Once Dad and I get home, I add the stolen stash to my savings in a small pencil box secured with a rubber band and hide it behind my cheval mirror.
Plugging my phone in to charge, I text Hitch to meet me outside Underland around midnight and tell him why. He’s the only one I know who can make a fake passport. I still can’t believe I took Taelor’s money and hid her purse. But like Dad said, we’ll do whatever it takes to get Alison home. Thinking about how lit Jeb would be if he knew I was meeting Hitch in the dark alone makes me all the more determined to follow through.
Spreading a palm along my aquarium’s cool glass, I search the back and flip on a soft bluish light. Aphrodite and Adonis perform a graceful dance, entwining their long bodies.
On my way to check my bug traps in the garage, I cut through the living room. Dad’s there, sitting in his recliner while staring at those giant daisies Alison appliquéd all over the arms and back. He sobs.
I want to hug him and make up for our fight, but when he sees me watching, he claims to have something in his eye and leaves to pick up burgers for supper.
Dust motes drift in the amber glow of the floor lamp beside his recliner. The weird lighting, coupled with the dark paneled walls, gives the living room a strange aura, like an aged sepia photograph.
Photographs. Why did Alison say that about pictures . . . how people forget to read between the lines?
I stand there, a few feet from the recliner, while everything she babbled skates along my mind like pebbles cast into an endless well. One keeps rising back to the top:
“The daisies are hiding treasure. Buried treasure.”
The explanation is staring me in the face. It has been for years. I drop to my knees in front of the recliner, crumpling the layers of netting and lace beneath my miniskirt as I shove my backpack out of the way. Hard to believe it’s only been seven or so hours since I was at school. So much has happened, I’ve lost track of time.
I pluck at one of Alison’s cloth daisies where two appliquéd petals curl down from frayed stitches. On a hunch, I slide my index finger between the appliqué and the upholstery to find a hole burrowed deep into the recliner’s stuffing.
Holding my breath, I tug at the appliqué until it’s hanging by no more than one petal and a few threads. The dime-size hole stares back, too perfectly round to have been accidental. All this time, I thought she’d sewn the patches on to cover threadbare places. All this time, I was wrong.
Digging into the torn upholstery, I pull out stuffing until I hit something tiny, hard, and metallic. I trace the object, following a round shape that stretches to a long, thin leg with grooves and teeth.
A key.
My forefinger drags it to the hole’s opening and tugs it out. An attached necklace chain coils on the cushion like a snake.
The challenge from the website comes full circle:
“If you wish to save your mother, use the key.”
Maybe I should be freaked out, but I’m thrilled to finally have tangible proof that Alison is trying to tell me something . . . that her babbles weren’t babbles at all. They were coherent clues.
Tapping the cold metal with a fingertip, I imagine what the key might unlock. I’ve never seen one like it, so intricate, with strips of burnished brass interwoven like ivy. It looks old—antique, even. As tiny as it is, it might open a diary.
I loop the necklace around my neck and tuck it under my shirt. Alison said
daisies
, plural. Could there be other things behind the rest of the appliqués?
Inspired, I disregard the fact that Dad could come back at any minute. I don’t even stop to consider the consequences of ripping apart his favorite chair.
He keeps a Swiss Army knife on the side table for opening mail. I flip the scissor attachment out, then snip all the daisies in half and gouge out the holes beneath. Batting snows around me.
Soon, I’m sitting at the foot of the recliner with a small trove of Wonderland-related objects: an antique hair clip—more like a bobby pin, actually—with a ruby teardrop attached to its bent end; a feather quill; and a Victorian fan made of white lace and matching gloves scented with talcum and black pepper. I suppress a sneeze and push aside two snapshots of my great-great-great-grandmother Alice in favor of the small book I also found.
I stroke the tattered paperback’s cover and study the title:
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
. Across the word
Alice
, Alison’s name is scrawled in red marker.
She wanted me to find these “treasures.” Something here is supposed to discourage me from going to the rabbit hole. Instead, I’m convinced these things can help fix Alison, help me break the Liddell curse for good.
