Chapter 14 #2
And worst of all…
She couldn’t stop missing the poison.
“Dance for me, Lucy girl.”
Alice was gone after that. Only Lucy remained. Terrified, broken. Never the same again.
The prince’s horrible kiss of truth shattered Lucy’s fairytale life like a fist to a mirror, and when they broke apart, he had changed.
A black top hat wrapped in red ribbon shadowed his face, which was further covered by a bronze skull mask that looked like it came from another world entirely.
Tears filled his eyes, though the ballroom lights had dimmed too much now for Lucy to make out their color.
“We are meant to marry, Princess Lucy. And when the clock strikes twelve, you will become a pawn once more.” The Hatter’s voice broke. “Your family will fall.”
“No… no, no, that can’t be.” Lucy stumbled away from him as the great clock tolled once overhead.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Despite the mask hiding half his face, Lucy saw the villain clearly now. A Fury prince. When he reached for her with a trembling hand, she spun away in frantic fouettés as the great clock rang again.
“Luna! Brylie! Nox! Benoit!”
Each name reverberated through the emptiness like another terrible bell, and as Lucy spun faster and faster and faster, her worst fears unfolded across the ballroom stage in a living tableau of horror while the bells tolled through every nightmare in stark relief.
Monsters descended on Luna first. Her prince fired his crossbow into the dark, dropping one creature after another before stealing her away into the shadows. Brave Benoit shouted and sprinted after them, but thunder cracked through the air. Then he clutched his chest, staggered backward, and fell.
“No!”
Lucy tried to run to him, but she couldn’t stop dancing. Her pointe shoes carried her relentlessly across the ballroom floor toward the darkness waiting at the edges, toward the shadows threatening to envelop her.
She screamed for the others instead, but equal horrors awaited them too.
Brylie writhed in her prince’s arms before suddenly going limp. He caught her before she struck the ground and begged her to wake up, kissing her cheeks, her hands, her lips, but Brylie never opened her eyes again.
And Nox…. playful, reckless, carefree Nox… he collapsed beside Benoit with an agonized cry.
He cursed the heavens themselves as he reached for his weapon, but before he could rise again, the ballroom’s gilded floor opened up and swallowed him whole.
Lucy stopped spinning then, overcome by emotions she’d thought she’d never known. Fear. Horror. Sorrow. Every terrible sensation filled her chest until she could hardly breathe around them, and she whirled around to face her Fury prince.
“How?” Her voice fractured on the penultimate bell. “How do I stop this?”
Tears streamed down the prince’s face.
“Run, Lucy,” he sounded just as broken as she felt as he slowly reached for his mask. “Run and never come back.”
The final bell tolled, and she turned on her heel before it finished echoing in her mind. Before his mask could fall. Before she could see her prince’s face.
She ran for all their lives, farther and farther away from the prince behind her, because Lucy understood now what would happen if she didn’t. If she stayed, her friends would suffer once more.
This time it would be all her fault.
And Alice—terrified little Alice, the girl meant to become the Queen of Hearts—would never allow herself to become a pawn again—
A screaming whistle shocks through me and my body jerks like someone grabbed me. I freeze for a whole heartbeat, lungs locked tight, my mouth opening to beg for help behind the duct tape…
Chessy yowls at the tea kettle, snapping me out of my fugue.
“Shoot!”
I bounce out of bed so fast the little houseboat rocks beneath me. My heart pounds hard against my ribs as I slap the burner off and flick open the kettle’s spout, silencing the shriek.
Steam curls through the tiny kitchenette, fogging the already-clouded windows. I pant hard and breathe the thick humidity in. It’s suffocating, yet somehow centering, and I brace myself against the counter.
The world is silent now, but loud. Like the scream of the kettle drowned out everything else and sucked me into a vacuum.
Chessy lets out another deeply offended yowl behind me, and a breathy laugh huffs from my chest.
“You never just meow, do you?” I peer over my shoulder and find him glaring at me from the tangled blankets I threw over him in my haste.
“Oop, sorry, boy.” I leave the kettle to unpeel the blankets around him layer by layer like an onion, and he races free the second he manages to extract himself. Then sits on the pillow beside mine and blinks slowly at me.
Geez, how can one blink be so full of judgment?
“Okay, yeah, I agree. Maybe I should switch to microwaving the water. But hear me out, there’s something… whimsical about kettle tea.”
I pull my favorite pink porcelain mug from the narrow cabinet and quickly shut it again before the boat’s sway can send something sliding off the shelf—the poor chipped teacup wasn’t always chipped.
