Lightning strikes, shutting off the electricity, and everything goes black.
I’m squeezing the doorframe so hard, my fingernails eat into the wood. The sound of flapping wings darts from one side of the pitch-black room to the other. My pulse bashes and hammers. Every instinct tells me to run into the hallway, out the front door, to try to catch Jeb so he can protect me.
But I heard the limo leave. He’s already gone.
Something soft swoops by my face. I yelp. Stumbling forward, I skim my palms along the top of my dresser, find my flashlight, and click it on. Yellow light illuminates a painting Jeb once made for me, and jars of bug corpses.
The hairs on my neck stiffen as I move closer to my cheval mirror. The glass is cracked from top to bottom, like a hard-boiled, crystallized egg that’s been tapped all over with a spoon, waiting to be peeled.
What was it Alison said about broken glass? That it would sever my identity?
Jagged puzzle pieces make up my shattered reflection: hundreds of miniature plaid leggings peeking out between shin-high boots and red net petticoat at my thighs; thousands of bustiers draped over another thousand T-shirts. Then a hundred of my faces with ice-blue eyes standing out from smears of green liner.
And there, behind my many heads, fluttering black wings and a soft blue glow. I spin around and shine the flashlight, expecting to find the moth behind me.
Nothing.
When I turn back to the mirror, a scream lodges in my throat. A guy’s silhouette appears behind me in the reflection. The image is distorted and broken into countless pieces, all except his inky eyes and dark, shapely mouth. Those I see clearly. It’s the boy from my memories—all grown up.
“Lovely Alyssa.”
The guy’s lips purr that cockney accent I heard at the store.
“ You can cure your family. Use the key to bring your treasures into my world. Fix Alice’s mistakes, and break the curse. Don’t stop until you find me.”
What does he mean, “Alice’s mistakes”? Something she did inside Wonderland caused all this to happen?
The weight of my backpack holds me steady as I stare at him, captivated. I’m afraid to turn around and see if he’s behind me, afraid the silhouette and beautiful voice are only figments of a frantic, failing mind.
“Are you real?” I whisper.
“Do I feel real?”
he whispers back, his breath hot against the nape of my neck. A set of strong hands wraps around me from behind, causing every nerve to dance inside my body. I twist around. The flashlight’s glow sweeps the empty room, yet the pressure of knowing fingers still trails across my abdomen. Stunned with sensation, I let my hand follow his touch, from my navel to the band of my skirt. My knees give out. Somehow, I’m still standing, as if the phantom guy holds me up.
“Remember me, Alyssa.”
A nose stirs the hair at the back of my head.
“Remember us.”
He starts to hum, a haunting melody. No words ride the music, only the familiar notes of a forgotten song.
The instant his humming ends, so does the embrace. I sway to catch my balance. Within the broken reflections, the moth has replaced him again. Somehow, the moth and the guy are tied together.
I should be terrified. I should be committed. But something about the netherling is sensual and exhilarating, more evocative than anything in my world has ever been.
I reach toward one of the moth’s reflections, aiming for a crack where it’s severed in two. My finger meets the glass, only instead of sharpness, it feels like sculpted metal. Repositioning the flashlight, I realize it’s not a crack in the glass at all . . . it’s a keyhole, tiny and intricate.
I dig out the key from under my shirt, fingers shaking as I take aim.
“Tut,”
my dark guide scolds, though I can’t see him anywhere.
“I’ve taught you better. You’re forgetting a step.”
He’s right. I remember. “Envision where you wish to go,” I say, using his words from years before. The key is a wish granter, and will open the mirror to my desires. Letting the backpack fall to the floor, I dig out the sundial brochure and study it. When I look up again, it’s the picture from the brochure staring back at me from the cracked reflection. I insert the key into the hole and turn.
The glass becomes liquid and ripples, absorbing my hand. I jerk back, and the key falls against my chest, suspended on its chain. I hold my fingers up. They look the same as always . . . completely unaffected. They’re not even wet.
A crackling sound snaps my attention back to the mirror. The splintered glass begins to smooth, forming a watery window instead of a reflection. It’s a portal that opens into the garden bright with sunlight and flowers where the statue sundial waits.
“Want it with all your heart.”
The command swims in my head, so quiet it’s an echo from my past.
“Then step inside.”
I have a moment of lucidity. If I’m about to be magically sucked into London, I need a way home. I snag my pencil box of money and drop it into the backpack. I shove the flashlight in, too. Who knows how dark the rabbit hole might be?
I step forward and let both of my hands sink into the liquid glass up to my elbows. On the other side, a cool breeze meets my arms. Someone strokes my skin, from my elbow down to the wrist . . . fingertips so soft and knowing, they light a firestorm inside my veins.
It’s a touch I already know, yet so different now. No longer innocent and calming.
When I look into the portal, my gloved hands appear in the landscape beyond, casting shadows on the grass next to the guy’s winged silhouette.