Tucked within the novel’s front cover is a tourism brochure for the Thames sundial trail in London. On it is a statue of a child balancing a sundial on his head. I sit back in disbelief. It’s the one I saw earlier in my mind, the one the children were playing beside. Alison must have looked for the rabbit hole when she was younger; she must have traveled to London on her search. Where else could these keepsakes have come from? More important, what made her stop looking?
The statue is dated 1731—long before Alice Liddell’s birth—so it would’ve been in place when my great-great-great-grandmother was little, which means she could’ve fallen into the hole beneath it.
I now have an address, but according to the brochure, there’s no public access to the grounds. Tourists are only allowed to look at the sundial statue from behind iron railings. Even once I get there, I’ll need a miracle to sneak into the garden and explore the sundial up close.
I slide the brochure back into place in the book, skimming the story I know so well. It’s full of black-and-white sketches. There are a few dog-eared pages and some excerpts underlined: the Walrus and the Carpenter poem, Alice’s tears causing a flood, the Mad Hatter’s tea party.
Alison’s handwriting fills the margins, notes and comments in different colors of ink. I touch them all, saddened we never sat down together—book in hand—so she could explain what everything means.
Most of her additions have blurred, as if the pages got wet. I stop at the illustrations of the Queen and King of Hearts, where she wrote:
Queen and King Red—here’s where it started. And here it will end . . .
Lightning flashes under the drapes.
After the last page of the story, there’s an additional twenty or more pages, hand-glued into place. On each, someone scribbled sketches similar to the mutated Wonderland characters on the moth website: the skeletal white rabbit, vicious flowers with bloodied teeth, even a different rendition of Queen Red—a fine-boned beauty with bright red hair, black designs inked around her eyes, and gauzy wings.
The sketches trigger another vision of the children, more powerful than the one I experienced earlier, because my eyes don’t even close. My living room fades and I’m in a meadow somewhere, breathing in the scent of spring. Dappled sunlight blinks around me, keeping time with tree branches rocking in the breeze. The landscape is weirdly fluorescent.
The girl—who looks to be five—wears a frilly red pajama top with long, puffy sleeves and matching pants that cover her ankles. She sits on a grassy knoll beside the boy, who can’t be more than eight. They both have their backs to me.
Black wings drape behind the boy like a cloak, matching his velvet pants and silky shirt. He tilts sideways, so I catch his profile, but his face stays hidden beneath a curtain of glowing blue hair as he uses a needle to thread dead moths along a string—making the gruesome equivalent of a popcorn garland.
His feet—snug inside black hiking boots—are propped on a set of sketches, the same ones glued inside Alison’s
Wonderland
book.
“There.” His young, soft voice rustles like feathers on the wind. Without looking up, he points to the picture of Queen Red with his needle. The line of dead moths trails it, flapping with the movement. “Tell me her secrets.”
The girl wriggles her bare feet, pink toenails glistening in the soft light. “I’m tired of being in Wonderland,” she mumbles in a milky voice of innocence. “I want to go home. I’m sleepy.”
“So am I. Perhaps if you didn’t fight me in the air during flying lessons,” he says, a cockney accent becoming apparent, “we’d both feel the better for it.”
“It makes my tummy kick when we get so high.” She yawns. “Isn’t it bedtime yet? I’m getting cold.”
Shaking his head, the boy prods the picture once more. “First, their secrets. Then, I’ll take you back to your warm bed.”
The girl sighs and captures one of his wings, winding herself up in it. Warmth and comfort surge through me, mirroring what she must feel. She burrows into the satiny tunnel, wrapped up in the scent of him—licorice and honey.
“Wake me when it’s time to leave,” she says, her voice muffled.
Eyes still hidden behind his wild hair, he laughs. His lips are well shaped and dark against his pale skin, his straight teeth shiny and white. “Sneakie-deakie, trixie-luv.” He tugs his wing free, leaving her cold and pouting.
He drops to his belly on the ground. His wings spread on either side like puddles of glimmering black oil as he leans over the pile of moth corpses. After stabbing one through the abdomen, he slides it into place behind the others on the string.
