Unhinged (Splintered, #2)(94)

“You gave up your crown for Dad.” I can barely look at her now without picturing her as royalty. “Turned your back on something you wanted with all your heart, for a guy you didn’t even know.”

She taps the dimple in my chin, the one that’s always reminded her of Dad’s. “That’s not true. The second I looked into his eyes, I knew him. And later, when he woke up on my bed, confused and scared, he looked at me. He held out his hand. Calm. Like he’d been waiting forever to find me. Like he knew me, too.”

“So you pretended that he did know you.”

Her smile softens. “I made up a story about his past so he could have a future. But he’s the one who gave me a future. Accepted me, loved me unconditionally. He’s always felt like home. Something I have never felt in my life anywhere else. Everything paled next to that. Even the magic and madness of Wonderland.”

Tears burn my eyes again. “It’s kind of like a fairy tale.”

She looks down at the polka dots on her skirt. “Maybe. And you’re our happy ending.” Her gaze returns to mine, filled with love. She blots tears from my cheek.

We clasp hands, and the moment spins out between us. I’ll never let this memory be damaged … never forget how it feels, right now, to look at her and know her, to understand her—through and through. Finally, after so many years.

Now I want to understand Dad, too.

“Do you regret it? Not looking into Dad’s past … not finding his family?”

Mom fidgets. “Oh, but, Allie, I did.”

“What?”

“I watched a few of his memories once, when I was pregnant with you. I finally understood the true importance of family, because I had one. And I wanted to give your father’s back to him. I was even willing to tell him he’d had amnesia when we first met, that I’d lied about knowing him. Just to see him reunited with them.”

She grows quiet.

I touch her hand. “Mom, tell me what you saw.”

Rubbing her nose, she sniffs. “Your father was nine when he stumbled into Sister Two’s keep. So I looked a year before that, expecting to see him in a typical little boy’s life. I was hoping to learn his last name, hometown, something.” She shakes her head. Her hand clenches beneath mine.

I wait, afraid to prompt her. Unsure if I want to know more.

“I must not have looked far enough,” she continues. “But I’ll never look again. He’s been places, Allie. Even as an eight-year-old. Places humans aren’t meant to go. Places netherlings hope never to be sent.”

My throat goes dry. “What do you mean?”

“The looking-glass world—AnyElsewhere. Did Morpheus ever tell you about it?”

“Not enough.” Obviously.

“It’s where all of Wonderland’s exiles are banished, where Queen Red was supposed to go, before she escaped. There’s a dome of iron that surrounds it, holding them all in, and two knights who guard each gateway, one Red and one White. The place is Wonderland on steroids. The creatures”—her face pales—“the landscapes, they’re wild and untamed, mutated beyond anything you can imagine. It’s no wonder your father’s dreams were so captivating to the restless souls. His experiences from that place probably fed their hunger for violent frivolity to the brim. Not to mention how formidable his nightmares must’ve been. The rabbit hole was never safer than when he was providing the mome wraiths.”

Discomfort slinks into my bones as I consider the wraiths I tamed in the gym. To imagine Dad’s nightmares as any more ghastly than those makes my skin crawl. “How could he have found his way to the looking-glass world as a child? I thought the only entrance was through Wonderland, the tulgey forest.”

“Morpheus once told me there’s another way in, from the human realm. There’s a way to open mirrors without keys, an ancient trick that only the anointed knights know.”

I stand, needing to move or I’ll throw up. “So, you think when Dad was a kid, he got inside through a mirror and ended up crossing AnyElsewhere all the way to the other gate that leads to the tulgey wood … inside Wonderland?”

Mom shrugs. “That would explain how he fell into Sister Two’s keep. The answer is in his lost memories. But I can’t watch them again. It felt like I was betraying him. Viewing pieces of his life that he would never have access to. That’s not right. No. We just have to move forward. We’re his family now, and that’s enough.”

I sit again and try to digest everything she’s told me. The quiet becomes unbearable. I’m hyperaware of the time passing, and of Jeb in the next room filling his head with lost memories. There’s nothing I can do now about my family’s messed-up past, but there’s still a mosaic to find and a battle to fight.

“You’re right,” I say to get us back on track. “We need to move forward. Why are you here? Did Dad tell you what happened at school?”

She nods and plays with the straps on her tote bag. “I knew he was keeping something from me. I finally got it out of him. He wanted me to go with him to look for you because he was afraid to leave me alone. But I insisted on staying behind in case you came home. When he left, I called for Chessie. He led me here.”

“But we don’t have any mirrors at home. And you don’t drive.”