Unhinged: 2 (13 page)

Jeb lifts me to my feet, leans in, and kisses my forehead. “We’ll talk more tomorrow.” I take a step back, but he grabs the neck of my tunic and the heart-shaped locket underneath to keep me close. “Hey, don’t you forget that I love you.”

“I love you, too.” I hold his hand at my chest. The leaves rattle around us again before I catch myself.

After glaring overhead, Jeb gives me a lingering hug and kiss, then stretches to pull himself into the tree.

“Wait.” I snag the waistband of his jeans before he can settle in the branches. None of this has to happen. I can get his mind off Ivy and this commission for good by showing him the truth about Wonderland,
about me. “Can you pick me up from school tomorrow?”

Hanging above me, he frowns. “I’m not sure I can leave work that early.”

I grind my teeth against the disappointment.

“Okay,” he says, as if to placate me. “Okay, I’ll find a way.”

“Good. Because I’m ready to show you my mosaics.”

I only hope he’s ready to see them.

Thursday morning, I don’t take the time to argue with Mom. I choose an outfit she’ll approve of—a two-layer organza petticoat skirt that hangs past the knees of my pinstriped leggings—and step into first period as the five-minute warning bell rings. I finish my chemistry test before class is half over, which leaves an excruciating two more periods to sweat over what I’ll say to Morpheus about my decision not to leave the human realm until I fix things with Jeb.

Morpheus isn’t going to make it easy for me.

Several times between classes, I pass him in the halls with his harem. He walks by without a word, snubbing me, yet each time manages to rake his arm across mine or brush our hands. It’s painful in the strangest way.

Finally, fourth period rolls around, and I shut myself in the abandoned girls’ bathroom to wait for him. The bell rings, and soon the hall empties.

Sunlight dapples the floor through the hopper window, but the room around me is gray and still. Today the bugs have been relentless in their whispers, as if the cricket from last night is leading them in a revolt:

They’re here, Alyssa. They don’t belong … send them back.

I lean against the sink. “Who?” I whisper aloud, frustrated with the obscure warnings.

As I’m waiting for a response, I hear a rustle inside one of the half-closed stalls. I inhale a startled breath, drop my backpack, and lean down to look under the metal door, careful not to let my hair touch the damp tiles.

“Is someone there?”

No answer and no cowboy boots. Unless he’s crouched atop the toilet, it’s not Morpheus. Steeling myself, I swing the door open.

A gurgling hiss greets me along with the distorted face of the clown. It’s toy-size again and standing on the toilet lid. I screech and stumble back, tripping over my backpack. My elbow knocks the paper towel dispenser open. Squares of brown paper flutter down all around me.

Hopping to the floor, the demented toy scurries after me, razor-sharp teeth bared and snapping. One of its shoes slips on a paper towel and it falls. It crawls toward me instead, never slowing. Heart pounding, I look around for something to use as a weapon—to protect myself from that snarling mouth.

My backpack is too far; there’s nothing else within reach. My gaze catches on the dingy white ceiling and the rusty stains branching out like veins. I calm myself, breathing deeply, and imagine the stains are made of twine.

Swerving to avoid the rabid toy, I stay focused on the stains. They begin to peel from the ceiling and drape down. Concentrating harder, I coax them around the clown’s arms and legs, stringing it up like a marionette.

I control
it
now.

Fear fading to anger, I make the creepy thing dance in midair,
then envision the strings spinning up the toy, trapping it in a cocoon of yellow-brown stains. With a screech, the clown uses its cello’s handle to snap the bindings before I can enclose it, then scrambles toward the bathroom door. The toy slips out into the hall, and the door swings shut.

I slide along the wall to the floor, shaking. My rapid pulse beats in my neck. The stains, neglected by my thoughts, retract back into the ceiling, finding their permanent places once more.

I’m shocked, stunned, and ecstatic all at once. The moment I visualized exactly what I wanted the ceiling stains to become, my powers came through in less than a heartbeat. I’m getting better at this.

