Right, so, I have been doing quite a lot of writing for the past few months, but for the most part it was all Imperial Guard chapters, so I've been posting it elsewhere.
But lately, I've started playing around with something else: a beginning for a YA fantasy novella where I can actually put my love of Alice and Wonderland to good use. No title, but I have been referring to it as the Becky-can-has-Alice-in-Wonderland-imagery story. BCHAIWI for short, naturally. And I thought I'd toss the first finished bit up here, just to let you know I'm not dead yet!
Liam
I was six years old that first time.
I don’t remember much else about that time, but we were still living in the apartment, so it must have been while Mom was still in law school. I remember a few things: that the room wasn’t small, really, but my parents’ old king size bed, the one they made my older brother and I share, took up most of it. That the window was even longer than the bed, and there were these cheaply-made blinds that were more for decoration than keeping any light out.
My brother, Thomas, was already asleep, after giving me the usual mumbled “Stick to your side,” and I was trying to do just that and find a comfortable position that blocked the moonlight at the same time. I’m not sure how long it was there, but at some point, as I was rolling over, I noticed the door.
I thought it was a trick of the shadows at first, until I slid my hand up the wall and found firm, smooth wood embedded in our cheap wallpaper. I rolled to my knees and ran both hands over it: I felt a carving in the middle, some kind of circular pattern that I traced with my fingers, but I couldn’t see well enough to get a good look. As I reached towards the right, I found the knob, which felt as warm as if someone had just let go of it.
At that point, I should have gone back to sleep. But I grabbed the knob with both hands and forced the door open.
(And I wish I could say I’ve gotten smarter since then, but it’d be a lie.)
It felt lighter and lighter as I kept pushing, until it stood completely open. I don’t know what I had been expecting to find there, but it wasn’t a closed shopping mall.
That was what it looked like, anyway. I could see that much in the dim emergency lights: boutiques shut tightly down a long hallway, and at the very end, a barely visible, glowing red exit sign. There was no one else there, as far as I could see, but I could hear someone walking. The footsteps started quietly, as if from the exit, and slowly grew louder. Then stopped. Then broke into a run.
I slammed the door then, and felt around the knob wildly for a lock to turn, anything to keep it out, but there wasn’t so much as a keyhole. Giving up, I dove across the bed, raised both hands in the air, and drummed my fists against Thom’s chest.
“Nnngh?” He blinked up at me, too groggy to remember to throw in a curse for good measure. “Whassa’matter?”
I pointed at the door. “It’s gonna get in!”
Thom sat up, pushed his hair out of his eyes, and squinted in the direction of my finger, and I watched him hopefully. He only sighed, grabbed me in a headlock, and flopped back to the bed with me in tow. “Liam, I live for the day when you get too old for this.”
No one came through the door all night, but the pacing above my head kept me awake until morning.
I saw the door again in the kitchen that morning when I went to pour my cereal, then again in the lobby of our building, then in my classroom at school. It was the kind of thing you couldn’t miss: cherry wood, a maze pattern etched into its center, and a gold doorknob that, when you looked close enough, had a single palm print pressed into it. It was so noticeable that when no one commented on it, neither did I.
It made perfect sense to me when I got older. After all, I’d been told for years that the Lockhart family never did anything halfway, and it was true: Dad was a firefighter, Mom was a lawyer, Thom was a juvenile delinquent, and I was crazy.
I was fourteen the second time I opened the door. And that time, I went inside.
***
“Ahhh…” I craned my neck to look up and around, but no matter where I looked, the scenery didn’t change. I was surrounded by trees in every direction, and they curled over my head and up into space without showing any sign of ending. They must have ended somewhere, because I didn’t see a single patch of sunlight or moonlight anywhere on the forest floor.
There was light coming from somewhere, though, because I could still see. Whatever it was, it cast the trees around me in a sickly green pallor.
I nodded, deep in thought. This was a bit easier to swallow. The dark endless forest was a primal fear, right? Malls were just random. “No matter how you look at it,” I said out loud, “this makes much more sense as a hallucination.”
