Follow the White Rabbit (Beautiful Madness, #1)

Follow the White
Rabbit

A Beautiful
Madness Novella

Book One

––––––––

B
y Kellie
Sheridan

Headlights illuminated the road
ahead, flickering with each bump and crack in the pavement as I drove across
the countryside. The road I’d turned onto in an attempt to find coffee had
taken me farther away from civilization instead of back towards it, all in the
name of a shortcut. That was what I got for trusting some third-party GPS app,
but if it got me to Chicago faster it would be well worth the somewhat sketchy
detour. There wasn’t a Starbucks in sight, but my phone insisted I was headed
in the right direction, so I drove on into the night.

I should have stopped at the last motel
I’d
passed like I’d promised my parents. They had even given me cash to pay for a
room, which was a small miracle, but the place looked so rundown that I
couldn’t make myself go in. At the very least I would have left with a dozen
bedbug bites, which would have made the last six hours of the trip an absolute
nightmare. I shuddered just imagining the itchy red welts. My time would be
better spent driving, and a little extra cash could always come in handy.

If I pressed through the night, I’d
cross the state line by sunrise and be enjoying the Windy City by lunchtime. It
was supposed to be the summer of opportunity—sleep wasn’t on my to-do list.

If I was ever going to make it in the
music industry I needed to get some real experience and start making
connections. Top priority. While my friends were all drinking away their last
summer of high school, I’d be living with my Aunt Elenor and taking on an
internship usually reserved for university students.

I flicked the radio on, turning the dial
until I found something other than static. Where the hell was I that the only
available stations were playing country music? And
bad
country music at
that. I must have been even farther off track than I’d thought, but turning
around would only add time to my trip. I was willing to trust that eventually I
would hit a highway or at least a recognizable landmark.

I eased my foot down onto the gas pedal.
Turning back was not an option.

The
first time I saw her happened so quickly that I dismissed the whole thing as
the result of an overactive imagination.

I glanced back at the road after popping
in my Coldplay CD and for an instant saw a figure in my peripheral vision. I
could have sworn there was someone standing right outside the driver’s side
door of my
moving
car. Not possible, or at least insanely dangerous,
especially as it was already well past midnight, and this area wasn’t exactly
meant for pedestrians.

My heart rate doubled, but within the
span of a blink there was no one there. I checked my rearview mirror, but there
was nothing behind me. I was definitely still alone on the road. And in the
middle of nowhere. Where all kinds of horrible, gruesome things happened.
Crazed wanderers. Car thieves. Serial killers.

Focus
.

I kept going, trying to force the brief
distraction out of my mind. There was no point even thinking about it. I had
obviously imagined the whole thing and there were signs of civilization up
ahead.

My eyes were just beginning to droop
when I passed through a small rural town. Small as in one stop sign and no
streetlights. It was reassuring to know I hadn’t traveled too far off the
beaten path.

Every house was completely dark, but a
sign outside of the Clarkson Community Church was there to welcome visitors.
Flowering bushes lined the road, and I even spotted a white picket fence. It
would have been a nice place to stop and stretch my legs had their one diner
actually been open. There were no night owls in this part of rural America,
apparently.

Too soon, the last house—a beautiful
Victorian era manor—was behind me as another sign thanked me for visiting.
Already nostalgic for civilization, I glanced back towards the town for one
last peek. Instead, my eyes locked briefly with someone else's.

Standing near the back of the ‘thank
you’ sign was a girl. A girl who had not been there only a moment before. Yet
there she was, impossible to miss. Dressed in a cropped black vest, with long
nearly white hair, she stood out dramatically from the colors of country life.
I turned my head back to look at the road as my brain thrashed back and forth
between slamming on the breaks in shock and putting my foot on the gas in
panic. Unable to react at all, I continued down the road as though I hadn’t
seen anything out of the ordinary. When my eyes flicked to my passenger side
mirror, she was still there, standing in the grass. Her head turned slightly,
following the path of my car as the road curved away from the town of Clarkson.

