Splintered (Splintered, #1)(84)
“Morpheus gave an oath,” the good twin explains. “If I should help the girl get into the garden and cross off the last two squares, he’ll relinquish the moth spirits into my keep.”
“Ye never use any sense, nohow!” the murderous sister screeches. “I told ye to stay out of it. It be none of our concern.”
“Contrary that! We must have the spirits. One spirit in exchange for a thousand. ’Tis fair price to keep the dead contained here, so they’ll not possess the living. ’Tis our sworn purpose, after all!” Sister One pushes me through the archway back into the labyrinth.
“Where ye be taking her?” Sister Two asks, her blue eyes aglow with suspicion and fury.
“To the looking glass.” Sister One cups my elbow and leads me down the path. I nearly slip once in the snow, but she steadies me. “She yet has a game to win. And you have a queen to catch.”
Sister Two follows, her eight legs sifting through the powder as her long skirt leaves drag marks behind her. “What mean ye by that?”
“Queen Red has escaped her slumber. She’s on the loose and restless. Best to hurry before she finds a way to the castle.” Having said that, Sister One guides me back into the maze, leaving her twin screaming in outrage. The spirits join the tantrum, wailing once more.
I shut it all out. Queen Red was dead and imprisoned, but now she’s on the loose. That means I released the witch who put a curse on my family nearly a century ago. What will she do to us now that she’s free? “Will you be able to find her?” I ask, swallowing against the knot in my larynx.
“She’s of no consequence to you.” Sister One slides her grasp to my wrist, whipping around turns through the maze with such speed, I can barely keep up. “The queen’s always been trouble. I’m glad to be done with her. My sister is responsible now. She’ll capture the restless soul and contain her—permanently.”
The wails and laments from Sister Two’s lair fade with the distance. “Why are there so many unhappy souls in Wonderland?” I ask.
“Some had unfinished business or lost loves. But the unhappiest died imprisoned by the curse of their name being spoken.”
“But I’ve said Morpheus’s name many times.”
She laughs, and it sounds like the warble of a songbird. “Morpheus is not his true name. He is glory and deprecation—sunlight and shadows—the scuttle of a scorpion and the melody of a nightingale. The breath of the sea and the cannonade of a storm. Can you relay birdsong, or the sound of wind, or the scurry of a creature across the sand? For the proper names of netherlings are made up of the life forces defining them. Can you speak these things with your tongue?”
A blur of green hedges rushes by. I pump my legs to keep up. My feet, which had been washed clean by the snow, gather more grass stains by the minute. “Can anyone?” I ask.
“Only a netherling at the end of his or her life can speak the language necessary. It must be spoken upon a dying breath.”
“Language …” The description on the back of Alice’s lab report. “Deathspeak,” I whisper, unbalanced and confused.
“Aye, it is a volatile thing,” Sister One answers. “The victim utters Deathspeak along with a challenge that the one who wronged her must meet. Any netherling who dies under the Deathspeak curse, unable to meet the challenge, is left as a broken spirit, eternally unhappy and seeking escape. Until Sister Two puts a stop to it.”
I cringe, thinking of how close I came to being stuck inside one of her toys. “How can an empty plaything hold a spirit? That doesn’t make sense.”
“Contrariwise. It makes the rightest sense of all. Only toys from the human realm be chosen, and only the most beloved of the lot. Those accustomed to being filled with hopes and dreams and all the affections their children pour into them. For that is the essence of a soul. Hopes and dreams and love. When the most cherished toys are abandoned in junkyards and trash heaps, they become deprived of those things that once filled and warmed them. They become lonely and greedy and crave the essence of the life they once had. So we send our pixie slaves through the portals to carry the toys down for us, and my sister fills them with what they want most—souls. Like thirsty sponges, they hold on to them with every portion of their strength and will.”
Straitjackets for spirits. So disturbed by the image, I don’t utter another word until we come upon a small house surrounded by hedges and ivy on all sides. It appears to be made of leaves.
“Come in, warm your toes, and eat,” Sister One insists. “Then I’ll give you what you came for and send you on your way.”
“I’m in a rush.” I have a headache from all the confusion. Food might help but not the kind they serve in Wonderland.
“You will have tea first, at the very least.”
How can I argue? She has a looking glass hidden somewhere, and a key around her neck. Until she’s ready to send me through the portal, I’m her hostage.
Inside, there’s only one room—furnished like a kitchen except everything is upholstered in cushiony fabric, even the appliances. A puffy white sink, table, and chairs, and a fluffy stove of the same hue, all arranged on a plush white floor that’s springy and warm beneath my wet feet, like a marshmallow. There’s a tall pantry with stuffed velvet doors, also white. Along all four pillowed walls are circular windows with milky curtains. Odd to have windows when there’s nothing to look out at but leaves.