Ensnared

“You’re his brother, aren’t you?” I ask, pushing aside the menu. The yeasty bread smells too good to resist so I grab a roll and sink my teeth in.

Hubert’s cheeks burn red. “Oh, I see. Since we’re all the same shape and color, we must all be related, right? An egg by any other name and all that rot.”

“Well, no. Since you work here, and the place is named after him.” I take another bite of my yeasty roll. “Figured it was a family thing.”

“Firstly,” he snorts, “I’d ask that you not speak with your mouth so full of bread. And secondly, if you’ll take a look at the menu, the i

“So you’re business partners.”

“That would be a were.”

I wince. “Right. I’m sorry, I just thought—”

“Psssh. I know all about you and your dastardly thoughts.” He waves his buglike arm. “You’re the one who plugged up the rabbit hole.”

My own cheeks grow warm as the latest bite of bread forms a doughy lump, almost too big to swallow. “Th-th-that was an accident.”

“An accident.” The flush of Hubert’s cheeks bleeds into his whole face and body. I worry he might explode, sending his beaded embellishments ricocheting off the cushioned walls and floors like bullets. “An accident like the one that broke Humphrey’s shell and caused him to be exiled to the garden of souls? An accident like that?”

Thumping the prongs of my fork against the breadbasket, I frown. “Well, yeah. He fell off a wall. And later he tripped over Chessie’s head.”

“Pushed. He was pushed off that wall. By your great-great-great-grandmother. All so Humphrey would crack atop Rabid White. All so his i

I shake my head. “What happened to Rabid was an evil spell . . .”

“Oh, it was evil. But it was no spell. Our i

Hubert’s Fabergé-egg appearance makes sense now. He’s patched himself up. At the first appearance of any crack in his shell, he glues something else in place.

“But that’s not logical,” I say, all the while knowing things rarely are where Wonderland is concerned. “Red manufacturing an accident just to have Rabid in her pocket? Someone that powerful would’ve had willing subjects left and right.”

A loud grunt bursts from the pit below. I glance down to see Dad helping his brother to his feet. The other knights gather around Dad and congratulate him. They’re all smiling and laughing, even Uncle Bernie.

Hubert shoves the menu into my fingertips.

“You seem to know a lot about what happened with Queen Red,” I stall, glaring up at him.

He scowls. “I heard it from the source. Your great-great-great-grandmother visited my i

“You’re saying Red came here. To the human realm. Do you mean after she’d been banished from Wonderland?” Even before the question leaves my lips, I know that can’t be right. Red would’ve been wearing her Alice imprint if it had been after her banishment, living the life of a small human girl.

“She came here while she still ruled,” Hubert corrects. “Long before the Alice brat wormed her way into the rabbit hole and caused all the mayhem and Red’s downfall.”

My tongue dries. I take a gulp of water. “Why would Red have come to the human realm before the Alice incident?”

“Are you daft? She visited because she was lonely. Her husband was betraying her. Seemed like she forgot herself after that, along with the kindness her royal parents had once instilled. She even forgot how to make friends of her own kind.”

Red’s disgruntled and discarded memories shadow my thoughts. Hubert doesn’t know how right he is about her forgetfulness, or how deliberate it was.

“The only way she could believe someone was loyal,” the egg-man continues, “was if they were indebted to her. Seems that’s the only way anyone in your bloodline can secure devotion. Just as you did by closing up the rabbit hole. Now we’re all dependent on you to open a way back, so we can’t possibly shrink you to bug size and squash you under our shoes as we’d like.”

Hubert’s voice is shrill and echoing. The lizard creature and his woolly companion snap their gazes to us. The moment they see me, they grimace.

“I’m nothing like Red,” I growl, surprised at the rage behind the words.

Although, technically, I did bully the carpet beetle conductor to get my way . . . and I did force my dad to eat a mushroom and ride a butterfly across the world to London. But it was for the greater good.

I clamp my jaw. “I’m not a tyrant like her. I’m just . . . determined.”

“As was she. Determined to improve our world. She went so far as to study the humans, as if they’re better than us somehow. Something we should aspire to be.” The egg-man looks over my shoulder. “Those wings aren’t the only proof of your heritage. You’re a traitor, sending us all up river so you could save your petty mortal half. You’re nothing short of a—”

“Benedict,” I interrupt between clenched teeth.

Hubert’s eyes narrow—curious and hate-filled.

“Eggs Benedict.” I point to a picture on the menu. “Poached eggs. Canadian bacon. Hollandaise sauce and an English muffin. And I’d like a side of fruit.”

He snatches the menu, then scribbles my order on his pad.

“Also, for the record,” I add, shifting my attention to the glaring netherling patrons, “I’m here to open the portals and the rabbit hole again. The wraiths misunderstood me and sealed up everything.” I shudder a little at the thought of the nightmarish phantom creatures and their ear-gutting wails. “I’m going to reverse it all. I’m here to make things better.”

“Of course,” Hubert scoffs. “Just like Red was going to make Wonderland better. But hers was a warped idea of improvement as well. She even took up with a human and started spouting off things better left secret.”

A strange intuition pecks at my brain. “What human?”

“His name was Dodgson. Known by most of your kind as that author fellow . . . Lewis Carroll.”

I press my spine into my chair and stare at Hubert in disbelief. “You’re trying to tell me that Queen Red knew Lewis Carroll. Personally. Before Alice Liddell ever found her way to Wonderland.”

Hubert’s yellow gaze darkens like dried yolks. “As I heard it, Red put on the glamour of a male professor and befriended Dodgson at some fancy university here in Oxford. They had endless philosophical discussions about a magical realm and where there might be an entrance. Red helped Dodgson come up with a mathematical formula to find the longitude and latitude of the gateway. It’s how Dodgson discovered this i

He wobbles away on his praying-mantis limbs, leaving my mind reeling.

I don’t allow guilt to surface this time. I’m too intent on this new development. Hubert’s explanation supports my dad’s claim that Charles knew about the entrance to Wonderland before Alice fell down the rabbit hole. But why would Red plant the possibility of such a place in Charles Dodgson’s mind to begin with? Why would she want him to find Wonderland?