“Your first clue is in here,” the woman behind the register instructed. “You have until midnight tonight to find Mr. Missing Cottontail. Good luck.”
“Thanks,” Suzie said, beaming as she stepped through the silver, three-pronged rotation bar. Adelie followed, nabbing a park map from its distributive box in the process.
Suzie whirled around the instant they stepped out of the way of thronging people. “Let me see, let me see.” She tried to tear the first clue from Adelie’s hand, but Adelie yanked it to her chest and inspected the thick paper, then read the gold inscription aloud:
"It's rather curious, this sort of life."
“That's the clue?” Suzie said skeptically.
Adelie’s brows furrowed. She’d read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland a long time ago, but she found herself intrigued by the quote, by the detail and depth someone had put into choosing it. A quote like that could be taken in multiple ways, which was probably what made it so appealing.
She couldn’t allow that to give her false hope in this little scavenger hunt. She should be out job hunting. She should be doing something that could actually help them, not make them pilfer the little money they had left. A hundred dollars was a sliver she couldn’t dig out.
“It can’t be a clue,” Adelie said. “I think it’s just a teaser. Look, it opens.”
“Here.” Suzie reached for it again. This time, Adelie gave the card up willingly.
“They’d better be good riddles,” Adelie said, examining the milling crowd and the sheer number of people who’d stopped to read their cards just as she and Suzie had, “or this thing is going to be over within the hour.”
Suzie didn’t seem to have the same misgivings. She practically bounced on the balls of her feet. “Let’s check them out.”
She tore open the golden sticker in the shape of a top hat sealing the folded end of the blue cardstock.
It might have seemed less daunting if either of them had ever been to Wonderland Theme Park before. They’d grown up in this town, and while they’d driven past Wonderland countless times and seen the Ferris wheel and other rides tangling up the sky, Adelie had never once set foot here. She could have visited with school trips, but unlike Suzie, she’d always opted out of them. She was beginning to regret that decision.
Adelie leaned in to study the clue closer. Below a brief string of instructions, on the illustrated tag of the image’s large glass bottle, were the words:
To begin, you'll have to start at the end.
Suzie lowered the paper in frustration and glanced around. People pointed excitedly toward a synthetic rabbit leaping toward a large, dark hole carved into the fake spread of grass. Others paused, taking selfies, rushing through what appeared to be a larger rabbit hole with a makeshift sign whose top plank was directed toward the hole.
“Start at the end?” Suzie said. “What does that mean?”
“Let’s check the map.” Adelie opened its folds, crinkling it and taking in the various attractions. The layout was extravagant and enticing, with bold, bright colors and easy-to-follow routes to get to every ride.
“What are you looking for?”
“In the book, they play croquet at the end. Does this place have anything like that? Oh, look.” She pointed to a large flamingo marking an attraction called The Queen's Croquet-Ground. “Let’s start there.”
Linking arms, the sisters wove through the crowds for what felt like miles until they made their way to a large ride set off by a flamingo next to a hedgehog. Playing cards with heads, arms, and legs were situated here and there, as well as a sign. On it, a cartoonish depiction of Alice scolded a disobedient flamingo.
“Do we ride the ride?” Suzie asked.
Adelie took in the whirling carriages shaped like fat hedgehogs. The hedgehog carriages spun and dodged in and out of sight along a track. A trail of people so long it interrupted traffic coiled along. “I don’t think so. Look how long that line is.” Besides, they weren’t here to ride anything. They needed to find that rabbit and vamoose.
Adelie searched their riddle, skimming the instructions they probably should have read before they started. Skim…skim…there. “For clues that lead to rides, the next clue will only be given after your enjoyment of that particular attraction.”
Her dismay deepened. “Never mind. Looks like that’s a yes, we do need to ride it.”
“Come on.” Excitedly, Suzie tugged Adelie over to the end of the ride’s line.
The sisters indulged in ride after ride and received clue after clue. Adelie had to admit, she would have loved to come any other time, if money wasn’t so tight. If she didn’t feel like every ride, every line, every step toward the next clue and the next—clues that hundreds of others had already found—made things seem that much more hopeless.
***
Maddox paced the park. He couldn’t help checking the camera feeds from his phone, to see if the final riddle had been solved yet, but so far, no one had discovered the rabbit he’d named Pierre.
He could have watched from the sidelines, but that was no fun. Instead, he’d opted for meandering and soaking in the energy that had tripled at every turn. This was what Wonderland was meant to be about. The fun. The marvel, the discovery, the pure enjoyment. Maddox breathed it all in like a drug.
Around lunchtime, he stopped into the Ever After Sweet Shoppe for a fruit smoothie—peach mango, his favorite—and a toasted turkey and cranberry panini. He’d suggested the Sweet Shoppe in the park offer more than just candies and goodies, and it had turned out to be a good idea.
As he sat eating near the window, a pair of women caught his eye. Or rather, one woman. Of all the people he’d been watching today, with their gaping smiles and easy laughter, this woman was not only beautiful, but also apparently grumpy.
“Not the reaction I’m going for,” he muttered to himself with a smile, taking a final sip from his smoothie to finish its contents. It wasn’t her apparent displeasure alone, though. His gaze was drawn to her. She had a spark about her, from her creamy pale skin that matched the color of her hair to the cautious way she approached the Odds N' Ends gift shop. Something told him she was that way about everything. Cautious. Careful. And completely oblivious to the effect she had on others around her.
Driven by a force he couldn’t explain, he hurried to toss his sandwich wrappings and empty cup in the garbage and made his way out.
Odds N' Ends was Maddox’s favorite shop in the park. It offered the widest variety of souvenirs and do-dads for tourists. The shoppers were charmed by the shelves offering teacups and tiny bottles of liquid, by the white kid gloves, the stuffed cats and mice and flamingos, the croquet sets made up of flamingos and hedgehogs. Maddox’s best-selling item was a T-shirt saying Curiouser and Curiouser on one side while the back declared, I forgot how to speak good English at Wonderland, above the Wonderland Theme Park logo.
This time, though, the merchandise, the associates, the displays, it all blurred. Even through the packed crowd of shoppers, he saw only her.
The woman stood before a Victorian display featuring lace doilies on antique suitcases surrounding a lamp dripping with fringe on its shade. She lifted a finger to tap one of the beads dangling from the lamp shade’s fringe. Wonder filled her gaze, and Maddox’s heart seized in his chest.