Unhinged (Splintered, #2)(48)
I shake my head. “Where is Rabid?” In all the craziness, I’d forgotten we left him alone in my room.
“I tied him up,” Mom answers. “He’s being entertained by your eels. Electroshock therapy. Penance for his role in what happened to you last summer.”
I gasp at her callousness and start for my room, but Morpheus steps into my path.
“He’s fine,” he assures me, a hand on my shoulder. “Electricity has no effect on our kind.”
I shake him off. “Well, it can’t be good for my eels!” I shout. “They have to be terrified!” Morpheus and Mom both look at me like I’m losing it. If I am, they’re the ones to blame. “Get Rabid out. Tell him I demand to know why he’s here.”
Morpheus raises his eyebrows at me. Then, with an admiring glint in his eye, he removes his hat and bows. “As you wish, Your Majesty.” He passes a meaningful glance to my mom. “You might try telling your daughter the truth for once. Were you able to decipher any of the mosaics before hiding them?”
Mom shrugs, a sour expression on her face.
“Share what you saw … along with everything else you’ve been hiding. She won’t survive Red’s attack unless she’s equipped with the truth.” Morpheus offers me one last glance—jewels flashing the gentle blue of compassion—then replaces his hat. His boots clomp across the linoleum floor.
Once his footsteps are muffled in the living room carpet, I give Mom my full attention, waiting for that explanation. “The mosaics,” I blurt out, though it’s not at all what I want the answer to.
She returns my stare with one of her own. “I only had a chance to decipher one. There were three Red Queens fighting for the ruby crown, and another woman’s silhouette watching from behind a wall of vines and shadows—someone invested in the outcome … someone who had a deep stake in it all. I could see her eyes. Sad, piercing. I was in a hurry. That’s all I had time for.”
There have been three Red Queens since last summer: me; Grenadine, who I appointed to rule in my stead; and Red herself.
That leaves the question of the fourth player, the one in the shadows.
Mom watches my expression as I flip through the possibilities in my head. Her scowl softens to a sympathetic frown, and she looks like the woman I once knew: the one who made me Jell-O ice-pops when my throat was sore; the one who kissed my hurts away and sang me lullabies; the one who had herself committed to save me from Wonderland.
But the mom I’m remembering is not her at all. This mom’s hair is still glowing, her skin glistening like snow under starlight. This mom … this netherling … is a stranger to me.
“You were in Wonderland,” I say, voice quivering.
“It’s not like he said, Allie,” she murmurs. “I smeared the clues on the pages. But it was because I met your father and wanted to put an end to the quest forever.” She wrings her hands in the dish towel. “I was trying to decide what to do with the heirlooms. That’s why I hid them. I couldn’t just toss them away—I had to figure out how to fix it so none of our descendants would ever end up in Wonderland again.”
Her answer echoes hollow in the small entryway. Her words send a cold, crackling sensation down my spine. “You knew about the tests. Even worse, you caused them. Because of you, Morpheus came up with all those crazy things I did in Wonderland. All so you could be queen. Then you left him high and dry, and I became your substitute.”
Mom kneads the towel. “We made the plan before you were born, Allie. I—I didn’t know it would turn out like it did …”
“Seriously?” The word comes out high-pitched and pinched. “You’re missing the whole point! You’ve been to Wonderland and you never bothered to tell me! You lived what I lived. Do you have any idea how much I needed to know that? To know I wasn’t alone?”
Her expression falls, but she stays maddeningly silent.
“Why didn’t you tell me that night at the asylum, when I spilled my guts to you?” The sobs I’m holding back pile upon one another, and my throat hurts more than when I had a breathing tube shoved inside. “Or earlier than that. If you’d just been honest from the very beginning, when you found out I could hear the bugs and plants.” I let one sob loose. It breaks apart into two. “It could’ve changed everything. Wonderland wouldn’t be in this mess, because I wouldn’t have gone and screwed it all up.”
Mom clutches her dish towel like a lifeline. “It’s not you who caused this. It’s Red.”
“But I unleashed her,” I growl. “And because of that, it’s my responsibility to fix things.”
“Sweetie, no …” She drops the towel and reaches for me.
Jammed in the corner, I can’t escape, so I slap her hand away instead.
“Allie, please—” Her voice breaks.
Her wounded voice barely registers. All I see is a traitor. The lilies in my hospital room had been referring to her. She was the one who would betray me in the worst possible way.
“You’re unbelievable,” I say through gritted teeth. “You planned to fix things for all of us, huh? You, the one who’s so afraid of everything Wonderland related. You, who thought our family was cursed until I told you otherwise. You, who stepped into my mirror today, with a key you’ve kept hidden not for months but for years. Why? Because you wanted to go back again someday and be queen? Were you even planning to tell Dad before you left him?”