Make believe? Games? I never got to play games growing up, all I was allowed to do was color. I never had toys, not after the age of two. I was never allowed to play make believe because it was childish. Were we really going to play a game?
“Something made you change,” Azrael said, his voice studious. “Do you like playing games?”
I tapped my finger. I wasn’t sure, but I still wanted to play. Even through the exhaustion, I felt something inside of me shift.
“What do you like most about them?” he asked. “The puzzles? The toys? The stories? The pretending?”
I tapped my finger four times. All of it, I think.
“Oh?” I heard a smile touch his voice. “And which do you like the very most? The toys?”
No. I mean, I never really had them, so I wasn’t sure. I suppose that wasn’t the entire truth. I liked stuffed animals. I remembered a stuffed bear I had, or my mother must have told me about it because I did remember it. I used to hug it all the time. I must have liked it.
“The stories?”
I did like stories, but the only stories, except for myfavoriteone, that I was allowed to read were about the church, and I didn’t really like those stories.
“Pretending?”
I tapped my finger. I imagined in my head all the time, and that was sort of like pretending, I would assume. I loved making up stories. Sometimes, I laid in my bed at night and pretended I was somewhere far away from here.
“In my world we call that an alias. A secret identity,” he told me, his voice softer, chilling. It warmed my skin, sending shivers across my arms. “If we’re to pretend, then you need to pick a new identity. Someone from a book, perhaps?”
My heart thudded and I tapped my finger. The Queen of Hearts, that’s who I wanted to be. More than anything else in the world. I wanted to be her.
Azrael was quiet a moment. “You were allowed a book when you were younger, one book, so I’m assuming you want to be a character from that book. But which one?” He paused, studying me carefully.“Peter Pan?”
“No.”
“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?”
“No.”
“How aboutSnow White?”
“No.”I didn’t know what any of those stories were.
He was quiet for a long time. “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland?”
My heart skipped and I tapped once.“Yes, that one.”
He pulled his cane towards him, stretching my neck. “Chaos in all its glory,” he hummed. “But it’s not Alice you want to be, is it? No, you are far too smart to be someone who tumbles down a rabbit hole and drinks potions placed on tables. Certainly not the Absolem or the Cheshire Cat either. The Mad Hatter, perhaps,” he mumbled.
For the first time in a very long time, I felt something bubbling in the pit of my stomach. Something that gave me energy and made my insides shake. Excitement. I feltexcitement. Nobody had ever talked to me aboutAlice’s Adventures in Wonderland.Not one person. Mother hated the book I had chosen, and I wasn’t allowed to have any friends. Thomas certainly wouldn’t hear any of it, and then I lost my voice. To be able to have someone who knew the story talk to me about it? Of course, I was excited.
“Oh, I know,” he purred, lifting my jaw up, exposing my throat. “The Queen of Hearts. You do look so lovely in red, little sinner, it must be her. I guess I picked the right clothes for you after all, didn’t I?”
I felt the muscles around the corners of my lips twitch, and I knew exactly what that meant. A smile. I felt the want to smile. I tapped my finger again.
“Such a good little sinner,” he sang in pride, causing my bones to zing. “It seems we’ve both been looking for the same things, haven’t we? So that’s who you are then. You are Scarlett, the Queen of Hearts, and I will be your Mad Hatter. Outside of these walls, we are pretending. Abiding by the laws of the people who run this world until we can escape back tomine, back to Wonderland, but don’t mistake the names, little sinner. You must understand that I will enslave the queen for the information she has on her crumbling Kingdom, and the Wonderland we are escaping to is not the Wonderland you remember, but something much more fitting for your pretty little mind. Do you understand what I have said to you?”
I tapped my finger, feeling something warm behind it. Something electric. If I had to name the feeling I suddenly felt, I would have called it joy.
“Good. Soon, I will tell you your true purpose, but not until you are ready. It is not what you think though. It has nothing to do with that horrid little creature who calls himself your betrothed.”
Suddenly, I felt his warm breath tickle my lashes, causing that flutter to shift into a throb between my legs, causing my fingers to flex against my thighs. His breath smelled of the same mint that still coated my tongue.
Our mint.
