Within the Pages

Chapter 55

Chapter 55

"Mom?"

Her eyes raise to look at me. "Jack? Oh my God it's you Jack. Why are you here?"

"I came to rescue you!" I must look like I didn't do a very good job. At that moment I remember I still have the key. The one that opened the other collar. If the collar is the same then the key would work. I just can't move my hands to get the key out of my shirt pocket.

Despite our situation, my mother smirks. "Not really a good rescue is it?"

"Hold on, Hold on. Three could you come here?"

The Three looks from my mom to me, back to my mom, and back at me again. "I can see the resemblance now." It says as it rolls over to me. Groaning a bit for the injuries it had sustained.

"Would you be able to go into my shirt pocket and grab the key that's in there?"

The Three doesn't answer me, instead climbing up and into the pocket, grabbing the key and slowly dragging it out.

"What are you doing Charlie?" My mother asks watching the weird scene of a card pulling a key out of her son's pocket.

"I was trapped in one of these collars before. This is the key that I used to get out of it. I hope the key is the same so that I can get out of this one too." I explain as the Heartean drags the key up slowly to the collar and tries to put it in.

"Well I don't know about these collars. The last time I was here these collars didn't exist. Now they are everywhere." She comments, looking worried. Who knows who could have brought these collars into the world.

"How are you even the Queen of Hearts? Dad says that you told him the Queen was evil." I question as the collar snaps off my neck and falls to the ground.

"I did it!" The Heartean screeches out loud. I hear footsteps heading down the hall outside.

"Quickly come and get this collar off of me." My mom hisses over at me.

I scramble to my feet and hurry over to her. The key fits in the lock just like it had in mine and the collar falls again. She stands up, her clothes turn to that of a ruby red colour, wearing the ruby red jeans and t-shirt.

The door opens to reveal the 3 copies of myself. My mom just looks over at them and they all fall to the floor making snoring sounds. She glances at me and in an instant we are outside in the clearing. "I am the Queen of Hearts and the Witch of the North. I told your father that the Queen of Hearts was a vicious person because that's what I had told everybody to try to protect my kingdom. I was born here in Wonderland and created the Cardilites when I came back years ago so that we could have a better kingdom. Then I left to go find your father and got trapped in Arthur's land when someone snuck up on me as I was sleeping. As to who made the collars, no idea. They weren't here before. I suspect the Wicked Witch." My mom just goes on trying to explain things as quickly as she could. "Where's Goldilocks and your father?"

I take a deep breath now, trying to explain things from my side over what had happened. "We already visited Oz and found my sister. She helped us after the spell put upon her by the Witch of the East was broken. My dad and my sister are dead and the only way to save them is for us to get back to Oz." I look at my watch still attached to my arm, surprisingly not damaged.

"We have 8 hours left to save them. Goldilocks and Alice are somewhere in the forest so we have to find them before we go back to Oz." I don't tell her a lot of the info. Like how I killed the witch or that I was going to sacrifice myself to save dad and my sister. That stuff she doesn't need to know.

She stops, trying to take everything in. "Stalin and Jade are dead?"

I'm guessing Jade is my sister's name. That's a nice name. If only she had longer time to be able to live with the name. "Yes. He is."

She falls to the ground. I think that it's just because of her pain at having lost her husband and daughter but she starts laughing. Like one of those evil laughs that you would expect a witch to laugh like. The laughing stops abruptly. "Run Jack, Run"

I look at her in confusion as the cockling starts up again then suddenly stops. Her face comes up and I see her normally sea blue eyes turned to a midnight black colour. Her dress changes to the darkest of blacks. She sets her sights on me and I make myself disappear.

She growls in frustration as the 3 copies of me come out into the clearing with us. "Find him", She growls at them and they scurry in opposite directions looking for me. "I'll find you Jack of Hearts. I'll find you." I hear her mutter under her breath before disappearing from sight.