The girl watches, fascinated. “I want to stab one.”
He lifts a hand and five fingers splay out—white, graceful, and long. “Give me five secrets, and I’ll let you string a moth for each one you get right.”
Clapping, the girl grabs the Queen Red sketch and lays it in her lap. “She likes ash in her tea, still glowing with embers.”
The boy nods. “And why is that?”
Her head tilts as she’s thinking. “Um.”
I can’t explain how, but I know the answer. I bite my tongue, waiting to see if the girl guesses, rooting for her.
Lifting his line of corpses, the boy teases, “Looks like I shall finish this alone.”
She hops up, feet stomping the lime green grass. “Oh! The ash is for her mommy. Something about her mommy.”
“Not good enough,” he says, and stabs another moth onto his needle, the pile beginning to dwindle. He smiles wickedly.
Her frustration is tangible. He chides her like this often. Pushing her until she pushes back; but there’s another side to him, one that’s encouraging and patient, because I can sense her affection and respect.
He threads another moth, clucking his tongue. “Shame you’ll not get to help. I think you’re too much of a baby to hold a needle anyways.”
She growls. “Am not.”
Tired of his arrogance, I shout out the answer. “The hiss of steam when the embers snuff out in the tea! It comforts the queen. Reminds her of her mother’s shushes when she would cry as a baby.”
Both children snap their heads in my direction, as if they heard me. The girl’s face is exposed—a vivid reality. She’s
me
. . . a dead ringer for my prekindergarten school picture, missing front tooth and all. But it’s his face—the boy’s familiar black eyes leaking ink— that lands me back in my living room on my knees, the meadow vanishing from around me.
I’m numb. Is it possible? These aren’t memories of some movie I watched; they’re memories I
made
. If I had that memory trapped inside me, what else happened to me that I can no longer remember?
Have I actually been to Wonderland, spending time with some netherling creature . . .
I inhale a ragged breath. No. I’ve never been there.
My finger traces the lines of Queen Red’s flaming hair on the sketch. If I’ve never been there, how did I know about the queen and her mother? How do I know she was lonely as a young princess after her mother died, because the king couldn’t bear to spend time with her for her resemblance to his dead wife, and her sadness when her father remarried because he had to, since queens rule Wonderland?
I know these things because
he
taught them to me. The winged boy.
British . . .
I’m reminded of the voice I heard in my head at work, along with the poster and the guy’s bottomless, bleeding black eyes. His challenge resurfaces in my mind:
“I’m waiting inside the rabbit hole, luv. Find me.”
Luv.
That’s what the boy called the girl—what the boy called me—in my resurfaced memory. It’s the same person . . . or creature . . . but he’s older now, like me. I suddenly feel like I’ve been missing him for years. My emotions scramble in two different directions—a heady mix between terror and yearning—making me dizzy.
The doorbell rings, crashing me back to the present. Dad’s garage-door opener has been on the fritz. It has to be him.
I stand. Stuffing covers the floor. Cottony fluff oozes out from the holes in the chair’s upholstery. It looks like one of those toys that squeezes Play-Doh through strategically placed orifices.
The doorbell rings again.
I drag stuffing out of my hair. How will I ever explain what I’ve done to the recliner?
Mind racing, I hide my findings inside my backpack, making a spontaneous decision to take it all to London. Then, considering the violent nether-realm creatures I saw online and the black-eyed, winged boy who is somehow a part of my past, I drop Dad’s army knife in, too.
After setting the bag aside, I stumble to the door and unlatch the lock, glancing over my shoulder at the mess.
As I open the door, Jeb steps up onto the porch, shoving his phone into his tux’s jacket pocket. I struggle to maintain a calm appearance. “Hey.”
“Hey,” he says back. Lightning slashes the clouds behind him. The flash casts shadows of his long lashes across his cheeks. A gust of wind carries his cologne to me.
Maybe he’s here to apologize. I hope so, because I could use his help right now.
