“Someday, my love, you’ll understand everything.”
Dinah’s father had returned from war a changed man. He was angrier and increasingly cruel toward them both. She saw less of her mother, and when she did, Dinah was alarmed at her shrinking figure and the dark circles under her eyes. The care of Charles was taken from her and given to Lucy and Quintrell. Dinah would still occasionally visit her mother’s chambers at the end of the day, but Davianna would often be sleeping, unable to take her visits, and Dinah would be sent back to her room like a child without supper.
On the eve of her ninth birthday, Dinah stumbled across a scene that she would never forget. Her daily lessons in the library had been cut short due to the sneezing of Monsignor Wol-Vore, the language tutor, and the princess found herself with a few free hours. Running happily down the hall, her pink dress in tatters behind her, Dinah made her way to her mother’s apartment. The Heart Cards who normally stood guard at the queen’s door were oddly absent, and the door was cracked open a few inches. As she laid her fingers on the cool knob, Dinah could hear her father’s angry voice. She paused at the door.
“How dare you? You are nothing more than a common whore, lowborn trash that washed up from the sea on the beaches of Ierladia! I am the King of Wonderland, and I will not be made a mockery of. Is this how you repay me? Who is he? Tell me! I should take your head for this!”
Dinah heard the sound of something crashing—dishes, perhaps. Something hit the door with a loud thud and Dinah leaped back, afraid. She could hear her mother murmuring, attempting to calm her father.
Then: “Don’t tell me it’s NOTHING!” roared the man who wore the crown. Dinah heard the sharp snap of skin against skin—a slap. She desperately wanted to help her mother, but she was afraid of her violent father. Her hand lingered on the door as she heard her mother weeping behind it. Dinah walked back to her chambers, a coward.
She never told anyone about that day, not even Wardley. It was strange to think of it now, as she stepped over root after root, the muscles in her thighs clenching with fatigue. A tiny stream crossed in front of them, and Dinah stopped to fill her waterskin. Morte lapped at the water, and Dinah sat down on the muddy bank to rinse off her sore feet. The tinkling of the stream had a lulling power, and Dinah raised her face to take in the warm sun, resting for just a minute, just one more memory.
Her mother had died on a winter afternoon, when huge mounds of pink snow were piled high against the Iron Gates outside the palace, and inside everyone was trying to stay warm. Her illness had been violent and sudden. One day, Dinah’s mother had been there, her face thin and worried, but alive. The next she was lying in her bed, drenched with sweat so hot that it steamed in the cool air. Her lips, once the color of a ripe fig, were blue and withered, and her eyes were somehow gone already. They looked past Dinah, as if the queen were seeing someone else. The White Fever had raged through Wonderland proper that year, a quick illness that turned a person’s nails white before it swiftly delivered them to the grave. Although it was curious that no one in the palace had gotten it, aside from her mother.
Dinah hadn’t been allowed to touch her mother, or even to go near her bedside. She stood sobbing in the doorway, Harris’s arms wrapped firmly around her, holding her back, as she watched her mother’s body convulse and twist in pain. Charles was not allowed in the room, and the king was nowhere to be seen as Davianna took her last breath, her eyes finally trained on Dinah as she whispered her good-byes, her body shaking with the effort.
“Dinah, oh my wild girl. You so are smart, just like him. Be gentle, my dear, take heart. Be a good queen. Take care of your brother.”
Dinah wept, her fat tears dripping off her chin. “I will, Mother. I will. I love you. I love you.”
The hint of a smile brushed across Davianna’s face. “I love you too …”
The conversation had exhausted the queen, and it wasn’t long after that she fell into a heavy sleep, never to wake again. The rising of her chest slowed until it ceased. The queen was declared dead. Her father, her servants, Harris, everyone who had known her mother, wailed. Even Cheshire’s dark eyes filled with clever crocodile tears. The Cards came and went; a priest, wearing long red robes covered with hearts, rang a tiny silver bell outside her window. Another bell from somewhere down below rang in return. Suddenly bells were ringing throughout the kingdom, and the sound of them rose up through the courtyard and in through the open window as a swirl of pink snow rested on her mother’s lips.
Dinah screamed and flailed in Harris’s arms when the thin ruby crown was removed from her mother’s head. The priest held it over open flames until the crown glowed a dim red, as if lit from within. She realized with a start that it was a precautionary measure, to cleanse it from the fever. He walked over to Dinah as he blew on the crown to cool it.
“The queen is dead. Long live the future Queen of Wonderland.” He placed the crown on her head, the heat of it scorching the tips of her ears. Harris carried her out of the room, and as he turned, Dinah was given one last glance at her mother’s face, her beauty siphoned away by death.
Taking a cue from her father, Dinah had built a wall around that memory, thick as stone and impregnable to wandering thoughts. But here, in the depths of the Twisted Wood, it had been so easy to remember. She could smell the putrid air of the bedchamber, could see the fear in Harris’s eyes as the hot crown was laid on her head.
Dinah wiped her eyes as she pushed her blistered feet into the cool stream. The relief was instant, and it occurred to Dinah that she could possibly stay here forever, in this tiny lovely part of the wood where all the trees were white and the huge dark blue and deep green veiny leaves stretched out over the ground. But she couldn’t. Not yet. After a few moments, Dinah pulled her feet out of the stream, delicately wrapped them with the remaining strips of linen, and pushed them back into her boots, now instruments of torture. She watched silently as a fiery red hawk danced and dipped over the horizon, such a thing of beauty. She looked hopefully over at Morte, wishing he would lift his leg and have mercy on her. He did not, but rather stared off into the distance, his massive black head tilted with interest.
“I guess we’ll be walking, then,” groaned Dinah. It was nice to hear a voice—any voice, even if it was her own. They continued walking northeast. Her march to starvation, as Dinah had begun to think of it, dragged on.
The tracking hawk continued to circle lazily overhead.
All day Dinah had felt strange. She had just eaten her last loaf of bread and there were only a few pieces of bird meat left. A creeping feeling made its way from her spine to her forehead. She convinced herself that it was just the sinking feeling of having no more food. Her time was up—she would either need to learn how to hunt or begin eating only fruit that she could find along the way, but that wouldn’t sustain her for long.
Dinah was losing weight rapidly—already she had tightened her belt loop two notches, and when she had splashed her face in the stream that morning, she was shocked at how thin her face looked, how tired. Her hair was a raggedy tangle that would probably take years to work itself out, and her skin was marked with dozens of small cuts from thorny branches. The cut on her hand was healing well, but her two broken fingers still ached