The Lost Codex Page 2

  Three.

  I barrel over broken branches and bushes, my hair snagging upon greedy twigs.

  Two.

  I shift my sword, holding aloft a free arm.

  One.

  Jace grabs hold, lifting me up. I settle between his chest and his stallion’s withers, claiming hold of the reigns. Laughter burbles forth from the both of us as we gallop through the remaining thicket. Bursting into the Dark Meadows, sunlight warms my face. My cheeks hurt, my grin is so broad. My lungs sting, my breath heaving in exhilarated bursts.

  We slow three-fourths of the way across the clearing, allowing the stallion to munch on the bittersweet black grasses of the meadow. Just beyond the tree line, the Jabberwocky’s bellows send hordes of outgribing toves scurrying to safety amongst the indigo and pumpkin Flowers. Around us, those Flowers burst into delighted songs that taunt the bested beast.

  Strands of hair are brushed intimately away from my cheek as we watch the Jabberwocky stomp around in stymied outrage. “It is a shame he won’t leave the tree line,” Jace murmurs wistfully.

  A young Flower calls out, her voice tinny amongst all the chatter, “Oh, Your Majesty, do not wish such a thing! He would trample us!”

  He holds back his amusement. “My apologies, madam. I most certainly would never wish for such a travesty.”

  I twist in the saddle, repositioning my legs so we face one another. “The true shame lies in how uneventful this hunt was. We might not have even needed the poison.”

  “And to think this Jabberwocky is feared.” Gleaming, black hair tilts toward the snarling, raging beast. “The Cheshire-Cat’s tantrums are more frightening than he. How many scales did you confiscate?”

  A tree collapses, its splintering sending yet another swatch of jubjubs soaring toward safety. While the flowers around us scream, the stallion barely twitches, its mouth too full of grass.

  “Three.” I shrug. “Perhaps four. I cannot understand why it’s raging on so. There was a minute amount of blood. It isn’t as if it requires a bandage.”

  His lips curve higher, and I chuckle.

  “Do you remember that time during the Serf Uprising?” I trace the length of one dark eyebrow until I feel a bump and then a small dent. “When you were bleeding profusely, and you scandalized the poor healer by insisting there was no time for bandages. Even I marveled at how it was possible to see through such a waterfall of red.”

  His head ducks toward mine, lessening the already slim space between us. His warm breath is soft and welcome upon my lips. “Humble.”

  “Hubris.”

  I feel, rather than see the strength of his smile. “Hostile.”

  “Hopelessly.”

  “Henpecked.”

  “Hardly.”

  His chuckle is smothered when our mouths press together. Without coming up for air, he urges his stallion forward, toward home. The Flowers call out their farewells, offering a song of safe travels. For a small, lovely time, I allow our kisses to consume me before guilt roars to the forefront of my heart and body and mind.

  A thought, swift and sharp: This isn’t right. This isn’t whom I desire.

  Jace must sense my change of emotions, as he tenses a hair’s breadth before I break away. I am a coward, for I shove my forehead into the crook of his neck rather than face his hurt.

  A warm hand strokes the back of my neck; although I cannot see it, he cannot hide the entirety of his disappointment. And now I am the one with acidic blood in her veins, guilt-ridden, acidic blood, only for entirely different, befuddling reasons.

  I am gifted a lingering kiss upon my temple. “It will be all right, my heart. Your answers are coming soon.”

  I pray a solution arrives at the same time.

  BEYOND THE WINDOW, WHITE and blue tents rise between the trees surrounding our house in the tulgey woods bordering the White and Diamond lands. Guests, dignitaries, and courtiers have arrived in preparation for the morrow’s ceremony. I spy Jace amongst a grouping of our Ferzes and Nightriders, acting, upon my insistence, as host for the both of us. He wished to remain with me while I willingly succumb to the Caterpillar’s dream poison, but propriety cannot tolerate such rudeness, not where guests are concerned. It is insufferable enough one monarch is absent, but to have both abstaining from the night’s festivities held in their honors is unconscionable. We’ve explained my absence away easily enough—I am readying myself for our union.

  In many ways, it is the absolute truth.

