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Alice arrives at twilight, in a coach drawn by four pure-white horses.
The horses were a gift from her husband, whom she has never met. Whose name she does not even know.
Mother had told Alice the man picked her out from amongst a selection of girls. Mother had told Alice she should feel grateful this man had chosen her to be his next bride.
“Next bride?” Alice wondered out loud, but Mother hadn’t elaborated on that.
Alice’s new husband is a tall mountain of a man, with a thick, wiry beard so black it shines blue. He is dressed in the softest of red silks and gold piping, befit a king.
He very nearly vibrates with power, rippling just beneath the surface of his skin.
Is he a warlock, Alice wonders, as she stares up in fear of him. Is he some dark sorcerer?
Her husband presents a gold key and holds it out to Alice, placing it in her palm. Alice closes her hand around the key and it vibrates in her palm, filled with the same dark energy that surrounds her now.
“This key opens only one lock on one door to one room of my mansion,” her husband all but growls. “You must never open this door. To do so would unleash dire consequences.”
Alice frowns, clasping the key to her chest. She feels so strange. She feels as if she’s heard this speech before. The key glows warm against her chest.
“Do you understand?” asks her husband.
Alice lowers her head and nods when he turns his dark eyes on her. “Yes, husband.”
“Good,” he says. “I must leave. But I will know if you’ve disobeyed me.”
He reaches out a large hand and tips Alice’s head up, forcing her to meet his heavy gaze.
“I will not disappoint you, husband,” Alice promises.
Her husband says nothing. He only slips his hand away from her and leaves her standing there in the hall, the key to the forbidden room clasped upon her breast.
Alice wastes no time in exploring every room of her husband’s grand home. She starts with her rooms—her generous new husband has provided her with her own suite—and opens every drawer and tears every piece of clothing off its hanger. Her husband has spared no expense, pampering her with everything her heart could possibly desire.
Even as Alice drapes herself in scarves and gowns and jewels, twirls and spins and dances, she can feel that key in her pocket through all the layers.
If she didn’t know any better, Alice might swear it’s whispering to her. Calling her.
Alice collapses on the bed in a puff of silk and lace and slides her hand into her pocket, pulling the key out and holding it up to the dim light. It gleams and glistens, still brightly polished. When she holds it to her ear, she listens, holding her breath. Waiting.
She hears nothing.
Almost disappointed, Alice shoves the key back in her pocket and shrugs off the many gowns her husband had hung up for her in the armoire.
Left to her devices, Alice is bored. She misses her Mama and her sister Rose. She misses her friends, even the people she did not like so much.
Life as the lady of some cold, austere manor does not appeal so much to her.
Alice slides off the canopied bed and marches out of the room.
Surely her husband was only trying to scare her earlier. To keep her from exploring that forbidden room, the room to which the special key belongs.
Alice pulls it from her pocket and glances down at it. It glows in her hand like a living thing.
She goes off down the hall, through many winding corridors, as if she’s gone this way before. As if her body knows what her mind has not yet caught up to.
Something is pulling her this way. She feels tethered to it somehow. It feels inevitable.
She comes to a stop in front of a massive, ornately carved golden door. Alice holds the key up and then she realizes; this key belongs to this door.
Suddenly, without warning, she recalls her husband’s warning: “You must never open this door. To do so would unleash dire consequences.”
But for whom? Alice? Her husband? Or someone else?
The key is warm to the touch and when Alice moves closer to the door, it grows even warmer.
Alice slowly presses the key into the slot where it should go, warnings be damned. She can face down the wrath of any husband who dares try to punish her for disobeying his orders. Even ones with wiry blue beards.
Alice is not afraid.
The key sinks into the lock and all is still for a moment. Then the door begins to glow and hum and Alice is afraid.
She steps back, shielding her hand over her eyes.
The door will explode and she’ll be caught on fire. Or the shards will pierce her skin and shred her to pulp.
Mayber her horrible, hateful husband will be waiting on the other side for her, ready to mete out his punishment.
Alice clenches her hands into fists at the thought of seeing her husband on the other side of the door.
Something catches with a hiss and a click, and then the door starts inching open.