“Sense?” a feminine voice laughed directly above me, and I couldn’t stop myself from jumping a little. She was so high I could barely make her out, but a woman with long hair and a long dress sat upside-down on a branch over my head, the green light illuminating only her eyes. “You have an interesting definition of the word, child.”
I hesitated a moment, then waved. “That doesn‘t look safe. You should come down before you fall.”
In response to that, the woman swung herself around the branch twice and vanished, almost instantly reappearing behind the trunk of another tree a little above my eye level. She slid from the trunk to another branch, and I got a good look at her. For a hallucination, she was surprisingly normal; aside from the tattered, dirty dress with a checkerboard pattern that swam a little every time she breathed, she could have been one of Thom’s classmates. I took in the long, blonde hair, green eyes, and perfectly heart-shaped face. She was even Thom’s type.
Then she smiled, and I saw the glint of pointed teeth. Thom wouldn’t have liked that.
“You’re not scared, are you?” she asked.
I shook my head. “I’m used to it.” When she raised her eyebrows at me, I laughed and added, “Not to this, obviously, but I’ve been crazy for a long time, you know. I knew something like this would happen eventually, so I decided that I’d be prepared when it did.” I grinned. “Former Boy Scout and all that.” When she looked blank, I said, “You know, ‘Be prepared?’ Ah, no, it’s fine. It wasn’t that funny.”
She frowned. “You’ve been here before?”
“Well, not exactly,” I told her. “I only opened the door once. It was a shopping mall then, so I was sort of expecting this time to be… I don’t know, Ikea or something.”
Again, she didn’t laugh. I was really striking out today. “You’ve been to that place, then? How interesting.”
“I didn’t go in, though,” I said. “Someone else started running for the door, so I shut it.”
“Running, you say?” She nodded thoughtfully, folding her arms. “Well, child, feel fortunate that you met me this time.”
“Why’s that?” I asked.
Her smile was bigger this time, and I suddenly realized what it reminded me of: a wolf. I heard a faint sound in the trees behind me that sounded like fingernails against the trunks. “You seem like an interesting child. And besides, I’ve already eaten today.”
I shuddered involuntarily, but I laughed anyway. “Well, I don‘t mean to be rude, but do you think you could point me towards the exit? I think I missed my bus home, and it’s going to be dark soon, so I don’t really want to be hallucinating for too long.”
“Hallucinating,” she echoed with a chuckle, and swung herself back behind the trunk. Then, from behind me: “If this is nothing but a dream, then why did you enter?”
“Didn’t have much of a choice,” I said, as I turned to face her again. “Or, well, I guess I would have taken this over getting beaten up.”
“Beaten?” she said with a languid nod. “Somehow I don’t find that hard to believe.”
I laughed again, though I was vaguely inclined to feel offended. You know you’re bad off when your own hallucination insults you. “I might‘ve overreacted a little… it’s been a long time since I was bullied. But first day of high school is like that, I guess.”
“Hmmmm?”
I wasn’t really sure why the woman had me babbling so much, especially since I knew fully well that I should have been home hours ago. But under her gaze, I found I couldn’t do anything but talk. “Had I gone to public school in my town, no one would have bothered me… everyone’s a little scared of my big brother, right? Well, I’m not really sure how that came about either, but the point is, I decided to go a private school in the next town over.” I shrugged ruefully. “So I guess I made my own bed and all that.”
“I see…” she said. “I don’t quite understand, but it seems you’re not very bright, are you?”
“That’s probably fair,” I said.
She smiled again, though it was a close-lipped smile that time; it made her face look softer. “Your name?”
“William Lockhart!” I gave her a little salute. “But Liam is fine. No one who knows me really calls me William. What’s your name?”
The lips parted, just a little. “I thought I was just a hallucination.”
“Right,” I said, “but what do all the other hallucinations call you?”
Another chuckle. “I don’t think you want to know what they call me. But I will allow you to call me Mary.”
“Mary,” I repeated, nodding. “Like the lamb?”
This time, she threw her head back as she laughed. “No, no, nothing like that.” As she laughed, she tipped backwards off her branch and vanished, then appeared again on a higher one. “I just had a very good idea, Liam. Are you interested?”
