Unhinged: 2 (24 page)

“Allie, you’re making me nervous. What’s going on?”

My heartbeat hammers loud enough that I hear it in my ears. I’m so close to breaking loose, so close to showing him my magic. The earbud cords tremble—a movement so minute, only I can see it. Then I lose my nerve and look at my eels instead, breaking my concentration.

“Mom and I had a fight yesterday,” I mutter. “I—I pushed her, and she fell into the mirror. That’s what made it hit the dresser. That’s why I shut myself up in my room. And she told you I wasn’t feeling well to cover for me so I wouldn’t get in trouble. I’m really sorry.”

Dad’s skin flushes dark pink. “You
pushed
your mother?” His gaze deepens with disappointment and apprehension—a look that makes my confidence shrink to the size of an ant. “What’s with these violent outbursts?”

“Outbursts? This is the first one.”

“It isn’t. I heard you yelling at your mom in your hospital room. Was this over Jeb again? Did you sneak out last night to see him? Is that why you’re wearing your shoes in bed?” The color in his face isn’t a blush anymore. It’s bordering on purple.

I stand up. “No! None of this is about Jeb.” I can’t have him doubting Jeb again, not now that they’ve finally worked things out. “I took a couple of sedatives after my fight with Mom. I guess they kicked in before I had time to undress.” A full-blown lie.

When he keeps watching me, unconvinced, I add, “I hate that we fought, that I almost hurt her.” Even more, I hate that I’m defending her when she should be defending herself to both of us.

Dad’s fingers drum the dress bag—unconsciously keeping rhythm with the nervous twitch in his eyelid. “What was this fight about? It had to be big, to make you push your mother into a mirror.”

“Well. I didn’t
exactly
push her …” I want to say more but draw a complete blank.

A look of discernment crosses Dad’s face. “Wait. It was over the car, wasn’t it?”

“Huh?”

“The Mercedes that was in our driveway when I got home.”

“Uh …” I don’t know what to say. Mom’s apparently told him something, and I have to go along with her story.

“Your mom said you wouldn’t give her the keys when she asked for them.”

I glance over at the corner behind my door where Morpheus’s vest, shirt, and hat lay crumpled last night. They’re gone, along with his keys, and Mom just handed me my alibi on a silver platter. “Did she tell you she tried to take the keys from me and I wouldn’t let go?”

Dad’s gaze hardens. “No.”

“They slipped out of my hand and caught her off balance.”

“You mean that’s how she fell into the mirror?”

I nod, despising myself with every move of my head.

Jaw clenched, Dad stares into me. “Look, I agree with your mom. It’s generous of that exchange student to offer you his car until Gizmo’s tire is fixed, but you can’t drive it. If you were to get even a dent in it, he could turn around and sue us for more money than your college education is worth.”

“All right,” I whisper, relieved the explanation for the car is out of the way. But that’s the only relief I get because now Dad’s looking at me like I’m a stick of dynamite he needs to defuse. “Dad, I get it.”

“I don’t think you do,” he says, shaking his head. “I’m guessing you think your mom got overemotional about the car.”

“Like she does about everything,” I mumble.

“Well, this time she has a reason. When we were first dating, I had a wreck.” He glances down to where his toes wiggle inside his woolly socks. “It was in a sports car … not as nice as the one in our driveway but similar. I took a curve too fast and hit a tree. The car was destroyed. I was in a coma for months.”

My breaths become shallow. I can’t risk inhaling too deep and missing even a word. This is something sacred, a part of their history they’ve kept from me.

“I know you wish I’d talk more about my mom and pop,” Dad continues, though the change of subject throws me.

“No, Dad. I get why you don’t like to.”

“It’s because of the wreck, Allie.”