Before I can see him clearly, he’s gone.
I hesitate and think of Jeb. It’s almost as if I hear his voice calling out for me from somewhere far away. I wish he was here, right now, stepping in with me.
But I can’t look back. As deranged as it seems, that guy in the mirror is the answer to everything in my past. This is my one chance to find Wonderland, to cleanse the Liddell bloodline of this curse, and to save Alison. If I can do this, I can finally be normal. Maybe normal enough to tell Jeb the way I really feel about things.
Taking a breath, I plunge inside.
h
..I..
i
I spin in a haze of greens, blues, and whites, my perceptions unraveling like a roll of gauze. A prickly sensation sweeps in—tiny needles weaving me together once more. I fall backward onto the ground and wait with eyes clenched shut, backpack pushing into my spine.
The wooziness passes, and the scent of moist soil and fresh air drifts over me. I blink at a bright sun and blue sky. Weird. If I’m in England, it should still be early morning here . . . way before dawn. Somehow, I arrived at the same time as the picture in the brochure—the time I envisioned. Blades of grass prickle through my gloves as I push my weight onto my palms to sit up. The sundial statue boy waits a few feet away.
Behind me is a fountain, the water flowing down mirrored panels as tall as I am. They must be the other side of the portal I stepped through, because my hair and clothes are damp. A spiked, wroughtiron fence casts shadows across the garden.
I stand, drop my backpack to the ground, and brush speckles of mud from my skirt and tights.
The birds chirping and white noise from the flowers and insects
sound
real. The breeze shaking the leaves overhead
feels
real. The fragrance of white roses from a bush on the other side of the statue
smells
real. All my senses tell me this isn’t a delusion.
My imagination couldn’t conjure hands like my guide’s—or the song he lit in my memory. A song for which the words escape me, but in some way define me. The melody brings back feelings of comfort and security—like an old lullaby.
I concentrate on the white noise. A distinct whisper spins through my ears.
Find the rabbit hole . . .
The breeze coaxes a soft fragrance my way. It’s the roses talking.
I drop to my knees and crawl toward the sundial statue, parting the grass as I go. There must be a hole or a metal lid—something that could hide a tunnel.
An ornate rock border and a ground cover of ivy surround the statue’s large platform. I start digging through the leaves. White noise erupts as I upset the sacred dwellings of spiders, beetles, and flying insects. Some scatter beneath my fingers; others light into the air. Their whispers cling like static, leading me.
With the touch of a feather, you can enter the nether.
I scramble to my feet, then step into the ivy, giving the statue a push. It doesn’t budge.
The time must be right, or you’ll be here all night.
Time. I try to recall the “’Twas brillig” poem definitions. Wasn’t four o’clock mentioned? According to the sundial’s shadow, it’s a little past five. Maybe I have to turn back the clock somehow.
I try to force the gnomon shaft to a new position so its shadow will fall on the Roman numeral IV. It doesn’t budge, either. Maybe the statue just has to
think
it’s four.
I dig through the backpack, dragging out the feather quill I pulled from my dad’s recliner. “With the touch of a feather . . .” I center the plume over the dial and move it until it casts a shadow pointing to the IV. Then I tuck the quill into a crevice to hold it in place. The sundial still reads five o’clock, too, but I’m hoping my improvisation is enough to do the trick.
A series of clicks and clatters emerges from inside the statue’s base, like latches being opened. Heart racing, I wedge my shoulder against the stone boy’s arms. With my heels rooted into the ivy, I use my legs to push and strain against the stone.
Rock grates along metal, and the statue tips over on its base. A
poof
of dust belches, then clears, revealing a hole the size of a well.
I drop to my knees. Inside the backpack, I push things around to find my flashlight. Flipping it on, I search the depths below. No bottom in sight. I can’t dive headfirst into some tunnel if I can’t see where it ends.
An overwhelming sense of loneliness and panic wraps around me. I’m not a fan of heights—the very reason I haven’t mastered an ollie in skateboarding yet. I love the thrill of the ride, but freefalling has never been my idea of fun. I once went rappelling in a canyon with Jeb and Jenara. The climbing up wasn’t so bad, but Jeb had to piggyback me the entire way down while I kept my eyes shut.
Again, I find myself wishing he was here.
I sit up. That stirring pressure inside me comes to life . . . it assures me I’m ready for this.
If reality is anything like the Alice book, she doesn’t fall so much as
floats
her way down. The physical laws might be different within the hole.
So maybe it’s not how far down but how
fast
.
I drop the flashlight in. It bobs down slowly, like a glowing bubble. I almost laugh aloud.
I take a swig of water from one of the bottles at the bottom of the bag. Then I zip it closed and position the pack on my shoulders.
Perched on my hands and knees at the hole’s edge, I have a moment of doubt. I weigh a lot more than a piece of plastic and some batteries. Maybe I should push in a few heavy rocks, just to be sure.
