“Yes,” he answers. “I can open a portal, and we will step through—” White breaks off, watching me in confusion as I move away from him and towards my backpack. I dump out all the papers and junk onto the floor and begin shoving things inside. “What are you doing?”
“Packing my bag. What does it look like I’m doing?” I pick up a bunch of hair ties and shove them into one of the outside pockets. I’ve never been happier to have a military style backpack. There are more pockets than I usually know what to do with, but it’s heavy duty. You’d never realize how weak normal backpack straps are until you shoved it full of science books. The salesman had assured me the military one wouldn’t tear, and he’d been right. This one has lasted through the years, never once fraying.
“That easy? You’re just willing to jump into a portal with me to a fictional world?” He’s staring at me in a mix of confusion and wonder. It isn’t that difficult of a decision for me, though, not really.
I look at White, my face serious.
“I’ve been waiting for this moment my entire life,” I say, shoving a deodorant stick into the bag. “I wanted to join the rebels. I waited for my Hogwarts letter to come. I longed for Gandalf to show up and tell me we’re going on an adventure. When a white rabbit shows up in my life and says ‘I want to take you to Wonderland’, you’d better believe I’m going to pack my bags.”
His eyebrows raise at my words, watching as I shove my toothbrush and hairbrush into the backpack.
“Wow,” he finally says. “I’m surprised.”
“About which part? That I’m a huge geek or that I’m willing to go with you?”
“Both.” He chuckles. “You’re not at all what I expected.”
“You expected me?” I grab a handful of underwear from my still packed suitcase and shove them inside. I try to not to think too hard about the fact that I’ve shoved in some of the lace I never wear, too.
“Yes. I’m certain you were the reason I needed to be at the lab. I was waiting for you.”
I pause and point at him.
“I feel like this is the part where you tell me about an epic prophecy, and that I’m the chosen one.”
White laughs.
“There is indeed a prophecy, but I won’t get into it yet. We have a bit of a journey first.”
I shove a few pairs of jeans and all of my t-shirts into the backpack.
“I figure we’ll only have a few hours before someone finds Josh’s body. Most employees show up around six, but some could show up earlier for work.” For some reason, I say that line without a thread of remorse. I wonder at the lack of feeling I’m having towards the death of my coworker even if he was some sort of serial killer. I put it down to a potential mental wall I built about the situation. Perhaps, I’m putting all of my focus into the other exciting events happening to avoid that one. I pick up my phone. “Does Wonderland have cell service?”
White laughs and shakes his head.
“Your phone won’t work there, no.”
“How about electricity?”
“We aren’t savages. For the most part, think of it as a more dangerous version of your world. Technology from your world doesn’t translate well to Wonderland, however.”
“Okay. Do I need a weapon?”
White perks up, his ears twitching as he eyes me.
“Do you know how to use anything?”
“I’m pretty good with a knife. I took years of classes for it.”
“Then, yes. Bring a weapon, but we do have some there. The Hatter stocks an armory.”
Don’t ask yet, I tell myself at the mention of the Hatter. I’m so curious, but there are other things to find out first. He stands from his position and leans against the wall closest to him.
“So, why is Wonderland dangerous? The stories aren’t like that.”
“I’m afraid it’s too long of a story to tell right now.”
I walk to the wall and unhook the picture of Neptune and I from its place. I stroke my fingers over the frame, before turning and sticking it inside my backpack. I don’t know if I’ll return from Wonderland, if this is a temporary adventure or a permanent one. I don’t want to leave her behind if I never came back.
“Are there things you aren’t telling me?” I ask, meeting White’s eyes. He frowns, his ears twitching the slightest bit. He seems to hesitate for a moment, before he answers.
“Yes.”
I don’t expect that, but the fact that he’s being honest with me, even if he’s not telling me everything yet, puts me at ease. I walk towards him and grab his hand. His fingers are long and tapered, and they thread through mine perfectly. His rough palms press into my soft ones.
“Can I trust you?”
“You shouldn’t,” he replies, his hand clenching like a lifeline, like he’s scared I’ll pull away.
“That wasn’t the question.”
“I won’t let anything harm you.”
I smile at his answer. He’s dripping danger and charisma. I know he’s capable of destruction just by the way he carries himself. There’s a truth that threads through his words. I don’t know why, but I trust him completely.
“Okay,” I say, looking around my apartment one more time. Most of the boxes are stacked up, unopened, their contents still packed away inside. I grab a photo album from the table and shove it inside the backpack, too. I zip it up and shoulder the bag, shifting under the weight. “I’m ready.”
White smirks, his face turning devilish.
“Are you sure?” he asks. He doesn’t wait for me to answer. He pulls a card from the pocket of his stained waistcoat and throws it on the floor.
A swirling portal opens in front of us, and I take a step back in surprise. It’s one thing to be told about a portal. It’s completely different to see one open up in front of you on your living room floor. There’s an intense pull from the depths of the portal, and I slide forward. Panic fills my body, and I clench hard onto White’s hand.
“We have to jump in,” White shouts. The portal is loud, the swirling picking up everything loose in the apartment and throwing it around.
