Unhinged: 2 (29 page)

There are paintings everywhere—three on easels covered with drop cloths, others on the canvas walls. I spin to take them all in, the wooden floor slick beneath me.

My breath accelerates as the paintings’ subjects become clear: garden shears and a child’s bloody hand; an octopus being swallowed by a clam; a rowboat afloat on a romantic river of stars; two silhouettes skimming on boards down a cliff made of sand; bleeding roses and a box with a head inside. Memories that Jeb and I made in Wonderland. Memories that no longer belong to him. Yet I’d recognize that morbidly beautiful style anywhere. He painted perfect renditions of our journey. He had to be working nonstop all night.

Somehow he’s remembered everything.

I back up and hit a rolled piece of canvas with my heel. I open it, revealing a painting of Jeb breaking into Mr. Mason’s car in the hospital parking lot, a nurse waiting beside him in a white dress.

I rock in place, feeling dizzy.

So Nurse Terri
did
play a part in my stolen mosaics—and Jeb helped her?

I remember Morpheus’s words:
“Do you honestly think I’m the only one with the ability to slip undetected into a car with its alarm on?”
He was right. Even some humans have that ability, if they know enough about cars.

But there could be an innocent explanation. Mr. Mason’s car is new, and Jeb has never seen it. The nurse could’ve lied and told him it was hers … that she had locked herself out. Once he had her car unlocked, he left. Then
she
stole my art—maybe under the orders of another netherling. That might explain how I never saw a fae form through her glamour.

That has to be how it happened, because Jeb would never betray me.

Morpheus was right about something else, too. I do hold him and Jeb to different standards. In the same situation, I would never give my dark tormentor the benefit of the doubt.

“Jeb!” I yell, struggling to suppress a sob. “Are you here?”

No answer, just the echo of my desperation.

Chessie weaves his way out of my hair.

“He’s in the loft … he has to be.” I say it aloud to comfort myself, although it doesn’t work. I climb the ladder. The rungs creak under my weight.

I stop once I’m high enough to see the upper level. The fruity, sweet scent is strongest here. There’s a large glass decanter turned over on the floor, droplets of what appears to be dark purple wine leaking from its wide mouth.

Jeb wouldn’t have been drinking. He almost never drinks, and especially not while painting.

Everything, including the barren wooden walls, is covered with thick, opaque webs full of bulges. There’s a minifridge and a floor lamp in the far corner. A box mattress sits next to the railing. I shake off the sudden image of my nightmare in the hospital, of Jeb’s body bound in web on a cot. This mattress might be dusty and old, but there’s nothing lying on top of it.

In fact, it doesn’t look like anyone’s been up here for years. I start to climb down, but then I spot something—the black polo and Japanese tie Jeb wore to his photo shoot yesterday—spread out in the corner closest to the ladder. Holding my breath, I return to the top two rungs, then reach out and grasp it. As I drag the shirt toward me, my three stolen mosaics come into view, hidden underneath.

I slap my hand over my mouth. The sound reverberates in the empty room and brings Chessie up beside me.

Just like at school, I can’t make out much, other than what appears to be a ravaged Wonderland and an angry queen. I wonder how Mom was able to read anything else into them.

Chessie buzzes around me, as if trying to tell me something.

Morpheus said the feline netherling’s gift is mapping out the best way to solve puzzles, then fixing them. Maybe that applies to magical artwork, too.

“Do you know how to read these?” I ask Chessie. “You were perched on Mom’s shoulder in my mirror—to help her read them, right?”

As if he’s been waiting for me to connect the dots, he dissolves into orange sparkles and gray smoke. He drifts like a cloud over the glass beads and acts as a filter, bringing clarity to the lines of the mosaics. Once he’s in place, it’s like watching a monochromatic film
play out: First, there’s a giant spider chasing a flower; in the next mosaic, one Red queen is left standing amid a storm of magic and chaos; and in the last one, there’s a single queen whose upper half is wrapped in something white, like web.

Disturbing clues I can’t quite fit together.

Shaken, I descend the ladder, leaving the mosaics where I found them.

On the floor, I hold Jeb’s shirt up in the sun. Something dark is caked all across the front. The scent reminds me of blood. I suppress a moan.

“We have to find him.” I slap stray tears from my face and toss the shirt aside.