Alice pushes her hands against it and shoves it open, stepping through the crack and fumbling along the wall until she finds a light switch. Snapping it on, Alice steps back and drinks in the sight before her.
The room is cold and barren, like a tomb. And, much like a tomb, it is filled with bodies. Alice steps closer to a sleek, bullet-like capsule and reaches out, swiping her sleeve over the little frost-covered porthole. When she clears off most of the frost, she can see the serene, sleeping face of a woman.
Alice looks for a plaque with a name, but there is none.
She moves on to the next capsule. There is a woman in this one as well, and she too appears to be sleeping. This close, Alice can see that her lips are chilly blue and chapped from cold.
All around her, she’s surrounded by tombs. Caskets of sleeping—dead?—women.
She makes her way to the very last capsule in the room. This one is empty, lined with black satin, and Alice realizes he means to put her in it. When her husband returns, Alice will be sealed away like these other women. Her husband will continue on, perhaps search for a new wife, one who will not be so curious, who won’t disobey him.
Alice wonders what these women’s stories were. Did they break their promises to their blue bearded husband? Did he trick them all in some way?
She turns for the door and finds a massive shadow darkening the doorstep, blotting out all the light from the hall, swallowing it as if he’s a black hole.
“Husband,” Alice calls out.
“You should not have come here,” her husband says, his voice eerily calm.
Her husband advances on her slowly, and she realizes he’s enjoying this. He’s actually pleased she disobeyed him because she’s given him a reason.
Not that the monster she married would really need a reason to kill her, she supposes.
“Who are these women?” Alice asks.
“They all disobeyed me too,” he says.
“Are they your wives then?” Alice asks.
“They were. As you were,” he says. His cape sweeps behind him, billowing like smoke.
Alice clutches her hand around the key. “You set me up, you know. It was never a fair fight.”
“It never is. It never has been,” he admits, still sounding pleased, self-satisfied. “It never will be. You always fail.”
“I wouldn’t have—” Alice begins, but her husband cuts her off with a cold laugh.
“Don’t you see?” he asks, sneering, condescendingly. “You are the only wife. Look at those faces, woman. Tell me what you see.”
Her husband grabs her by the arm and drags her over to one of the capsules and clears off the frost. When he shoves Alice closer, she can see.
It’s her slack, dead-eyed face gazing out into nothing.
And the next one is hers as well.
And the next. And the next. And the next.
“You will always fail me becaue you always have,” her husband crows, looming over her.
“Are you a god?” Alice asks, cowering away from him.
“I am a scientist. A doctor,” he says, tightening his grip on her arm. “And you are my creation. Flawed though you are, I love you all the same. But now I must start over.”
Alice’s husband drags her over to the last, empty capsule.
“I will get it right this next time,” he says, as he pops open the cover.
Alice stares at what is to be her end. Lying, withering away among so many failed designs.
“My mother will wonder—” she tries.
“Your mother does not exist. It is a planted memory,” he snaps. “Now get in the box.”
“No. I will not.” Alice grasps the key tightly in her hand and swings her arm with all her might.
Her husband roars and covers his face, but that doesn’t stanch the flow of blood. When his large hand falls away, the key is embedded in his eye.
With a great cry, Alice shoves against his massive barrel chest and he stumbles back, falling. Falling into the capsule he’d meant for her.
“No!” he cries, rage and pain turning his voice into something inhuman. But perhaps he’d never quite been human to begin with. “You can’t!”
Alice slams her fist against the button on the side and the cover slams down. Her husband lets out a pained shriek and Alice leaps back when his severed fingers fall to the cold stone floor.
Turning every which way, Alice grows panicked, unable to find a source of light to guide her way out. Her husband is still screaming, rattling the capsule on its shelf. He will break free, she is certain of it.
Alice gathers her skirts up and inches her way along the wall, groping and groping until her fingers find the seam of the door. Grasping the handle, Alice turns it and is rewarded with a burst of light as she steps out of the cold, dark room and into the golden hall.
Even as the door closes behind her, sealing the room shut, she can still hear her husband howling for her like a wolf.
But Alice is free now, and that is all that matters. And she runs.