“I’m not so sure about this,” I yell back.
“I won’t let anything hurt you,” he promises. When I still hesitate, he nods his head. “We’ll jump together.”
I bite my lip and nod. He moves us forward towards the edge. The portal pulls at my clothing, and I have the sudden image of us being sucked up like a vacuum. White holds me steady, keeping the portal from grabbing us before I’m ready.
“On three!” he shouts, his hand tight in mine. My heart rate picks up, the thought of jumping into a portal to another dimension both exciting and terrifying. This is it. This is the adventure Neptune wanted me to go on.
“One.” White’s voice pierces the whistling of the portal, reaching my ears as clear as day. I take a deep breath and everything seems to slow. “Two.” I feel a hard tug on my hand as White grins and jumps inside the portal, yanking me behind him. Bastard never said three, but I don’t have time to curse him for the slight. I’m in open air for a moment before the portal sucks us inside, and then we’re falling.
My apartment disappears, and the briefest hesitation flickers through my mind.
Too late, I wonder what exactly I’m getting into. But no adventure comes without danger. I just hope that White is my Yoda, rather than my Vader.
Chapter Eleven
Falling through a portal isn’t what I expect. In my mind, I imagined a long fall that was kind of like floating after you got past the stomach flip of actually falling. White’s portal isn’t anything close to that.
It feels like my organs are being crushed as I fall, a pain so intense that I can’t breathe, like death is waiting around the corner. It’s so terrifying that I can’t even scream, my voice failing me, my vocal cords locked in place. My vision goes hazy, but I fight the blackness threatening to take hold and keep my eyes open.
The portal is a swirling vortex of light, green, white, and
silver all mixed together in a trippy vision. Every now and then, there’s a break in the light, like a hole that’s been made in the portal, that shows hard-packed dirt. Inside the dirt, I catch glimpses of grotesque things embedded in the earth. I see bones, skulls, weapons, things I have no name for. Creatures reach through the holes towards me, their claws barely missing us as we speed by.
Beside me, White falls, his hand still tightly clasped in my own. The fall doesn’t seem to be affecting him the way it does me. He’s so relaxed, lounging back in comfort, as if we’re not falling into a bottomless pit. He smiles when I look at him. My face twists into a grimace I mean as a smile, but with the pain racking my body, I can’t do anything else. He frowns at the look. He tugs me towards him and wraps his arms around me in comfort.
“Are you okay?” he mouths. The words are stolen by the vortex, no sound reaching my ears.
I can’t answer. I’m afraid to shake my head in case it worsens the pain, so we fall together silently, wrapped in each other’s arms.
After what seems like hours of torture, the vortex begins to spin faster and appears to shift in a different direction. The air gets crisper. Suddenly, we’re free falling in open air, the portal colors gone, replaced with oddly shaped black and white tiles. White shifts in the air just in time to land on his feet hard, the impact jarring me from the haze I’d been in. He gently sets me on my feet, and I sway, my legs shaking and numb like they’ve fallen asleep.
“What the hell?” I croak, clenching hard onto White’s waistcoat.
“Sorry. I forgot that the portal can affect you if you’re not from Wonderland. Are you okay?”
“Besides feeling like someone took a spoon and swirled around my organs, yes.” My voice is slowly coming back, my vocal cords stretching.
“Good.”
I give White a weird look and step away on my wobbly legs, glancing around the room. The first thing I notice as I move away from White’s scent of wilderness and vanilla is the putrid smell of the room. I immediately cover my nose.
“What the hell is that smell?” I fight the gag in my throat, my eyes landing on a table in the center of the room.
White barely spares the table a glance, patting the pockets of his waistcoat and pants.
“I’m not sure you want to know.”
“Just tell me.” I’m never one to ignore facts because they aren’t pleasant. Besides, I really need to know what I’m up against here. It’s a trait I have. I had even asked the mortician to walk me through the steps when it was time to bury my sister. I had cried during the talk, but it had helped me feel better, to know how the process worked.
White sighs. “It’s the table cloth that smells rancid.”
“Why does it smell that way?” Meat smells rancid. I study the tablecloth, but I don’t move any closer. The smell is overpowering from our position now. I can’t imagine up close.
“When the Red Queen came back to Wonderland, she went on a rampage. The Hatter was captured because he thought she was still his friend. He couldn’t see that she wasn’t the same, that the little girl he knew had turned into a monster. The tablecloth is made from the skin she flayed from his back.” White speaks the words with detachment, as if they are simple facts that are listed in a book. There is no emotion attached to the words, and I wonder about that. Had it happened so long ago now that it isn’t even worth the emotion anymore?
I fight the nausea in my throat, the horrible images running through my mind as I imagine how the tablecloth was made. Now, I can see the coloring is that of skin, and that stitching runs across it to form the table covering. On top of the table, sits a tea cup, as if beckoning me to drink from it. I don’t move.
“And the Hatter is still alive?”
White nods as he pulls a black case from his pocket.
“Stay away from the table. The tea is poison. Don’t accept food or tea from anyone you don’t trust.”
“And how do I know who to trust?”
