Adrianna looked at us from where she stood on the second to the last step of the staircase. She was wearing a pale lemon chiffon dress, gold shoes, and a diamond-studded hairpin. Her platinum hair was down, framing her face in loose curls.
“Welcome back,” she said with a gentle smile.
Tasha, Topher, and I stood in the foyer of Wonderland breathless and holding hands. Just seconds ago we’d been backstage at the Magic Mansion, crammed inside a closet-sized dressing room. I was sitting at a vanity table in front of a square lit mirror, checking my reflection one last time before the show started. It was going to be my debut as Sir Frederic’s assistant, and my two best friends were there to support me. Tasha was thumbing through a rack of old costumes. She discovered a black feathered boa I was certain had once belonged to my grandmother. She wrapped it around her shoulders and pranced and posed around the dressing room like a glamorous diva. Topher was sitting on the floor skimming through an Italian-English dictionary, trying his best to pronounce new words and phrases.
The round lights bordering the frame of the dressing room mirror and the bare lightbulb above our heads flickered. We raised our eyes, looking up in unison.
A smile crept across Tasha’s face. “You guys,” she said. “I think this is it.”
The room went black. I shut my eyes. In an instant, we were off. We were flying. I could feel my body being propelled through cool air. I knew Tasha and Topher were at my sides. I reached out for them in the darkness. I found their hands and held them in mine.
I had a sense that this wild journey we’d been on for the last few days would soon be coming to an end. We were headed back to Wonderland, where we would each make a life-changing choice. Once we did, I expected our lives would return to some state of normal. I could finally focus on settling into my new life in Avalon Cove. I could devote time to getting to know my uncles better. I could really bond with Tasha and Topher. I could come up with some sure-fire strategies to keep the Magic Mansion from closing. And, maybe, if all went the way I wanted it to, I could fall deeply in love with Dominic.
“Hello, Adrianna,” I said to my great-aunt.
“Is that a new dress?” she asked. “Just for this occasion?”
I glanced down at the knee-length black dress I was wearing, my costume for the magic show. “It’s actually for my new job,” I explained. “At the Magic Mansion.”
“You’re following in your grandmother’s footsteps, I see,” she said. “I hope you’re a better assistant than she is.”
“Don’t count on it,” I said. “But then again, I won’t be making a career out of it.”
“That’s what she thought,” my great-aunt said. “You can’t avoid the magic, Destiny. It’s a part of who you are.”
“It’s my legacy,” I said. “I know. And I’ve accepted that. I just don’t understand why.”
“Because I can’t do this forever,” she said. “As much as I want to.”
I almost laughed. “It seems like you call all the shots around here.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” she said. “I was chosen once, too. Just like all of you.”
“By my grandfather?” I asked. “He’s really the one behind all of this, isn’t he?”
“My brother is a brilliant man. He was terribly misunderstood by most people who met him in your world, but he was very, very smart,” she explained. “He saw something in you. He called it pure magic. Maybe it’s because you have such a big heart. You really do care about the people in your life. You love them with everything you have.”
“I do,” I said. “Including you.”
“Truthfully, I see a lot of myself in you. In due time you’ll grow to realize all that’s been given to you by your ancestors. The possibilities. The power. I know you will only use it for good.”
“Always,” I promised.
Adrianna moved down to the last step of the stairs. “I know the three of you are anxious to be reunited with Dominic and Juliet and Pablo. And I know how desperately they each want to see the three of you.”
“Are they here?” Topher asked, barely able to contain his excitement. He hadn’t stopped grinning since we arrived.
“Not so fast,” Adrianna cautioned. “There’s a lot to tell you first.”
“Adrianna, I understand why you chose Destiny to be here,” Tasha said. “She’s your niece. It makes sense. But why did you include me and Topher? I mean, we’re just the kids at school no one talks to.”
“I did it to bond the three of you together,” she said. “Individually, you each represent hope and faith and love. Each of you is ruled by those three virtues. Every choice you make is based on your belief in them. Collectively, I think you make a beautiful family. There’s no biological connection between the three of you, but DNA doesn’t always equal a wonderful family life. More and more, the opposite is true. To me, you’ve become a family of your own. I brought you here to experience something that would seal your friendship forever. If any of you doubted Wonderland for a second, this wouldn’t work. I had to make sure you each believed before I could allow you to proceed.”
“So, does this mean we passed?” Topher asked.
She reached out and placed a gentle palm against his cheek. “With flying colors.”
“Have there been others like us? Other friends?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No. Not as many as you would think. True friendship is almost as rare as true love. Both are very hard to find. But both are worth fighting for.”
“And dying for?” I said.
“Have you figured out the method to my madness?” she asked.
“I think I just did,” I said. “You really are a matchmaker, in more ways than one. When my mother got sick and she knew she was going to die, she decided to send me here—to live in Avalon Cove. She knew I would eventually find my way to Wonderland. She knew about this place. She knew it existed and what it was about.”