I watched her from my rearview mirror
until she faded into the darkness. I had zero interest in stepping on the
breaks. Stopping in the middle of nowhere to help a lone traveler could only
end in the kinds of stories that are told around campfires. I knew I was over-thinking
her appearance, and picturing my own demise wasn’t helping to push back the
feeling of dread that clenched in the pit of my stomach. She was probably just
a local, out because there was literally nothing else to do. A teenager—not a
deranged, murderous hitchhiker.

If the lack of sleep didn’t manage to
ruin this road trip for me, my own imagination would do the trick. I needed to
get back to bright lights and big cities as soon as possible.

I forced myself to inhale and exhale
slowly. In less than a week I would be the newest intern at 92.2 FM, KRNX. It
was not the time to dwell on pale, creepy girls and all the things that could
go wrong between that moment and my arrival in Chicago. I told myself
repeatedly that I would be fine. That there was literally nothing dangerous for
miles. There were people around, and they were just asleep. And probably too
far away to help me if anything happened.

Stop it.

I
was still feeling slightly paranoid when a massive lake came into view and
managed to finally pull my attention away from what I was by then calling ‘the
ghost girl of Clarkson.’ It looked almost too perfect to be real, probably man
made. As the car pulled closer, my nerves calmed further. I couldn’t help but
appreciate the way the large still surface reflected the moon like a
luminescent painting.

The car jolted slightly when the road
turned from pavement to wood slats. As my jaw snapped together and my fingers
clenched the steering wheel, the girl returned. No, not returned—appeared. One
moment there was nothing, and the next she was standing in the middle of the
bridge while I willed my heart to keep beating. The half-second it took me to
remember to put my foot on my brake was all it took to run out of time. She was
too close. There was no way I could stop the car from hitting her if it kept
moving forward.

Swearing, I jerked the steering wheel to
the right, remembering too late that the car and I were currently on a bridge
and at least twenty feet over water.

Shit
.

There wasn’t far to go before I smashed
through the guardrail. As the car tilted forward, beginning its descent, my
head smacked against the horn, not hard enough to hurt, but enough to send a
warning blast off into the night.

The obnoxious sound from the horn
continued to echo in my ears as I saw the car’s reflection getting larger and
larger in the glassy surface of the lake. There was absolutely nothing I could
do to alter my course into the water. The already paralyzing fear was amplified
by complete helplessness as a scream clawed its way up my throat in the instant
before I hit the water. My lungs contracted, but the scream never came. There
was nothing to do but watch as the still image of the lake was shattered into a
million chaotic pieces.

No
turning back - Alice is near.

––––––––

R
ose
bunched the bulk of her skirt into her hand as she slid her legs over one of
the plush armrests that framed her throne. Letting it drop over the side, she
adjusted her weight until it was comfortably strewn over the usually loathsome
seat.

A persistent tingling sensation
continued its repetitive drumming at the back of her mind, but she pushed it
out one last time. She wanted a single minute just to bask in what she’d
accomplished before the vision that had been threatening to overwhelm her for
days found a crack in her defenses. It could wait one more minute. It would
have to.

Rose was not a petite girl, and even
spread out on the luxuriously over-sized furniture she still felt unnaturally
tall. Her willowy figure seemed awkward and disproportionate when compared to
the elegant setting around her, but perhaps that was something she could change
after she settled in. This was to be her home after all.

The hall she sat in was as elegant as it
was sterile. The tiles of white marble streaked with silver had been Anora’s
choice—a way to make her mark on the palace that had housed generations of
royalty. Rose had checked and double checked that no one else was inside the
marble chamber before locking the door behind her. This wasn’t the best
position to be caught in, especially as it was only her second day as the Queen
of House White. She knew what people would say if she was caught.

“
Lady Anora
would never have
behaved in such an uncouth manner. Lady Anora knew how to show respect to her
position”.