I linked my hands behind my back. “It would have to depend on the idea, I guess.”
Mary nodded her approval. “I will show you a way out, back to your home. And, in payment, you will return here in a week, with certain items I find need for. Is that acceptable?”
“Ah… I don’t think I’ll be able to do that,” I said, not sure why I felt a surge of guilt at my words. “I think I’m done with hallucinations after this. Sorry… but my family’s going to be worried enough as is.”
There was a brief glint in Mary’s eyes, and her fingers flexed, but her voice sounded as even and pleasant as ever. “Then if I prove to you without a shadow of a doubt that this is reality, will you do what I ask?”
Again, for reasons I couldn’t quite pin down, I found myself wanting to indulge her. “I guess so…” I dug into my backpack and pulled out a pen and paper, holding it up to her. “Did you want to write down those things you wanted?”
“My, how considerate.” She reached behind one of the trees, and her long arm was suddenly next to me, taking the pen and paper. She wrote a few words in loopy, scrawling handwriting, and then carefully folded the paper and pressed it into my uniform jacket pocket. “Then I’ll see you in a week, William Lockhart.”
I laughed. “Of course, of course. But how will I find you?”
“I should think I’ll be the one to find you.” Mary let her fingers brush against my cheek. It felt like a crawling insect. “Have a safe trip.”
She grabbed the back of my shirt, and I felt myself being swept into the air before I landed on something hard and cold. At the same time, a door slammed, and the forest was gone.
I sat up carefully, rubbing my arm where it had bumped into something hard. As I expected, it was already dark. Dark enough for my family to be throwing a collective conniption fit back home, for sure.
I started to get up before it finally hit me: I wasn’t in my school basement anymore. I was outside. And, judging by the sprawling view of little houses and roads, I was high up. Hesitantly, I looked down, and recognized the half-rotted, rickety old staircase of the water tower in my hometown. The same one that no one was allowed to climb.
In my defense, I calmly reflected on the situation for a moment before I started screaming bloody murder.
***
I couldn’t actually remember being terrified before, ever. I have this philosophy - well, it’s not really mine, and it’s probably not very original, but I’ve always found that the things I can’t control get easier to deal with when I can at least control myself. But when I decided that I would accept whatever happened, I thought I had accounted for every possible situation.
I didn’t really count on being sane after all. Which, don’t get me wrong, was good news. I was sure I’d be very happy about that when I stopped hyperventilating.
The part of me that still had a grip was watching the unfolding panic attack with numb curiosity. I stopped yelling for help once a semblance of common sense kicked in: no one lived close enough to the water tower to hear me, and I was only wasting my energy. After the blind terror died down, I was left with an oddly Zen feeling, most likely because my brain was only processing the simplest problems. Such as the pain in my arm where it had cracked against the tank. Or the pins and needles starting in my legs. Or the vibrating in my chest.
I touched my jacket pocket absently. Right. Cell phone. I had one of those.
I pulled it out without thinking to see who it was. There were only three people who would be calling me. I flipped it open and said, with a dead-on imitation of composure, “Hello?”
“Liam?” I drew the phone away as my father’s voice bellowed into my ear. I could hear two voices in the background: my mother, talking rapidly, and Thom, barking questions to relay to me. Dad ignored them both. “Where are you now?”
“On top of the old water tower.” There really wasn’t any better way to say it than that.
Dad didn’t say anything for a moment, but I could Thom faintly asking what I’d said. “… okay,” Dad said slowly. As a firefighter, he liked to keep his head clear in emergencies, but it was easy to tell when he didn’t. He sounded like he was about to choke. “Can you get down?”
I heard Mom clearly this time: “Give the phone here, Shane.”
In response to the question, I gave the dilapidated stairs a closer look. “Probably not, no.”
“Be there in ten. Stay right where you are.” And disregarding Mom’s repeated demand, he hung up.
I followed suit, and as I shut the phone, I caught sight of the screen. ‘21 missed calls,’ and fairly evenly split between Mom, Dad, and Thom. I had never let a word slip to any of them about the doors, but they had still managed to convince themselves that, if not watched every second of every day, I’d fall down a hole and die.
