Unhinged

by A. G. Howard

  I never will be.

  I’m a few steps from the door when one clap of Morpheus’s leather-clad palms stops me in my tracks.

  A sinister rustle grows around me, like leaves raking across graves. I turn, but not fast enough. Vines climb my legs, twisting tight. My calf muscles cramp under the pressure. Using my underdeveloped netherling magic, I try to influence the plants. The ivy pulses but refuses to release.

  “A shame you’ve neglected your better side for so long,” Morpheus baits me as he steps closer. “If you practiced more often, it would be second nature for you to relax … easier for you to coax your powers into submission.”

  I growl. My top half is still free, so I throw a punch at him, nailing his abs. He oofs, but his sneer doesn’t waver. With one nod from him, the daisy that I used for a prop earlier reaches out and clamps my elbows. Her hands, both humanoid and plantlike, lock me tight. When I struggle, she hisses a warning.

  Biting back a frustrated yelp, I meet Morpheus’s fathomless black eyes. “I want to go home.”

  He fusses with his shirt, smoothing where my fist wrinkled it. “Keep ignoring your responsibilities and you won’t have a home left.”

  I shake my head. “How many times do I have to say it? My home is in the human realm, not here.” A half lie. I can’t bear to look again at the destruction all around me. But he doesn’t have to see how torn I am … how torn I’ve been since last year.

  “What makes you think I was referring to here?” He leans against a nasturtium stem. The pose shouldn’t be threatening, but his wings rise behind him, black and looming against the storm’s backdrop, and my skin bristles with apprehension. I try to free my elbows. The daisy is too strong. Even through my long sleeves, her frondlike fingers bite into my flesh.

  “I demand to see Queens Grenadine and Ivory,” I say.

  Morpheus barks a laugh. “You 'demand'? So you’re playing the royal card, aye?”

  My chest tightens. “The queens are in charge of the portals to my home, not you.”

  “Oh, but therein lies the problem. Parts of Wonderland have already fallen into Red’s clutches, and she intends to reclaim your throne and overthrow Ivory so she might be in charge of both portals. By your absence and apathy, you’re giving the witch free rein. You know what a powerless and forgetful fool your substitute, Grenadine, is.”

  Lightning strikes again, coating everything in eerie light.

  The mud beneath me starts to soften, and I sink an inch, then two. I’ve triggered one of his black moods. That’s never good. “You’re lying.”

  “The truth is in the blood. Is your artwork lying?”

  I want to lash out at him for spying on me at school, but it won’t change the fact that he’s right. Even though I can’t decipher the violent scenes in my blood mosaics, I can make out enough to know that something is wrong in this world. And that maybe Queen Red is behind it.

  My body wavers in the mud. I’m sinking even deeper—literally and figuratively.

  The daisy releases me from her scratchy grip, and the vines suck me down farther. Cold, gooey sludge squishes up around my shins. I rotate at the waist to plead with the giant flower. “You’re my friend. Last time I was here, we played cards, remember? Don’t let him do this …”

  Still silent, the daisy turns her hundreds of eyes toward Morpheus, as if awaiting his instructions.

  “Did you forget, Alyssa? The solitary of our kind are loyal to no one but themselves—or the highest bidder.” Morpheus steps closer so the toes of his boots are at the edge of the sinkhole. I’m face-to-face with his thighs but can’t quite reach him. “You’d do well to reacquaint yourself with their true nature. It might remind you of your own.” He claps his hands, twice this time.

  As far as I can see in every direction, the flower forest rises, the plants ripping their gargantuan stems from the mud. Leafy arms and legs appear. In the center of each blossom, mouths widen, moaning, to reveal clear, jagged teeth. Their roots, moving like serpents, propel them forward. Soon I’m surrounded by row upon row of blinking eyes.

  My heart trips in my chest. The mutants weren’t dormant and weak at all … they were lying in wait—a trap prepped to spring.

  Their roots wind through the mud, and they slide in to share my grave, their stemlike bodies pressing tight—imprisoning me in layers of mossy leaves and petals. I writhe as my arms press against my torso, my biceps digging into my ribs. With the added weight of the flower army around me, I sink another six inches into the mud, now eye level with Morpheus’s shins. A flicker of claustrophobia resurfaces. I stifle it, remembering who I am. How I escaped from here once before.