Well, Rose knew some of Anora’s secrets
and could say with certainty that sitting in a less-than-dignified position was
tame compared to what that woman got up to on a regular basis.

Truly alone for the first time since the
brief moment she’d had in her dressing room before her coronation, Rose was
finally able to revel in her success—and it really was a success. A girl like
her should never have been crowned—not in the House of White, and maybe not
anywhere in Wonderland. At least if she’d been playing by the rules. Like Anora
before her,
Rose
was now the White Queen, and all Queens were entitled
to their little secrets.

As if on cue, the tingling sensation
broke down the barriers of Rose’s mind with one last offensive push, sending a
wave of anticipation sparking through her veins. A moment later her head tilted
back to welcome the incoming vision, despite it being decidedly
un
welcome.

Blackness gave way to the same images
that had first prompted Rose to take a chance and confront Anora—Wonderland
changed before her eyes. Castles became stark, rectangular buildings with
countless windows; lanterns were replaced by hideous glass bulbs, removing the
warmth of firelight from every room; Neverwood, the strange and wonderful
forest, lay flattened, covered in grass that stood only a half-inch high. It
was an abomination, and Rose had seen it all before.

She’d believed that her ascension to the
throne would ensure that this would never come to be. And yet the scene played
out before her again, unchanged. Had she only managed to delay the inevitable?
In the past her visions always showed the future as it was should things remain
the same. Sometimes Rose was content to let events play out and enjoyed knowing
more about the people around her than they suspected. Other times, like when
she’d learned of Anora’s late-night liaisons, the visions spurred Rose to
action. Those actions had led to Rose sitting in the surprisingly uncomfortable
seat where she was now.

As the vision of Wonderland continued to
distort itself in her mind, a new figure gradually came into focus, replacing
the iron cities. A girl. It was difficult to make out exactly what she looked
like, but something told Rose it wasn’t anyone she knew. The girl didn’t dress
like anyone from the Western Queendom of Wonderland, where the House of White
ruled. She wore slacks and a loose buttoned shirt. She was speaking to a crowd
whose faces showed a mix of fear and determination. None of the girl’s
impassioned words made it to Rose’s ears, but she took notice all the same.

As quickly as she appeared the girl
began to fade back into memory. Rose struggled to hold on and probe for more
information, but the image quickly slipped away, leaving her feeling as though
she were floating through her own mind.

All at once the vision receded, leaving
Rose sweating and disoriented.

All that was left was the whisper of a
name.

Alice.

It was enough to knock Rose entirely out
of her trance and back to reality.

She allowed herself a moment to regain
her already limited composure. Rumors spreading about a manic Queen ranting
about the return of Alice wouldn’t help anything. It was not a name to be used
lightly.

Except it couldn’t be Alice. It had been
well over a century. The girl who had changed the tide of history all those
years ago had to be long dead. She had to be misinterpreting
something
.

Rose was unwilling to take the chance,
for she couldn’t shake the feeling that this wasn’t a vision she could just
choose to ignore.

Two sentries guarded the chamber, but
neither so much as looked at Rose when she flung the large wooden door open.
They were there to protect, not to participate.

“Henrick?” Rose called out into the
hallway. No one answered. “Hello?”

A serving girl shuffled toward the
throne room, her head bowed. “My Queen.” The girl dipped into a low curtsy,
refusing to lift her head and meet Rose’s gaze. The girl’s sub-servant posture
was disconcerting. Was there some sort of protocol she was supposed to be
observing simply to find her own adviser? Probably, but it would only slow her
down. Better to simply come out with it.

“I’m looking for Henrick McDown. Do you
know who he is?”

“Yes, my lady. Of course.”

Rose blushed, suddenly grateful that no
one would look at her. She was still figuring out the whos and the whats, but
that didn’t change the fact that everyone else in the palace had already been
doing this for years. Even Henrick.

