by ERIN BEDFORD
“It's been over six months and we haven't heard anything from either of them. They aren’t coming back.” I shook my head and stood from the throne.
“So, you are just going to give up like that? I thought you loved the cat, and at one point you loved my son as well.”
“Yeah, I mean, I did,” I stumbled over my words, trying to make her understand, “But that doesn't make them alive. Just all the more reason why I shouldn't be barking up the wrong tree and getting hope where there's not any. I have enough on my plate with both my mothers’ hounding me, and now the government is banging down my door trying to get me to help them with Fae registration.”
“Fae registration?” Mab’s lips twisted at the words.
“Yes, some bullshit about wanting to keep track of us so they can regulate the Fae better,” I paused, throwing my hands up in the air, “It’s a bunch of political bullshit and a tiny piece of paper.”
“Yes, I can see how that would be a problem. We don't even have anything like that in the Underground. Most of us can tell what the other person is without having to ask, let alone needing to write it down.” She tapped her face with her long blood red nail. “But the fact that they want to register us doesn't bode well. This should be brought up with the council,” she turned to leave but then stopped and looked back at me, “I'm going to go talk to the council about this. Don’t forget about what I said. You can get them back, I know you can, you just have to believe it.”
Oh yeah, I believed it. Me and Peter Pan.
* * *
AFTER MY LOVELY conversation with Mab, I hurried back home to find Alice and Hatter snuggling on the couch. The moment they saw me they jumped apart as if struck by lightning. Alice's face turned beet-red and she stared at the floor. Hatter, on the other hand, had a pensive expression on his face like he hadn't been caught red-handed.
“Don't mind me,” I said smirking at them as I made my way across the living room to grab a bottled water from the fridge. “I'm just going to go take a shower.”
Alice called out to me before I could get out of the living room, “Did the queen find you?”
“You knew she was coming?” I placed my hands on my hips and glared at her. “And you didn’t think it was a good idea to warn me?”
She shrugged a shoulder and shot back, “It's not like it was your mother.”
“Yeah, well, a bit of a heads-up would have been nice. It wasn't exactly a conversation I wanted to have at Chess’ grave.” I took a drink from my water bottle and then wiped my mouth. “I’m actually glad that the two of you are here. Seeing Mab reminded me that there is still a big gaping hole in the middle of the UnSeelie Court, which can’t be good for anyone.”
“I would imagine not,” Hatter spoke up, “You never know who might wander through and into the Between. The longer it is open the likelihood of you having to go after them rises.”
Sadly, he was right. As the certified savior of the Underground, if someone ended up in the Between because of the mess I left behind when fighting the Shadow man, whether or not I made the mess didn’t matter, I was going to have to go after them.
“Hence my problem,” I pointed at him. “Do either of you know anything about how to go about closing that hole at Chess’ Willow Tree?”
Hatter tapped a finger on his chin; his silver eyes flickered, making them look like liquid steel. When he spoke each word was enunciated perfectly and with precision, “Not that I am aware of. The ability to rip a hole between the worlds is not commonly done. In fact, only a few Fae have ever been able to do such a thing.”
“Oh, oh.” Alice jumped up and down in her seat. She lifted her arm and waved her hand at me. “I bet you Pat is one of those. Don't you think? He makes the mirrors that go between the worlds and that's kind of like a hole, right?”
I cocked my head to the side as I thought about her suggestion. The short grumpy man I had met in Summerville did indeed have the power to create portals out of mirrors. I wasn't sure if that equated to ripping a hole in the fabric of space itself, if that's what you could call what the Shadow man had done. Not that I had anything against Pat but going to the Seelie Court was not on my list of things to do anytime soon.
“I guess we could ask him. I mean, if anything maybe he knows somebody who could help us. Maybe there is some kind of magical Band-Aid I can use to close the portal back up. Not that it's really bothering anyone being there at the moment.”
