THREE. YOUR FUTURE'S IN YOUR PAST.

Swirling silver fog clutches her. Cold damp fingers. The wet breath of some monstrous creature of ice; above, bruised clouds and the distant drumming of thunder. Something oily black prowls the storm, ever shrouded by mist, indistinct but, she knows, malicious. Run, but marshy ground twists and turns beneath her feet. Running in circles. Running hard just to stay in place and her lungs burn from the effort

headlights diamond-white hurtling toward her, agonized wail of a bus horn—

—which turns inside-out and becomes the mundane note of the train across the street as her flinch yanks her awake. Alyssa stares down the crinkled swell of her pillow case as the train rushes by, the clatter of speeding metal deepening and fading as the train passes the hotel and continues on into the depths of the city. When it's quiet again, and her heart has settled into its usual rhythm, she lifts her head to check the clock on the tiny end table crammed between her bed and Dad's.

It's a few minutes to seven.

5:53, Pleasance time. Alyssa swallows a groan and shuffles out from under the covers. It's hot, and kind of sticky, muddy darkness just beginning to give way to morning; Alyssa fumbles through it into the bathroom. Crawls under a stream of cool water until she feels less groggy, less like the insides of her eyelids have been coated in sandpaper.

Dad's still snoring, almost as loud as the train, when she emerges. She squeezes around the foot of his bed to retrieve her suitcase, which she manhandles over to her bed and props open on the mattress. The one nice thing about travel, she thinks, is you've chosen all your outfits in advance—no dithering in front of the closet paralyzed by your abundance of choices. Hashtag first world problems.

She's pink, today. She has fuzzy memories of Dad telling her pink was Alison's favorite, and in the whirl of packing she'd thought it might be… nice, for Alison, seeing a bit of her favorite color in the bland off-white of the hospital. And maybe it will be, assuming Alison's even awake enough to notice them today.

Once she's dressed, Alyssa digs her sketchbook out of her bag and settles cross-legged on the foot of her bed, the weak pre-dawn light just catching the page as it falls through the window. Paper and pencil aren't her medium of choice; her mosaics at home are built of insects and flotsam she finds drifting down Pleasance's windblown streets. One man's trash, another girl's muse…

But here, in this city, she has only an H2 and a smudgy eraser with which to set down the outlines of her dream; she makes do.

Alyssa always draws her dreams, and the nightmares in particular. Twisted things, haunted by malevolent creatures whose form she can never quite decipher but whose hunting cries chill her blood. Tonight's oncoming bus is a new variation on the theme, monster of steel and light rather than flesh… but monster nonetheless.

When she gets home she'll fill in the fog with tissue paper and gauze, shape the snarling thunderheads with black field crickets and crab spiders, and the headlights… Maybe glass. Maybe she'll get Jeb to help her wire in some LEDs behind them, make them glow.

She'll call it portrait of a mother, she thinks, and right away feels guilty.

Alison is better, and worse. Better because when they walk in a few hours later she rolls her head around and looks at them with a sharp, icy lucidity—worse because, now she isn't high out of her mind, there's lines of pain carved deep in her face. Furrowed brows. Mouth tight and hard even as she tries to smile with the side of her face that isn't torn to pieces.

Her voice is a tiny creak as she greets them, and Alyssa hangs back in the doorway while Dad moves closer, murmuring about how worried they've been. Alison chuckles weakly, whispers, "Stupid of me. Just went off my Lithium, Tommy, you didn't need to come all this way just to—"

"I met your friend yesterday," Alyssa says, too loudly.

"My—friend?"

They're both looking at her, Dad's brows furrowed in confusion and Alison's eyes bright and wide with an emotion Alyssa can't place.

"Yeah. Alice." She can't help the trickle of venom into her voice when she adds, "Waiting for her daughter to get her appendix taken out." You know, like real mothers do—

"Butterfly," Dad says.

"Alice…" It's like watching a light go out in Alison's expression, her attention turning inward to some dark and troubling thoughts. Alyssa edges closer to her bed, unnerved.

"She—uh, she said to give you her best," she says.

Alison abruptly refocuses, her gaze piercing. "I see," she says. "Well. Yes. I'll thank her, later. I…" She takes a deep breath and then grimaces, her hands twitching atop the sheets.

