by A. G. Howard
There must be soot on my skin, considering I didn’t wear any makeup. “Can’t you help me clean it off?” Anything to get him to look my way.
He keeps his gaze averted. “Use your car mirror.” The snub aches more than a scolding word or disappointed look would have.
Dad turns his back to unlock the truck and gives me one last instruction. “You won’t be leaving the house today or having visitors. You’re going to finish your last test. And you still have an apology to give to your mother. Go straight home. Understood?”
I nod. It’s not an actual lie. After all, he didn’t specify which home.
I made good use of my time, sitting in the nurse’s office while Dad had a conference with the principal and the counselor. I got the address of Ivy’s studio from Mr. Piero and entered it into my cell.
As soon as I leave this parking lot, I’m tracking down Jeb, finding my mosaics and Morpheus—begging on hands and knees if necessary for his help—and meeting Red head-on in Wonderland.
So yeah, Dad, I’m going home.
Just not to the one you have in mind.
After answering a concerned text from Jenara in which I promise to find her brother, I wait for Dad to pull out of the parking lot first so he won’t follow me. I can’t let myself think about how furious he’ll be or how much he’ll worry when I don’t show up at home. If I do, I will never have the guts to do what needs to be done.
In an attempt to look busy, I take down my braid and rub my fingers through my hair to loosen the waves. I lean toward the rearview mirror to clean the smudges off my face. One look and my stomach flips.
It’s not soot at all. My netherling eye patches have returned—a more feminine version of Morpheus’s, without the jewels. It must’ve happened when I started losing touch with my human side. No wonder everyone was looking at me so weird in the school office.
I’m braving another glance at the marks when I notice a gray and orange striped tail hanging from my rearview mirror.
“Chessie?”
The fuzzy appendage twitches.
Dad gives me a pointed glare as he’s backing out, and I pretend to dig a Kleenex from my glove box. As soon as he’s on the street, I check the parking lot to make sure I’m alone, then tap Chessie’s tail. It wraps around my finger and dissolves into an orange mist.
When the feline netherling materializes, I hold out my palm. He perches there—furry, wiggly, and warm.
“Let me guess. Morpheus wants me to find him,” I say.
His shimmery green eyes study me for a minute before he flutters to the driver’s-side window. Breathing over the glass to fog it, he etches the letters m-e-m-o-r-y with a clawed fingertip.
I put my key in the ignition. “I know. He’s waiting among lost memories. Look, I don’t have time to figure out what that means right now.” The motor roars to life. “Jeb needs me.”
Chessie shakes his head, then breathes another stream of fog across the windshield in my line of vision. This time he draws a picture of a train and a set of wings.
I sigh. “Yes, you saved me and Morpheus from the train. I remember. Thank you. Now, go back and tell him he’s going to have to wait a little longer.” I wipe away the condensation from the windshield with a Kleenex.
Chessie flaps around me. The downy white tufts above his eyes furrow.
I wave him toward the dash and slide on a pair of sunglasses. “I’m not changing my mind. I’m doing this first. You can come, but only if you don’t distract me.”
The tiny netherling plops down on the dash, arms crossed. His usual toothy smile curves to a frown, and his long whiskers droop. As I pull onto the street, a pickup passes. The driver stares at Chessie so hard he almost misses his turn.
“You’re going to have to look more … inconspicuous,” I tell my passenger.
Releasing a teensy sigh that sounds like a kitten’s sneeze, he crouches on all fours with his tail curled behind him, lays his wings flat against his back, and loosens his head so it will bob—a perfect imitation of a bobblehead car accessory.
I’d laugh if I wasn’t so worried about Jeb.
It takes twenty minutes to find the studio. It’s located at the end of a lonely dirt road eight miles south of the same housing development Morpheus and I passed yesterday.
I park on a dusty plot of land that doubles as a driveway. As soon as I kill the engine, Chessie reaffixes his head and flits to his perch on the rearview mirror, hissing.
