A dark retelling of Alice in Wonderland meets Neverwhere, this contemporary fantasy will enchant Neil Gaiman and Christina Henry fans.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Mary Pascual’s The Byways, which is out now!
High school student CeeCee Harper has special needs, a temper, and a reputation for trouble. Angry at the rumors and afraid she’ll never fit in, she makes a wrong move—and lands in the Byways, a world of alleys, magic, and forgotten people . . . some that aren’t even human. And if she doesn’t escape quickly, CeeCee learns, she’ll be trapped for good.
Searching for a way out, she gets lost among monsters, drug pushers, the homeless, and political upheaval, and soon finds there are those who will stop at nothing to keep her from leaving. But the Byways pull people in for a reason. CeeCee must figure out why she got stuck in the first place—before her loved ones are put in danger and she loses them forever.
They walked into a long room with a high ceiling, like an art gallery. Instead of pictures, there were mirrors hung on the walls.
“There are others around the city, but this place has the most gathered in one spot.”
“What are they?” CeeCee asked.
Jesse looked at her sideways. “They’re . . . mirrors,” he said slowly, like he suddenly doubted her intelligence.
“I can see that,” she huffed, exasperated. “I mean, what are they here? Are they going to talk? Are they going to enslave my soul and make spaghetti? What do they do?”
The amused gleam was back in his eyes. “Ah.” He walked over to a foot-high, oval-shaped mirror. “Take a look.”
She leaned toward the glass, the silver sheen of it throwing light in her eyes, and peered into the mirror. Instead of her reflection, she saw a living room. A couch with a toile slipcover faced a high-end TV. Next to it sat a comfortable leather recliner. In the background, a door provided a glimpse of a kitchen. There were lace doilies and expensive-looking knickknacks on side tables. Everything was cream and black and mauve. It was very posh but a little outdated.
She was confused. Why would you put a random picture behind a mirror?
An older woman appeared in the doorway and crossed to the TV. Then it clicked. CeeCee was looking at a living room in someone’s house.
She leaned away from the mirror and looked at Jesse. “What the fuck is this?”
He laughed, delighted at her expression. “It’s a window.”
“Are all mirrors like this?” She heard her voice rising. “Where someone can see you?”
“No, not all. Just a few.” He paused. “I think it happens more when people want to be seen. Or if they’re open to other sides.”
“This is totally creepy.” She looked around for mirrors looking into bathrooms. That would be even worse. “You know that, right?”
“Agreed. Creepy but useful.” He looked pleased with himself. “Watch.”
He moved to a mirror that was easily seven feet tall. CeeCee stepped up behind him and saw a shadowed nursery on the other side of the glass, full of cluttered tools and ailing potted plants. It looked like the dusty corner where someone put the stuff they didn’t need right away.
Jesse went very still. Then he stepped through the mirror, the glass rippling like water around the edges of his body, into the nursery. He turned around to face her direction and grinned, smug and triumphant.
“Holy crap,” CeeCee whispered.
He glided back through the glass again like it wasn’t there.
“See? They can be used as doors. You can get back home, or close enough. It’ll put you on the other side at least. Not all of the mirrors come out in our city, but I know the ones that do.”
CeeCee felt her spirits soar. She took a trembling step forward and laid her hand on the glass. It felt cool and solid against her palm. “How do I do it?” she breathed.
“You have to believe it. Picture yourself there instead of here, then step through.”
She took a breath and visualized herself on the other side. Part of her brain was screaming skepticism at her. But she had just seen Jesse step through, so she hollered at the voice to shut up. She made a move toward the mirror and stopped.
She looked at Jesse. “Thank you for bringing me here.”
He only nodded, eyes narrow.
CeeCee stepped as confidently as she could toward the mirror . . . and hit glass. She rolled her eyes toward Jesse. “You knew that would happen, didn’t you?”
“Try again; it takes a bit of practice.”
She faced the mirror. She tried thinking about how glass is a liquid, not a solid. She thought about silver water and that drop of blue ink on her desk that she could push with a finger. This time, she led with her shoulder, like she could slide in sideways. She banged the glass so hard, the mirror shifted on the wall.
“Ugh! Why isn’t it working?”
“Really feel it. Believe you are there, in that room.”