“We need to talk,” he says. The sharpness in his voice pulls my defenses up instantly. He towers over me at the threshold. Despite the tuxedo, he’s still grunge, all the way from his unshaved chin to the bandana cinched around his left biceps. His ribbed white tank and weathered black combat boots in lieu of a dress shirt and shoes help complete the look. Paris Hilton of Pleasance High is going to have a hissy when she sees his wardrobe enhancements.
“Shouldn’t you be on your way to the powder-puff ball?” I ask, cautious, trying to feel him out.
“I’m not driving.”
Translation: Taelor’s picking him up in the family limo and is running fashionably late.
He grinds a knuckle into the door’s scrollwork, his jaw working back and forth. He’s ticked about something, all right. What could it be? I’m the one who deserves an apology. A groveling, in fact.
“Can I come in?” Red sparkles under his lip where a brand-new garnet labret catches the light. The mystery of the bag from the jewelry store is officially solved.
“How adorable,” I mock. “Taelor gave you lip jewelry . . . and it’s sparkly.”
He nudges the piercing with his tongue. “She’s trying to be diplomatic.”
Anger rises in a white-hot surge as I remember London and all the things Taelor said to me. “Of course she is. Because she’s eight kinds of wonderful, and that’s just her legs.”
Jeb furrows his brow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Taelor has all the diplomacy of a black widow spider. Garnet’s her birthstone. You’re wearing her birthday on your lip. Talk about spinning you up in her web.”
He looks down at me, frowning. “Cut her a break. She’s had a bad enough day. She lost her purse with some money in it.” Pausing, he traces a finger along the door’s frame. “The last place she remembered having it was at your store. But she figured you would’ve contacted her if you’d found it. You didn’t see it, right?”
I push down the guilt nudging me. “No. And I’m not her royal majesty’s purse keeper, FYI.”
“Seriously, Al. A little compassion, okay? Didn’t you hurt her enough already?”
“I hurt
her
?”
“Rubbing it in her face that her dad doesn’t care like yours does. You don’t understand what it’s like. Your dad. You’re so lucky to have that. Neither of us ever did. You know she’s sensitive about it. That was cold.”
Speaking of cold, my blood turns to ice. I’m dying to tell him what she said to prod me into being so vicious, but I shouldn’t have to. There was a time when he trusted me enough to take my side over anyone’s without question. Now he’s always trying to make Taelor and me play nice. But I’m not the one with the problem . . . other than being a liar and a theif.
Everything presses down on me: the weird discoveries, my busted-up friendship with Jeb, and my damaged family. I feel like I’m smothering. I try to slam the door. Jeb’s foot intercepts it. I jerk clear as the hinges swing open.
His palm rests on the knob so I can’t try to shut him out again. Rain droplets glisten along his sleek hair, which no doubt took gallons of glaze and hours to perfect. It’s the one part of his appearance Taelor will actually approve of. As for me, I favor the messy look— hair out of sorts, body slicked in sweat with motor oil or watercolors splashed across his olive skin. That’s the Jeb I grew up with. The one I could count on. The one I’ve lost.
I harden my glare and my heart. “If that’s why you came by, to bite my head off about hurting your perfect girlfriend, consider it done.”
“Oh, no. I’m not even warmed up. Jen texted me. She heard from Hitch. I guess he’s not as bad a guy as we thought, because he was wondering what kind of trouble you’d gotten yourself into. Why you need a fake passport tonight.”
My throat shrinks. I want to slip beneath the cracks in the linoleum. “I can’t do this now,” I mutter.
“When else would be a good time? Maybe you can text me when you’re on the plane.”
I turn around, but he follows me into the entryway. Rounding on him before he can cross into the living room, I fold my arms over my bustier, trying to subdue the urge to punch him. “You can’t come in without an invitation.”
He leans a shoulder against Alison’s framed photo of a wheat field at harvest. “That so?” His boot heel nudges the door behind him, shutting out the storm and the scent of rain. “Last I checked, I wasn’t a vampire,” he says, his voice low.
My fists clench tighter, and I step backward onto the line of carpet that borders the edge of the living room. “You sure have a lot in common with one.”
“Because I suck?”
“More proof. You just read my mind.” I ease one hand up to grip the key hidden beneath my T-shirt.