Though I couldn’t really blame them for that. I’ve always thought it was a high possibility, too.
By that point, I had calmed down somewhat. The water tower was no less stable than it had been five minutes ago, but that issue paled in comparison to everything I’d seen behind the door.
I inhaled deeply. The Mary problem felt a lot easier to swallow if I pretended nothing had changed. I was still crazy. Absolutely out of my mind. The fact that I had promised to return to her, presumably when she had time to prepare (and save room) for me, was completely beyond the point. And so what if I’d ended up here? School was only one town over. I could have easily walked back. It wasn’t impossible to believe that I’d climbed the tower stairs on my own. They probably only looked like they’d collapse with a gentle breeze.
I clung to my knees. That hadn’t worked the way I’d wanted it to.
Vaguely listening to the wail of a siren in the general direction of the firehouse, I withdrew the piece of notebook paper and stared at the words Mary had written. Then I read them again, just to make sure.
I wasn’t sure what I had been expecting. Something twisted, for sure: a human sacrifice, or at the very least, some kind of ingredient you’d find in a storybook witch’s potion.
She had asked for a chessboard and three chocolate cupcakes.
“Huh,” I said dazedly to the door that had appeared behind me. “If you say so.”
A little belatedly, I remembered that Mary wasn’t the lamb’s name, after all.
Thom
I love my little brother.
Though I’m not supposed to admit that, I guess. Can’t say I understand why. If I had a little sister, nobody would care how much I fawned over her, but since I ended up with a brother, I have to alternate between trying to kill him and trying to turn him into a little clone of me.
Which I’ll pass on. Liam’s never needed to emulate me. I may be applying for Cornell early decision, but he’s going to become the next living Buddha. It would be good if I were half as patient as him, but I don’t make a habit of wishing for the impossible.
If there’s one thing Liam and I have in common, it’s that both of us would be happier not to be noticed. I was pretty good at that for a little while, until Liam was in first grade and I was in fourth. A classmate shut him into the janitor’s closet for an entire day. I gave the kid a bloody nose. I thought it was an even trade.
Turns out people notice when you punch first graders, because I’ve been a “juvenile delinquent” ever since.
Not that I mind. Well, most days I do, actually: settling with the community high school because my neighbor plays bridge with the principal of St. Matthew’s, attempting to shake off the inexplicable few hangers-on that call themselves my “gang” when I’d rather be home reading, those I could do without.
But being a blight on society has its perks. Namely, that no one’s really bothered me or picked on Liam since. So it’s worth the occasional vandalism and loitering just to keep the reputation going.
Of course, just because I love him doesn’t mean I don’t want to kill him myself on occasion. Like, for example, when he looks me right in the eye and lies.
Like now.
“It’s stupid, really,” he was saying as he pressed himself deeper into the backseat. He’s small to begin with, but it looked like he was trying to sink into the leather. “I was dared to by someone at school. I’m sorry… I didn’t think.”
It’s funny, because Liam isn’t a bad liar. Actually, he’s a great one. There’s no difference in his tone or body language, and he has no problem with looking right at you. But when he does, it’s like he’s gone. Completely checks out. I’m never sure where his mind is in that moment - making a grocery list, for all I know - but he’s not talking to me, that’s for damn sure. It’s not something specific I can point out. I’ve never known if Mom and Dad noticed it or not, but I don’t see how they’d miss it.
At least, if they noticed, they didn’t say anything, either.
“And does this ‘someone’ at school have a name?” Mom turned around in her seat to face us, her nostrils flaring. She’s never really lived up to the lawyer stereotype; she may be a shark, but she doesn’t threaten everything that breathes with a lawsuit. Whenever Liam or I had trouble at school, she would write. Angry letters, angry e-mails, whatever worked best for the situation at hand. I’ve never read one of her rants, but every recipient has come to us for forgiveness eventually.
I’m not sure if that’s what Liam had in mind when he shook his head and protested, “I don’t know. I only met him while I was waiting for the bus.”
