Death of the Mad Hatter (14 page)

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-
T
HREE

(
Ryley: Present Time)

Our lips met, silencing her. The sweet flavor of
Alice Mae’s strawberry gum filled my mouth. I kissed her harder than I’d ever kissed a girl before. Usually, I hoped to leave them breathless. I wanted her to be completely and utterly speechless.

I
figured she was as likely to bite me, but she caught me off guard; she kissed me back. She moved against me like she danced—smooth and gracefully—but fiercely, nevertheless. She wasn’t backing down. This had to be just another game to her, and I wasn’t about to let her win.

Without letting her come up for air,
I walked her back against the locker—or wall, I wasn’t sure and didn’t care. She tasted… her kiss… it was hypnotic.

Her lips
should have a warning label posted: Highly addictive. The kiss manifested high concentrations of rhapsody. Her hands slipped up around my face and then into my hair. She pulled me harder against her, using my hair as leverage. I wrapped my arms around her thin waist as she sucked on my bottom lip. Right when I thought she was going to break the kiss, she bit down. A moan slipped from my throat.

Her voice wavered when she spoke.
“You were right all along, Ryley. We weren’t destined to be
just friends
.”

Her electric blue eyes sparkled like jewels.
Her pouting lips made me want to shut her up with another kiss. My plan backfired. I’d gotten her to stop talking about my dad, but she’d infiltrated my mind. I was buzzed. It wasn’t just the happy go lucky adrenaline rush—it was so much more than that. I stumbled. The gravity seemed to have taken five, because it felt like I was flying, even though I was still planted on the floor. I know this because I checked. The black and white tile squares appeared to grow and shrink. There wasn’t a particular rhythm to their shifting. Every single lock on the lockers sparkled like metamorphic rocks. The ceiling wavered like water. My stomach flipped.

“
May I have my gum back?” Alice Mae asked.

Until then, I hadn’t noticed that
her strawberry gum had made its way into my mouth. I fished it out and dropped it into her palm. She quickly popped it into her mouth. The floor stopped shifting, but a few black tiles still shimmered. I had the sudden urge to step on each and every one of them.

Alice Mae cupped my face and directed my attention back to her. She looked at me—hard.
“Oh dear.”

“
What’s in that gum? Hallucinogens?” I asked. My words didn’t slur, but it didn’t exactly sound like me either.

The distant sound of the bell rang, indicating
that we were late. I’d forgotten we still had another class to endure.

She said,
“I have to go.”

“
Where?”

“
Away.”

“
Away
where
?”

“
Just away,” she said, pushing me back. She twirled away and hopped down the hall, stepping on each black square that flashed.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-
F
OUR

(
Ryley: Present Time)

Standing in the middle of a mostly empty hall, I scratched my head. I wasn
’t sure what had happened—how the series of events had progressed from her shredding my beloved hat to us having a semi-intense make out session in the hallway.

“
You’re not going to get that second date with Courtney, not anymore.” Becky stood in the hall, arms crossed, and glaring at me like I had committed the vilest of crimes.

I didn
’t deserve a second date, and yet I didn’t feel completely heartbroken. It was probably because my lips were still swollen.

“
You led Courtney on,” Becky said.

“
No, I liked her.” I looked down that hall that Alice Mae had scampered. Seriously, how had my life changed so much between sixth and seventh period?

“
Like
d
being the correct tense,” she said. “Stay away from my friend. Or I’ll tell her the truth.”

Now, she had my attention.
“What truth?”

“
Well, I put on my detective hat—like you suggested—and found something rather interesting.”

“
What’s that?”

“
Your dad developed nomadic traits after Edward died.”

“
Listen Becky, I was just pulling your leg. My dad doesn’t have a family. He was adopted. I don’t have any uncles, or aunts, or weird cousins,” I said. “It’s just me and my mom.”

Becky dug in her pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. She crumpled it up into a ball, threw it at me, and left. I picked the paper up and unfolded it. It was a copy of my dad
’s health records from the first university he taught at, over a decade ago. Under family history, written in blue ink, was my dad’s handwriting. Brother: Edward Edgar—heart condition.

“
Where did you get this?”

She glanced over her shoulder.
“I told you I have family connections in law enforcement. I was able to dig up a few old documents… still haven’t found a death certificate for your dad.”

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-
F
IVE

(
Alice Mae: Present Time in Wonderland)

I didn
’t know what a heart attack felt like, but if I was to guess, I’d say it was the pounding sensation in my chest that almost paralyzed me when Ryley’s lips met mine. Resting my elbows on the queen’s table, I buried my head in my hands and willed my heartbeat to slow. My palms were sweaty. My legs were shaking. Even so, none of my physical ailments had anything to do with my impromptu fall down the rabbit’s hole.

“
Why do you insist upon sticking your arms and legs out when falling down through the rabbit holes, Al?” Chez said. His fuzzy tail swept across my hands.

That cleared the butterflies from my stomach.
I lowered my hands and glared at the damn cat. “Because I’m just a stupid girl and won’t learn,” I said, sarcastically.

Rolling onto his back,
Chez chuckled, “I think you secretly like tracking mud into the castle. You know it annoys the queen.”

“
It’s no secret,” Hearts said, walking into the room. “How many times have you scrubbed the floors clean of your mud prints?”

