Wonderland Academy: Book 1

by Cheri Winters

  Once my stomach no longer heaved, I sat upright. I hoped no one else could hear me. I wasn’t sure how thin the walls were, and the last thing I wanted was for anyone to think I literally couldn’t stomach the thought of being here.

  What the hell was that all about? I’d never thrown up before from a dream. Probably the nerves of being in this place and my dad dying over here. My stomach tightened again and I took deep breaths to try and calm myself.

  I needed to get a hold of my emotions. I wasn’t going to survive if I threw up after every dream. I’d be a laughing stock. I’d deserve to disappear, as so many others before me did.

  Once my stomach stopped clenching, I cleaned out the trash bin in the small sink, then swished my mouth out with fresh water. Well, the queen might not like modern conveniences, but it looked like that didn’t pertain to plumbing. I stared up in the mirror at myself. Dark bags lined my hazel eyes and my hair hung limply. I was a wreck.

  Eithanael had said the library had WI-FI access. I snatched up my cell and left my room. Time to get some signal so I could send a message that I was okay, so far, to my mom and my friends.

  Students milled about the ground floor, sipping steaming mugs of something that smelled like a mix between coffee and chocolate. For some reason, the scent brought bile rush into the back of my throat, and I swallowed hard to avoid getting sick again.

  What was going on with me? Was I sick? Was I not getting used to the Wonderland climate? Was that a reason some of the students died off – they just never got used to a magical land? Instead, they grew weak and sick?

  I exited the Crimson house and walked along the path to the Silver building. A few second and third-year students talked in small clusters while a few lounged on the grass with blankets. Flowers dotted the landscape and huge trees provided shade against the bright sun.

  A sign with the name Silver Tower pointed me in the right direction.

  Inside, I bypassed the cafeteria, heading straight for the stairs. I didn’t think I’d be able to smell the food here and not get sick again. I sure hoped this was temporary because I definitely wouldn’t make it if I couldn’t eat.

  The library was a wide-open space with rows and rows of books, computer desks, and a few lounge chairs. A handful tributes browsed the shelves. I headed straight to an empty computer desk and finding a universal cord, plugged my phone in.

  Wow! It was already two o’clock? I didn’t realize I had slept that long. Though I didn’t feel rested. I felt uneasy like I shouldn’t be here. Like I was being scrutinized under a magnifying glass.

  My cell vibrated with tons of messages. I went through each one, answering back my friends and my mom. Letting them know I was safe.

  For now.

  I shook my head, needing to physically rid myself of my thoughts. I pulled up my mother’s text message and tried to come up with something to send to her.

  Hi, Mom, I’m okay. Even settled into my room and everything. They are letting us acclimate to the different altitude here. Everything’s great and I’m already learning a lot.

  It wasn’t exactly a lie. With all the concern she had with me being here in the first place, I didn’t need to worry her about me not being able to eat or getting sick. In no time, I was certain my body would adjust to the change. I refused to be one of those kids who wasn’t able to adjust.

  If I did anything here, I would survive.

  After checking my emails and social media accounts, I stretched, when the shelf beside me caught my attention. Yearbooks.

  Huh.

  I rose, strolling down the line until I got to the year my dad would’ve been here. My fingers shook as I slowly removed it from the shelf. The yearbook was a thick, hardback with dark red binding. I flipped through the pages and found faculty listed in the back.

  I flipped pages, scanning names I didn’t recognize and lessons I had no idea how they were going to teach.

  But my dad wasn’t listed.

  I frowned. I couldn’t have the year wrong. I searched the faculty pages again, but still no luck. Had they erased him from here entire? Like he didn’t mean anything? Like he was nothing.

  I thumbed through the yearbook until a page near the back caught my attention.

  It was a photo of my dad with red pen marks across his picture. Except his name was wrong. This had Charles Lynn Dodgson.

  Wait, what?

  That wasn’t right.

