Beauty In Her Madness (Winterland Tale #3) - Stacey Marie Brown Page 0,96

her? How did I not know she was the same therapist from my childhood? Why did Frost think she was dead?

I stumbled again to the earth, causing an aggravated scream to curdle from her throat. “Get up! Move.”

“No,” I snarled back.

“Yes!” Her fingers bit into my flesh, her expression twisted in rage, jerking me up again. “I’ve tried to play this nice, but no more,” she snapped, her voice hissing. “Time is up, Dinah.”

Air caught in my lungs, and somewhere in the depths of my brain, I latched on to the familiar eerie tone, the one who had been calling to me for months. Making me feel crazy.

“You,” I slurred, my feet stumbling. “It was you…haunting me. Calling me from the shadows.”

“About time you figured that out. I thought you were supposed to be the smart one, Dinah.” She smirked, her red lips parting.

“How?” The endless questions weren’t coming out the way I wanted, twisting in my mouth, my head jumbled. “Ho-how come I-I don’t remember you? When I was little?”

“You never turned down a peppermint candy from me as a child, did you?” Her lips twisted in amusement, her grip on my arm tightening, pulling me forward faster. For a short, older lady, she was shockingly strong. “Peppermint is such a strong flavor that it covers up any taste underneath.”

Peppermint. Out of the blue, I went from loving it to hating it. It wasn’t a coincidence. I knew it now.

“Di-did you put it in my meds too?”

“Peppermint? No.” She shook her head. “I no longer wanted you to forget, Dinah. I want you to remember.”

“Remember what?”

“How you did it.”

“Did what?”

“Unlocked the chains…released the beast.” She yanked me over a hill, then down into a gulch, the moonlight disappearing behind the mountain. My attention flickered up at the object domineering the sky. The mountain reached far into the sky, curling at the top.

“Toadstool sandwich.” I blinked up at the memorable shape, awe engulfing me. It was exactly like the movie.

Mount Crumpet.

I had never traveled beyond the beach or fortress as a child, too occupied with playing with my friends to care if there was more to Winterland. It hadn’t mattered to my six- and seven-year-old self.

“Ugh, he is all talk and no action anymore,” she grumbled, sounding like a burned lover. “When he was all angry and bitter, the bad boy, he was a passionate lover. Now he’s useless.”

“You-you and the Grinch?” I sputtered, still trying to wrap around he existed.

“Ha! He’d like to think so.” She huffed bitterly. “It was one time. I was incredibly drunk and desperate. And heartbroken…”

My mouth dropped open in shock, and I was pretty sure revulsion too.

“Hurry up.” She shoved me farther down the ravine, drenching us in heavy fog, which chilled my blood. Desolation and misery coated my mouth and hung on my limbs like heavy ornaments, making me feel I would never be happy again.

She suddenly stopped, shoving me forward, my legs crashing down to the earth again, weighted by the crushing gloom. Every molecule of air congealed into despair.

“We spent years trying to break the chains, to open the box.” She snarled, anger and wretchedness crawling over her, twisting her features. “And you come along, some little human girl, a child, who should have no power. I don’t get you two, why are you both so special? Both of you have torn my family apart.” She stomped up to me, clutching my chin. “Tell me! How were you able to free it?”

“I-I don’t know.”

“Stop lying to me!” She grabbed my hair, yanking me forward.

“I’m not!” I shouted, trying to move away from her, but the sharp point of the knife dug into my side.

“Well, you better figure it out.” The candy cane cut into my skin. “Get up!”

Struggling, I rose to my feet. She hauled me forward, my gaze taking in a strange consistency in the air, ending the trail. Solid darkness hung in the air like a wormhole, oozing out crushing sadness and melancholy.

A sensation I had felt before.

A place I had been before.

“No.” I shook my head, observing more images I had put in a box and locked away, writing it off as a dream or hallucination. The desire to run had me stepping back, pulling against her hold. “No!”

“Yes, girl.” She wrapped her arm around me, jabbing the dagger in to keep me from running. “I’ve tried going through your dreams, and they failed. So, this time, you are going in. You will bring her out and free