Hopefully it wasn’t Fancy’s favorite. I’m greeted with uncharacteristic Chessy silence, and I scoff.
“Hey. I can be whimsical. I’m full of whimsy! ”
I unscrew the lid off the loose-leaf cherry and rose hip blend Iris made for me. The scent blooms, warm, fruity, and floral the second I open it, and I inhale the mouthwatering flavor. The mix does an exceptional job handling my sweet tooth cravings when I can’t have one of her to-die-for tarts.
The wind whistles lightly through the porthole, and my oyster shell wind chime clanks softly against the hull, bristling my nerves. Half the time it scares the absolute life out of me in the middle of the night.
“But we like the wind chime, don’t we, Chess? Because you know why? Because I’m the whimsiest, dammit,” I mutter stubbornly. “Plus, I do actually like the sound.”
And it’s the kind of thing a girl like me should like. You know, if she had a normal life. If she were carefree.
That’s something I haven’t been in a long, long time. But it’s something I’m determined to be on Wander Isle. After having to move so many times, this island gives me agency I haven’t felt in… ever. I want to try my best to make this place a home.
A dangerous game for a girl with a go-bag she uses like a security blanket.
I spoon the tea into the mouse-shaped, rose-gold strainer and pour the hot water over it. The chain—his cute little tail—hangs over the lip of the mug while the steeping leaves swirl color against the pink porcelain like dark red ink.
Behind me, Chessy yowls again and picks at my quilt with his claws.
“Chess, no! Look, I know that wasn’t my best work, but there’s no need to be so sassy about it.
Give me a break…” I climb back into bed and huddle around my knees beneath the quilt, pressing my lips to the cup’s warm rim as I speak into the steam.
“It’s hard to tell a story you don’t fully understand yourself. ”
Chessy looks at me. My explanation seems to placate him, and he abandons his spot to settle dramatically against my hip. He purrs louder than the boat’s engine ever does, apparently forgiving me of my many human flaws.
The heater hums, the quiet drone nowhere near a match for Chessy, and the fairy lights I hung glow warm against the curved walls of the bedroom.
I sip my tea and enjoy the tart, sweet flavor on my tongue while the boat gently rocks us like a cradle and waves lap their lullaby against the dock outside. For a second, it feels peaceful.
But I know better by now. It’s not peace. Not really. It’s quiet but that doesn’t even matter when my thoughts are so damn loud.
“I didn’t see it happen,” I whisper, staring down into the blood red swirl in the water. “I have no idea how Luna survived it. I don’t think I would’ve.” I swallow. “Sometimes I almost wish I had seen it. I wonder if my imagination is worse…”
His mouth hangs open and his eyes stare at me as foam drips from his lips.
Will he wake up?
Do I wait to make sure?
My blood still burns, and the world spins in hypnotic spirals.
But I should leave—
My throat tightens, and I shake my head.
“No. Reality is worse.” I nod once, then swallow. “The moment I heard what happened, I knew. I knew I couldn’t stay.”
Chessy’s ears twitch, but otherwise he just lets me talk.
That’s what I like about him. About Wander Isle in general. Everyone lets everyone else be who they need to be.
We all hide behind fake names and secrets. They’re currency on Wander Isle, and nobody asks questions because nobody wants to have to give answers of their own. That anonymity has made me feel the safest I have in months.
I can learn things here about the outside world, information that matters, and it’s the only place I’ve felt remotely in control since I ran. Even if it is lonely.
Granted, loneliness hardly feels like a cost when my friends’ and family’s lives are what’s kept safe.
“After the… the bad man. I was so afraid,” I murmur. “Of everything. But Brylie, Luna, Nox… Bennie.” I take another warm sip. “They made me brave.”
The boat’s fenders softly bump against the dock. I glance around the tiny cabin, my library, then straight ahead of me to the door with all of its locks. The strap of my go-bag lays over my bed, ready to grab at a moment’s notice.
“This place is the first one that doesn’t scare me,” I tell Fancy’s Haven quietly. “Because Alice is braver than Lucy.”
The wind chime clacks outside again, making my fingers tighten around the cup.
“Alice is untouchable,” I insist. “The bad man never hurt Alice.”
I stare at the door, not really seeing it anymore.
“Only… only Lucy.”
The air inside the boat suddenly feels too warm. The walls too close. The ceiling too low—
I snatch the porthole latch and wrench it open, then drag in a deep breath of humid, cool air, not minding when it makes me shudder.
“God,” I mutter, bowing my forehead against the rim of the cup and laughing wryly. “I haven’t been this skittish in ages. I really am a scared little rabbit, huh, Chessy?”