I remove my sunglasses, scared enough to hiss myself. A half dozen dying mesquite trees surround a run-down cottage with a flat roof. Their trunks and branches are gnarled. A few of them appear to have grown into the cottage walls, as if they’re attacking the place. It’s not a welcoming sight.
Weathered wooden slats form the front and side walls. The only part of the cottage that looks new is the door, which is painted a deep red with shiny brass hinges and an oddly shaped knocker. The whole door seems out of place against the rotting background.
There aren’t any windows—at least from the front. How could there be enough light for painting in a windowless cottage? I’m starting to think I made a wrong turn until I notice Jeb’s Honda lying next to what might’ve been a rabbit hutch. It’s more like a pile of kindling and wire now.
Seeing his bike on the ground validates my worst fear: He’s been here all night. He’s either alone and unprotected, or not alone—and that might be worse.
Dread and guilt wrap around my heart. I should’ve told him the truth from the beginning. If he’d known since last summer, he would have been prepared.
My cell phone rings, startling me. It’s Dad. I turn off the ringer but send him a text:
I’ll be home soon. Try not to worry. I just need to be alone, to figure out some things.
He’ll be furious and will start looking for me immediately, but at least maybe he won’t worry as much.
I drop the phone into my backpack and turn back to the cottage. I shouldn’t feel intimidated by this run-down building after what I just faced at school. But there’s a possibility Red is here—one of the few netherlings even Morpheus fears. To think of Jeb facing her alone makes me shiver.
The wind kicks dirt across my windshield in a gritty scatter of brown. Chessie hisses again—a reminder that at least I’m not alone.
“I have to go in,” I say to him.
He grabs his tail and twirls, wrapping the appendage around his body and face to hide.
“Well, do you have any better ideas?” I ask.
He peers out, fogs the window again, and writes Find M with the tip of his tail.
I narrow my eyes. “We’ll find Morpheus after we take care of this. Now, are you coming?”
Chessie frowns, his fur puffed up like a frightened cat’s. He shakes his head.
“Fine. Stay out here by yourself, then.”
The instant I open my door and step out, Chessie’s fluttery wings touch my ear. He lights on my shoulder and ducks underneath my hair.
Relief rushes through me. He may be little, but he’s magic, stealthy, and adept at fixing things. It’s better than going in by myself.
I hold his tail for comfort as I walk to the door. Dirt clods and pebbles crunch under my feet. The bugs whisper all around. I can’t tell if they’re cheering me on or warning me; there are too many voices to pick apart.
After stepping onto the crumbling porch, I pause and stare at the brass knocker. It’s in the shape of a pair of garden shears.
Goose bumps erupt across my flesh. I look down at my scarred palms. Whoever put this knocker here knew I would come … they’re playing games with me. I grit my teeth. It doesn’t matter. I’m not leaving without Jeb, no matter how menacing his captor is.
The knob turns easily, and I push the door open but stay on the porch to look in. The place appears to be abandoned, and it occurs to me there’s one outcome that could be worse than finding Jeb here: not finding him at all.
I stick my head in farther. The scent of paint and
a pungent metallic odor hit me first. Then something else … sickly sweet and fruity … familiar enough that it makes my mouth water, but I can’t place it.
Sun rays stream from the ceiling where skylight panels make up the roof, giving the place a greenhouse effect. Cobwebs flecked with bug corpses drape from the glass and hang to the floor in places, glistening like grotesquely jeweled wedding veils. There’s one big room—not counting the loft to the left and a bathroom to my right, where a tall chest with fifty or more minidrawers stands just inside the open door. The canvas-covered walls are taller than they looked from outside. There’s no furniture, other than the portable scaffolds propped against the walls, so the sun’s reflection hazes off a dusty wooden floor.
The result is bright and ethereal … almost heavenly. Now I can see why Ivy chose this studio. I tiptoe around some art supplies, leaving the door ajar behind me. Chessie tenses under my hair.
There are paintings everywhere—three on easels covered with drop cloths, others on the canvas walls. I spin to take them all in, the wooden floor slick beneath me.
