use the death penalty in my world anymore and that was reserved for serial killers.”
“How do you know she didn’t kill anyone?” Chess turned back to me. “Or worse? Would you just let them all go without a thought to why they were put here to begin with?”
“Well, no.” I frowned. “But some of them have to be innocent. After all, the White Queen was going to put me in one of these.”
“White Queen?” Chess held his stomach as he laughed. “Oh, she would love that. Believe me, Lady, her majesty is anything but pure.”
“I didn’t say she was pure. I am only speculating on what I see and what I know of the original story. But if the White Queen is as horrible as all that, I can’t imagine the Red Queen would be any better. Or would that make her the nice one? Everything is so backward from the Alice in Wonderland I know.”
“People talk about me? What do they say?” Alice’s blue eyes gleamed at the prospect of her popularity, all thoughts of the shadows gone from her voice. How much of what she had said was real, and how much of it was just to get sympathy for her case?
“Why can’t they just put them in a regular cell?” I ignored the blonde in the mirror. “It can’t be safe to have them so close to the shadows. What if they attack them?”
“What makes you think they aren’t already?” A cruel gleam sparkled in his eyes.
The look on his face was like a punch in the gut. Was he really just as cruel as the rest? It was hard to believe it to be true, but then again I’ve only known the feline for a few hours. How was I to know what was real and what was all for show?
“But Alice is right here talking to us.” I gestured to the girl pouting at being ignored. “If she has been in there as long as you said, shouldn’t they have attacked her by now?”
“If you are starving what do you eat if you can’t have your first option?” His fangs gnashed against his lower teeth.
I gulped at the sight. All thoughts of his mouth ever going near my body were gone in an instant. “You mean to say they are feeding on their dreams? But isn’t that cannibalism? If Fae feed on the dreams of humans, I would think the dreams of Fae would hardly be a meal. Besides, you can’t just live off of the dreams of mortals. I saw lots of them eating and drinking at the mourning party.”
“Feeding on other Fae is not the same as feeding on a human. It’s like you are permanently on a diet. Just enough to survive, but not enough to satisfy the hunger.” His voice rumbled as if thinking of more than just food.
“What’s the point in feeding them if you are trying to get rid of them?”
“Fae are immortal. Food and drink is more of a want than a need. We can’t starve to death; it is harder than you think to kill one of us.” Chess frowned. “You have to
remember they used to be one of us until they were cast out. It is hard for us to kill one of our own, even if they are evil. The only way to keep them from overtaking our worlds was to provide them with an alternative to feed on.”
He glared up at the girl in front of us. “And we wouldn’t need to do that if someone hadn’t ruined it all.”
“I told you I was sorry!” Alice cried out, but her face didn’t show an ounce of remorse. “I didn’t know what I was doing. It’s not my fault you Fae are so secretive about everything. You are a cat. You should know how tempting it is to discover the truth.”
“Curiosity has never plagued this cat, that’s for sure. I know when to keep my nose out of it.” He sniffed, pointing his nose in the air.
“I didn’t know what I was doing, or what it would do to the rest of the worlds,” Alice pleaded with the feline. “I was only trying to help!”
“Help? Chess, what is she talking about?” My frown deepened as I took in their exchange.
“Now don’t give me that ‘I didn’t know’ nonsense.” Chess brushed my question off, continuing to chastise the bobbing head. “You knew exactly what you were doing. They didn’t need your help and you butting in only made the situation worse.”
“It always worked in books. She was supposed to get jealous and admit her feelings to him, not go commit suicide!” Alice scoffed.
“Who committed suicide?” I glanced between the two but was ignored again.
“That’s the problem with mingling with humans. You always forget we are Fae, not human. We don’t respond the same way to emotions as you do.” Chess finally glanced my way as if I were to blame.
“I know that now.” Alice huffed. “You bunch are stubborn and arrogant to the end. It’s always a competition of who cares more. You can’t just tell someone you fancy them and be done with it.”
Her blue eyes turned to me in warning. “Be careful you don’t make the same mistake in trusting them to be reasonable or you’ll end up in here too.”
