Chapter 76 #2
"One of sorrow. One of loss," the card repeats.
And Alice adds, "One of a path refocused. That's what it wants, Hook." She turns to look at the Queen's face on the card. "Pain and suffering. A memory of loss, one of sorrow and one of a path refocused."
I watch her. I don't know what she's doing, but she sucks in a breath, steadying herself, and walks toward the doors. There's something in her expression—not quite sadness, but something...different.
“The first time I saw the White Rabbit,” she says, voice quieter than before, “I was sitting with my sister in the garden. Under the big tree at the bottom of our yard.” She hesitates. “Grace was reading. I was sitting. I was bored out of my mind.”
She lets out a short, breathy laugh, but there’s no humour in it.
“There were no pictures in her book. No colours. Just page after page of dull words. I always liked the books with pictures. They told the best stories.” Her fingers trail absentmindedly along the carved door, tracing the endless swirling patterns.
“I didn’t understand how she could be so.
.. boring. How she could just sit there, eyes glued to something so lifeless. How she could stand it.”
She glances over her shoulder at me, and I catch something raw in her gaze.
It’s not even a sad story. But somehow, it is.
Alice turns back to the door, her hands still pressed against it.
“My mother was inside. She didn’t like us playing out there too long—she’d always say we’d track mud into the house or ruin our clothes, or something equally important. She liked things neat. Clean. Predictable.”
She exhales.
“I saw something move by the tree. At first, I thought it was a cat—a flash of white in the green. But then I saw the waistcoat. The pocket watch.” A small, wistful smile flickers across her lips.
“I don’t know why, but I knew I had to follow it.
I remember looking at Grace, but she didn’t notice—she was too busy absorbing every single word of that stupid book.
So I got up. I walked away. No one stopped me. ”
Her hands tighten against the door.
“No one even noticed.”
I don’t say anything.
She’s looking at the carvings now, not at me. Her fingers trace the lines absentmindedly, like she isn’t even aware she’s doing it.
“I followed him through the garden. Past the flowerbeds, past the fence. I crawled through the gap at the bottom—the one I wasn’t supposed to.
Got dirt all over my dress.” She lets out a hollow breath, shaking her head.
“I remember thinking, ‘Mum’s going to be mad.’ Like that was the worst thing in the world. Like that was the biggest problem.”
She falls silent for a moment, her hand resting against the heart in the middle of the door. And then—
“When I found the hole, I didn’t even hesitate. I just climbed in.” Her voice is quieter now, like she’s speaking more to herself than to me.
She exhales slowly, her shoulders curling in just a fraction. “Falling into that hole… for the first time, it felt like I belonged somewhere. Like I wasn’t in the way. Like I wasn’t a problem. It sounds so stupid now, looking back, but that’s what I felt. Like I was… me.”
Her hand presses against the door, fingers flexing like she’s trying to steady herself.
“I was only in the garden because my mother was mad at me.” She lets out a breath that isn’t quite a laugh. It’s too empty. Too bitter. “Which wasn’t unusual.”
She swallows, her throat working around something heavier than words. “My gran had just come back from one of her trips. She loved to travel, always brought me back something. Art things. Little books of postcards, sketchpads, charcoal pencils. She gave me one that day.”
Alice drags a hand through her hair, but it’s not frustration—it’s something else. Something brittle.
“My mother was furious. She told Gran she was encouraging me to be a failure. That she was filling my head with nonsense, making me soft, making me weak.”
She blinks rapidly and looks away, her jaw tensing, like she’s trying to hold herself together.
“That’s what I was to my mother. A failure. Grace was everything, and I was always the disappointment.”
A pause. A deep, slow inhale.
“I didn’t even look at the book my gran got me. Just dropped it straight into the box—the one my mother kept for things we gave away.” Her voice tightens, like it hurts to admit. “And I knew my gran saw. I knew she did. And I knew it hurt her.”
She shakes her head, her hand curling slightly against the door, fingertips pressing into the carved heart. “But I wanted my mother to like me.”
“When I climbed through that rabbit hole… it was like, for the first time, I was me. When I climbed back out... I’d changed.”
Alice’s voice is steady, but there’s something brittle in it, something that makes my chest feel tight. She exhales, as if that breath could wipe away everything she just admitted. Then she looks at the door, tilting her head like she’s judging herself.
“Do you think that’s sad enough?” she asks, almost flippant. “Or just plain pathetic?”
I don’t answer because I don’t think she actually wants one. She turns toward me instead, her expression smoothing out into something unreadable. "Your turn, Hook. You get the joy of loss."
And just like that, my heart slams into my ribs. Because I know exactly where my mind goes first. Sam.
But I can’t.
I won’t.
Not for her. Not for this place. Not for the damn Queen. I do not owe her that debt.
Alice is watching me, waiting. “It has to be something painful,” she says softly.
"Yeah," I mutter, forcing my muscles to unclench. "It wouldn’t want anything else."
I don’t give Alice the sword back as I step up to the door. The right heart, the one opposite hers, is smooth beneath my palm. Warm. Not like someone’s just been here, but like something behind this door is alive.
A heat like smouldering embers. Like the kind of fire that doesn’t go out.
I grit my teeth and shut my eyes.
"My mother died when I was ten," I say, and the words feel foreign on my tongue. Like something I shouldn’t be speaking aloud. I keep my eyes closed because I don’t want to see Alice’s face—don’t want to see that undeserved sorrow she’ll throw my way. I don’t deserve it.
I don’t need it.
I force my breath out slow, dragging the words up from where I buried them years ago. "After Sam."
The two hardest words in my head.
Because everything is after Sam.
Not during Sam, not before Sam. Just after. Like the moment he was gone, time started fresh, and I stopped belonging to the world I’d known.
"We lived by the docks. Where the boats came in at night, where the fishermen came with their catch and sold them at market." My voice is steadier than it should be. Detached. Like I’m telling someone else’s story. Maybe that makes it easier. Maybe it makes it worse.
"I used to gather the scraps. My mother would cook them up, and we’d have fresh fish for dinner.
Sometimes she’d come down to the docks too.
She liked to talk. She had a friend there—a woman.
They used to smoke dried poppies. I didn’t know what they were then.
" I pause, swallowing against the tightness in my throat.
"She only smoked them sometimes. But after.
.." I clench my jaw. "After ... she smoked them all the time. "
I lean my head against the door and close my eyes for just a second.
I let the story fill my head, let the sounds and the smells come into it.
"It was six months after Sam. She wasn't coping so well.
She wasn't coping at all. She'd given up.
" I lift my head again, don't remove my hand, but I look up at the door, at where my hand is because it feels warmer, hotter.
I can feel the heart where I have my hand, absorbing the memory.
Like it's drinking it in. "I came home one night from.
.." I shake my head. That doesn't matter.
"I thought she was asleep at first when I didn't hear her.
But she was gone. She'd died." I swallow hard at that, at the words.
"Hook..." Alice's voice is soft and gentle, and I turn only to meet her eyes. She doesn't say anything else, but her eyes shimmer. "I'm sorry."