My breath accelerates as the paintings’ subjects become clear: garden shears and a child’s bloody hand; an octopus being swallowed by a clam; a rowboat afloat on a romantic river of stars; two silhouettes skimming on boards down a cliff made of sand; bleeding roses and a box with a head inside. Memories that Jeb and I made in Wonderland. Memories that no longer belong to him. Yet I’d recognize that morbidly beautiful style anywhere. He painted perfect renditions of our journey. He had to be working nonstop all night.
Somehow he’s remembered everything.
I back up and hit a rolled piece of canvas with my heel. I open it, revealing a painting of Jeb breaking into Mr. Mason’s car in the hospital parking lot, a nurse waiting beside him in a white dress.
I rock in place, feeling dizzy.
So Nurse Terri did play a part in my stolen mosaics—and Jeb helped her?
I remember Morpheus’s words: “Do you honestly think I’m the only one with the ability to slip undetected into a car with its alarm on?” He was right. Even some humans have that ability, if they know enough about cars.
But there could be an innocent explanation. Mr. Mason’s car is new, and Jeb has never seen it. The nurse could’ve lied and told him it was hers … that she had locked herself out. Once he had her car unlocked, he left. Then she stole my art—maybe under the orders of another netherling. That might explain how I never saw a fae form through her glamour.
That has to be how it happened, because Jeb would never betray me.
Morpheus was right about something else, too. I do hold him and Jeb to different standards. In the same situation, I would never give my dark tormentor the benefit of the doubt.
“Jeb!” I yell, struggling to suppress a sob. “Are you here?”
No answer, just the echo of my desperation.
Chessie weaves his way out of my hair.
“He’s in the loft … he has to be.” I say it aloud to comfort myself, although it doesn’t work. I climb the ladder. The rungs creak under my weight.
I stop once I’m high enough to see the upper level. The fruity, sweet scent is strongest here. There’s a large glass decanter turned over on the floor, droplets of what appears to be dark purple wine leaking from its wide mouth.
Jeb wouldn’t have been drinking. He almost never drinks, and especially not while painting.
Everything, including the barren wooden walls, is covered with thick, opaque webs full of bulges. There’s a minifridge and a floor lamp in the far corner. A box mattress sits next to the railing. I shake off the sudden image of my nightmare in the hospital, of Jeb’s body bound in web on a cot. This mattress might be dusty and old, but there’s nothing lying on top of it.
In fact, it doesn’t look like anyone’s been up here for years. I start to climb down, but then I spot something—the black polo and Japanese tie Jeb wore to his photo shoot yesterday—spread out in the corner closest to the ladder. Holding my breath, I return to the top two rungs, then reach out and grasp it. As I drag the shirt toward me, my three stolen mosaics come into view, hidden underneath.
I slap my hand over my mouth. The sound reverberates in the empty room and brings Chessie up beside me.
Just like at school, I can’t make out much, other than what appears to be a ravaged Wonderland and an angry queen. I wonder how Mom was able to read anything else into them.
Chessie buzzes around me, as if trying to tell me something.
Morpheus said the feline netherling’s gift is mapping out the best way to solve puzzles, then fixing them. Maybe that applies to magical artwork, too.
“Do you know how to read these?” I ask Chessie. “You were perched on Mom’s shoulder in my mirror—to help her read them, right?”
As if he’s been waiting for me to connect the dots, he dissolves into orange sparkles and gray smoke. He drifts like a cloud over the glass beads and acts as a filter, bringing clarity to the lines of the mosaics. Once he’s in place, it’s like watching a monochromatic film play out: First, there’s a giant spider chasing a flower; in the next mosaic, one Red queen is left standing amid a storm of magic and chaos; and in the last one, there’s a single queen whose upper half is wrapped in something white, like web.
Disturbing clues I can’t quite fit together.
Shaken, I descend the ladder, leaving the mosaics where I found them.
On the floor, I hold Jeb’s shirt up in the sun. Something dark is caked all across the front. The scent reminds me of blood. I suppress a moan.
“We have to find him.” I slap stray tears from my face and toss the shirt aside.