Unsure of what else to say, Alyssa offers, "She… seemed nice."

"…Yes. Kind woman. Doesn't deserve—" Alison blinks, shakes her head into the pillow. "—never mind. How—how are you, Allie?"

"Better than you," Alyssa replies without thinking, startled by the nickname. She has dim memories of Alison calling her that when she was four, five, before… everything. "Sorry—I mean—"

God. She doesn't know what to say. It's all jumbled up in her head, resentment and terrible fear and knowing that somewhere in this city Alison's been keeping a distant eye on her, showing off her artwork to friends and saying, what, the daughter I've never spoken to in eleven years made this? isn't it beautiful? isn't she talented?—it still doesn't make a bit of sense. And how is she supposed to answer a question like that if she doesn't even know how she feels?

"I guess I'm okay," she says.

"…I always… wished…" Alison closes her eyes, and for a moment Alyssa thinks the pain written across her face has nothing to do with her injuries. "Tommy?"

"Yes?"

She doesn't look at him; her gaze is fixed on Alyssa alone, her eyes hard with an odd determination. "Could you fetch a nurse for me, please? I… think… a little more morphine…"

Dad goes at once, pausing only to squeeze Alyssa's shoulder on the way out. As soon as he's gone, Alison says, "Allie. Come here, please. I need you to—to listen very carefully."

One of her hands lifts, grasping weakly at nothing, as if by mere effort she can compel Alyssa close enough to take her hand; nervous, Alyssa edges toward her.

"I never wanted to leave you," Alison says—barely a whisper, barely a breath. "I never, ever wanted… do you… do you remember that night? When I—?"

Alyssa drops heavily into the chair Dad just vacated, staring down at her knees. The kind of stormy night she'd loved as a little girl—rain in almost solid sheets and lightning etching jagged paths across the sky. Alison wielding a pair of garden shears against the daffodils in the backyard. Alyssa had run out to stop her from destroying the flowers, lifted her hands—

She doesn't remember the shears closing on her hands or the pain that follows, but Dad told her once that her scream was the most horrifying sound he'd ever heard. And the scars are still there, ugly lines slashing across her palms.

She offers a one-shouldered shrug. "I guess."

"Do you remember the moth?"

"…the what?"

When she looks up Alison's eyes are closed, relief slackening the lines of tension in her face. "You don't," she whispers. "Well, that's something… But you will, I think. Now that—" She shakes her head. "There's no time to explain everything. What's important is that there—there was a man, and he was using me to hurt you, and so I had to go away. And now, because you've seen me—and it isn't your fault—he's going to come after you directly."

"What?"

Alison shakes her head. "There's more to this story than you can imagine," she says. "Our family's been wrapped up in it for generations, ever since—"

"Mom…" Alyssa stumbles over the unfamiliar word, reaching out to take Alison's hand; cool fingers clutch at her wrist, holding her tight and wrinkling the thin fabric of her gloves. "…are you… sure you're not still, like—"

"This is not a delusion!" Alison says, with such vehemence that Alyssa jumps. "I need you to leave here as soon as your father gets back. Go to 3052 Bainbridge Avenue and ring the bell for apartment 422. Alice will be at home. Tell her I sent you to collect the things in my writing desk—in the center drawer. Take them home with you and—and just look at them, please. Please. Read my notes. Look at the photographs."

"I don't underst—"

"Look at me, Allie." Alyssa obeys and meets Alison's gaze—ice-blue and lucid despite the faint haze of morphine, intent, deadly serious. "I love you so much," she whispers. "And I've put you in danger again and this time I can't—I can't be the one to protect you, I'm stuck—" She blinks as tears well in her eyes. "So you have to protect yourself and to do that you'll need to know everything. Please."

"I—"

Alison squeezes her hand. "3052 Bainbridge Avenue. Promise me."

For a long, long moment, Alyssa holds her stare, watching tears begin to drip from her eyes, watching the desperate, pleading twitch of her expression—tries to pretend this sudden outpouring of nonsense isn't freaking her out. She swallows, hard.

What's the harm?

"Okay," Alyssa whispers. "I promise."