  The Caterpillar is nearly finished with his concoction. Whilst the White King and I hunted the Jabberwocky, he prepared the rest of the ingredients for a poison that will uncover and eradicate my mysterious dreams. The whole upstairs of our abode stinks with its potency. I must maintain shallow breaths in order to still my stomach. I have great faith in the Caterpillar’s skills, though. His knowledge of poisons is unrivaled throughout Wonderland, even if some mimic rotting flesh left out in the sun on an overly balmy day.

  “You mentioned the need to take a symbolic object within the dream.” I hover over his work, curious as to what I will be ingesting. “One I must destroy. Yet, you have given no instruction on what that object must be.”

  He nudges his half-moon glasses up his bulbous nose, barely sparing a glance as he waves me away. “I did.”

  Which means I must figure it out myself. I do not bother asking how one even brings an object into a dream, as I can already predict his answer.

  What, then, would sufficiently constitute symbolic for a series of dreams I cannot remember? In place of images, all I possess are entrenched sentiments that refuse to relinquish their hold on me, including a maddening sense of love for a nameless man whose face I cannot invoke.

  Why does he remain faceless?

  His face . . .

  Perhaps a blank mask will do? Destroy the mask, destroy the passion for an imaginary person for whom I have assigned preposterous feelings for.

  I own no such object, though. Therefore, as the Caterpillar fiddles with beakers and bubbling concoctions, I call for a maid and request scissors and parchment. Not even batting an eyelash at the request, she returns mere minutes later with just such items. I immediately set to work.

  The clearing of a throat draws my attention. “Tick-tock, Your Majesty.”

  I glance up, startled, the hairs on my arms rising at the unnerving sense of familiarity.

  Tick-tock.

  Tick-tock.

  The Caterpillar dangles a vial of glowing, bluish liquid at the same time an uproarious cheer resonates from outside. I nod, sweeping the scraps of my artistic efforts to the side of the bed as he undulates his way over to where I am.

  “Is this truly what you wish for, Your Majesty?”

  I do not hide my irritation. “Yes.”

  Isn’t it?

  If I thought the stench of the concoction terrible, its taste is the exact opposite: Roast chicken, followed by lemon curd. I settle down upon the soft blankets and place the mask over my face, glad for the small boon.

  “Be vigilant with your observations, Your Majesty. Ensure that, when the time comes, your decisions are true to yourself.”

  I assure him that I will, that I have always acted in just such a manner and would continue to do so. Within seconds, smoke from his hookah stings my nostrils, and seconds from that, the cotton of silence stuffs my ears.

  When I open my eyes, mask still upon my face, I find myself in my sitting room, one floor below my bedroom. Golden, dying rays of daylight stream through the windows, casting shadows across the furniture. Before me is . . . another Alice, her shoulders convulsing. Jace’s arms wrap tightly around her, his shoulders a perfect mirror of hers. I wander closer, close enough to discover wet cheeks. Close enough to spy his fingers turned white as they twist the silk of her dress. Hers are the same as they grip his fine coat. It is as if both fear if they were to let go, the other would dissipate like dew lapped away by a thirsty sun.

  Ribbons tighten the corset constricting my lungs un
til I can hardly draw breath. Melancholy suffocates the room, stealing away all hope. Could this be part of the dreams plaguing me? None of what I’m witnessing feels like a dream. Nerves stretched raw and taut insist upon something . . . different. Something more meaningful than a mere dream.

  Something akin to a . . . a memory.

  Beyond the walls and panes, Begonia’s voice lifts in mournful melody. The lead Rose’s chorus joins in, the swell rendering an ache in my bones. I reach back to grab hold of the settee, to steady myself as I drown in sorrow, but the fabric beneath my hands swirls away like the Caterpillar’s smoke.

  Cowardice rears its jaundiced head. I cannot endure watching this scene unfold before me. In just these few moments, a piece of my heart rips away from the muscles and bones within my chest. I turn away, only to find myself still facing the other Alice and Jace. Each rotation brings me to the same sight.

  There is no escape. Even closing my eyes illuminates the same event.

  The truth is not always easy, the Caterpillar warned just this morning, as I saddled my horse to ride out to find the Jabberwocky. Be sure that this is what you want.