But why should I have to draw upon that magic in my world? Why is Morpheus’s clown still here? Didn’t it already serve its purpose?

My cheeks flame and I clap cold palms over them, trying to subdue the adrenaline rush.

Several minutes pass and the door to the hallway begins to open slowly. I fold my knees to my chest, preparing to use my magic again.

The toe of a cowboy boot comes into view, and Morpheus steps in.

Relief washes over me, chased by a flash of annoyance.

Seeing me surrounded by paper towels on the floor, Morpheus lifts his eyebrows. “Building a nest?” he asks. “There’s no need to start acting like a bird simply because you have a propensity for flying.”

“Just … shut up.” I struggle to get to my feet, but my soles keep slipping on paper towels. He reaches out a hand. I reluctantly take it and stand.

Before I can break away, he clasps my fingers and rotates my arm in the dim light, observing my sparkly skin. It’s a visual manifestation of my magic … a result of using my powers.

“Well, well. What have you been up to?” he asks, grinning. There’s a glint of pride behind his teasing eyes.

“As if you don’t know.” I escape his grip, frowning at him as I check over my shoulder in the mirror to be sure my eye patches haven’t appeared. “What are you trying to prove?” I ask, relieved to see I still look normal although I feel anything but. “Why do you keep bringing that thing around?”

Silence. His confused frown in the reflection makes me furious. He has the ability to look completely innocent even when I know he’s as pure as a pirate.

I turn to face him. “If you didn’t bring it here, you had to at least see it.”

“It,” he says.

“That freak-show toy!”

He smirks, a familiar look on Finley’s unfamiliar face. “Well, seeing as there are boxes all over your school with toys inside, I should say yes. Yes, I have seen a toy or twenty.”

“I’m talking about the clown you sent me at the hospital. Don’t pretend you had nothing to do with that.”

“I didn’t send you any toy at the hospital.”

I growl. Of course he’s not going to admit sending it, any more than he would admit bringing it here.

I push by him, glancing out the door. First one side of the hall, then the other. There’s no one and nothing besides the charity boxes. I start to step out to dig through the donations. If I shove the proof in his face, he’ll have to come clean.

Morpheus grips my elbow and drags me back inside, putting his body between me and the door. “You’re not going anywhere. We have mosaics to decipher and a war to win.”

I glare at him. “I don’t have the mosaics.”

“Pardon?” Morpheus asks, the anger in his voice edging me closer to the wall. Paper towels slide under my feet. “I gave you one thing to do.
One
. You’ve no idea how important they are to our cause.”

Squaring my shoulders in determination, I shake my head. “Doesn’t matter. I’m not leaving yet anyway. So stop bullying me.”

“Bullying?” His true face appears, barely visible beneath Finley’s features. The jewels under his eyes flash, as if someone implanted multicolored fiber-optic lights beneath his skin. The dark markings they’re connected to are nothing but faint shadows, an echo of the brilliant weirdness that is Morpheus.

“There’s no need for me to bully. You
are
coming to Wonderland. Your heart, your soul—they’re already there. Try as you might, you will never be able to remove yourself from a world that beckons to your very blood. From a power that begs to be unleashed.”

I cringe, thinking of my bizarre dance with the clown minutes ago and my magical mishap last night with the willow branches.

“You will meet me after school,” he continues, “in the north parking lot. And bring your mosaics. After we decipher them, we’ll decide our next step. No more excuses. You belong to Wonderland now.”

I lift my chin. “I belong to myself, and I’m not leaving until I’m ready.”

Morpheus scowls, and the hint of jewels blinks a brassy orange—daring and impatient. He studies Jeb’s necklace. “You belong to yourself, aye? You expect me to believe this isn’t about your human toy?”

“No, this is about the Shop of Human Eccentricities.”

His smudged eyes narrow, lit by a glint of interest. “You had a memory, did you?”

“As if you’re surprised. You triggered it.”

“Ah,” he says and pulls back with a dreamy look on his face, neither denying nor confirming my observation. “Those were good times. Mutants, butterfly wings, and tulgey shelves.”

