It starts to feel like it used to, the two of us melting into one another while outside distractions fade.
When another song clicks on, a sultry and rhythmic number, my fingers slink along his spine in time with it, finding their way under his T-shirt’s hem. I drag my nails lightly over the toned ridges of his back and kiss his neck.
He moans, and I smile in the dimness, sensing the change in him. A change I control. He eases us down to the quilt, guiding me to my back. A tiny part of me wants to finish talking about things that feel unfinished. But even more, I want him like this, intent on nothing but me, his weight closing in, comforting and demanding at once.
Elbows propped next to my ears, he holds my head while kissing me, so gentle and thorough, I can taste the strawberry he ate a minute ago.
I’m breathless, dizzy … floating so high I barely notice his phone buzzing with a text.
He tenses and rolls off to slip the phone from his jeans pocket. “Sorry,” he mumbles and swipes to read the text.
I groan, missing his warmth and weight.
After reading silently, he turns to me. “That was the reporter from Picturesque Noir. He said they have a two-page spread available if I can move up my photo shoot at the gallery to this afternoon. After that they want to take me out to dinner for the interview.” As if catching the disappointment in my eyes, Jeb adds, “I’m sorry, Al. But a two-page spread … that’s a big deal. The rest of the weekend I’m yours, from morning to night every day, okay?”
I start to point out that I haven’t seen him for a month and today was supposed to be all about us, but I bite back my tirade. “Sure.”
“You’re the best.” He gives me a peck on the cheek. “Do you mind gathering up the stuff? I have to call Mr. Piero so he can set up my work in the display room.”
I offer a curt nod, and he heads to the front of the tunnel to call his boss at the art studio where he restores old paintings when he’s not out showing his own work. Darkness spreads between us—sad, shadowy shapes outside the lantern’s reach that look as dejected as I feel.
I sit up and gather the basket and Jeb’s iPad, so busy trying to hear his conversation—something about which showroom has the best lighting for the photographer—I barely notice how the bugs’ murmurs have escalated until they unite as one:
You should’ve heeded him. He warned you in your dreams… now all your doubts will be washed away.
Drip … drip … drip.
I scramble to stand as a drizzling erupts from the dark end of the tunnel behind me. The sound lifts the tiny hairs on the back of my neck.
Drip … drip … drip.
I debate calling Jeb back to investigate, but a vivid blue tip of a wing painted on the wall catches my eye. It’s just outside the ring of light. Strange that I didn’t notice it earlier.
I inch toward the fluorescent drawings and, with a few quick yanks, drag down Jeb’s light strand. The cord coils to the ground, then trails behind me as I start to move closer to the mysterious winged image, tugging the battery pack with a scraping clunk.
Drip … drip … drip.
I peer into the pitch-blackness at the tunnel’s far end but am more interested in the graffiti now. With the cord wrapped around my fingers, I move my makeshift mitten of lights across the winged portrait to illuminate it, piece by piece, like a puzzle.
I know that face and the jewel-tipped eyes. I know that wild blue hair and those lips that taste of silk, licorice, and danger.
Eagerness and dread tangle inside my chest. The same convoluted effect he always has on me.
“Morpheus,” I whisper.
The bugs whisper back in unison:
He’s here … he rides the rain …
Their words work like a spike through my spine, nailing me in place.
“Run!” Jeb’s shout from the front of the tunnel shakes me out of my mental haze. His boots slosh toward me through water I hadn’t noticed gathering at my feet.
“Flood!” Jeb yells, stumbling into the darkness between us.
I panic and take a step toward him, only to have the strand of light come to life in my hand like a wiggling, snaky vine. It wraps around my wrists, twining them together, and then my ankles. I struggle against the cord but am tied up before I can even scream.
A gushing wave sweeps in from the dark end of the tunnel and knocks me off balance. I land flat on my stomach. Cold, dirty water sloughs into my face. I cough, trying to keep my nose above the current, but the light strand holds me paralyzed.
“Al!” Jeb’s terrified shout is the last thing I hear before the water swirls around my trussed-up limbs and whisks me away.
The string of lights around my ankles and wrists drags me against the current, farther into the tunnel, where the water is black. It’s like being submerged in cold ink. I fight to get my head above water but can’t. The chill leaves me numb, desperate to breathe.
Jeb finds me. Gripping my underarms, he draws me out enough that I get one swallow of air, but another surge of water tumbles him toward the pipe’s opening and the vinyl cord jerks me in the opposite direction. I can tell by his distant shouts that he can’t follow. I’m glad he’s caught in the current. He’ll be safer once the rush of water deposits him outside.
Things I learned in Wonderland a year ago … powers I practice alone in my room so Mom won’t catch me and freak out … come back, as forceful as the cord dragging me underneath the gushing waves.
I relax my muscles and concentrate on the strand of lights, envisioning them alive. In my mind, the electricity that pulses through their wires becomes plasma and nutrients. They respond like living creatures. Their lights brighten enough for me to see underwater as the wires animate. Problem is, I haven’t been consistent with my magical exercises, so even though I’m giving the strand life, I have no control. It’s as if the lights have minds of their own.
Or maybe they’re under someone else’s influence.
Convulsing against the need to inhale, I force my eyes to stay open under the water. The cold makes them ache. I’m shuttled into the deep end of the tunnel, as if riding an aquatic chariot harnessed to electric eels. The cord hauls me toward a door—small and ancient—embedded in the concrete wall. It’s covered with moss and out of place here in the human realm, but I’ve seen it before. I have the key to open it around my neck.
It doesn’t make any sense that it would be here, so far from the rabbit hole in London, which is the only entrance into Wonderland from this world.