Unfortunately, that didn’t tell us anything about whether he was being truthful or not; if it had really happened that way, it would be just like my brother not to name names. Of course, none of us actually believed that it happened that way, either. Mom’s frown deepened. She always thought the concept of grounding was ridiculous, and it would be even more ridiculous for my brother; you couldn’t really revoke privileges from a kid who came directly home from school. I decided to save her the trouble of thinking up a punishment.
“I can start picking him up from school,” I said.
“Thom…” started Dad’s disapproving voice. He had been staying out of the discussion until that point - Mom thrives on conflict, but it makes Dad nauseous, and he especially can’t stand having to yell at his kids. Skipping class, however, is one of his personal seven deadly sins. “What about fourth period?”
“AP Lit,” I said dismissively. “Swanson won’t care if I leave half an hour early as long as I hand in the essays. As long as Liam doesn’t have to wait for the bus, he can avoid that kid, right?”
“N-No, it’s fine,” Liam said, his ever-present composure shaking just a little. “I’ll ignore him. You shouldn’t skip class for something like this.”
“Thank you, Thom,” Mom said, and I saw her mouth crease in a thin line before she turned to face front.
She was feeling a little guilty. So was I, for that matter, but it didn’t stop me from having some vindictive pride, too. It was the perfect punishment for Liam, who had such a strong aversion to people going out of their way for him, it was practically a phobia. We would see how much of this he could take before he snapped and told the truth.
He opened his mouth to protest one more time, but as we hit one of the many potholes on the way home, he suddenly clutched at his upper arm, curling in on himself so tightly that he buried his face in his knees.
“… Liam?” I meant it to sound vaguely threatening, as if I could scare him into truthfulness. I probably just sounded like a mother hen. “What’s with that arm?”
By the time he looked up at me, he was smiling sheepishly again. “I tripped.”
Right. So much for truthfulness.
It wasn’t long after that before we arrived home. Dad steered Liam inside by the shoulder, and he was lucky he got off with that much. It might be his personality, or it might just be the fact that he’s the size of a grizzly bear, but he has a habit of attempting to haul us around like we’re still toddlers. It wasn’t just because of Liam’s size, either - I’m over six feet, and I still have to watch my back.
When we got inside, Liam, still wearing that idiotic grin, begged off dinner, claiming that he was ‘a little tired.’ As he disappeared upstairs, both my parents turned their expectant stares on me, and I sighed, “I was going anyway,” before grabbing an ice pack and a towel from the kitchen and trudging after him. Mom and Dad watched me go before moving to the living room, no doubt to mutter amongst themselves about how they’d handle it.
I didn’t really blame them for being lost. I wouldn’t say they were lenient, but they never really felt the need to be strict. It wasn’t as though they approved of me and all the crap I tried to pull, but aside from Mom’s biweekly “don’t make me represent you in court” lectures, they trusted my judgment. Blind optimism on their part or not, I toed the line.
As for Liam, he’d barely given us cause for worry in his entire life. We did anyway, if only because he was the youngest, but it was always comforting to know that it wasn’t really necessary.
I would say there’s a first time for everything, but I don’t make a habit of spouting lazy platitudes, either.
He answered the door on the third knock, still wearing his school uniform. “Thom?”
I held up the ice pack. “House call. Show me that arm.”
“It’s really fine-”
“Just show it to me,” I said, pushing my way in. “It’s good practice.”
Catching my tone, he relented, taking a seat on his bed. “I hope you’re not going to be this pushy with your future patients. No one will want to come to you.”
“Are you kidding?” I snorted as I pulled up a chair. “Doctors are sadists, little brother. I’ll be the nicest damn doctor in practice.” And I would. I’d even treat the brats who got punched by angry older brothers. “Now roll up your sleeve.”
He made sure to convey all his displeasure with a heavy sigh. I ignored it. Finally, he rolled up his sleeve and let me see the mess of purple and blue against his upper arm. I whistled. “Where did you fall from again?”
He shrugged as I wrapped the ice pack in a towel and handed it to him. “Stairs. You’re really going to come pick me up at school?”
“Guess so,” I said. “Magnanimous soul that I am.”
Liam narrowed his eyes and flinched a little as he pressed the compress to his arm. “And you’re not going to listen no matter what I say.”