Jeb reaches for my other wrist, wrinkling my fingerless glove as he pulls me back into the entryway with him—close quarters with my fluffed-out miniskirt rustling against his thighs. “If I could read minds, I would know what’s going on in your head to even consider traveling to a foreign country alone in the middle of the night without telling anybody.”
I try to break free, but he’s not having it. “Hitch is a tool. I said I wanted a fake ID, not a passport. He got them confused.”
Jeb releases me, but there’s still tension between his eyebrows. “What would you need a fake ID for?”
That fluctuation in my head comes alive, lapping at my skull, teasing me to push Jeb’s buttons and watch him squirm. “To hit a few bars and pick up guys. Live a little. Get some life experience. You know, so I’ll be ready to go to London in time for your royal wedding to Taelor.”
The venomous outburst has the desired effect. Jeb’s expression changes to something fierce yet fragile, like a mix between hurt feelings and wanting to strangle someone. “What’s going on with us?”
I shrug and stare at my boots, pushing down the prodding sensation inside me. Rain patters against the windows, expanding the bubble of silence between us. I turn to escape into the living room, not even caring about the state I left it in.
Jeb’s on my heels. It’s like I’m the White Rabbit trying to outrun Time. He catches the tail of my petticoats and spins me to face him. His expression stiffens as he sees the recliner over my shoulder.
“What happened to your mom’s patches?” He grasps my arms. “Wait . . . did something go wrong at Soul’s today?”
I shake free and hold my hands in front of my stomach to ease the rocking sensation. “Alison had a setback. A big one. Jen didn’t tell you?”
His study of my face intensifies, taking in every feature. “She was in a hurry. Just got the text about Hitch. Is your mom the reason you’re acting out?”
My cheeks flame.
Acting out.
Like I’m a preschooler having a meltdown. If he could see the things going on inside me right now, he might actually have the sense to be scared.
It finally hits me head-on . . . how close to insanity I’m teetering . . . the madness behind the things I’m starting to believe. I shiver.
Jeb opens his arms. “C’mere.”
I don’t even hesitate. I let myself fall into his sturdy arms, hungry for one taste of the ordinary and sane.
He guides us to the couch without breaking my desperate hug— his arms around my waist, my feet resting on his boots like we’re waltzing. I breathe in his chocolate/lavender scent until I’m drowning in it. We plop down together on the cushions. I don’t realize I’m crying until I pull back and his ribbed tank sticks to my damp cheek.
“Sorry about your shirt.” I try to brush off the makeup smudged on the left side of his tank.
“Easy fix.” Jeb buttons his jacket, concealing it.
“So much for dignity,” I whisper, scrubbing my face dry.
He plucks at some stray strands of hair glommed on to the wetness on my temples. “You want dignified? Check this.” He fishes something from his jacket’s inner pocket. “The prom committee voted for a masquerade theme. Tae bought me a mask.”
“A masquerade prom?
Real
original.” I force the sarcasm, grateful he’s avoiding the subject of the recliner and Alison. Whether it’s for my comfort or for his, I don’t care.
“No laughing.” He slips the mask on, a black satin cutout with an elastic band. Miniature peacock feathers fringe the eyeholes and outer edges, making it look as if a butterfly crash-landed on his face. I can’t help myself. I snort.
“Hey.” Dimples appearing, Jeb gooses me in the ribs.
I catch his finger, smiling. “So . . . you’re a drag queen gone rogue, right?”
“Oh, you’re going down for that, skater girl.” He tickles me, relentless until I tumble backward onto the cushions and he half pins me.
“Ouch.” I hug my sides where they ache from both crying and laughing.
“Did I hurt you?” He stops, hands on either side of my waist.
“A little,” I lie.
His forehead’s really close to mine, long black lashes peeking through the mask’s eyeholes. His expression is pure remorse. “Where? Your ankle?”
“Everywhere. Laughing pains.”
He grins. “Ah. So, are you gonna take it back?”
“Sure. You look more like a feather duster, anyway.”
