Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
ALICE
"No, freaking way. Oh no."
I land with a thud. Not graceful, not even remotely dignified—just face-first into something soft but somehow completely uninviting.
I blink, trying to process where I am and what I’m doing because nothing makes a lick of sense.
I refuse to believe it. Nope. I am not in bloody Wonderland, and this is not my life.
I close my eyes, taking a deep breath. Maybe if I try hard enough, I can fall back asleep. Is that even a thing? Can you fall asleep inside a dream? Because that’s exactly what this is. A dream.
“I’m dreaming.”
I raise my hands to my face, covering my eyes, hoping that when I open them again, I won’t be lying in a field under a sky that twists and swirls like it’s mocking reality. No, I’m back in my old room at Mum’s house, and this is not happening. I can make that real.
“Dreaming, are we?”
I scream. I don’t mean to, but it bursts out of me. My heart’s racing like it’s trying to escape, and I jump to my feet, spinning around.
There, sitting behind me, is a man—his skin glistening, blue, and somehow more vivid than anything else around me. He’s perched on the one patch of color in this twisted place, legs crossed like he’s in the middle of a meditation session.
“You are not real. You’re not.”
He opens his eyes, and they’re bright—swirling blue and green, like the Mediterranean Sea on a perfect day. Stunning. Perfect. Terrifying.
“Alice...”
I throw my hand up, cutting him off. “Nope. Don’t speak.
” I spin again, looking around wildly. I’m in a field—or what used to be a field.
It might have once been vibrant and full of life, but now?
It’s twisted and dark. The grass is some sickly shade of green and blue, but it’s lost whatever magic it might have once had.
“I’m just having a breakdown. That’s all. Nothing to worry about. Brain overload. Totally fine. Fine and dandy.”
“You know, people who talk to themselves are often quite mad. Are you mad, Alice?”
“Don’t talk to me. Don’t...” I squeeze my eyes shut. Calm. I need calm. What is this? Where am I?
I glance around, taking in my surroundings. I’m in a clearing. The trees surrounding me are gnarled and dark, and in between them, something flickers. Not glitter—no, more like tiny lights. I squint, trying to make sense of it. “Pumpkins?”
“To call on all the lost souls,” the man says, his voice smooth and eerie.
I don’t know whether to scream again or laugh, but I’m pretty sure I’m about to lose my mind either way.
I turn to him. “Who are you?”
He’s smoking a pipe now. Of course, he is.
A long, ornate pipe. He takes a slow, deep drag and then exhales, sending swirling rings of smoke around us.
One of them drifts toward me, and for some absurd reason, I reach for it, like it’s something I can grab.
It slips over my hand, down my arm, and I catch it, like I’m handling something solid.
I toss it back into the air because, really, why not?
“You’ve forgotten?” His voice is smooth, almost too calm for this madness.
His name is on the tip of my tongue, but I bite it back. He nods at me, like we’re communicating telepathically, waiting for me to remember.
“Yes,” he says, reading my mind. “You know.”
“Absolem,” I finally say.
He smiles—no, smirks—and pushes himself up.
His delicate blue wings stretch out behind him, and for a moment, they catch the fading light.
But it’s not him that’s watching me. It’s the shadows around us.
They seem to move, twist, and pull at the edges of this warped world.
The wind carries faint whispers, like it’s alive.
“What happened to this place?” I turn and nearly smack into him.
He angles his head, those eerie eyes of his fixed on me, and when he exhales this time, the smoke hits me square in the face. Sweet, warm, and unsettling.
“What happened to you?” he asks, voice like silk.
“Nothing. I…” I stop myself and raise my hands to push him back but don’t touch him. “I’m dreaming, that’s all.”
Absolem tilts his head down, looking at the ground where I’d landed.
There, crumpled and bent, are the cards I’d collected.
Not as bright as they were before. Somewhere in the distance, something sounds—like music, but twisted, like it’s playing backward.
It makes Absolem’s eyes widen, and before I can ask what it is, he grabs my arm.
“Get into the trees.”
He pulls me, and I have no choice but to follow. We duck into the shadows, hiding from whatever it is that’s coming.
I have no idea what we’re running from. Above us, in the sky, something swarms. I don’t even know what to call them—bat-like, spider-like creatures. Whatever they are, they fly, and they’re coming fast.
“Don’t,” Absolem says, yanking me back as I reach out to touch a pumpkin with glowing eyes. Its mouth twists into a sneer, and it hisses at me before rolling away. “You celebrate Halloween here?” I ask, trying to make sense of all this.
“Halloween?” Absolem chuckles. “It’s the Night of Shadows here. You’re here for the Queen’s grand ball.”
“I’m here because I’ve gone mad.”
He smiles, that soft, knowing smile, and for a moment, memories I’ve buried start to creep up. The ones I didn’t dare to dream about as a child. I see him, younger, still himself but a caterpillar then. His face still has those soft pink and pastel markings.
“But we’re all a little mad down here, Alice. Don’t you remember?”
The swarm above us is gone, and Absolem releases my arm. I stand and finally take a proper look at the world around me. A deep breath fills my lungs, but it does nothing to settle the unease. “This can’t be real. It doesn’t make any sense.”
I reach out and touch the nearest tree, only to find the bark is soft—like fur. I pull back, stepping between the trees. The ground shimmers in places, dark and broken, roots spreading out, thorny and sharp.
“I found those playing cards,” I say, more to myself than him. “In my house. The Queen invited me to her palace.”
Absolem stays silent, following me as I walk and talk, mostly to myself. This place has that effect.
“I have to get to the palace.”
“You know the way,” he says, not as a question, but a statement. Maybe I do. Maybe if I close my eyes and remember those places I haven’t thought about in a long, long time.