Untamed - A. G. Howard Page 0,41

and Belly of the Beast—and pack them away in the attic along with other heirlooms, including a tourism brochure for the Thames sundial trail in London. The last things I added were two keys: One had belonged to my mom and could make a mirror into a portal, and the other could open the gate to Wonderland’s garden of souls. The latter was a gift granted to Jeb after he gave up his muse so he could fulfill the nether-realm’s need for vivid, imaginative dreams, and bridge our worlds with peace in the process. He gave up what had once made him unique, to keep human children safe. A courageous act his own children and grandchildren never had the privilege to know. That memento was the hardest for me to let go of, for it was a tribute to Jeb’s courageous heart and noble nature—the two things I loved most about him. But as Wonderland’s Red Queen, I had no business keeping such a hallowed key.

I hid everything in a trunk in the attic and locked it. Then I stashed the trunk’s key inside the pages of my well-worn Lewis Carroll collection. Jeb and I owned the cottage, and all the land around it, and insisted in our wills that it forever stay in our family’s name. That way, if any of our descendants should ever need to find me, they can. All they’ll have to do is look for clues like I once did. Follow the steps I’ve laid out, and believe in the impossible—in fairy tales and wishes and magic.

I’ve always kept them in the dark about our legacy, to give them a chance at a normal life. I even commanded the bugs and flowers to silence. I’m the only one who can hear those lines to the nether-realm now, and it will be that way as long as I’m the reigning Red Queen. But should any of my family members search diligently enough, they’ll find the truth I’ve hidden for them.

All these years, they accepted my quirks because I’ve always respected and loved them, unconditionally. And now I’m counting on their loyalty. My entire plan to die hinges on the timeliness of the execution of my will.

Cremation was the only way to avoid draining my blood and pumping my veins with formaldehyde, sewing my eyelids shut—all the morbid and intrusive steps taken to embalm and preserve a mortal’s body. I was blessed throughout my eighty years of human life with health and a sharp mind. I never needed a pacemaker and I have no prostheses, implants, or dentures, so there was nothing that might explode in high heat. That meant no incisions, no extractions. It was important that I remain intact—inside and out.

But if Rabid White doesn’t hurry and get here with the inception potion to rouse me out of my stasis, it won’t matter. I’ll be a pile of glowing embers. And Morpheus will have to find a new home for my eternal spirit . . . a new body for me to inhabit.

He’ll be livid if that happens, and he’ll never let me forget it. An eternity is a long, long time to listen to I told you so pitched continuously in a deep, cockney accent.

“I don’t care for it one bit,” he had said two weeks ago, while we discussed my exodus from the human realm over tea during one of my Wonderland dream visits. He lifted a cup to his lips, his studious face as perfect and ageless as always. He took a sip, and then set it down once more. “Too many things can go wrong. I should be there to execute my plan.”

“I’m doing it myself,” I’d countered. I studied the canopied bed and fireplace, located diagonally from the tall Victorian parlor chairs where we sat beside a small oval table, seeking comfort in the familiar surroundings. “And we’re going with my plan.” Those would be my last moments in the human realm. It had to be on my terms. I suppressed a tug of sadness and attempted the same graceful control Morpheus had displayed with his cup of tea, but hot liquid splashed down my age-worn hand as a tremor shook through my wrist. I yelped.

“Alyssa, please. Allow me.” He gently gripped my gnarled fingers in his elegant, smooth ones, wiping away the tea and soothing my scalded and scarred flesh with a cloth napkin.

Allow me. We both knew he referred to so much more than cleaning my spilled drink.

So