“Yes,” Adrianna agreed. “Of course.”
“You made sure I met Tasha and Topher. You knew they would bring me here.”
“Indeed I did.”
“And the beautiful people you chose for us to fall in love with—you knew they would be perfect for us. Each of them died a very noble death.”
Adrianna thought about it for a moment. “For the most part…yes.”
“Just like when my Uncle Fred came to you and asked you to bring back Clark.”
“I couldn’t deny his request,” she explained. “Those men are deeply in love and always will be.”
“So you’ve spent the last decade living in this house doing good deeds for people?”
“Not exactly,” she said. “It’s not quite that simple. There’s a process.”
“What? Like an application?” Topher asked.
“Not so formal,” she answered. “But the selection criteria are quite considerable. Very few people are ever invited to Wonderland. And even fewer make it to this very point where the three of you are. I wouldn’t say it’s impossible to do, but you need to know that what you’re about to experience truly is the opportunity of a lifetime. I don’t make this happen for just anybody.”
“I feel like we need to thank you,” Tasha said. “You’ve done more for me than anyone.”
“Except for maybe Sir Frederic the Great,” Topher chimed in. “And Clark.”
“I appreciate your gratitude, but I don’t do any of this for acknowledgment,” my great-aunt said.
“Why do you do it then?” I asked.
“Simple,” she said. “I do this for love.”
I took a step in her direction and said, “I know this is my legacy. I know my grandfather selected me and that you agree with him. I realize that one day Wonderland and the Magic Mansion will become mine. But you have to know something…I will never be able to be you.”
“I would never ask that of you,” she said. “Wonderland will be very different under your care. I expect many changes will occur. But I know you. I know what’s in your heart. You will always be ruled by love. Just like me.”
“How does it work?” Tasha asked. “What happens next? Do we go back into the courtyard? Do they get to come home with us?”
“Not quite,” Adrianna said. “Each of you will go back to the deciding moment. To the very second when Dominic and Juliet and Pablo made the choice that ultimately led to their deaths. They will not be able to see you or hear you, but they will be able to sense your energy. Your presence. The moment will be very real for them. And for you. You will experience it just as they did before. It will be up to you to change their minds, which will eventually change their fates.”
“Isn’t it wrong to do that?” I asked. “As much as I love Dominic, what if this was his time to go?”
“But it wasn’t,” she said.
I gave her a look, hoping she would explain further. “I don’t understand.”
“It was Mama June’s time to go.”
“What?” I heard myself say.
“Dominic made the ultimate sacrifice.”
I felt tears fill the corners of my eyes. “He did that?”
“Yes,” she said. “Without hesitation.”
“He gave up his own life?”
“Actually,” Adrianna said, “they all did. Otherwise they’d never have been invited to Wonderland. The rules are very specific.”
“The little boy who fell in the water at the summer camp? The one Juliet jumped in to save?” Tasha said. “What really happened to him?”
“He didn’t survive initially,” Adrianna explained. “Juliet knew the boy’s family very well. Their oldest son was a soldier who had been killed overseas just a few years prior. She couldn’t stand to see them brokenhearted again. She, too, made a sacrifice.”
“And Pablo?” Topher said. “There were no survivors. Everyone on the plane died.”
“Except for the flight attendant whose alarm clock didn’t go off that morning. She missed the plane and was almost fired for doing so. Last week, while she was walking through the airport in Barcelona, she discovered a woman who was having a heart attack. You might meet this very lucky woman one day, Topher, since she’s Pablo’s mother. She says she will always be grateful to the flight attendant who truly saved her life.”
I looked deep into Adrianna’s green eyes. “What about my mother?” I said. “She’s here at Wonderland, isn’t she?”
“Of course she is,” my great-aunt said with a smile. “And Clark wouldn’t be alive today without her.”
I took a deep breath and swallowed the waves of emotion stirring inside me. “My mother made the sacrifice?”
“She said she’s never seen your uncle happier. She also knew you would be in good hands, Destiny. She knew you might even learn a thing or two about magic.”
“So now it’s up to us?” Tasha said. “We go back to the deciding moment and stop it from happening?”
“If that’s your choice, yes.”
“And then what happens?” Topher asked.
“You wait,” Adrianna answered. “And you see.”
“How long do we have with them?” I asked.
“As long as it takes,” she replied. “I’ll know when to bring you out.”
“When they come back, will they know us?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “And they’ll know what you’ve done for them.”
“What about the people they saved?” Tasha asked. “Will they die?”
“No,” she said. “Their fate cannot be undone.”
“Then let’s do this,” Tasha urged.
“Very well,” Adrianna said. “Follow me.”
We obeyed her command. We moved quickly as she led us through the front of the house, through the twisting maze of corridors and flickering sconces, into the old-fashioned kitchen, and finally to the closed door in the corner of the moonlit room.
“Tasha, you’ll be first,” Adrianna announced.