“Umm, well... do you think you could find
him for me?” Mistake number two. Queens aren’t supposed to ask. They demand,
instruct, or ordain, but never ask.

“Yes, m’lady. I will bring him at once.”
As the girl turned away, so did Rose. Returning to her throne without speaking
was the only way to ensure that she wouldn’t bring further attention to her
glaring ineptitudes.

There is a reason mousy girls with no
standing rarely find themselves in positions of power, Rose thought as she
waited for her chief adviser.

When the old man finally hobbled in,
Rose smoothed out her skirt and straightened her neck.
You’re the Queen of
House White. Behave like it.

“My lady?” Henrick bowed his head
slightly, revealing a crown of silver-white hair.

“Henrick, we’ve talked about this.”

The man nodded his acknowledgment but
didn’t concede. Rose was sure he never would. She couldn’t go back to being his
Little Rosie again.

Rose stood up and took a few quick steps
towards her mentor. “I’ve had another vision.” Henrick nodded, urging her to
continue. “Well, sort of. It was the same as before. But there’s something
new.” Rose paused for a heartbeat. Inexplicably, she felt as though she should
keep what she had seen to herself. But that had to be a result of frayed
nerves. She had trusted Henrick with the very knowledge that had lead to
unseating the last Queen, and this was nothing by comparison. “I think, well... I
think Alice might be returning.”

The old man remained silent as a look of
concern came over his face. It was only when he put a gentle, reassuring hand
on Rose’s shoulder that she realized the concern was for her own sanity and not
for the prophecy she’d just spoken.

“Alice is long dead, my Queen. She
returned to her own realm after The Great Upheaval and neither she nor her
people have been heard from since.” He didn’t go quite so far as to suggest
that she was getting herself worked up over nothing, but the tone in his voice
was more than enough to suggest it.

“No. This is important. I can feel it. I
need to act quickly. I’m just unsure of how to proceed.” Rose’s voice rose
slightly as she proceeded to go over every detail of what she had seen, but her
adviser’s expression remained unchanged.

“Perhaps she was meant to be a metaphor
for something else. Maybe for the role you yourself will play in shaping
Wonderland in the coming years.”

“Yes, because Alice had such a nurturing
effect on our lands and our culture.” Rose was sure her voice was loud enough
now to be heard from out in the hall, but she needed him to
listen
to
her. What was the point in being Queen if people could still shrug off her concerns
as though she were a child?

“Hush, child.” Henrick’s voice was
suddenly sharp and cold, finally losing the air of formality he’d been
maintaining since Rose had ascended to the throne. “We cannot afford to have
people—your
subjects
—hear you speaking like this.”

“I—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean...” Rose’s
voice trailed off. She took a small step away from her oldest friend, startled
by the anger that had shone briefly through his eyes.

All at once, the warm old man that Rose
had known for all these years reappeared. “You’ve had an eventful week. Perhaps
it would be best if you retired to your suite for the rest of the day. Take the
time to contemplate what you’ve seen. The answers will come to you.”

Somehow Rose had gone from wanting a few
moments alone to being banished to her rooms for the day, but she allowed
herself to be herded away from the throne room. She smiled politely as Henrick
took his leave to go attend to rescheduling her day. She did her best to look
regal as she passed the guards who watched over her bedchamber.

Closing the door behind her, Rose
sighed, but her mind continued to spin. This was not a time for rest and
certainly not for second guessing herself. How could anyone trust her to rule
with their best interests at heart if she was to be so easily pushed around!

She needed to learn to be someone others
would follow, but it didn’t exactly come naturally. Running through potential
mentors, an unlikely figure stepped from the clouds of Rose’s mind. She would
learn from the best! After all, Rose was the Queen of House White—but she
wasn’t Wonderland’s
only
Queen.

But first, she would need to untangle
the riddles of her vision. If no one in the palace was willing to help her, she
would have to find the answers elsewhere. It was time to visit an old friend.