When another song clicks on, a sultry and rhythmic number, my fingers slink along his spine in time with it, finding their way under his T-shirt’s hem. I drag my nails lightly over the toned ridges of his back and kiss his neck.
He moans, and I smile in the dimness, sensing the change in him. A change I control. He eases us down to the quilt, guiding me to my back. A tiny part of me wants to finish talking about things that feel unfinished. But even more, I want him like this, intent on nothing but me, his weight closing in, comforting and demanding at once.
Elbows propped next to my ears, he holds my head while kissing me, so gentle and thorough, I can taste the strawberry he ate a minute ago.
I’m breathless, dizzy … floating so high I barely notice his phone buzzing with a text.
He tenses and rolls off to slip the phone from his jeans pocket. “Sorry,” he mumbles and swipes to read the text.
I groan, missing his warmth and weight.
After reading silently, he turns to me. “That was the reporter from Picturesque Noir. He said they have a two-page spread available if I can move up my photo shoot at the gallery to this afternoon. After that they want to take me out to dinner for the interview.” As if catching the disappointment in my eyes, Jeb adds, “I’m sorry, Al. But a two-page spread … that’s a big deal. The rest of the weekend I’m yours, from morning to night every day, okay?”
I start to point out that I haven’t seen him for a month and today was supposed to be all about us, but I bite back my tirade. “Sure.”
“You’re the best.” He gives me a peck on the cheek. “Do you mind gathering up the stuff? I have to call Mr. Piero so he can set up my work in the display room.”
I offer a curt nod, and he heads to the front of the tunnel to call his boss at the art studio where he restores old paintings when he’s not out showing his own work. Darkness spreads between us—sad, shadowy shapes outside the lantern’s reach that look as dejected as I feel.
I sit up and gather the basket and Jeb’s iPad, so busy trying to hear his conversation—something about which showroom has the best lighting for the photographer—I barely notice how the bugs’ murmurs have escalated until they unite as one:
You should’ve heeded him. He warned you in your dreams… now all your doubts will be washed away.
Drip … drip … drip.
I scramble to stand as a drizzling erupts from the dark end of the tunnel behind me. The sound lifts the tiny hairs on the back of my neck.
Drip … drip … drip.
I debate calling Jeb back to investigate, but a vivid blue tip of a wing painted on the wall catches my eye. It’s just outside the ring of light. Strange that I didn’t notice it earlier.
I inch toward the fluorescent drawings and, with a few quick yanks, drag down Jeb’s light strand. The cord coils to the ground, then trails behind me as I start to move closer to the mysterious winged image, tugging the battery pack with a scraping clunk.
Drip … drip … drip.
I peer into the pitch-blackness at the tunnel’s far end but am more interested in the graffiti now. With the cord wrapped around my fingers, I move my makeshift mitten of lights across the winged portrait to illuminate it, piece by piece, like a puzzle.
I know that face and the jewel-tipped eyes. I know that wild blue hair and those lips that taste of silk, licorice, and danger.
Eagerness and dread tangle inside my chest. The same convoluted effect he always has on me.
“Morpheus,” I whisper.
The bugs whisper back in unison:
He’s here … he rides the rain …
Their words work like a spike through my spine, nailing me in place.
“Run!” Jeb’s shout from the front of the tunnel shakes me out of my mental haze. His boots slosh toward me through water I hadn’t noticed gathering at my feet.
“Flood!” Jeb yells, stumbling into the darkness between us.
I panic and take a step toward him, only to have the strand of light come to life in my hand like a wiggling, snaky vine. It wraps around my wrists, twining them together, and then my ankles. I struggle against the cord but am tied up before I can even scream.
A gushing wave sweeps in from the dark end of the tunnel and knocks me off balance. I land flat on my stomach. Cold, dirty water sloughs into my face. I cough, trying to keep my nose above the current, but the light strand holds me paralyzed.
“Al!” Jeb’s terrified shout is the last thing I hear before the water swirls around my trussed-up limbs and whisks me away.
The string of lights around my ankles and wrists drags me against the current, farther into the tunnel, where the water is black. It’s like being submerged in cold ink. I fight to get my head above water but can’t. The chill leaves me numb, desperate to breathe.
Jeb finds me. Gripping my underarms, he draws me out enough that I get one swallow of air, but another surge of water tumbles him toward the pipe’s opening and the vinyl cord jerks me in the opposite direction. I can tell by his distant shouts that he can’t follow. I’m glad he’s caught in the current. He’ll be safer once the rush of water deposits him outside.
Things I learned in Wonderland a year ago … powers I practice alone in my room so Mom won’t catch me and freak out … come back, as forceful as the cord dragging me underneath the gushing waves.
I relax my muscles and concentrate on the strand of lights, envisioning them alive. In my mind, the electricity that pulses through their wires becomes plasma and nutrients. They respond like living creatures. Their lights brighten enough for me to see underwater as the wires animate. Problem is, I haven’t been consistent with my magical exercises, so even though I’m giving the strand life, I have no control. It’s as if the lights have minds of their own.
Or maybe they’re under someone else’s influence.
Convulsing against the need to inhale, I force my eyes to stay open under the water. The cold makes them ache. I’m shuttled into the deep end of the tunnel, as if riding an aquatic chariot harnessed to electric eels. The cord hauls me toward a door—small and ancient—embedded in the concrete wall. It’s covered with moss and out of place here in the human realm, but I’ve seen it before. I have the key to open it around my neck.
It doesn’t make any sense that it would be here, so far from the rabbit hole in London, which is the only entrance into Wonderland from this world.