She sticks around the hospital for another hour or so before announcing that she needs some air. Dad gives her a knowing, sympathetic look as she leaves.

Outside, it's muggy, way too hot for the late-April afternoon she dressed for, but at least nobody looks twice at her. New York's one redeeming feature, she thinks as she locates Bainbridge Avenue, is that her plaid miniskirt and matching pink bustier don't draw the kinds of disapproving glances she's used to getting back home.

It's a quick, though unpleasant, walk. Sunlight bakes the pavement and the smothering, humid weight of the air gives her the sense of walking through a furnace. As the street numbers tick down, she thinks longingly of her skateboard, of coasting easily through this heat instead of slogging through it.

Eventually the street bends and, a block later, she arrives at 3052. Little walk-up with an ugly, sandy brown facade. Feeling awkward, she shuffles around until she finds the buzzer, hunts through the faded numbers until she finds 422. The label next to it reads STETSON in neat, blocky handwriting.

Half-hoping nobody's home, Alyssa presses the button. Counts to thirty before someone answers—a woman's voice, garbled by the intercom.

"Hello?"

"Uh—hi." Alyssa clears her throat, scuffing her toe against the pavement. "This is Alyssa Gardner. I'm—I'm here to see Alice Stetson?"

She's about to go on, stutter out an explanation of why she's here, but the door into the building unlocks with a loud buzz. At once relieved and disappointed, Alyssa pushes it open and ventures into the stuffy entryway beyond. Not much inside, only a bank of scratched mailboxes on one side and a flight of stairs in peeling green paint on the other. After a moment's hesitation, she heads up.

She hears the soft patter of footsteps as she reaches the second landing. She's halfway up the next set of stairs when Alice reaches her, looking bemused but not displeased to see her. "Hey," she says.

"Hi, Alice," Alyssa says. "Thanks for—uh, Alison—Mom. Gave me the address."

"Ah." Alice's expression melts into simple curiosity, which is somehow worse. "Come on up."

"Right." Alyssa follows, her stomach twisting with nerves. "Uhh. So… I talked to… Mom today, and she said there was some stuff in her writing desk she wanted me to see? Like, uh, notes or photos or something."

To protect herself. Fucking ridiculous.

"Her envelope, yeah," Alice says vaguely. "I can let you in. I was gonna go in and water her plants in a bit, so…"

"I'd really appreciate it."

"It's no trouble." She smiles, too gently for Alyssa's liking. "How's she doing?"

"…Uh." It seems too callous to say that Alison mostly seems to be doing crazy, with a good helping of awful on the side—but Alyssa can't think of any nicer way to put it. After a second she settles on, "Better? Um, how's your daughter?"

"Chloe? Pretty okay, you know, considering. She's a little trooper. Gets it from her dad." Alice rifles a hand through her hair, which is loose today and exploding around her head in a halo of dark-red curls. "My mother-in-law's entertaining her now, getting clobbered at chess. Chloe's fantastic at chess; she gets that from her dad, too."

"What about you?"

"I'm not terrible," Alice says, and laughs. "But when I need my ego knocked down a peg I challenge Chloe to a game—let's leave it at that. And here we are—c'mon, I'll get my keys."

Alice leads her out of the stairwell and into a long hallway with scummy grey carpeting and narrow doors painted the same dull green of the stairs. Apartment 422 lies at the end of the hall, the door's deadbolt kicked out to keep the door propped open.

Inside it has the look of something cobbled together in fits and starts, not decorated so much as occupied. The bookshelf dominating the main room is so crammed with books it looks like it might burst. There's a pair of mismatched armchairs with a scratched card table bearing a chessboard set up between them; in one of the chairs sits a girl, maybe nine or ten, with a blanket draped over her shoulders and a pillow clutched against her torso, a Dora the Explorer doll tucked at her side. She's pale, tired-looking, but smiles when they come in.

"Hi, Mom," she says. Then, glancing at Alyssa, "Who're you?"

"Chloe, this is Alyssa—Ms. Ruskin's daughter." Alice plucks a keychain off a hook by the door and steps further into the apartment to kiss the top of Chloe's head while Alyssa looks away, feeling awkward again. "Where's Edwina?"