I stare dumbly at him, trying to connect the dots. “They were in the car with you?” He never told me that's how they died …

The dress bag crunches as he crosses his ankles. “Well, no. It’s because of the wreck that I don’t
remember
them. If it wasn’t for your mom, I wouldn’t remember anything about my childhood. She put a photo journal together for me so I would know my parents’ faces, since they had passed away before I met her. I couldn’t remember that I have no sisters or brothers, or cousins or relatives who were interested in knowing me. I didn’t even remember meeting your mom. That’s how bad the damage was. Is. My life before I crashed that car, before your mom … it’s just gone. As if I never lived it.”

There’s a prick in my heart, like a thorn piercing me from the inside out. “Dad, I’m sorry.” The apology feels inadequate. Memories are such precious and priceless things. It’s always made me sad to think about Jeb losing his from Wonderland. But this is so much worse. “You never told me.”

“You already had a messed-up childhood. I wasn’t going to add anything to that. You needed at least one parent who had a semi-normal past. Right?”

I shrug, though I don’t know if I agree. Maybe if we’d both been honest all along, we could’ve helped each other.

“So, do you see now?” he asks. “Why she doesn’t want you driving that car? It’s too easy, when you have unharnessed power at your fingertips, to forget you’re not invincible. To make rash decisions that can affect your whole future.”

His words are so perfectly cut for me, they could be the missing pieces of my own thoughts and fears.

“I want you to work things out with her before you go to school,” he says, in a final tone. “And I want you to make a better effort to get along with her. She’s been trying so hard with you.” His jaw clenches. “Make me proud, Alyssa.”

Alyssa.
He hasn’t called me by my first name alone since the time I came home in ninth grade with a C in geometry. It’s worse than if he’d yelled at me.

“All right,” I mumble.

“You better get ready for school,” he says. He stands and drops his keys on my bed. “You can drive my truck. I’ll call someone to take me to Micah’s Tire Repair. They’re supposed to be done with Gizmo this morning. Oh, and I parked the Mercedes in the garage last night to keep it safe. Bring your friend home after school to pick it up. Okay?”

“Okay,” I say, though I have no idea how I’ll accomplish that.

Dad looks like he’s about to leave. Instead, he stops to lift the dress bag from my bed. “Is this what I think it is?”

At first I have no idea what he means—I’m not even sure
I
remember what’s in the bag. Then I nod.

He opens the zipper, tugging out the mask and a corner of the dress.

“So you were serious about going to prom tonight?” He looks suspiciously close to happy again. He’s wanted me to go to a school dance since I was a freshman. He signed himself and Mom up to be chaperones the minute he heard I’d told Jeb yes, but it’s obvious he never believed I’d follow through until now.

He lays the bag back on the bed and glances at the flowery tiara pinned on the hanger. His famous Elvis smirk appears. “You’re going
to wear a crown? Aw, Allie, you’ll look just like a princess. Just like when you used to play dress-up.” His goofy grin is pure nostalgia, and it makes me want to cry. He strokes the mildew-tinted lines of the mask. “Well … a princess who’s been through a bit of a rough patch. I like it.”

“Thanks.” I attempt a smile as I wrestle the dress back into the bag and zip it closed, hating that I’ll disappoint him yet again when I don’t show up for the dance tonight.

A worried wrinkle appears between his eyebrows. He catches my hand and drags me close for a hug, tucked safe under his chin. I snuggle into him, my daddy … my champion. And the love of Mom’s life. It’s amazing what she did for him, putting that photo journal together, giving him his past back. That doesn’t sound like a woman who resents her marriage. Maybe she really did choose Dad over the crown. Maybe there really was more to the story. I need to give her the benefit of the doubt and hear her out—if we ever get the chance to discuss it again.

“Listen, Butterfly,” Dad whispers against my head. “You haven’t seemed yourself, but I get it. It’s the end of school. You have tests, prom, graduation, and on top of all that, you almost drowned. It’s understandable that you feel a little unhinged. Maybe you need to talk to someone other than me or Mom.”

A burning sensation rises in my esophagus. I push back enough to glare up at him. “What, like a psychiatrist? No, Dad. I’m not going crazy.”

“That’s not what I meant. You could go to your school counselor. You just seem to be teetering a little. We can put you right again. Let us know what you need.”