Hatter spoke up at my words, his voice ominous and dark, “The door to the Between is not simply there to monitor our goings and comings. There are things that should stay between.”
That was helpful. I’d only been in the Between a few times, and it hadn’t been pleasant. The only thing I really knew about it was if you went too far away from where the doors stood you might never come back again. I'd almost gone out there once.
The first time that I entered the Between there had been some kind of Dark Shadow that I had tried to go after, but the receptionist, the two-headed bird sisters, had warned me away. Those two still hadn't shown back up yet, nor had any of the others that had been taken by the Shadow man. We all just assumed that they had gone to the Shadow Realm as well. A lot more people had perished then I would like to admit in my game with the shadows. I couldn’t let it happen again. Having the portal closed would keep us that much safer, so I’d better find a way to close it and fast.
“All right then,” I clapped my hands together having come to a decision, “My shower can wait. I'm going to try and see if I can get a hold of Pat and then go from there. You guys just continue doing whatever it was you were doing before I came into the room,” I waggled my eyebrows suggestively at them causing Alice to blush as she peeked over at Hatter's form.
The romance between the two seemed to have blossomed overnight. I had always suspected Alice had a thing for Hatter. The last time we visited him at his house they had been holding hands but any other kind of PDA had been kept to a minimum and behind closed doors. I was just waiting for the day that I caught them making out on my couch, so I would finally be able to tease Alice with something, instead of her always getting on my case about my silly human ways.
The door closed behind me as I entered my bedroom. I glanced over to the mirror that I had replaced when my mother had stolen Chess. Thinking about him and how he'd been tortured in the Bandersnatch, caused a stinging pain in my heart.
I promised to never let anything else happen to him again because of me, but apparently, my promises didn't mean anything. He still got hurt because of me, and now he was lost because of me, and there was nothing I could do about it.
I pulled the sheet off the mirror slowly, half expecting my mother to pop up at any moment. She had been trying for days now to contact me. No doubt for some silly and nonsensical rule she wanted to pass but the council wouldn't let her. Apparently, I had veto power when it came to the council. But if there was something that my mother wanted to be done, and they didn't approve of it, I was pretty sure that I wasn't going to agree either.
I heaved a big sigh when nothing jumped out at me right away, and I moved my hand up the side of the mirror. I pushed my magic into the frame, activating it. The glass rippled and danced for a moment before the reflection of my bedroom changed into a window into Pat’s shop.
Mirrors, frames, and other gadgets filled the shelves and floor of the shop. From my own personal experience, I knew that beyond the edges of the mirror it was even more cluttered, and I still had the bruises to prove it.
“Pat,” I called out, but no one showed up in front of the mirror. “Are you home?”
There was some banging and pounding off to the side before there was a smash. It was followed by a string of curses. The voice could only belong to one person. Pat.
“I'm coming. Hold on,” he shouted from somewhere off to the side of the mirror's edge.
I sat on the bed waiting patiently for him to finish whatever it was that I had interrupted h
im doing. I didn't have to wait long before his face showed up in the mirror.
“Yeah, what do you want?” He griped as soon as he saw my face. The goggles wrapped around his face pulled his gray hair back. Dirt smudges were smeared across his cheeks and nose from whatever he had been working on. A utility belt with different tools hung around his waist, some of which I had never seen before and some as common as a hammer. The one time I had interacted with Pat had been brief and unpleasant. He had only helped me before because of my father; I could only hope he would still continue to do so now.
“Hey, Pat. Sorry to interrupt you,” I started before he cut me off.
“No, you’re not. Just tell me what you want. I'm busy.”
I didn’t like the snarky attitude he was directing toward me when I was trying to be pleasant, which was a huge achievement on my part. So I dropped the nice girl face.
“It might have come to your attention that there's a big ass hole in the middle of the UnSeelie Court about where the moderator lived. Do you know anything about it?”
Pat fiddled with something in his hand, not looking at me as he snapped, “Yeah, what about it?”