Chessie hovers around one of the covered easels. Maybe the remaining paintings will tell us where Jeb is now.
I nod, giving my netherling companion permission to do what I’m too scared to do myself.
Holding a corner of the cloth in his paws, he flits his wings and drags it away. Instead of canvas stretched over a frame, there’s a pane of glass streaked with red paint so fluid, it dried in drizzles. I study the runny lines, the image unmistakably more of Jeb’s handiwork.
The same coppery scent that was on Jeb’s shirt overpowers me. Following a hunch, I scrape off some of the red paint and touch it to my tongue. Nausea follows in the wake of the salty-metallic flavor.
Blood.
My mind tumbles to a dark, terrible place, but I haul it back and hold myself steady. Jeb needs me to be strong. I can’t imagine him draining his veins for paint like he did last summer in Wonderland. But he survived it once. He will again. He’s okay. He has to be.
I look closer at the painting. It’s familiar beyond Jeb’s style. It’s an abstract version of one of my mosaics—one of the ones now hidden somewhere under a bridge in London. Chessie helps me remove the cloth from the second one. It’s also a glassy rendition of my artwork. The last easel holds a clean pane next to three empty plastic vials. The same ones Nurse Terri used to take samples of blood at the hospital.
My blood.
Morpheus pointed out that even if Red had access to my blood, she didn’t have the imagination to set the visions free. Since I’m partly human and an artist, creation is my power.
Jeb’s an artist, too. And he’s fully human. Morpheus was right about my blood being used as weapon against me. And Jeb unwittingly wielded the sword in the form of a paintbrush.
Once again, he’s caught in the middle of my identity crisis.
My eyes well with tears, but I don’t have the luxury of time to cry.
Chessie blinks at me, waiting, and I give him permission to help decipher the artwork.
He uses his magic veil again to animate the glass paintings: What was a stationary queen on a rampage in Wonderland becomes three fighting queens, just as Mom described. They move across the glass, using magic and wit to one-up each other and gain the crown. Another woman spies from behind a cluster of eight spindly vines.
Chessie rakes his paws through the residue left
on the first pane of glass and smears it on the next glass painting, as if transferring his magic. This time, only two queens are left to battle for the crown, while the third is eaten alive by some vile creature. The mystery woman who was watching from behind the vines retreats. As she leaves, the vines go with her. They appear to be coming out of her bottom half. She’s not hiding behind a plant at all—the appendages are a part of her. And the top half is too humanoid to be a zombie flower, so it can’t be Red.
Chessie materializes and lands on my shoulder. I’m too numb to even thank him for his help. There’s little satisfaction in our discovery because I can’t understand what any of the mosaics mean. All I do know is that they’re proof that Red has used my blood to gain the upper hand in our battle. Even worse, Jeb has been in her clutches and is now gone.
My heart hurts—a pain that sucks the breath out of me. Unable to stand on my trembling legs, I sit hard on the floor, knees curled up to my chest. It’s like my sternum is caving in. All this time I was trying to protect Jeb from my past by hiding it. And now he’s been swallowed by my future.
I know I need to think beyond this world, to what this means for Wonderland. Red is one step ahead of me. She’s seen five of my six mosaics. I can only hope she wasn’t able to interpret them, because they show the results of a war that is only just starting to play out. She wants to alter the ending to her benefit, and I need to find the last mosaic so I can be a step ahead.
But she’s got Jeb.
I hold his locket to my lips to taste the metal, burying my face behind a curtain of hair. Our plans for London, our life together. His chance at being a world-renowned artist … it can’t be gone.
If it is, I don’t know how to go forward.
The door slams shut, making me jump. I shove my hair back and look up.
I nearly scream when I see Jeb standing there. I’m off the floor in an instant. He’s wearing his black jeans from yesterday, but that’s all. Even his feet are bare. Sunlight shimmers on the dusting of chest hair between his pecs. His olive skin glistens with sweat, and colorful paint smudges his torso, covering several of his scars. There’s not a hint of magic to him, yet he’s the most spellbinding thing I’ve ever seen.