  “Oh, come on.” My voice sounds steadier than I feel. “If Red couldn’t trap me as her puppet, do you really think you have a chance to hold me hostage in a cage of algae?”

  One of the flowers hisses, offended by the insult.

  Lightning blinks across the sky, and Morpheus cocks his head. “You are no one’s puppet, plum. You are, however, a hostage. Although you seem confused as to who holds your chains.” He crouches, his nose only inches from mine. “I’ve been very patient.” Gloved knuckles glide across my jaw and down my neck. The jewels under his eyes shimmer to an impassioned violet. “But we no longer have the luxury of time. Red has seen to that.”

  I try to block out how my skin responds to his touch, actually drawing toward him, like hairs rising on an electric current. Pinned in place as I am, all I can do is jerk my head to break contact.

  Leaning back on his haunches, Morpheus narrows his eyes. “Release the chains you’ve put on yourself. Reclaim your crown and free the netherling madness within you.”

  “No. I chose to be human.” Bile burns my tongue as the mud pulls me deeper, as if I were a mouse being ingested by a snake. The sludge rises to my chest, then my throat—a suffocating sensation. I wonder how far he plans to take this bluff.

  He drops to his stomach on the ground, wings glimmering like puddles of oil beside him—looking just like he used to as a mischievous child. Chin propped on the back of his fist, he studies me. “I shall not beg. Not even for you, my precious queen.”

  A sharp gust of wind slices through us, knocking his hat off. He snatches the brim before it flies into the cracked sky.

  His glowing blue hair whips across his face as he turns back to me. “If you won’t stay and save Wonderland, I shall bring my own brand of chaos to the human realm. Fight for us, or face the consequences.”

  The flowers close in and push me toward him, rough, leafy hands scraping across my neck and cheeks, cinching my hair at the scalp so I can’t lean away. He smiles, so close that I feel the heat of his breath on my face.

  “I won’t let you,” I insist. “I won’t let you into my world.”

  “Too little, too late,” he murmurs against my humming skin. “By the time they find your body, I’ll already be there.”

  Find my body? I want to scream but can’t even manage a moan from beneath the leafy hand clamped across my mouth.

  Morpheus stands, his duster’s hem swirling at his ankles. He settles his hat in place, gestures to the flowers, then transforms into the moth that haunts my memories: black wings, blue body—the size of a bird.

  The vines drag me down, and the mud surrounds me like a syrupy, sticky fist. All outside sounds grow muffled. I’m left with only my heartbeat and my whimpers, nothing but vibrations contained by vocal cords and a cage of ribs.

  It’s impossible to open my eyelids, my lashes plastered against my cheeks so tight they can’t even flutter. Each article of clothing constricts, as if a layer of glue adheres them to my skin. I’m paralyzed. Not only physically but mentally.

  It’s too tight … too constricting. The claustrophobia I thought I’d defeated a year ago comes back in a crashing wave.

  Pitch-blackness. Dead silence. Helplessness.

  I struggle not to breathe, terrified the mud will enter my nose. It seeps inside anyway, filling my nostrils. I gag at the squeez
ing sensation in my lungs as the sludge fills my body.

  I attempt to thrash, move my muscles, but barely manage more than a spasm. My efforts draw the mud tighter around me like quicksand.

  My heart pounds and panic prickles my nerves.

  Don’t do this! I cry out in my head to Morpheus. I never thought he would take it this far. Like a fool, I believed him when he told me he cared for me.

  How will killing me fix things? I try to reason with him. But the logic goes to work on me, instead. Morpheus doesn’t do anything without a reason. He’s trying to push me into action. He expects me to free myself.

  Morpheus! I scream in my mind once more. My raging pulse echoes back.

  The swollen pressure in my lungs is agonizing. Tears burn behind my eyelids but can’t escape. My body aches from tensing against the muddy walls. I’m dizzy and confused.

  Exhausted, I start to give in to drowsiness. It’s safer there, where there are no feelings … no fear.

  My muscles relax and the pain numbs.