“
Two hundred and forty eight times,” I said, smiling like it didn’t bother me, even though I hated the ancient sponge (a glorified germ factory) and the bucket of bleach.

Hearts stepped up a series of
short stairs and then sat down on a chair, much higher than mine. She lifted the black and crimson colored tea pot and poured herself a cup. After dropping two sugar cubes into it, she looked me over.

“
Your lipstick is smudged.”

Blushing, I covered my mouth and immediately regretted my reaction. I needed to
appear unemotional. I lowered my hands and smirked, just like Hearts inadvertently taught me so many years ago.

“
I told you my plan was to get the boy to fall in love with me. Obviously, it’s working,” I said.

I poured myself a splash of tea. I blew into the cup and pretended not to notice that my hands
were still shaking.

The queen
raised her cup to her lips, but from a lower angle, I couldn’t tell if she actually took a drink. “It appears to be working quite well.”

I waved her comment off and lowered my
cup without taking a drink. I trusted the queen about as much as I trusted a starved flesh-eating deadman. Besides, Hearts’ paranoia of poison spread throughout Wonderland, me included. Over the years, she’d banned most poisons, especially after her roses died, which was why M.H. had developed a less concentrated potion. It simply made a person ill—not dead.

“
The reason for my unplanned visit is because Ryley reacted to the wondrous candy,” I said. “I thought only those who spend a great deal of time in Wonderland, or call this court their birthplace, reacted to the sweets.”

The queen and the cat exchanged a look.
“The boy reacts to our sweets because he is—in essence—one of us, even if he was born in the Otherworld for he is the only Heir to the throne. Wonderland must always have a ruler.”

“
Well, that settles that,” I said and stood up to leave. My legs wobbled. “Next time I return, Ryley will be with me.”

“
Not so fast,” Hearts said. She pointed to the mud tracks. “You’re not leaving this court until the floor is clean enough to eat from.”

I bit my tongue before I said anything unpleasant, or commented about eating off the floor. I didn
’t want to plant that seed in the queen’s head. I would not be the one to have a meal where people walked. That’s where I put my foot down.

“
If I stay here, that means that no one is watching the boy,” I pointed out. “Do you remember Becky? She is now obsessed with finding out what Ryley is hiding. They might skip town, and the racecar is only now working! If they go too far away, I won’t be able to track them. It will be almost impossible!”

“
You did it once, you can do it again.”

I clenched my sweaty, shaky hands.
“But my plan! The ground I’ve made with getting Ryley to fall for me might be undone if I stay here longer than necessary.”

Chez
rubbed up against my leg. “Did you honestly not think the queen had plans of her own?”

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-
S
IX

(
Ryley: Present Time)

A half-
full bucket of balls was spilled over the batter’s box. My shoulders ached. Sweat coated my shirt. Dust covered my face. Yet, it didn’t matter when I hit the ball with the baseball bat. The crunch took my mind off of Alice Mae—even if it was for a millisecond. The bat’s vibrations stung my hands, which was also a nice distraction from the strawberry flavor that still saturated in my mouth. I was beginning to hate strawberries, even though until now they were my favorite fruit. But Alice Mae made a mess of that flavor too, just like she’d made a mess of my life.

I swore it was
premeditated. Why else would she have apologized for
making a mess of my life
under the football stands?

Dax showed up. Saying nothing, he picked
up my discarded glove, grabbed the half full bucket of balls and walked to the pitcher’s mound. He didn’t have an All-Star pitching arm, but he was pretty consistent at getting the ball over the plate without pegging me.

“
I don’t want to like her,” I said, swinging the bat at a curve ball. I missed.

Tossing
the next ball into the air, Dax laughed. “Do you think that I woke up one morning and decided to be gay? Do you think it’s easy for me to like someone who is completely and hopelessly heterosexual?”

Point taken
.

He nodded to someone behind me.
“Speak of the devil.”

Mick grabbed me by my shoulders and
greeted me by smashing his fist against my nose. Tears filled my eyes as I cursed and defended myself. Mick socked me in the stomach twice before Dax was able to tear him away.

“
You knew I was going for Alice Mae!” Mick shouted.

Blood dripped from my now-broken-nose.
“It wasn’t like I planned to kiss her!”

“
Let me guess—you tripped, and your lips accidentally smacked hers?” Mick said. He pushed away from Dax, but since he wasn’t moving to attack me again, Dax let him.

I pulled off my shirt and held it against my nose
. “Honestly, I just wanted to shut her up.”

“
And kissing her was your genius idea?”

I
shrugged my shoulders. “It worked.”

Mick
groaned, but the corners of his frown turned up. Rubbing his hand, like my face had actually done some damage, he commented that we were even. “You know Courtney is never going to give you the time of day again.”

Time of day
, I thought, looking at the watch that was once my dad’s. It ticked on steadily. How was it possible for my life to get turned upside-down in a matter of seconds? One moment Alice Mae and I were sworn enemies—like a superhero to a villain. A kiss changed all that. If I could only turn back time, I was sure that I could fix everything. I’d be living in a wonderland. But I couldn’t do the impossible, like turning the clock backwards. In the present day, here in real life, I reminded myself, I’d fallen for the Wrong girl.