  My dad’s name was Chad Liddell.

  I noticed some text underneath his picture and squinted so I could read it.

  Charles Lynn Dodgson, a Wonderland native, has returned after his ten-year extension to the human realm. Full of love for his queen, we welcome his return to teaching a new generation of tributes. Long live the queen of hearts.

  My mouth went dry at the implication and I set the book down in my lap. Dad was from Wonderland? I shook my head. This book was all wrong. My parents grew up and met in Boston. My mother would have told me if he was from this place. There would be no reason for her to lie to me. Someone got this wrong. I didn’t know why, but the queen was erasing the truth.

  I let out a breath. I was sure there was a reasonable explanation. At least, I could prove it either way. If this was true, then my dad would be in older yearbooks when he went to school here. I did the calculations and grabbed three volumes that should be the right timeframe.

  Sitting back at the computer desk, I let my phone charge, while I searched the yearbooks for my father in any capacity. I made sure to check his name as I knew it, and the one they referred to him by here. The first one didn’t have a hint about my dad going to this school. Second one was devoid as well. Had I mixed up the dates? Wonderland Academy took on students from ages fourteen to twenty. Dad could have been older than I thought.

  After the third book didn’t give me anything, I replaced the volumes and took three more from the years before. I ran my fingers through my hair. My eyes were getting heavy with slumber. I wanted nothing more than to go back to my room and sleep. But I continued forward, flipping pages, looking for anything that might help me in my search for answers.

  Except these volumes didn’t have anything either.

  Maybe I was mistaken and the photo I’d found wasn’t my dad at all. Maybe the name really was the name – though it seemed too similar to my father’s to be a coincidence. Then again, Wonderland was strange, and that was putting it nicely. Maybe it was a misprint.

  I decided to try once more grabbing one more yearbook off the shelf at random. After this, if nothing came from my search, I would let it go no matter what.

  I flipped through it, expecting not to find anything. In fact, I wasn’t looking as carefully as I could. Faces blurred together. Names were just meaningless words that didn’t register to me.

  Then a photo of a young man stood out among the rest. At the very least, it made me stop flipping so I could do a double-take. Valedictorian Charles Lynn Dodgson has graduated top of his class. We wish him luck on his journey into the human realm on the queen’s special mission.

  I frowned, flipping back to the cover showing the date. This couldn’t be true. It would mean that my dad was fifty-eight when he died. Yet, his gravestone had his age at the time of his death as thirty-two.

  I squinted at the photo. My father did not look like he was fifty-eight. He looked much, much younger.

  I turned to the index and found his name again. This page was under the Emerald house, which meant that my dad was from Wonderland…a fae…or other similar type creature.

  I dropped the book. It landed with a loud thud by my feet. A couple of students looked my way but no one approached me and questioned me. Like would I say? That I just discovered that my dad might not have been human?

  A hysterical laugh bubbled up in my chest as I bent down to pick up the volume. I was losing my mind. This couldn’t be my dad. I would know if he wasn’t human. Mom would have told me, especially after his death or when I got older or hell, when I’d gotten the summons
to come here. There was no way she’d keep something like that from me.

  No way.

  None of this was making sense.

  I took a photo of the page and sent it to Mom with a message.

  This guy looks exactly like Dad. It’s not though because Dad never was in Wonderland until I was eight. Right?

  I didn’t want my mom to think I thought the two of them lied to me or kept a secret from me. I wanted her to think I was well and I was safe. But at the same time, if she had information that could explain this, I wanted to know.

  A movement from the corner of my eye drew my attention and I froze. One of the queen’s guards stood at the end of the bookshelf, staring straight at me. He marched forward as though on wooden legs. I jammed the book into my backpack and whipped around the corner. The click-clack of his boots on the wooden floor had me ducking around the next set of shelves.