  “I do not know if I can do this.” Jace’s whisper to the other Alice cuts the very air. I am sure if I were to look, it cut my skin, too. “I know I must—we must—but. . .”

  A heartrending cry disintegrates from her lips before she desperately presses her mouth against his. “Do not fail me. I need your strength right now.” Her voice is nothing but shards of broken porcelain. “I—I cannot—”

  He lovingly kisses away her tears, even as his own stream freely. “Forgive me.” His voice matches hers, and my knees give way. I sway, a tree no longer moored by roots. “I vowed to be strong, and instead I am. . .” He closes his eyes. Murmurs her—my—name.

  A pair of syllables breaks the both of our hearts. Wounds rip open, ones whose pink, tender skin is still all too fragile.

  Still?

  How can a dream cause such palpable pain?

  As grief leaves me gasping, Jace curves his hands around her cheeks. “Allow me to accompany you. Just to the end.”

  The request intensifies the shudder wracking her overly taut body, and the suffering disintegrating me. “I want nothing more, my heart.” So much anguish saturates each word. “But if you were to, my chances of leaving peaceably would be much diminished. How could I follow through if you stood there as sentry?”

  A knock on the door fails to pry the pair apart. The other Alice calls out, “Enter,” even as my beloved’s head lowers to the slope of her neck.

  Crimson blooms across his tunic. Rubs against the silk of her dress. Drips until it stains the floor. I have no doubt the other Alice’s chest would do the same if it could.

  As would mine.

  The door swings open. The Caterpillar and the Cheshire-Cat are illuminated in hazy, late-afternoon sunlight. Both are weighted by a somberness that defies gravity.

  My Grand Advisor coughs into one of his many gloved fists. “It is time, Your Majesty.”

  A keening choking consumes the White King of Wonderland. The other Alice draws in shuddery breath. She says, she whispers, “I cannot wish for a better person to take care of my peoples and lands. You honor me, my lord.”

  His answer is a kiss filled with emotion stripped so bare it saturates the room. He forcibly pulls himself away, putting distance between their bodies. An arm crosses his bloody chest. “To this I avow: I will defend the Diamonds’ lands until my dying breath, my lady.”

  The other Alice unclasps the golden necklace ringing her neck, the one bearing a meaningful H. The same one around mine. She transfers it to his neck, tucking it beneath his newly scarlet shirt. “Heartbroken.”

  He whispers in kind, “Hollowed.”

  Her back straightens in just a way I am all too familiar with. She readies herself for battle, even if it is the last thing she wishes for. There is nothing else to say. She does not collapse, she does not weep hysterically. She does not cling. The other Alice collects a traveling coat draped across the settee and swiftly exits the house, the Caterpillar and myself unbidden upon her heels. She does not look back, not even when furious crashes and howling sound within. She marches past the Diamonds’ guards lining the path from the house to carriage, her head held high as they intone my crown’s song.

  I attempt to return to the house in effort to calm Jace’s rage, but I possess no free will. I am tethered to this Alice. Within a split second, I am within the Diamonds’ carriage, alongside my doppelgänger and the Caterpillar, watching as broken remains of a chair careen through a window.

  The carriage lurches forward. “Do you have the second dose?” The other Alice is wooden as she addresses our Grand Advisor.

  His hookah remains untouched. “It will not be pleasant.”

  The Flowers take over for the fading soldiers, taking up the Diamonds’ song. The tulgey woods fill with the melody I once found so stirring but now painfully melancholy.

  My doppelgänger maintains her focus upon the Caterpillar. Her eyes are glazed and red—but from more than crying, I suspect. “None of this is.”

  Of that she is correct.

  “This will be the worst yet. Have you felt any effects so far?”

  The twist of her lips is ugly. “The Queen’s Council still stands, does it not? There are no charges of regicide, no matter how much I might have wished it differently.” After a pause, she adds bitterly, “I somehow walked through the door, much like I just did.”

  He says nothing more, instead proffering a bottle filled with black liquid. She uncorks it and, without hesitation, throws her head back and drinks it in one gulp. New shudders wrack her limbs, ones not crafted from heartbreak. Her fingers dig into the blue velvet lining the seat we rest upon until tears spread beneath her nails.