  “Would you fight back already!” The shout inside my head rouses me.

  I tense up again. How? I’m trapped.

  “Be resourceful.” Morpheus's voice is softer now, gentle yet prodding. “You are not alone in the mud.”

  Of course I’m alone. The zombie flowers slithered away after they pulled me down. No doubt they’re on the surface now, laughing with Morpheus. The only thing sharing my tomb are the bugs burrowing around me.

  Bugs …

  All these years I’ve been listening to their whispers. Yet I never once tried to talk back, to really communicate. Maybe they’d be willing to help, if I just reach for them.

  It takes little more than that thought, that glimmer of hope, and a silent plea asking them to dig me out, for something to puncture the mud around me.

  Bugs and worms creep along my legs. The pressure eases, and I’m able to wiggle my ankles. Next, my wrists find movement. Finally, my arms and legs are free, and I dig, working my way through the sludge.

  Up, up, up. The mud becomes fluid, and I swim my way out. Then something goes wrong. The bugs and worms make a detour and fill my nasal passages. My throat clogs with the creeping, slithering sensations. I gag, my windpipe stretching to accommodate their bodies.

  Morpheus shouts again: “Fight … fight to live! Breathe. Breathe!”

  But it’s not Morpheus yelling. It’s Jeb. And I’m not digging out of a sea of mud. I’m surrounded by water, wet skies, and paramedics. Something other than bugs is being shoved down my throat. I gasp, sucking in oxygen through a tube. Next thing I know, I’m on a gurney covered with sheets and being rolled toward an ambulance. I shiver. My soaked lashes flutter, the only part of my body that isn’t aching too much to move.

  Jeb’s face hovers into bleary view as he hunches alongside me, fingers entwined with mine. His hair drips on my forearm. His eyes are red, either from crying or from fighting the flood. “Al, I’m sorry.” He nuzzles my hand, sniffling. “I’m … so sorry.” Then he chokes to silence.

  I want to tell him he’s not responsible, but I can’t speak with this tube in my throat—and it wouldn’t matter. Jeb doesn’t remember who Morpheus is. He would think I’m having an oxygen-deprived delusion. So instead of trying to answer, I surrender to unconsciousness.

  I have the sense of something touching the birthmark at my ankle and a rush of full-body warmth. Then I wake up in a hospital room.

  A window stretches across the wall on the right side. Sunset filters through the blinds, settling in a pink haze over a rainbow of beribboned Get Well balloons, stuffed animals, flower arrangements, and potted plants on the ledge.

  Everything else is colorless. White walls, white tiles, white sheets and curtains. Disinfectant and the fruity notes of Mom’s perfume waft around me, blending with the scent of the lilies on the windowsill.

  The fresh-cut flowers grumble about their vase being too tight around their stems, but my mom’s voice drowns them out.

  “He has no business hanging around every day and night,” she says. “Go out in the hall and tell him to leave.”

  “Would you stop?” Dad answers back. “He saved her life.”

  “He’s also responsible for nearly killing her. She wouldn’t have been in danger in the first place if he hadn’t taken her there for”—Mom’s voice lowers, but I can still hear it—“God only knows what they were doing. If you don’t tell him to go home, I will.”

  Jeb. I jerk, only to have an IV tug at the tender skin of my hand. A sense of confinement rolls over me, reminding me of the mud. Fighting the sick turn of my stomach, I attempt to ask my parents to take the needle out, but my throat is on fire. The tube that was shoved down my windpipe is gone now, but it left its mark.

  My parents keep arguing. I’m so relieved to hear Dad defending Jeb, but I shut my eyes and hope they go away and leave me alone with the whispering plants. The flowers will let Jeb in. Especially the vase of white roses. I don’t have to see the card to know those came from him.

  “Mom …” I don’t recognize the sound that rattles out of my mouth. It’s more like air seeping from a tire than a voice.

  “Allie?” Chin-length layers of platinum hair frame her face as she appears over me. She’s never looked her age. Thirty-eight years old and not even a hint of wrinkles. Black lashes offset blue irises flecked with turquoise, like a peacock’s tail. The whites of her eyes are rimmed with red, a sure sign she’s either exhausted or has been crying. But she’s still beautiful: all fragile, wispy, and aglow as if the sun shimmers within her. And it does. Magic shines there. Magic that she’s never tapped into.