My 6:45 alarm buzzes and we jump.

I crawl across my bed to shut it off. “Can we talk about this later? I should get ready.”

“Sure,” Dad says. He stalls outside my door. “There are scrambled eggs in the kitchen. And don’t forget to apologize to your mom before you leave. I’m going to take a shower, to give you two some privacy.”

I promise him I’ll fix things. I do want to talk to Mom, for so many reasons, but the instant Dad shuts my door, I know that I won’t follow through. Not this morning … but hopefully later today, after I take care of my royal advisor.

I cram Dad’s truck keys into my pocket, then throw open my closet. Rabid’s standing there with his skeletal hands intertwined, thimble dangling cockeyed from an antler prong and mismatched socks hanging off his ears. For one weird moment, he reminds me of the White Rabbit I always read about in the Carroll tales.

In spite of my emotional uproar, I can’t stop the smile that breaks on my lips. “Thanks for being quiet. You did good.” I pat his bald head.

He blinks bright pink eyes at me. “Rabid White, hungry be.”

Opening my empty backpack, I wave him inside, hoping netherling stowaways like eggs for breakfast.

Turns out netherlings do like eggs, at least the buttery kind my dad makes. After Rabid and I have breakfast, I scoop some extra into a Tupperware bowl. Along with a bag of Mom’s cookies and a bottled water, I put the bowl into my backpack to keep my royal advisor occupied on our way to school.

For such a small creature, he has a huge appetite, and a huge knowledge of the inner workings of Wonderland’s politics. During the drive, he sits out of view on the floorboards of the passenger side, head poking from the backpack zipper. He answers every question I ask as he gobbles up eggs.

According to Wonderland law, there are three ways the blood
heir of a netherling queen can relinquish her throne once she’s been crowned: death, exile, or losing to another blood heir in a magical tournament. I turned my throne over to Grenadine, but that doesn’t count as an official abdication. She can only be a temporary substitute, since she’s not of our lineage. Now that the kingdom’s in trouble, it’s up to me to step back in, take up the crown, and defeat Red. It’s like Morpheus said while we were in the car: I’m the only one who can release and wield the magic that is now a part of my blood.

So I’m stuck for life, which is another fact Morpheus failed to mention before he placed that thing on my head last year.

Then again, now that I’m coming to terms with my netherling inheritance and responsibilities—and how they’re entangled with my mortal side—I’m not sure I
would
give up my crown-magic to just anyone, even if I could. The recipient would have to want what’s best for both Wonderland and the human realm.

If only I could divide myself in half and be two people: The human side could stay here with Jeb and my family, and the netherling one could reign over Wonderland, keeping the peace with an iron fist.

It’s 7:20 when I pull into the north parking lot, forty-five minutes before the first bell. I park Dad’s truck next to the Dumpsters where Morpheus waited for me after school yesterday.

The lot is abandoned except for two vehicles, both of which I recognize. One belongs to the principal, and one is Mr. Mason’s new car with the annoyingly ineffective alarm system.

Even though Morpheus stayed out of my head like he said he would, I can still sense him in the background, watching how I handle things. Just like when we were kids together. As mad as he
was when he left, I’m confident he wants me to succeed. Not only that, he
wants
me to find him. He doesn’t do anything without a reason. It must be important for me to discover where he went on my own.

I just need to figure out what he meant by “hiding among lost memories.”

Before I go in, I try to call Jeb one last time. It’s not like him to be so quiet. I’m starting to wonder if he got my text last night at all. But if he didn’t, why hasn’t he called to check on me and Mom? Doesn’t he care? At least Ivy’s out of town, so I don’t have to torture myself worrying about her.

Jeb’s phone goes to voice mail again. This time I leave a message. “I’m at school. Text me. I need to talk to you.”

I stare at my phone. Something’s still bothering me: Nurse Terri.

Pleasance University Medical Center doesn’t have an employee directory online. On a whim, I do a search for nurse uniforms along with the name of the hospital. An announcement pops up, posted on the News page from a week ago: