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 squeezing 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 lime 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."
Tracing the veins on the back of my IV-pierced hand, Mom tilts her head. "About what?"
"My boyfriend."
A grimace tightens her lilac pink lips. She flips my hand over and studies my scars. I asked her a while back why she didn't heal my palms when I was that five-year-old child. She said she was too shocked at causing the cuts to think straight.
"He wanted us to be alone," I continue, "to give me something. A necklace." I touch my neck, but it's gone. Frantic, my eyes dart around the room.
"It's okay, Allie," she says. "Your necklaces are safe. Both of them." There's a tremor in her voice. I'm not sure if it's triggered by my scars or the necklace. She prefers not to be reminded of the madness the ruby-jeweled key unlocks. But she knows better than to take it away after the fight we had over the jade caterpillar chess piece she hid from me a few months ago.
"We went to the old part of town," I say, determined to prove Jeb's noble intentions, "because he knows how much I like the rundown theater. It started raining, so we ended up at the drainage pipe for cover."
"So there wasn't a convenience store or someplace public you could've gone to stay dry?" she asks in a mocking tone. "Guys don't drag girls into storm drains for anything respectable."
Frowning, I release her hand and tuck mine under my blanket. Hot pain races from the IV to my wrist. "He wanted privacy, but not for what you're thinking."
"It doesn't matter. He put you in danger. And he'll be doing it again if you go with him to London."
I grind my teeth. "Wait…what? So you're going to start giving us a hard time now? Of course Dad wants me to have a ring on my finger before I move in with someone. I'm his little girl. But you always told me not to rush into marriage, to feel out my life first. Have you changed your mind?"
"That's not what this is about." She hands me the paper cup and stands, walking over to the flowers on the sill. She strokes the coral-tinged petals of a stargazer lily. Earlier, pink light streamed from between the blinds; now twilight has taken its place, coloring her hair the same purple hue of her dress. "Do you hear them, Allie?"
I nearly cough up my sip of melted ice. "The flowers?"
She nods.
All I hear are the lilies purring in response to her attention. "They aren't talking…"
"Not now, but they were while you slept. The bugs, too. I don't like what they've been saying."
I wait for her to elaborate. Mom and I have noticed that we sometimes hear different things. It's as if the plants and insects can individualize their messages, choose to talk to us separately depending on what they have to share.
"They've warned me that the one closest to you will betray you in the worst possible way."
"And you think that's Jeb?" I ask, incredulous.
"Who else could it mean, if not Jebediah? Who else do you spend all your waking hours either talking to, thinking about, or hanging out with?"
My waking hours? No one besides Jeb.
But my sleeping hours…
I shut my eyes. Of course it's Morpheus. He's already betrayed me, by trying to encroach on my life in the human realm. By trying to force me to go back to Wonderland to fight a battle I'm incapable of winning.
Dread nests inside the back of my skull, making my head throb.
"Jebediah was with you last year when you went down the rabbit hole," Mom says from beside the window. The air conditioner comes on, ruffling the lilies and carrying their sweet scent over to me. "A part of Wonderland might have infected him. Maybe it's been dormant…waiting. Waiting to find a way to you."
I huff. "Technically, he was never there. That's not logical."
Mom turns, her skirt rustling as she faces me. "There's no logic to that place. You know that, Allie. No one gets out of Wonderland without some kind of stain. Being there…it changes a person. Especially if they're fully human. Has he ever mentioned having strange dreams?"
I shake my head. "Mom, you're making this so much more complicated than it has to be."
"No. You're the one complicating things. Why don't you stay in the States? There are some wonderful art colleges in New York. Let Jebediah go to London without you. You'll both be safe then."
I reach over to set the cup back on the nightstand. "Let him? I don't rule him. It was his choice to wait until we could go together."
Her hands clench the sill behind her. "If you want a normal life, you're going to have to break all ties with the entire experience and everything that played a part in it." By the hard set to her chin, I know she's not going to back down.
I don't even try to contain my outburst, even though I know it will kill my throat. "He didn't choose to be there! It's not fair for you to hate Jeb!"
I catch movement in my peripheral vision and jerk my head to find Jeb standing at the open door. We didn't hear him turn the knob, but by the wounded expression on his face, he obviously heard my hoarse shout.
The question is, what else did he hear?