  The same magic that’s inside of me.

  “My sweet girl.” Relief crosses her delicate features as she strokes my cheek. The contact stirs contentment in my chest. Throughout most of my childhood, she was afraid to touch me … afraid to hurt me again like when she scarred my palms.

  “Tommy-toes,” Mom says, “hand me the ice chips.” Dad obliges and towers behind her five-foot-four-inch frame as she uses a plastic spoon to feed me from the paper cup. The ice melts, soothing my throat. The water tastes like ambrosia. I nod for more.

  They both watch in concerned silence as I take enough ice to numb my painful swallows.

  “Where’s Jeb?” The rawness in my throat returns and makes me wince. Mom’s expression draws tight. “He was in the water with me. I need to see that he’s okay.” I cough for effect, though the resulting pain is real. “Please …”

  Dad leans down over Mom’s shoulder. “Jeb’s fine, Butterfly. Give us a second to take care of you. How do you feel?”

  I twitch my sore muscles. “Achy.”

  “I bet.” His brown eyes water, but his smile is blissful as he reaches around Mom to pet my head. I couldn’t have asked for a better dad. If only my grandparents had lived to see me born. They would’ve been proud to have a son so caring and faithful to his family. “I’ll let Jeb know you’re awake,” he says. “He’s been here the whole time.”

  It’s impossible to miss Mom’s not-so-subtle elbow to Dad’s rib cage, but her objection doesn’t faze him. He rubs a hand through his dark hair and steps out the door, closing it behind him before she can work up an argument.

  Sighing, she puts the cup on the nightstand by the bed and tugs a green vinyl cushioned chair from the corner. She sits down close to me, smoothing her polka-dot silk dress.

  When she was first released, she wanted to spend every possible minute with me, catching up on all the time we’d missed. We baked together, did laundry together, cleaned house … gardened. Things most people consider mundane or unpleasant became paradise, because I finally had my mom to do them with.

  One Saturday afternoon, I took her to Butterfly Threads, the vintage thrift store where I work, and we shuffled through racks and racks of outfits.

  Most of the clothes there appeal to my style, so we disagreed on almost every option. Until we found a funky satin purple and black polka-dot dress with a l
ime green belt and matching net slip that peeked out from the hem. I talked her into buying it. But once she got it home, she wouldn’t wear it in public, even though Dad loved it on her. She said it made her feel too flashy.

  I asked her why she couldn’t do one little thing to make Dad happy after all he’d done for her. That was the first argument we had after her release. Now I’ve lost count of them all.

  I can’t overlook the significance of her wearing the dress today.

  “Hi, Mom,” I croak.

  She grins and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “Hi.”

  “You look pretty.”

  She shakes her head and bites back a sob. Before I realize what she’s about to do, she collapses, her face pressed to my abdomen. “I thought I’d lost you.” The words muffle, her breath broken and hot across the covers. “The doctors couldn’t wake you.”

  “Aw, Mom.” I pet the soft fringe of hair at her temple where it’s pulled back with a sparkly purple hairpin. “I’m okay. Because of you, right?”

  She looks up and lifts her wrist, where her birthmark coils like a circular maze. It matches the one on my left ankle beneath my wing tattoo. When pressed together, a magical surge can heal us.

  “I swore I’d never use that power again,” she mumbles, referring to last year when she healed my sprained ankle and unleashed an unexpected chain of events. “But you were under so long. Everyone was afraid you were going to stay in a coma.”

  What little mascara she has on stains her skin in tiny rivulets. The image makes me uneasy—it’s too similar to the eye patches I once had in Wonderland. But I shove that thought aside. This isn’t the time for a heart-to-heart about what happened last year.

  “How long?” I ask.

  “Three days,” she answers without pause. “Today’s Monday. Memorial Day.”

  Shock closes my already achy throat. All I remember is a deep, dark sleep. It’s weird that Morpheus didn’t visit my mind while I was unconscious.

  “I—I’m sorry for scaring you,” I whisper. “But you know, you’re wrong.”