  I peeked around the corner and the guard’s head was moving side to side. I pressed a hand to my mouth, trying not to make a noise, even with my breathing. My heart pounded on my chest like a prisoner, demanding to be released.

  Oh God, was he looking for me? His hands moved across the shelves, then pulled down a yearbook like he thought that was the one I had been skimming through with the photos of my dad. The zombie guard tucked the book under his arm, then gave one last glance with his white-filmed eyes. Was he still looking at me?

  Above me, a click sounded and I jumped. If my hand wasn’t pressed tightly over my mouth, I would have yelped.

  “Attention new tributes,” the voice said, “the queen has a welcome speech and wishes you all to attend her scepter in ten minutes. Please make every effort to attend. Those who cannot will be penalized points.”

  There was an ominous quality to the end of his announcement, almost like there would be more to it than just a loss of points. Would the queen really kill her students to make a point? I didn’t know, but I wouldn’t put it past her.

  Fragments my dream with the floating red river of heads pressed forward in my mind. I shoved the images aside, physically shaking them from my mind. I couldn’t let myself get distracted. I had more important things to worry about now. Like how was I going to get out of here with that zombie guard after me? I shivered.

  What did he want, exactly? What was he looking for? I was told I was allowed to use the library. Certainly, that meant looking through the books. If the books were forbidden, why had they been on the shelf?

  I glanced at the clock on the wall and internally muttered a curse. I was going to be late if I didn’t leave now. How could I with a zombie guy hunting me?

  I dashed down a few more shelves, but I was at the back of the library now without an exit. If I ran forward, he would spot me.

  My heart hammered in my chest as the creature marched down the main aisle, looking down each row and moving closer and closer to me. The library was quiet with everyone gone to the start of the tournament except the footfalls of the guard and my panting breaths.

  I needed him to go down one of the aisles so I could sneak past him. A diversion.

  A second echo of boots across the floor had my heart hammering against my ribcage. I cranked my neck between the shelves.

  Shit! Another stupid guard. This one marching from the other side of the library. If I didn’t do something soon one of them was going to find me. I didn’t want to hang around to find out what the penalty would be for missing the start of the tournament. Or what if more guards were sent in here?

  I snagged a book off the shelf in front of me. Then I threw it as hard as I could in the opposite direction I was. It thumped on the floor two shelves in front of me. Both creature’s boots beat in rapid succession as they chased after where the book had landed.

  With my legs trembling, I sprinted past the rows back to the front of the library. I didn’t stop running until I was outside and turned behind me to find the zombie guards hadn’t followed me yet.

  I headed down the hall, trying to calm my heart and forcing myself not to look back, no matter what.

  Now I hoped I wasn’t too late for the starting line up or my head might end up on one of the queen’s pikes.

  Chapter Six

  I kept glancing behind me as I raced to the queen’s meeting room, expecting the two guards to chase after me. My heart pounded against my chest. My fingers, clenched into tight fists, were sweating. I knew I shouldn’t waste time looking. It took too much energy and it made my entire body scream in fear each time I did so. But I had to know.

  Luckily, I crossed the threshold without any of them following me. Once I knew I was safe, I wiped my brow and let out a shaky breath. The meeting room resembled an assembly hall with bright red roses lined along the walls. I flexed my fingers as subtly as I could and then let them hang loosely at my sides. I took another deep breath in before making my way to a chair. I sat next to another girl with jet black hair, tan skin, and purple bangs.

  “Hi,” I said, my voice coming out shaky. I cleared my throat. I needed to calm myself down. The last thing I wanted to do was call attention to myself any more than I already had. “I’m Alexis. Any idea what this is about? This whole place has me freaking out.”

  I don’t know why I opened up to this stranger, except she had this calmness I was drawn to. I couldn’t explain it, but I trusted her. It was probably stupid. Hell, maybe I wanted to believe I could actually make a friend here, someone who understood what I was going through to a degree. We were all trapped here together until we passed or died. The other houses didn’t get that. They never would. And what was worse, as a human, there was no way to defend ourselves. We were stuck.