"She lost," Chloe says, "so she went to make tea."

"Mm. Well, I'm gonna show Alyssa her mom's apartment, okay? We shouldn't be long."

"Okay." Chloe's gaze drifts back to Alyssa; her eyes are the same dark brown as Alice's, though tight and foggy with pain. "Say hi to the begonias for me."

"We'll do that," Alice says, and waves Alyssa back out outside.

"The begonias?" Alyssa says as the door swings shut.

"It's a joke. You know, like the talking flowers in Through the Looking Glass?"

"Oh."

Alison's apartment lies at the other end of the hall, past the stairwell and around a corner. Number 402. Inside it's all clean cream walls and photo prints. Skylines, harbor views, aged buildings framed by park trees, starlight glittering on still water… Scattered between the photos are prints of Wonderland illustrations and pressed flowers. Potted plants war with gardening books for space on a set of white shelves, which stand opposite a couch upholstered in powder-blue. An oval rag rug occupies most of the floor.

"So," Alice says as she follows Alyssa inside, "her writing desk is in the bedroom. Uh, down the hall, last door on the right. There's an envelope in the middle drawer with your name on it."

"What's inside?"

"No idea." She smiles fleetingly. "Mind if I do the plants while you check it out?"

"That's fine," Alyssa says, although—if she's honest—she'd rather not go in alone.

This isn't what she expected. It's too… clean, too normal. There's a pink sweater draped over the arm of the couch, a few magazines strewn across a glass coffee table—Shutterbug, Aperture, Sunset. The hallway, too, is tidy. Door to the bathroom open, a 31-day pill box sitting upright behind the faucet. Tiny office with photography equipment laid neatly on a desk next to a large, sleek-looking computer monitor.

Then the bedroom, a more lived-in version of the living room. Shoes laid out by the door. A half-full hamper peaking out of the closet, a knit throw rumpled at the foot of the bed.

And the writing desk, against the wall and facing out a window onto a fire escape.

It's obviously antique, with dark wood and brass fastenings. An actual inkwell with one long, glossy black quill stuck in it perches at the corner of the writing surface. There's nine drawers in all, four little ones down each side and one narrow tray spanning the distance between them.

The center drawer is locked when she pulls on it, but a moment's examination reveals a tiny, tarnished brass key hiding behind the inkwell. It opens the drawer with a soft click when Alyssa tries it.

Inside are two books, one a battered Alice's Adventures in Wonderland paperback with Alison's scribbled over the front in red marker and half the pages falling out, the other a vintage-looking Alice's Adventures Underground in much better condition. And next to them, a large manila envelope sealed with packing tape. For Alyssa is written across the front in sloping cursive.

She sits on the edge of the bed and plucks at the tape until it begins to lift, then carefully peels the envelope open and peeks inside. There's a battered composition notebook inside, nestled among loose bits of scrap paper. A few photographs, too, drifting toward the bottom.

Take them home. Read my notes…

The hairs on the back of her neck prickle as she shoves the envelope into her backpack. Alyssa glances around, uneasy, unable to shake the sudden feeling of being watched; it lingers even as she hurries out of the bedroom and finds Alice again.

"Find it?" Alice asks as Alyssa emerges. She's in the middle of pouring a steady stream of water from a glass jar into one of the plants on the bookcase, untouched by whatever weird vibe Alyssa caught in the bedroom.

"Yeah," Alyssa says. "It's a lot of stuff, though. Haven't looked through it yet. She, uh, she said to take it home and study it—but she wasn't really… making sense."

Alice looks torn between amusement and compassion as she says, "Well, people say strange things when they're on morphine. I wouldn't think about it too hard."

"You think?"

She shrugs. "Maybe some part of her just wanted to share something she loves with you, and it came out a bit wrong? Look through it when you get home, maybe give her a call once she's out of the hospital. I can give you her number."

That sounded sensible—and a lot less unsettling than Alison's babble about danger and protecting herself. Alyssa rolls her shoulders to chase away the lingering chill of the bedroom and says, "Sure. I'll do that, I think. Uh—thanks, Alice. A lot."

"Sure."