“Al!”
The shout from behind makes me scramble. Dirt gives way beneath my hands. Screaming, I clutch at empty air and tumble in.
Inside, the hole widens. More like a feather on a breeze than a skydiver, I float, my position shifting from vertical to horizontal. My stomach quivers, trying to adjust to weightlessness.
Overhead, someone dives in after me.
In seconds, he latches on to my wrist and tugs to align our bodies.
It’s impossible . . .
“Jeb?”
His arms lock us together, his gaze intent on the slowly passing scenery. “Sweet mother of—”
“Stuff and nonsense,” I interrupt with a quote from the original
Wonderland
book. “How are you here?”
“Where
is
here?” he asks, mesmerized by our surroundings.
Open wardrobes filled with clothes, other furniture, stacks of books on floating shelves, pantries, jelly jars, and empty picture frames all cling randomly to the tunnel’s sides as if stuck with Velcro. Thick ivy curls around each item and embeds it in the dirt walls, pinning everything in place.
Each time we pass something, Jeb draws me closer, his expression a mix of dread and awe. At one point, I work my arm free and snag a jar wrapped in leaves. I bring it between us and twist off the lid, then stretch out once more to leave the jar upside down, floating alongside us. A dribble of orange marmalade oozes from it and stays suspended as we drift—down, down, down until our feet gently meet the bottom, as if we’ve been lowered on ropes.
The entrance to the rabbit hole is nothing but a pinhole of sunlight up above. We stand in an empty, windowless room, domed and dimly lit by candles hanging upside down in candelabras. The scent of wax and dust wafts all around us. My legs wobble, as if I’ve been running laps for a week. We must have fallen at least a half mile. We’re still embracing, but neither of us seems to want to let go.
After a few minutes, Jeb eases us an arm’s length apart and stares at me—
into
me.
“How?” I whisper, still unable to grasp that he’s here.
He pales, shaking his head. “I . . . I slipped on the porch in the rain. That has to be it. Yeah, that’s why I’m wet. I’m dreaming this now. But . . .” He presses our foreheads together and I make a mental note of every other place our bodies touch. His hands glide up my rib cage before stopping on either side of my face. “You feel real,” he whispers, his hot breath mingling with mine. Every point of contact between us heats to white flame. “And you’re so pretty.”
Okay, that’s proof he’s delusional and in shock. First off, he’s never said anything like that to me. Second, my makeup has to look like soggy newspapers by now.
The key. It’s a wish granter. My dark guide told me to
want with all my heart
. So when I visualized Jeb by my side before stepping in, because I wanted him with me, he came through, too.
I never meant to drag him into this.
Interlocking our fingers, I coax his palms from my face. “Maybe there’s some way to send you back.” Although I have a bad feeling there’s not. Something he said earlier sinks in. “Wait . . . what do you mean, you slipped on the porch? I heard the limo drive away.”
“Tae and I had a fight. She left for prom without me. I wanted to check on you one last time—couldn’t leave things like they were. You didn’t answer the door. It was unlocked, so I . . . that must be when I hit my head.”
I grip his shoulders. “You didn’t hit your head. We’re really here. This is real.”
“Uh-uh.” He steps back. “That would mean you really jumped into the mirror. I really dived in to catch you. Then I got stuck in a tree and had to climb down to find you. No. Not possible.”
“This shouldn’t have happened,” I mumble, wrestling my guilt. “Wonderland is my nightmare. Not yours.”
“Wonderland?” He points to the tunnel overhead. “
That
was the rabbit hole?”
“Yeah. Alison had clues to this place hidden behind the daisies on Dad’s chair. That’s why I tore it up.”
One look at Jeb’s face and I know he doesn’t buy it.
Taking a deep breath, I slip off the backpack and draw out the brochure and treasures. I consider telling him about the moth and my dark guide, but those details stick inside me, an immovable mass.
“I haven’t had a good look at most of the things yet,” I add. “But I think they’re leading me here. I think—I think the Lewis Carroll book wasn’t exactly fiction. It was a real-life account of my greatgreat-great-grandmother’s experiences, with some discrepancies. For one, there was nothing mentioned about a sundial covering the rabbit hole.”
We both look at the wink of light overhead.
Jeb rocks back and forth, as if he’s seasick. He gets his bearings and levels his gaze at me again. “Did your dad know about this stuff you found?”
“No. If he did, he would’ve signed Alison up for shock treatments even sooner.”
“Shock treatments? I thought she hit her head in a car accident. Got brain-damaged.”
“I was covering. There was never an accident. She’s been Wonderland-crazy for years. Now I can prove she’s not. That it’s all real.”
Doubt darkens Jeb’s face. “We have to get back first. And that’s not going to be easy.”
He’s right. There’s no door. It’s like we’ve fallen into a genie bottle and the only way out is to become smoke and drift up.