  “No idea.” She shook her head and offered me a friendly smile. “I’m Tula.”

  “Nice to meet you.” I paused, trying to place her slight Hispanic accent. “Are you from the area around Wonderland?”

  “No way.” She shook her head, pressing her lips together almost as though she was offended. “I’m from New Mexico where it is an honor to come here. My grandmother did all kinds of mojo for one of her grandchildren to be chosen.” She clicked her tongue ring against her teeth, her voice turned sarcastic. “And I got to be the lucky one.” She rolled her eyes, fiddling with one of the many bracelets on her wrist.

  “You’re not the only one who wishes they weren’t here,” I muttered.

  A few more tributes found seats around us, then one of the escorts from this morning stepped onto the stage. His silver hair glimmered in the spotlights overhead and the emerald green plaid of his uniform appeared to be a brighter shade. It made him look unreal, like one of those overly cute anime guys come to life. I wondered if that made him fae then. Or if he had a glamour to make himself appear that way. I wasn’t sure what was allowed here and what wasn’t. It unnerved me that I could be looking at someone and they might not be who they seemed.

  I’d never met an official Wonderlander—unless I had been wrong all my life about my father. Looking around to make sure no one watched me, I dug out my cellphone from my pocket and checked it. No response from my mom. I put the phone away.

  I shouldn’t have been surprised. She had a life outside of me. She probably wasn’t sitting by the phone, waiting for me to send her sporadic updates.

  But still.

  This was big and it would be nice to get some kind of response from her.

  “How are there spotlights when the queen doesn’t like modern stuff?” I asked Tula, glancing up overhead.

  “Its magical lights,” a girl with a blond braid said from near us. “Didn’t either of you read the history of Wonderland Academy?”

  Tula and I shook our heads, a snort escaping my new friend. Part of me regretted not looking this stuff up. Not because I cared about this place and what it meant to be here. More like I should have prepared myself better.

  “The whole academy is hooked up to the head mages’ magic,” she continued as though not hearing us. “Kind of like mage light. When you walk into a room, the light automat
ically turns on and adjusts to the available light already present.”

  “Like the fire in the fireplaces.” I snapped my fingers.

  When both girls stared at me like I’d lost my mind, I cleared my throat and looked away.

  “Eithanael told me,” I murmured, suddenly enthralled with a stray thread that teased the edge of my hemline.

  “And why did he give you this random information?” The blonde pushed her hair over her shoulder, trying not to seem interested in my answer.

  Was she into him? I wouldn’t blame her. He was gorgeous.

  “Alexis, my name is Alexis.” When she didn’t offer her information, I continued. “And you are?”

  I tried not to be annoyed. Maybe she needed time to adjust to this, just as I did. It wasn’t a big deal.

  “You don’t know me?” she asked, her eyes widening.

  “Should we?” Tula yawned.

  “Vivian Anderson…from Hollywood? I was in Teenage Nightmares and Call of the Wild.” She said these movie titles like we should know them. I think I heard of the first one, but I couldn’t be sure.

  “And you’d rather be here than making movies?” I shook my head. I hadn’t meant to say that out loud, but I couldn’t help it.

  “Not like I had a choice, but yes.” She nodded once. “Adding this to my resume would open a lot more doors, doors I need because I do not want to be typecast in the same stupid movie over and over again.”

  The guy on stage clapped his hands. Everyone quieted. I looked around. Solemn expressions touched the faces of the new students, as though they were worried about what was to come. I couldn’t blame them. I was positive my face had a similar expression on it.

  “Please be patient,” he said. “The queen will arrive shortly and I will announce her. Ready yourselves. She is very particular about appearance. Take care to look your best.”

  He sounded so formal. Was my father as prim and proper here as this guy when he’d been here as a tribute, remembering the photo from the yearbook?