Alice offers to let her stay for lunch, but as they leave apartment 402, Alyssa is struck by another bout of anxiety, an inexplicable sense of being studied. She excuses herself, saying that Dad will be expecting her back soon, and hurries back out into the unnaturally hot afternoon.

It's several blocks before the feeling finally fades.

She and Dad get to La Guardia around six o'clock, two hours before their flight home is scheduled for takeoff. Once they're at the gate, Dad sets off to find them something to eat and Alyssa digs Alison's envelope out of her backpack.

For a minute, she holds it in her lap, anxiously waiting for that unsettling feeling to return—but nothing happens. Breathing a faint sigh of relief, she opens the envelope and pulls out the notebook inside.

WONDERLAND is written across the front in green pen. It's obviously old; the cover is stained and going fuzzy around the edges, the tape on the spine tattered and peeling, the pages crinkled, bubbly like the notebook had gotten wet and dried out at least once. Many of them stick together as Alyssa flips through.

It's bristling with extra pieces—blurry polaroids of chessboards, flowers, and insects paper-clipped to the pages, post-it notes here and there bearing additional notes or with sketches of odd-looking creatures. A loose packet of paper bearing nothing but a long series of dates, with entries like "14 Aug. 1869 A.W. vanishes and is found next weekend stuck in chimney" and "23 Feb. 1963 A.B. reported missing and found two days later asleep in culvert."

And the entries themselves…

The first is dated June 5, 1989 and begins I killed a man in April.

Alyssa stares at it for what feels like an eternity before continuing to read.

I killed a man in April and I'm still not sure how I did it. He broke into Mrs. B's apartment and tried to hurt me and we wrestled and he fell out the window. That's what I kept telling social services. So much I almost believe it myself.

But there were spiders. Hundreds and hundreds of spiders I'm sure of it. And M. The moth. "Ask for a hand or eight feet," M. said. It didn't make sense until I saw the spiders and then it DID, and I asked, and they attacked Wally. I'm sure of it. They went up his nose and in his mouth and he jumped out the window to get away with it—and M. set it all up. He said he meant it to happen.

"Imbalance brings balance and chaos is an equalizer," I think that's what he said. And that I was meant for more than this world, but I don't know what that means… And maybe I imagined the whole thing? Ms. S. did say trauma can play tricks on your memories… But it seemed so real. Seems.

I shouldn't feel bad but I really do. I just wanted him to leave me alone.

I'm going to sneak into the laundry today and use the mirror there to call M. If he shows up I guess that means it was all real, and if not…

The next few pages are stuck together with water damage; Alyssa flips forward quickly until she finds the next legible entry. It's short, dated July 7, 1989, and only eight lines long.

1. A thunderstorm captured in a stone.

2. A thimbleful of headwaters from the Pool of Tears.

3. A dying ember pulled from the heart of a flame.

4. A feather that has touched the edge of the sky.

5. A shard of cold-iron soaked in blood.

6. A twist of Time preserved in silver.

7. A jarful of Nothing.

8. A needle threaded with a strand of starlight.

There's smears of ink beneath the list, as if additional items or maybe an explanation were written below, whatever it was is blurred beyond legibility.

She keeps thumbing through the pages, hoping to find something that makes the individual entries add up into sense, but it's all like that—diary entries that read like something out of a B-roll horror film or odd, fantastical notes.

And then she gets to the last two entries.

The second-to-last is dated January 5, 1992, and is a mere five words in length: "I can't do this anymore."

The final entry was written April 12, 1998—two days after the date that's been seared into Alyssa's memory for eleven years, two days after she got in the way of Alison's breakdown, two days before her family unravelled.

The old paper is blotchy with what look like teardrops.

It reads:

Dearest Alyssa,

If this journal has fallen into your hands, it means one of two things: either I am dead, or I have failed.

I am writing this as I wait for a bus to take me away from Pleasance, and away from you. I know how desperately this will hurt you and believe me if I knew of any way to avoid it I would take that option in a heartbeat. Because I love you, Alyssa. I love you so much more than I would ever have believed possible before the day five years ago when I first held you in my arms. You are the light of my life and it kills me to leave you.

But I have no other choice.