“Well, it needs to be closed up before someone gets any smart ideas about going in it. Got any ideas how to do that?”
He looked at me for a moment before he scoffed, “Oh, I get it. Pat here can make mirror portals; he must know all things about portals. Let's go to Pat and bug him, because he has nothing better to do.”
“Well, yeah.” I shrugged being blunt about it.
“Well, you could try reading a book sometime,” he snorted waving the screwdriver he had in his hand at me, “You spent enough time in your library when you were younger, you’d think you would know how to read a book.”
“What are you talking about?” I shook my head at him. “There are no books in the Seelie Library about how to close up holes.” I would know, as he said I spent most of my childhood, and the majority of my adult Fae life in the library. If there was a book in there about closing holes between worlds then I would know about it.
Pat snorted at my response, clearly becoming impatient. “You weren't looking in the right places. Go to the library and look for a book by Phineas Portalus. You'll find what you need.” He pulled his goggles back down over his face with a frown. “Now if you don't mind. I have orders that need to be filled and no more time for you.”
Before I could ask another question the mirror went black and my confused face reflected back at me. Well, that was helpful. Who the heck was Phineas Portalus?
Chapter 4
Chess
THE SHADOW REALM was more than just Morgana’s hovel and the graveyard of mirrors. The surrounding areas were dark and full of a dense fog that made it impossible to see where you were walking.
When I first arrived in the Shadow Realm I had woken up in the mirror graveyard with no idea where I was. The ground was cold and covered with dirt. My body had ached from where the Jabberwocky’s claws had torn up my side. That's where Morgana found me.
She had taken me to her home and patched me up. I should be grateful to her, but she had made it clear the first day that she was selfish and only had her own interests at heart. She’d only saved me so she wouldn’t die of boredom.
The first two days were kind of a blur and filled with a range of emotions. Angry that the Shadow Man had once again tricked us, and then there was the sorrow that had grown stronger every day. It only got worse when I found out about the mirrors.
Wallowing in self-pity, I would spend hours in front of them, hoping for a chance to see Kat. To get her to hear me, but like Morgana had pointed out, she never did.
One day I had wandered away from the mirrors to the edge of the graveyard. There was nothing out there but dense fog, no movement or light. Tired of waiting for the mirrors to get my message through, I had decided it had to be better out there than being stuck in here. I placed a foot into the fog and the moment that I touched it, a chill ran up my spine. The hairs on my arms stood up and a deep, unsettling, nauseating fear pulled at my gut.
I had tried to push the feeling away but it gnawed at me, and then the final straw was a growl off in the distance that had me pulling my foot back to the graveyard. Whether it was magic forcing me to stay here or my own cowardice I didn’t know, but I hadn’t tried to leave ever since.
Now, Morgana led me out of her house and straight to the edge of the fog. I slowed my pace behind her when I saw where she was going, apprehension gripping at my throat. Morgana didn’t seem to have the same hang-ups as I did. She stepped right up to the edge without a care in the world. Unlike with me, if she felt anything when she stepped in she didn't show it, and once she was fully covered something peculiar happened. The air around her cleared leaving a small area around her clear.
“Are you coming or what?” she called over her shoulder as she stepped further into the darkness.
I hesitated, not wanting to have that sickening feeling again, but then I stuck my foot out into the area that was still clear. When I didn't feel it, I let out the breath I hadn’t known I was holding and quickly followed after her.
“Why is it that you can go through the fog?” I asked following close behind her, my eyes darting to the darkness around us. “Doesn’t it make you feel…”
“Sick?” she supplied and then shook her head, her ponytail wagging behind her.
“Yes.” I ignored the urge to bat the bobbing hair away and asked, “Why aren’t you affected by it?”
“Because I belong here and you don’t,” she stated not supplying me with any more details causing irritation to build in me.