I shoot him an irritated glare. “That’s just it. What do tulgey shelves have to do with anything? Why that memory?”

He shakes his head. “Why are you asking
me
? Your subconscious was the one that chose to remember it. Perhaps it had less to do with the shelves than how you were triumphant against them. Hmm?”

“Stop dancing around my questions. I want to know … since when is being only half of something the best of anything?”

His mouth purses. “Being a full-blood netherling does make Red superior,” he agrees, and I suppress a flush of annoyance at his egotism. “But weaknesses can also be advantages in the right hands. Pure netherlings can only use what is in front of us, as it is. Queen Red can animate loose vines, chains, other things. But
you
can create life out of the lifeless by making something entirely different. As a human child, innocent and filled with fancies, you learned to use your imagination. That’s something we don’t experience.”

My head’s spinning, trying to absorb his explanation. It fits perfectly with what just happened … how I crafted marionette strings out of water stains to trap the toy clown. Also, the metal butterflies I formed in my memory. “I’ve never understood that. Why netherlings don’t have typical childhoods.” My statement is more rhetorical than anything. I know better than to expect an explanation.

Morpheus’s dark eyes deepen with a wistfulness I’ve never seen
before. “Perhaps that’s a discussion we’ll have one day. For now, just know that I have faith you can meet Red head-on and win. When have I ever put you in a situation that you couldn’t handle?”

I open my mouth to start a list, but he shushes me with a fingertip on my lower lip. My jaw clamps tight as I consider whether it would be worth it to bite him. The one thing that stops me is I’m pretty sure he would like it.

“You always come through victorious,” he insists. “With panache.”

“No thanks to you,” I grumble.

He clicks his tongue. “Stop being cranky. You know what that does to me. Makes it impossible to concentrate.” He holds my gaze just long enough for me to see the faint sparkle of fuchsia under his eyes. The color of affection. “The biggest disadvantage to your human side is that you’re a slave to your mortal affections and inhibitions. That’s what we need to work on before we’re off to Wonderland.”

My guard goes up—a knee-jerk reaction. “And how do you plan to work on it?”

“Let me worry about the logistics.”

At that moment, the bathroom door swings open.

Morpheus draws me close, hands on my waist. I struggle to pull away, but it’s too late. Although the light shining from the hall is blinding, I can make out a girl’s silhouette and blond hair.

“M?” Taelor’s voice breaks the silence. “Why did you want me to meet you here—” She steps into the dimness, a look of shock on her face as she recognizes me.

Morpheus’s lips turn upward in a smile of pure satisfaction.

Blood rushes to my face.

He set me up.

Just before I break free he manages to kiss my forehead.

I wipe it away with the back of my hand. A furious scream burns inside my chest, but I stifle it. All I need is to draw a bigger audience. Morpheus would love that.

“I hate you,” I mouth silently.

“Sorry, beautiful,” Morpheus says to Taelor without breaking our gaze. “Alyssa followed me in. We had some reacquainting to do.”

Taelor’s mouth gapes. Shock and hatred flash in her brown eyes.

I grab my backpack and shove past, pausing in the hallway to face her. “It’s not what you think.”

Her mouth finally closes enough to form a sullen smirk. “It never is with you, is it? You have Jeb so fooled. Perfect, innocent little
skater girl
.” There’s so much poison dripping from her words that I could swear she’s been soaking her tongue in arsenic.

Morpheus looms behind her—a silhouette of wings and bravado only I can see. He offers a half bow, the master puppeteer acknowledging his puppet. Taelor’s been waiting for a year to get back at me for stealing her boyfriend, and Morpheus has found the perfect way to ensure nothing interferes with his plans to make a martyr of me.

My chest burns. I have no way to convince Taelor of my innocence, so I start for the stairs and concentrate on the forward momentum of each foot, blocking out their conversation. I don’t have to hear to know that Taelor is grilling Morpheus for details about how well “acquainted” we are. He couldn’t have found a better unwitting accomplice, or one with a bigger mouth.