White sighs, exhaustion in the sound. How many times has he had this conversation?
“I’m sure you’ll know. And if not, I’ll help you.” He pauses as he opens the little black case. “Actually, let me be the first to tell you not to accept tea from Cheshire. He likes to pull pranks, and I wouldn’t put it past him to target you.”
“Cheshire sounds like a delight,” I mumble.
White snorts. “He’s a delight, alright.”
He gestures for me to follow him towards a normal-sized door set into the wall in front of us. For the first time, I notice that the walls are lined with doors, all various sizes, shapes, and designs. The door in front of us is a pretty teal color, iron designs twisting across the face like vines. The door handle shines like a diamond. If it is a diamond, it’s as big as a baseball.
White squats down in front of the door and pulls some tools from the black case. He sticks them inside the keyhole and begins tinkering with it before I realize what he’s doing.
“You don’t have a key?” I ask curiously.
“No one besides the Red Queen has a key anymore. But she didn’t bet on me learning how to pick locks. A handy skill.” White grins up at me before returning his attention to the small clicks coming from the lock.
“So, what’s the story with the Red Queen? You keep mentioning her, and all I keep imagining is the cartoon version.”
“It’s a long story,” he replies just as the lock clicks. “I’ll take you to March at some point, so you can see everything.” White stands with a look of triumph. He turns the knob and opens the door.
I get my first true look at Wonderland, into a dark forest. Just as I take a step forward, a high-pitched shriek pierces the air, and it feels like shards of glass are being shoved into my ear canals. I slap my hands over them in an attempt to block the noise just as White slams the door shut again, cutting off the sound abruptly. I feel wetness trickle down my neck, and when I draw my hands away, they’re smeared with blood. My ears are still ringing from the sound.
I glance at White. His ears have suffered a similar fate. Blood trickles from his ears and down over his pale hair.
“Fuck,” he mumbles, rubbing the appendages. “Figures the Red Queen has her guard dogs here. We’ll have to use another door.” Worry clouds his face.
“What was that?” I ask when the ringing subsides.
“She has her Bandersnatch guarding the door. Nasty creatures. My hope is we don’t run into any of them on the way to the Hatter’s. Of course, now we’ll have to take a longer way.” He sighs and taps his lip, looking towards the doors lining the walls. “Which door? Which door?”
I watch as he moves to the other doors, walking slowly. Some of them, he shakes his head and dismisses them. Other ones, he pauses for a moment before moving on. When he stops outside an overly large white door, a red X painted across its face, he shudders and steps away. I eye the door warily, trying to discern what could cause him to have the reaction.
At a smaller black door with a skull and crossbones on the top, I swear I hear him mumble a soft “asshole” before bypassing it to stand in front of an ornate golden door. Seeming to come to a decision, he kneels down again and works on the lock.
“Where does that one lead?” I ask, stepping over to him.
“It’s still Wonderland, but another side of it, the far outreaches. We call it the Dark Lands.”
“The Dark Lands? Is that like your version of Hell or something?” Bad places always have matching names, and this doesn’t seem any different. Whatever it is, it won’t be fun.
“It might as well be,” he replies, focusing on the lock. “It won’t be a pleasant trip, but we need to get to the Hatter’s. Clara will want to meet you.”
“Who’s Clara?”
White pauses, his ears twitching with the soft sounds of the lock, listening for the right frequency.
“The Hatter’s mate.” There’s a thickness in his voice that I choose not to comment on.
“So, what can we expect
in the Dark Lands?” The name doesn’t lend much description, and if it’s akin to Hell, I’d like to know what we’re getting into. Not a positive start to the adventure, but I’m not too worried. White doesn’t seem to be.
The lock clicks, and White stands up. He twists a knob in the shape of a black gargoyle head and opens the door. Heat immediately fills the room, the thickness of it almost choking. I can see darkness and flames, a charred landscape as far as the eye can see.
White frowns and looks out into the distance, his fingers threading through my own. My gut clenches in anticipation of his answer. When he finally speaks, my heart skips a beat.
“Nightmares,” he whispers, “the Dark Lands are full of Nightmares.”
Chapter Twelve
“What the hell are we going through there for then?” I ask, taking a step away from the open doorway and dropping his hand. If it’s filled with Nightmares, I don’t think it’s the best option.
“It’s either this or face the herd of Bandersnatch.” White watches me, unperturbed by my hesitation. It’s almost like he expected it, but he’s patiently waiting for me to get over my mini freak out. I want an adventure, sure, but I don’t really want to die during it.
“What about the other doors?” I glance at the closest option, a door that I’d have to crawl through rather than walk. It’s yellow and the doorknob is green.
“They don’t all go to Wonderland.”
My curiosity is piqued, and I wrinkle my brow.
“Where do they go?”
“Now is not the time for that conversation.” White sighs and glances at his watch. “We’re running late, and now, we’ll be so much more behind going this way. We need to move.”
“What are we late for exactly?” I ask, taking a careful step towards the darkness. White’s eyes stutter, but he doesn’t answer.
Late as a Rabbit (Sons of Wonderland Book 2) Page 7