“If I don’t belong here then why am I here? Shouldn’t there be some kind of person to make sure that kind of thing doesn’t happen?” My boots crunched on the ground beneath my feet, the dirt having turned into dried grass. It was sad to admit that the sight of grass, even dead grass, made my heart swell with joy.
“You mean a moderator?” she said with a hint of laughter in her voice. The way she said it made me think that she knew exactly who I was and had been playing with me this whole time.
“Yes, like a moderator.” My teeth ground together as I said the words. I could have lashed out at her and asked her what I suspected she knew, but I was trying to get information out of her. Being a cad was not going to win me any points.
“Hmm, well I suppose you can say we have one, but they don’t come by often, and it’s pretty much up to us to moderate ourselves. Besides, it’s not like we have unexpected visitors, like yourself, often.”
I grabbed her arm, forcing her to stop and turn to me. “So why then, if you are supposed to be in charge of your own stuff, haven’t you helped me get out of here before? Did you just keep me here for your own amusement? Is this some sort of game to you?” My previous decision to charm her was thrown out the window as my emotions overcame my need for answers.
She didn’t respond the way that I would have thought. She didn’t jerk her arm away from me and claim her status as Queen of the Shadow Realm and she could do what she liked. No, what she did was far worse.
Her lips curled up into a nasty smile, and her eyes glinted with mischief. “All of life’s a game. Only some of us are lucky enough to know who's playing. Wouldn’t you like to play with me, my little kitty cat?”
The words she spouted back at me were almost the exact words I had said to Kat when we had first met in the UnSeelie Court. How did she know what I said? Instead of asking her, I dropped her arm and snarled, “Not with you. Never with you.”
Shrugging, she turned back toward the invisible path she was leading me down as if our conversation had never happened. “Anyways, you feel fear because that is the way the magic works here. It is supposed to keep those who don’t belong out.”
“So, then where are we going?” Irritation still prickled my voice, but at least she was answering most of my questions. If I lashed out again I had no doubt she wouldn’t
have a problem leaving me here.
“You wanted to go to the Reaper, so I am taking you to the Reaper’s. It just so happens the way is through this mess.” She fluttered her hand at the fog around us. Surprisingly, it hadn’t closed in on me as I thought it would, since as she said, I ‘didn’t belong’, but instead kept the area open. Just in case, I tried to keep a close distance between us but not so close she’d get any ideas.
I let her lead me through the fog for a while, our conversation having died off with her last explanation. I figured I’d find out what was going on when we got there and no sooner. Not that it wasn’t eating me up to ask her. Curiosity killed the cat as they say, and this cat wasn’t going to be doing any dying anytime soon. Once was enough.
Eventually, the fog cleared to a large area about the size of Morgana’s place. Also, like hers, there was a mirror graveyard and a hovel like home. Seeing this caused me to wonder if that was the standard for living in the Shadow Realm. Crappy living quarters and mirrors that tortured you with your friends and family being so close but so far away. If there was a hell, I had no doubt I had found it.
“Hello, boys,” Morgana called out with a bit of a singsong voice. Her hips moved in exaggerated movements that reminded me of a slithering snake.
My steps behind her slowed as I watched the door to the hovel open to reveal two men. Exactly identical they had dark brown hair and piercing green eyes. They had well-defined jaws and enough muscles to crush me like a bug. I instantly didn’t like them, or the way they looked at me like I was something they found at the bottom of their shoe.
When they saw Morgana their eyes lit up, and their lips curled into feral grins. Their eyes scanned up and down her form as if they were in the desert and she was the first glass of water they had seen in years. Just the sight of it made me cringe. Apparently, Morgana frequented these fellows often. What they did together I didn’t want to know.
“Morgana,” one of the men said as he came up to her side and wrapped an arm around her waist. The possessive hold he had on her made me think he thought I was competition. I wanted to speak up that he could gladly have her but knew he wouldn’t believe me so I kept my mouth shut.