  Long minutes pass as she spasms, spittle frothing at the sides of her lips. The Caterpillar puffs away at his hookah, offering no assistance whilst his beady eyes never stray from her person. Finally, after blood joins spittle, the other Alice stills enough for small twitches to be spaced between seconds.

  Upon reflection, she has gone through battle, and I vicariously. Can sleep or poisons truly bring about such fanciful delusions? And if so, how is it that it can strip my feelings until they are utterly raw? The pain consuming me is too deep. Too familiar.

  I blink and am no longer in the carriage. Instead, surrounded by the Caterpillar and a small squadron of Spider soldiers, the other Alice and I face a rabbit hole.

  I glance around, trying to pinpoint our location. We are outside . . . Nobbytown?

  My Grand Advisor motions one of his feet-hands toward Ferz Marish, an enormous elderly Arachnid who serves on my council. “I would have your report.”

  “Guards are in place, sir.” The Ferz straightens its body, graying, bristling hairs swaying gently in the wind. “I can assure you that there is nothing amiss. The area has been swept thrice. There are no civilians or enemies within the radius you outlined.”

  The Caterpillar grunts. “And the White Rabbit?”

  “Effectively neutralized, sir. Spies are in place to ensure he remembers nothing of construction.”

  “The moment a singular word is spoken of it, he is to be dealt with.” The slant of the Caterpillar’s small mouth is grim. “Is that understood?”

  “Yes, sir.” The Ferz scuttles closer to the other Alice. “Your Majesty, you honor myself and my squadron by entrusting us with the hole’s defense. We will not fail you.”

  A closer look at the rabbit hole reveals that it is swarming with Spiders.

  The other Alice places her arm and fist across her chest. When the Spiders quietly sing the Diamonds’ battle song, fresh tears fill both of our visions. My doppelgänger places a hand upon the equivalent of the Caterpillar’s shoulder, which is a risky endeavor. I, myself, have often found the endearment too intimating to attempt. She says, voice rough yet still measured, “Ensure my people and lands safe.”

  He shrug
s off her hand. She does not take offense. “Until my dying breath.”

  Her pupils nearly expand the entire width of her red-ringed irises as she strides unevenly toward the hole. Despite her obvious imbalance, her shoulders roll back. The Spiders at the mouth retreat as she climbs in. And then—

  Then I blink, and the other Alice and I are in a padded room with no windows. She dons a jacket that restrains both arms and movement. Her hair is stringy, matted, even; her eyes are demented. Her bottom lip bleeds. Nearby, reddish-pink lines streak the dirty linen walls. My doppelgänger is shrieking and then sobbing and chortling all in the span of mere minutes.

  She head-butts a cautious yet optimistic orderly in a white uniform who attempts to feed her soup. He is rendered unconscious, saved from her wrath only by a portly, soft-spoken gentleman bearing a syringe. As she staggers backward, the other Alice groans, “The toves gyre at midnight.”

  Our combined cries are mournful and fearsome all at once when her cheek slams against the padded floor.

  I stare just as unabashedly as she does at the gentleman when he murmurs kindly, “It will be all right, Alice. Rest now. Someday, these will all be nothing but memories.”

  Memories.

  I blink, and the padded cell disappears. I am in in a bizarre room with glass walls and a long table, shaking hands with a handsome gentleman who makes the damaged muscle in my chest find strength enough to sprint. A warm feeling, bright and strong and . . . familiar, seeps comfortably into my pores as the pair awkwardly talk with one another.

  Who is this man? His clothes are foreign, his accent American.

  I blink, and the glass room dissolves. The other Alice and the gentleman are next to one another on the floor of what appears to be a hallway. My doppelgänger wears an obscenely short dress, yet the gentleman does not seem to find it scandalous. He is kind to her, respectfully attentive.

  My pulse beats faster.

  Another blink of the eye, and we are sitting within a surreal, coffee-scented room filled with wondrous sights and peoples. The other Alice—no. I am drinking hot chocolate, appearing as if I belong in such a whimsical place. Once more, the gentleman is kind as we talk.