Splintered

  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 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.

  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 bas
hes 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.

  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 along 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, wrought-iron 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.

&
nbsp; 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 free-falling 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.