Chessie hovers around one of the covered easels. Maybe the remaining paintings will tell us where Jeb is now.

I nod, giving my netherling companion permission to do what I’m too scared to do myself.

Holding a corner of the cloth in his paws, he flits his wings and drags it away. Instead of canvas stretched over a frame, there’s a pane of glass streaked with red paint so fluid, it dried in drizzles. I study the runny lines, the image unmistakably more of Jeb’s handiwork.

The same coppery scent that was on Jeb’s shirt overpowers me. Following a hunch, I scrape off some of the red paint and touch it to my tongue. Nausea follows in the wake of the salty-metallic flavor.

Blood
.

My mind tumbles to a dark, terrible place, but I haul it back and hold myself steady. Jeb needs me to be strong. I can’t imagine him draining his veins for paint like he did last summer in Wonderland. But he survived it once. He will again. He’s okay. He has to be.

I look closer at the painting. It’s familiar beyond Jeb’s style. It’s an abstract version of one of my mosaics—one of the ones now hidden somewhere under a bridge in London. Chessie helps me remove the cloth from the second one. It’s also a glassy rendition of my artwork. The last easel holds a clean pane next to three empty plastic vials. The same ones Nurse Terri used to take samples of blood at the hospital.

My blood.

Morpheus pointed out that even if Red had access to my blood, she didn’t have the imagination to set the visions free. Since I’m partly human and an artist, creation is my power.

Jeb’s an artist, too. And he’s fully human. Morpheus was right about my blood being used as weapon against me. And Jeb unwittingly wielded the sword in the form of a paintbrush.

Once again, he’s caught in the middle of my identity crisis.

My eyes well with tears, but I don’t have the luxury of time to cry.

Chessie blinks at me, waiting, and I give him permission to help decipher the artwork.

He uses his magic veil again to animate the glass paintings: What was a stationary queen on a rampage in Wonderland becomes three fighting queens, just as Mom described. They move across the glass, using magic and wit to one-up each other and gain the crown. Another woman spies from behind a cluster of eight spindly vines.

Chessie rakes his paws through the residue left on the first pane of glass and smears it on the next glass painting, as if transferring his magic. This time, only two queens are left to battle for the crown, while the third is eaten alive by some vile creature. The mystery woman who was watching from behind the vines retreats. As she leaves, the vines go with her. They appear to be coming out of her
bottom half. She’s not hiding behind a plant at all—the appendages are a part of her. And the top half is too humanoid to be a zombie flower, so it can’t be Red.

Chessie materializes and lands on my shoulder. I’m too numb to even thank him for his help. There’s little satisfaction in our discovery because I can’t understand what any of the mosaics mean. All I do know is that they’re proof that Red has used my blood to gain the upper hand in our battle. Even worse, Jeb has been in her clutches and is now gone.

My heart hurts—a pain that sucks the breath out of me. Unable to stand on my trembling legs, I sit hard on the floor, knees curled up to my chest. It’s like my sternum is caving in. All this time I was trying to protect Jeb from my past by hiding it. And now he’s been swallowed by my future.

I know I need to think beyond this world, to what this means for Wonderland. Red is one step ahead of me. She’s seen five of my six mosaics. I can only hope she wasn’t able to interpret them, because they show the results of a war that is only just starting to play out. She wants to alter the ending to her benefit, and I need to find the last mosaic so I can be a step ahead.

But she’s got Jeb.

I hold his locket to my lips to taste the metal, burying my face behind a curtain of hair. Our plans for London, our life together. His chance at being a world-renowned artist … it can’t be gone.

If it is, I don’t know how to go forward.

The door slams shut, making me jump. I shove my hair back and look up.

I nearly scream when I see Jeb standing there. I’m off the floor in an instant. He’s wearing his black jeans from yesterday, but that’s all.
Even his feet are bare. Sunlight shimmers on the dusting of chest hair between his pecs. His olive skin glistens with sweat, and colorful paint smudges his torso, covering several of his scars. There’s not a hint of magic to him, yet he’s the most spellbinding thing I’ve ever seen.

I’m about to tackle-hug him, but my netherling senses give me pause. Something’s not right. He hasn’t acknowledged me.