Tasha took a step forward. She pushed her yellow headband back to keep her hair out of her feline eyes. “Okay.”
“I’m sending you to summer camp,” Adrianna explained. “Remember that no one can see you or hear you. But Juliet will sense you are there.”
“How much time do I have? To convince her not to jump into the water?” Tasha asked.
“Not much. You’ll have to act fast. The little boy is already standing on the edge of the river. He’ll make his own way back to shore.”
“Got it.”
Adrianna opened the door. Tasha stepped inside, into the sea of total darkness. Quickly, my great-aunt closed the door again.
“Are you ready, Topher?” she asked.
“I guess so,” he said.
“You’re going to the airport in Atlanta,” she said. “You will only have a few moments to keep Pablo from getting on that plane to Rome.”
“I’ll do whatever it takes,” he vowed.
“I know you will,” she said. “It’s my hope once you and Pablo are together in the real world, you won’t feel as alone as you do now.”
Topher nodded. Then he started to cry. I felt my heart ache for him. “I hate it.”
“I know you do,” she said. “And so does Pablo. Never again will either of you ever be alone or scared or feel unwanted or unloved. Because you will always have each other. I’ve seen to it that Pablo will receive a student visa to study his art at a college in America. In fact, it’s the same college you’ll be studying at as well. Later, Pablo will become quite successful. His citizenship will never be a concern—as it shouldn’t be.”
Topher reached out and slid his arms around Adrianna, embracing her. “I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to thank you.”
She opened the door and said, “You just did.”
Topher stepped into the pitch black space. He glanced back at me and whispered, “I’ll see you soon, Destiny.”
My great-aunt closed the door behind him.
I took a deep breath. “I guess I’m next?” I said.
“Your situation is slightly different,” she said.
An intense nervousness started to gnaw at me. “What do you mean?”
“You have a choice to make.”
“I thought I already made it,” I said. “I’m here. I know I want to go back and save Dominic. I have no doubt about that.”
“There are other circumstances,” she said.
Of course there are.
“Tell me,” I prompted.
Adrianna took a breath and reached for my hands. “Your mother,” she said. “You have the chance to bring her back.”
My heart was racing. “Wait…I can bring them both back?”
My great-aunt shook her head. “No,” she said. “Only one.”
I pulled my hands away from her. “Are you kidding me with this?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“So you’re telling me I have to choose between my mother and Dominic? How is that even fair?”
“According to your mother, she knows what you’ll do. She knows what your choice will be,” Adrianna said.
I flashed back to the night in the courtyard when I was dancing with Dominic at the dinner party. I remembered my mother’s words floating in my ear. I want you to choose love.
I will.
I didn’t even realize I was crying until I felt tears sliding down my face. “You can’t ask me to make this kind of choice, Adrianna. She’s my mother.”
“And what would it mean to bring her back, Destiny? What would her life be like?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Yes, you do.”
“My brother and I love her very much.”
“And she knows that. But your life is in Avalon Cove now. And Ian is very happy in California with Aunt Barbara.”
“She was very sad,” I admitted. “My mother had a broken heart. Because of my father.”
“Was she a happy woman?”
“Sometimes,” I said. “I think my brother and I made her happy. And whenever she danced around our living room, it seemed like she was glowing.”
“She’s still dancing,” Adrianna assured me.
“Are you telling me to choose Dominic?” I asked.
“I can’t make that decision for you,” she said. “It has to be yours alone.”
“How can I do this? You’re asking me to choose between the woman who gave birth to me and raised me and took care of me and loved me and a man I’ve only spent five minutes with.”
“Does that mean you would like to choose your mother?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
“She used to cry at night.”
“I know.”
“I could hear her crying through my bedroom wall. She thought I was asleep.”
“She doesn’t cry anymore.”
“I wanted to take away her pain. Even when she was sick. Even when she was dying. I looked at her in that hospital bed and I secretly wished it was me. At the funeral, all I wanted to do was trade places with her.”
“Your mother made a choice. Full recovery or bring Clark back. You know what her decision was.”
“I do,” I said. “She chose love.”
“Wouldn’t she want you to do the same?”
I closed my eyes for a moment. I saw my mother in her rose-colored skirt, peasant blouse, and jazz shoes. I could hear the haunting melody of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. She was in our living room in our apartment in Chicago, gliding across the shiny wooden floors, dancing as if no one were watching. She was lost in her movements, oblivious to the world around her, to the snow falling outside and the radiator in the corner wheezing and rumbling. She was at peace.
This is how I always want to remember you.
I knew my mother still loved my father up until the moment she died. He really was the love of her life. Yet, he was never able to reciprocate that love on the same level. He’d never quite figured out a way to love her enough. Instead, he disappointed her time and time again. He broke her heart into a million pieces. He left her and embarked on a new life with new women. But none of them would be my mother. They wouldn’t have her softness or her grace.
They wouldn’t be magic.
I opened my eyes.
“I’ve made my decision,” I said. “I choose love.”