Page 1 of Wondrous

Prologue

I was late running away, of course.

I had meant to leave on Tuesday, but I lost my nerve. On Wednesday, I fell asleep waiting for Mother and Father to go to bed. But today was Thursday, and I’d had another visit from the Baron at tea. That had been all the encouragement I needed.

“Hedgewitch!” I hissed. “Oh, where are you? You won’t be happy if I leave you behind. Tansy will pluck out your spines and use them to poke people, I’m certain of it.”

This at last elicited a quiet snort, and I followed the noise to my dresser. There I found Hedgewitch—my favorite and naughtiest hedgehog, and the only one I’d brought with me from Wonderland—curled up in a ball amidst the round cosmetics jars. She had tucked herself into the jar of rouge, but the jar didn’t close with her in it and several spines stuck out.

“Look at you!” I scolded, lifting her free. One half of the hedgehog was covered in pink rouge, while the other was its usual tawny brown. Well, she looked more like a creature of Wonderland now—which, of course, she was. I doubted an ordinary hedgehog could grasp the concept of hide-and-seek, which was Hedgewitch’s favorite pastime.

The hedgehog, upside down like a beetle, waved her feet in the air and tried to bite me. Hedgewitch was always trying to bite, because she was an emotional creature, but being a hedgehog, she lacked the wisdom to distinguish between emotions. Biting could mean delight, panic, melancholy, or almost anything else.

I pulled on my wool cloak and tucked Hedgewitch into the pocket. I’d successfully kept her a secret from my family, despite a few close calls—Hedgewitch had gotten into the raspberry preserves twice, leaving tiny hedgehog prints on the table, and now my mother was convinced we had a squirrel problem.

I cast one last look around my bedroom. I’d felt like a prisoner in it for the better part of a year, but it was still mine, and part of me would miss it. My longing for Wonderland had given me a passion for painting—which I had some skill for, as it had been an important component of my education, alongside singing and French. My parents, though, refused to display any of my paintings in the house.

Because, naturally, they were all of Wonderland.

There was the Mad Hatter, leaning back in his chair with the contented smile he often wore after sating himself with tea; the March Hare, frowning and melancholy, gazing dreamily into the Tulgey Wood; and the White Rabbit as I’d first seen him in the park near the house, an uncanny small figure, his red jacket stark against the rich greens.

I had also painted things I’d never seen but which I imagined would suit Wonderland quite well. A mopcat to go with the broomdogs. A raven with teeth, terrible and sharp. A violet-eyed boy with waves of dark hair, dressed in a flamboyant purple suit.

I was particularly interested in jabberwocks, because all the stories contradicted one another as to their appearance (though not their wicked natures). I’d painted several versions of them, though my favorite was dragon-like, with pale feathers and a fantastically long tail.

“Alice?” someone said outside my door.

I went still and tried to make my breathing even, as if I were asleep. Edith had come to apologize, I knew, because that was always how it went. She would give me a lecture about how I should be grateful that a baron wanted to marry me, and then, later, she would feel regretful and come to apologize. I would cry and tell her I didn’t want to marry anyone, and she would stroke my hair and tell me that most girls my age didn’t, and this was one of the many cruelties the world contained. Sometimes we would talk late into the night.

And then a day or two would go by, and she would regret her own regret and go back to praising the Baron again.

The Baron was a kind old man, and that was almost the worst part. Talking to him was like talking to my grandfather. I could no more imagine being married to him than I could being able to breathe underwater.

But I needed to marry someone, my parents kept saying, for the sake of the family. I would soon be eighteen, and Edith had married at eighteen, so why shouldn’t I? Father was in debt again, and it was a dangerous debt now, not the kind he used to sigh and roll his eyes about. The Baron was prepared to take me, despite the rumors that I was half mad, because he and my father were old friends.

But it wasn’t going to work. Edith had let our parents bully her into marrying a rich old husband, and that hadn’t worked. Her husband had fulfilled his sole duty as a rich old husband by dying and leaving her his money, and Father had taken that money and squandered it, just as he’d done with his own.

My hands tightened around my skirt. Mother had forbidden me from wearing only blue, my favorite color, declaring it another example of my strangeness, but I tried to sneak it in whenever given a choice. My dress—which met the floor in five layers of skirts—was white with a pattern of small blue irises.

My sister waited several long moments, so patiently that I almost broke my resolve and let her in. Then she gave a tired sigh and walked away, and I was swamped by a wave of sympathy. It was difficult not to have sympathy for Edith, as much as I resented her. Father would have married her off again, but given that she was nearing thirty, she was considered an old widow by most men in the marriage market.

Once I was certain she was gone, I picked up my suitcase and slipped into the hall.

The doors would be locked, I knew—Mother and Father locked all the doors at night, and windows, too, to prevent my sneaking off, and only they had the keys. During the day they didn’t worry so much, because they put a watch on me consisting of endless rounds of servants and tutors and governesses. I’d always known that my only chance of escape would be at night.

I went downstairs, stepping as lightly as I could. I had been under supervision for over a year—over a year since I had last visited Wonderland! It had taken me that long to work up the nerve to leave for good.

If not for Caroline, I thought, my anger flickering.

Caroline had been my one true friend, unlike the friends who gossiped about me and my mad stories about other worlds. Or so I’d thought. I had told Caroline everything—and then, one day, I had shown her Wonderland.

Just a peek. A glimpse over the edge of the rabbit hole. Caroline had gone pale and spoken not one word. Then she’d turned and fled back home, faster than I could keep up, and told everyone what I had shown her.

And that was how my family found out that I was still sneaking away to Wonderland. My father wasn’t inclined to believe in Wonderland, but I could tell my mother halfway believed, just as she halfway believed my great-grandmother’s stories of fairies and elves, and this gave my father a smidgeon of belief himself—and fear. It was why I was more closely guarded than a cabinet of jewels. And it was how I learned that I couldn’t trust anyone from my world. Not my sister, not my friends, and certainly not my parents.

This thought felt good. It was something I’d been repeating to myself, because it gave me certainty, and certainty was comforting. It was a sharp, stinging sort of comfort, though, like a blanket woven from nettles.

I crept toward Father’s study, which contained the one window in the house that didn’t lock. I put my hand on the door, but before I could push it open, I heard a sharp, rasping snore, followed by a quieter one. Father was in there—he must have fallen asleep over his accounts.