A dusty white rabbit wiggles in his arms, wrapped up in the long-sleeved T Jeb had been wearing under his polo. Judging by the grass tangled in Jeb’s hair, he’s been outside chasing the animal. He’s so intent on his catch, he doesn’t notice anything else.

“Jeb?”

“I need more paint,” he says, but the words aren’t directed to me. “She didn’t leave enough.” His voice is rough, like it hurts him to talk. He rubs the rabbit’s ears, seemingly oblivious to the way it’s struggling to get free … to how it’s wriggled out of the shirt he had wrapped around it and is leaving bloody scratches on his chest and arm. “I’ve got to have more. To prove that I’m an artist.”

Everything about this is wrong. The way he’s talking, the way he’s moving.

I step closer, cautious. He’s in a trance of some kind.

I notice his mouth, the unnatural color of his lips: dark purple.

I look around for Chessie. He’s hovering up by the skylights, watching Jeb with wide, curious eyes.

Jeb holds the rabbit in front of his face, one hand braced around its neck. “It’ll be so fast, you won’t feel a thing.”

I react without thinking. “Jeb, stop!”

My scream startles the rabbit. Its back claws thrust and leave a welt on Jeb’s chin. Cursing, he drops the animal, and it hops by me.
I dive out of the way as Jeb races after it, pounding the floor with his bare soles. He skids into the easels and knocks them over. The glass panes fall and bust into glittery shards.

It’s a strangely familiar scene. Jeb is so determined, so focused. I was where he is once, chasing a mouse across a table that was set for tea, driven by an unquenchable appetite. There are so many different kinds of hunger. Mine was for food and experiences I had never lived. Jeb’s is for his art, and to prove he’s the best.

He manages to regain his balance, pursuing the rabbit as it darts from one side of the room to the other, so relentless he doesn’t realize he’s about to run through the glass and gouge his feet.

“Jebediah Holt!” I’ve never used his whole name before. It feels dry and unnatural on my tongue, as if I’ve been licking cotton. He cocks his head and slows down enough for me to lunge at him. His shoulders hit the wall. I crash into his chest, and we both grunt with the impact.

“Al?” He cups my face tenderly, trying to come back, though still far away. “I’m so …”

“Hungry,” I offer, smelling the same familiar fruity, sweet scent that first hit me when I came in the door. That’s what was in the decanter on the loft’s floor. Jeb’s been drinking Tumtum juice. Red used it to channel his desire to prove himself into a gluttonous frenzy of artistic passion. That’s why he painted all night nonstop and never called, texted, or went home.

Only one thing can cure him of the effects of the juice, and that’s to eat a handful of Tumtum berries whole. “Chessie,” I say, holding my voice from trembling, “Tumtum berries. Try the minifridge.”

Chessie zooms up to the loft but comes back in a few seconds, empty-handed.

The rabbit bounds by, gracefully hopping across the glass without cutting itself. I fall on my butt as Jeb pushes me aside and heads straight through the shards. I can’t get up fast enough to stop him.

I concentrate on the glass on the floor, magnetizing it so it clumps together like a crocodile’s scaly tail. It sways out of the way each time Jeb’s soles come near it. With the path cleared, Jeb gains on the rabbit.

The prey hops toward the door. I scramble up and get there first, just in time to throw it open and let the frightened animal escape. I slam the door shut and press my lower back against the doorknob, blocking Jeb from following his would-be blood donor.

“Get out of the way.” Jeb’s voice is raw. His eyes lock on mine, but he can’t seem to focus. It’s like he’s looking through me. His jaw twitches and he grinds his teeth.

“Chessie!” I screech. “Berries!”

Chessie buzzes to the bathroom and disappears into a half-opened drawer. The wood rattles as he winds his way through the contents and into the next drawer. Only forty-eight more to go.

Jeb grips my arms, fingernails gouging my tender skin through my sleeves, muscles straining as he tries to move me away from the entrance. He’s always been able to lift me as if I weigh nothing, but this time, I imagine the doorknob behind me being a fist and envision its fingers uncurling, just like the doorknob that morphed into an old man’s hand in my Shop of Human Eccentricities memory. Cold metal spikes cinch and curve tight around the waist of my jeans, holding me in place.

Jeb strains harder, frustrated.

Desperate to bring him back, I tug him down and kiss him, gentle and coaxing.