Ensnared (Splintered, #3)(14)

I pat the top of my head, the one part of me I can’t see. “Oh, no. My head’s the size of a blimp, isn’t it?”

The stranger chortles. “Not at all, child.” He slaps Dad’s back. “She’s definitely got the Skeffington sense of humor, yes?”

Chessie flutters into view, smiling mischievously. I’m so happy to see him I shout his name.

The tiny Barbie ballet bag hangs around his neck and a ragged hole gapes in the bottom. The mushrooms are gone. But thankfully, the outline of the diary still wrinkles the satiny fabric from inside. Red’s magical memories survived.

I feel my collarbone to find the necklace still in place, although the key is as big as a regular one after growing with me. Since the book is still toy-size, it must have fallen out of my leotard’s bodice before I drank the tea. Maybe it’s better that the diary is small. It will be easier to handle if the emotions get unruly again.

Chessie unscrews his head and it rolls toward me along the floor, the bag’s strings tangled around his cranium. A silly laugh escapes him as his decapitated body gives chase.

Dad and the stranger smirk.

How can my dad be so comfortable around all this weirdness? And the stranger, too? They’re both wearing the same goofy Elvis grins.

In fact, they look so much alike they could be . . .

I swing my legs around. The bright colors of the room disorient me. “Dad? Is this . . . ?”

“Oh, sorry, Butterfly.” Dad sits down next to me again, putting his arm around the tutu at my waist to avoid crushing my wings. “This is Bernard.”

“Call me Uncle Bernie,” the man insists.

Chessie’s nose bumps my plastic boot and comes to a stop. I tug the ballet bag’s strings, and his head spins like a top. As I wrap my fingers around the diary, the stranger’s words register: Uncle Bernie.

A smile spreads over my face. There’s a knowing behind his eyes, an unconditional affection that I didn’t do anything to earn, other than being born.

“You’re brothers.”

Bernie’s grin widens. “That we are. Nice to finally meet you.” He places a hand on Dad’s shoulder. “Our family . . . they’ll be overjoyed. We’d given up hope.”

A strangled sound I don’t recognize breaks from my throat.

“She needs water,” Dad says to his brother.

His brother.

Uncle Bernie nods and promises to return. I watch his back—broader than Dad’s—as he steps out into a cushioned hallway lined with dozens of upholstered doors similar to the one in our room.

Chessie screws his head on once more, flitters his wings, and follows my uncle before I can thank him for healing me and watching over the diary.

The door shuts, leaving Dad and me alone with nothing but the popping of lit candles. I can still see the worry lines on his forehead, etched in place by Mom and Jeb’s absence over the past few weeks. But there’s happiness softening the ones around his eyes.

All my life I thought we had no extended family. Then last year I realized Mom and I were related to magical creatures from Wonderland. Now, I have an uncle. A human uncle who looks like the Prince of Thieves.

I must have other relatives, too. Cousins and aunts, even grandparents.

Which means Dad has nephews and nieces. Parents of his own . . .

“When are we going to meet them?” I ask, not sure he’ll pick up on my inference.

“My mom and dad are gone.” Regret echoes in his voice, becoming my own. “But I have two sisters, and they have children. As do Bernard and his wife. We’ll meet them after we find your mother and Jeb. Other than the netherlings passing through, only members of the Looking-glass Knighthood stay at this inn. My brothers, uncles, male cousins, and nephews. The women and youngest children stay elsewhere in Oxford.”

I stare at him, dumbfounded.

Dad catches both my hands. “We’re descended from the same lineage as Charles Dodgson. After he discovered the way to Wonderland, and after Alice found her way back out of the rabbit hole—”

“Wait,” I interrupt. “Charles discovered the way to Wonderland? I thought Alice told him about the rabbit hole. That she inspired his fictionalized account. Are you saying he actually knew the place was real?”

Dad shrugs. “The only history we’ve retained is that the men in our family were called by Charles to guard the gates of AnyElsewhere. To be appointed as knights. His published works help fund us. It’s been our duty for over a century. The boys are tested when they’re seven years old. There’s usually only one son born with the gene. My brother and I were the exception. We both had it.”

“What gene?”

“A second sight like Charles had. An ability to see the weak points in the barrier between the nether-realm and our world. It has to do with infinity mirrors.”

The only infinity mirrors I’m aware of are in funhouses at carnivals and county fairs. I swallow hard, wondering how such a childish diversion could be the gateway to a horrific place like the looking-glass world. But then again, maybe that’s fitting, considering Wonderland is built upon children’s dreams, imagination, and nightmares—considering those things are its very foundation.

“So . . . you had that ability?” I ask.

“Have it,” Dad corrects. “I forgot after my memories were erased. But it’s all come back. I was captured by the spider creature a few months after I started training to be a White knight.”