“What’s this, now?” I said. “Who exactly is the older brother? Who’s supposed to be listening to who?”
“Whom,” he said, and the grin resurfaced briefly. “Should you really be skipping English?”
Normally, I would take this opportunity to remind him that scientists didn’t need grammar, really. But instead, I sighed and blurted out, “You’re really going to be all right there, on your own?”
He didn’t need to ask where. He just shook his head. “You make it sound like I’m a lost child at the mall or something.”
“You know what I meant.”
“Mmm. Sorry.” He folded his legs under him. “But, even if you say that, I’m going to be on my own anyway when you get into Cornell.”
Complete faith that I was going to get accepted, of course. Little brothers. “I can come back most weekends. The gas money will be a pain in the ass, but-”
“You better not. I’ll get angry, you know.” The grin faded into a faint smile. “Thanks for the ice pack. Good night.”
And summarily dismissed. Once again: little brothers.
Having struck out completely and entirely, I gave up for the night and trudged downstairs to the family room, flopping on the couch and turning on Law and Order reruns. I vacantly watched the credits. Angela Landsbury was guest-starring. If they really wanted you to guess who the killer was, they would have stopped casting name actors a long time ago.
My stare slid over to the kitchen table where my brother held court every night after dinner. It was so regular, he could have held office hours: he’d sit with whatever homework he had and wait for anyone who needed a willing audience for their complaints.
And on any given night, we had a lot of them. Just the night before, I had come home late, ranting and cursing about some argument with my guidance counselor about college applications. He had looked up at me, without missing a beat, and pulled out a chair for me at the table.
I sat down, of course. “Spoiled” wasn’t a word people would use to describe him, but he always did get what he asked for. Sacred birthright of the youngest.
The doorbell rang, drowning out Briscoe’s pre-credits wisecrack. I looked over my shoulder, but my parents were still talking in low voices in the back room, and were clearly expecting me to get it. I pushed myself to my feet and made my way to the front door, intending to let whoever it was know that we were busy. Couldn’t miss seeing how they’d nail Angela, after all.
I opened the door without unlocking the deadbolt, expecting some kind of local volunteer, but found our next-door neighbor, Mrs. Ferris, instead. One of the few on our street I actually liked. I’d have to be nice about telling her to get lost.
“Thomas,” she greeted in her gravelly, masculine voice, flashing me an off-white smile.
“Do you need something, Mrs. Ferris?” I asked. Didn’t want to be too inviting, after all.
“Oh, no, nothing like that, dear,” she said with a shake of her head. “I was hoping to talk with William, actually. Is he in?”
I made an attempt not to frown at her. Mrs. Ferris and Liam liked each other, and he always made sure to say hello when they bumped into each other, but I wouldn’t have called them close by any stretch. It shouldn’t have been so strange - 7:00 wasn’t too late to call on a neighbor, really - but it still struck me as off.
“Liam’s not feeling well,” I told her. “It can wait until tomorrow, right?”
“Is that so? That’s a shame. I have a little something to tell him. Something he’ll like, I believe. ” The front door floodlights glinted off her eyes, and for a moment, her brown irises looked almost green. Rather than looking at me, she was staring at the still-locked deadbolt with such intensity that I cleared my throat loudly. “Ah, forgive me… got distracted, it seems. I’ll leave you alone now, Thomas.”
“Be careful walking back,” I said automatically, closing the door before she even took a step off the front porch. And then I waited.
I’m not sure why I didn’t just go back to my Law and Order - maybe I was just jumpy, or maybe I really had noticed it from the start. But I didn’t hear Mrs. Ferris hobble down our front walkway and towards her house. I heard the sharp clank-clank-clank of something hollow and wooden hitting the ground and skittering away, as if being dragged.
Keeping the deadbolt shut tightly and grabbing the steel baseball bat by the shoe rack, I opened the door just enough to look at the front step. No Mrs. Ferris. Nobody waiting for us.
By the time I landed on the couch again, I had managed to rationalize every second of Mrs. Ferris’ visit. I still didn’t go upstairs without setting the alarm.
***
Hope you enjoyed! <3