“I’m trying. I thought I believed it. I told my brain the glass isn’t solid.”
“Deciding to believe isn’t enough,” Jesse explained. “It’s more like . . . it never occurred to you for it to be any other way. Like when you fly, you just take a little hop and then decide not to come back down. Being on the ground doesn’t occur to you anymore.”
CeeCee blinked. “That’s the trick to flying?”
“That’s the trick to everything.”
“Can you fly then too?”
Jesse ducked his head and looked at her from under his bangs, his grin wicked and a little rueful. “I can do other things.”
She snorted, and he laughed. He seemed delighted that she saw right through him.
“Try again,” he said. “It never occurred to you to be anywhere else. Think about the details: the way the dirt smells, the feel of the floor, how many mice are hiding in the tools.”
“Um, that’s a weird detail, but okay, I get it.”
She breathed in deeply and imagined the dusty smell of dirt, the way the light was shadowed in the room, the brush of dry leaves. Very cautiously, trying to hold the image in her mind, she crept forward. As her body came within a hair’s breadth of the mirror, she closed her eyes. She concentrated fiercely on terra-cotta pots and gardening gloves. For the briefest moment, the glass felt fuzzy against her skin, the barest tingle and give. Her heart sped up, and she pushed. It felt, suddenly, like there was no glass at all. Her eyes flew open in time to see the tips of her fingers sink through the mirror. She couldn’t believe it! It was terrifying and weird, but it was working! Then her brain switched from screaming at her about physics to playing a slideshow of her worst fears at home: her mom scared and angry, the police at her house, the stares at school when word got out, expulsion, court time, juvie, the sneers of everyone who thought they were right about her . . . and her being able to do nothing, nothing, nothing about it.
The glass snapped back to solid. Her hand bounced off the mirror as if it had never gone through.
CeeCee rested her head against the cool, very hard glass. She shrieked loudly.
In the mirror’s reflection, she saw Jesse jump two feet into the air. He looked at her with wide eyes, and then she could see him quite clearly pretend it had never happened.
She asked quietly so her voice wouldn’t tremble, “Why can you do it and I can’t?”
“Well, it’s about believing but . . . it’s also about belonging.”
“What do you mean?”
“This side—the byways—sometimes they hold onto people because they belong here.” He seemed worried as he said it, and he watched her carefully. “Where do you belong? Here or there?”
She felt a jolt of panic. “I don’t belong here. I don’t. I just . . . I don’t know what I’m going back to. I fucked up bad back home, and I . . .” CeeCee stopped, ashamed and confused.
“One mistake doesn’t mean you belong here,” Jesse said. “It’s not that simple.”
“What did you mean about not staying too long? Is that part of it?”
“Yes. Every once in a while someone will come here as if it’s a vacation. They might not really belong here, but if they stay too long, the byways will decide they do anyway, and then they can’t get out.”
CeeCee couldn’t imagine coming here on “vacation.” But if people were traveling here, as misguided as that sounded, then she could get out. She straightened her spine and frowned at the mirror. She just had to figure out how.
“Where do you belong?” she asked, curious about his tricks.
“I belong nowhere, and so I can go anywhere.” He smiled with all his teeth. “Do you want to try again?”
“Yes,” she said, jaw set stubbornly.
She seemed to get worse at it as time went on, as if the mirrors or the byways or something else was actively repelling her now. After an hour, she was ready to admit defeat. She swallowed her frustration with difficulty.
“I’m sorry it didn’t work.” Jesse seemed genuinely regretful.
She went over the options in her head. “Can you take me to a halfway place?” she asked. “Do you know how to get through?”
“I can take you but . . .” He shrugged and looked frustrated. “I don’t have a key. I’ve never needed one.”
Before she could form a response, her stomach rumbled loudly.
Jesse looked amused again. “When was the last time you ate?”
“I don’t know—what time is it?”
“Probably later than you think. Come on.” He turned toward the door. “I know a place.”
“I am getting out of here.” She scowled back at the mirrors. “And when I do, I’m covering up my bedroom mirror.”
“Aw,” he said in mock disappointment and ducked laughing when she tried to slug him.
From The Byways, Copyright © 2023, Mary Pascual, with permission from SparkPress.