He laughs, then peels off his mask and uses the elastic band like a slingshot to send it soaring across the room. It hits the wall and splats to the floor in a feathery lump.
“Good riddance,” we say simultaneously, sharing a smile.
This is what I’ve been missing. Hanging out with Jeb makes me feel almost normal. Until I remember I’m not.
I scoot over to put some distance between us. “You should go. You don’t want Taelor to see you coming out of my side of the duplex.”
He lifts my left ankle into his lap. “I want to look at that sprain first.”
I’m about to tell him it’s better, but his strong, warm palm under the bend of my knee shuts my tongue down. Biting my lower lip, I watch as he unlaces my boot. When he coaxes an index finger beneath my legging’s hem and gently traces my birthmark, the gesture is so unexpectedly intimate, a tremor races up my shin.
His eyes lock on mine, and I wonder if he felt it, too. He’s looking at me like I’m one of his paintings again.
Thunder shakes the room, breaking our stare.
I cough. “See? All better.” Dragging my leg free, I lace up my boot.
“Al.” His Adam’s apple moves as he swallows. “I want you to put a stop to this Hitch thing. Whatever’s going on, it’s not worth . . .” He pauses. “Losing an important part of you.”
Unbelievable. He thinks I’m such a prude, he won’t even say the word. “You mean my
virginity
?”
His neck flashes red. “You deserve better than some one-night thing. You’re the kind of girl who should have a commitment from a guy who actually cares. Okay?”
Before I can answer, a fluttering sound distracts me. At first, I think it’s in my mind, until I notice some movement over Jeb’s shoulder. A flash of lightning blinks beneath the drapes in the window, illuminating the hallway. Then it’s unmistakable. Alison’s moth—huge, satiny black wings, glowing blue body—hovers there for an instant in front of the hall mirror before flying into my room.
My head spins.
“No,” I say. It can’t be the same insect from the snapshot . . . the one from my childhood. Moths only live a few days. Never years.
“No what?” Jeb asks, oblivious to the moth, intent only on me. “Are you still going through with it?”
My pulse kicks up so loudly in my ears, it nearly drowns out Taelor’s ring tone on Jeb’s phone.
“You’d better leave.” I push him to standing and herd him toward the door.
“Wait,” Jeb says over his shoulder between reluctant footsteps. He turns to face me at the door. “I want to know what you’re doing tonight.”
I peer through the drizzle at the white limo in his driveway, considering one last time if I should tell him the truth.
I’m going to London to find the rabbit hole. Even though I’m scared gutless of where it might lead, of who’s waiting inside for me. Of whatever I’m supposed to do once I’m there. I have to go.
But Taelor’s words from earlier rip the fantasy to shreds:
“Jeb has way too much talent to get stuck babysitting . . .”
My stomach clenches and I say the hardest thing I’ve ever said. “You don’t have a say in anything I do. You ditched our friendship for Taelor. So stay out of it, Jeb.”
He steps backward onto the porch as if in a daze. “Out of what?” The pain in his voice rips me apart. “Stay out of your plan to hook up with some random loser, or stay out of your life?”
The limo honks and its headbeams cut through the wet haze. Before my resolve softens, I whisper, “Both.” Then I shut the door, turn, and collapse against it.
My spine digs into the heavy wood. Regret fills my already crowded heart, but I can’t let the pain stop me. The second the limo’s wheels grind away on the wet asphalt, I snatch my backpack from the living room. I’m ready to go looking for my past.
Once in the hallway, I hesitate, drawn to my mosaics hung on either side of the mirror. Something is wrong with the
Winter’s Heartbeat
piece. The silvery glass beads forming the tree throb with light, and the crickets in the background kick their legs in unison. Their wings rub together, making an eerie chirping sound.
Gasping, I squeeze my eyes closed until the chirps stop; then I look again.
The mosaic is normal—still and inanimate.
I groan and back away. A crackle shatters the silence in my room. I left the door ajar earlier, and soft blue light radiates from within. It has to be the moth’s body causing the glow. I ease inside, both relieved and disappointed that it’s just the bulb in the eels’ aquarium.
Heart pounding, I reach to flick on the main light switch.