When I was sixteen, I was approached by a man named Morpheus. He was magical, and he told me that I was meant for greater things than this human world could offer me, and I believed him. For three years, I worked with him—visiting in my dreams, learning magic, training to undergo a series of tests.

Morpheus is from Wonderland. It is very real, although somewhat changed from how it was when Charles Dodgson published his novels under the pseudonym of Lewis Carroll. It is also slowly dying, because of a taint created when a young girl named Alice Liddell—the inspiration for Alice in Wonderland—fell into Wonderland by mistake.

She was there less than a day, but it was enough to set in motion a chain of events that will eventually lead to the destruction of a marvelous land. For a long time, Wonderlanders were able to slow the progression of the taint, but in 1988—one year before Morpheus approached me—something went terribly wrong. Since then, the situation has grown rapidly more dire.

Our family is a piece of this puzzle, Alyssa. When Alice Liddell returned home, she grew up and married and eventually gave birth to several children. One of those children was named Leopold, and before he died, he conceived a child with his mistress, Agatha Shaw. After Leopold's death, Agatha immigrated to the United States and gave birth to Earnest Shaw—my grandfather, and your great-great grandfather.

Morpheus believes that our bloodline—our ability to trace our roots back to Alice Liddell, the girl who poisoned Wonderland—means that we are the key to reversing the taint and saving the world he loves so dearly.

He is not evil, Alyssa, only a man trying desperately to save what he loves.

But he is ruthless, and determined, and willing to do whatever it takes to save Wonderland. Even if it means hurting people. Even if it means hurting you, my daughter.

In the end, I never attempted Morpheus's tests. I met your father and fell in love, and I turned away from Wonderland and never looked back. Maybe it was cowardly of me. Maybe I had a duty to do what I could to help. But that is the choice I made, and when I look at you—when I look at your father—I can't bring myself to regret it. I love you both so much.

And that is why I am leaving, Allie, because two days ago I learned that Morpheus has been speaking to you. Two days ago, I saw him with you—he often takes the form of a massive black moth in the human world, and I caught him playing with you in the gardens. I attacked him, and in the process I hurt you very badly. Nothing I can say will ever fix that, nor express how sorry I am for hurting you. I will never forgive myself.

Last night, while your father sat with you in the hospital, I came home and summoned Morpheus, just as I used to when I was young and courageous and had nothing better to live for. I demanded an explanation. He confessed that he has been using my mind as a conduit into yours. If, sometime in the future, you find yourself reading this, you most likely will not remember. You're so young. But he has been slipping nightly into your dreams, just as he once did into mine, and "playing" with you—teaching you the very things he taught me, hoping that when you grow up, your mind will be so entwined with his training that you will feel compelled to help him.

I swore then and there to leave you—to put enough distance between myself and you that the connection between us would be broken, and he would be unable to access your thoughts. And I made him swear a vow on his true name that he would never approach you again unless you sought him out first. (Swearing a vow on your true name is a very potent thing, for a Wonderlander—remember that if you ever find yourself among them.)

My hope is that this will protect you, and allow you to live as normal a life as possible. There is always a risk—you may stumble into his path somehow, and technically have sought him out—and if you are reading this then that has likely already happened.

In that case, I can't tell you what to do next. That is your decision, and if ultimately you choose Wonderland—I can't stop you. But I can protect you, by sharing with you everything I know of Wonderland, of the Alice taint, and of Morpheus. I will put this notebook in a safe place along with anything else that might prove useful, and if you need it you will have it.

And I have two final pieces of advice for you:

First, never put your full faith in Morpheus. His ultimate loyalty lies with Wonderland, not with you, and he will sacrifice you to save his country if he believes that is what it will take. Question what he says and keep your guard up.

Second, remember that NOTHING IN WONDERLAND IS WHAT IT SEEMS AT FIRST TO BE. This is a land that runs upside-down and backwards from the one you are accustomed to. Assume that everything is a riddle or a trick question and proceed accordingly.

I love you, Alyssa. I have always loved you and I will always love you from the very bottom of my heart. I cherish you. I am proud of you. It breaks my heart that I will not be able to tell you these things as you grow up, but they will always, always be true.

All my love,

Your mom,

Alison.