I fall into line, munching on the apple, hopeful. Yesterday I thought Jeb was lost to me. But if he still has his sense of humor, I can reach through the barrier of anger.
Once we’ve crossed the ocean, he leads us back to the greenhouse studio. Overhead, white and black moths cloak most of the glass roof. They pile up and creep across one another, forming a living blanket that looks like a midnight sky specked with stars. The result dims the room to shadows. A sheet of soft daylight filters from the only glass panel left bared—creating the disorienting illusion of night and day all at once.
A palette of various colors waits atop the table. The familiar scent of the paint comforts me. I don’t even question where he’s getting his ingredients to make it. Even though it smells normal, its origins are probably magic.
The studio appears bigger this morning in the absence of Jeb’s landscape masterpieces and easels. The only canvas that remains is a sheet along a wall, draped from ceiling to floor. There’s a cheval mirror on one side of the room, and Japanese screens obscure two of the corners. The red cranes embossed atop the panels move as if alive. A moth drops from its place on the ceiling, lands on the farthest screen, and is gobbled up by one of the painted birds with a squishy crunch.
Dad takes it all in with a disturbed frown.
As for me, I’m mesmerized. Last night I was leery of Jeb’s handiwork, but today a tickle stirs inside my blood—the resurgence of my madness. Jeb’s aberrant creations, their wildness and macabre functions, seem to feed my netherling side.
“First,” Jeb says, talking to Dad as he lines his brushes and mechanical pencils along the table, “we have to draw your shadow.”
He has Dad take off his shirt and shoes and roll his pants to his knees. Then he poses him in front of the canvas and snaps on a lamp. Bright light imprints Dad’s form on the sheet.
“Hold still,” Jeb says as he sketches the image. I’ve missed watching him as he works. And to witness the power brewing beneath his skin as he breathes real life into his creations . . . it adds a dimension we never could’ve shared in the human realm.
Like he said last night, he understands the allure of magic now, the passion and the freedom that goes along with giving our masterpieces the ability to interact with the world. The darkness in me swells with fascination while the human in me nudges a warning—tiny yet powerful . . . demanding to be heard.
Part of accepting power is acknowledging how intoxicating it can be. Jeb’s becoming an addict, just like his dad. I’ve been drunk on magic and madness myself. The only way to find sobriety is to balance it with the best parts of being human. But it won’t be easy to remind someone of humanity’s virtues when they’ve been crushed as many times as Jeb.
“Once I finish the outline,” he says, drawing Dad’s lower half, “I’ll fill it in with paint. Then you’ll need to back up into the painting before it dries. It has to be joined with your skin to be able to follow you anywhere. It’ll stay intact as long as it doesn’t touch water. Since I manipulate the weather and landscapes, that won’t be an issue.”
I lift an eyebrow. “So, you’re basically playing the part of Wendy.”
Jeb pauses and glances at me. “Windy?”
“Wendy, from Peter Pan. You’re stitching Dad’s shadow into place.” Peter Pan was his favorite fairy tale as a child. His mom read it to him every night.
There’s the hint of a shy, boyish grin on his face—the one he used to give me when I’d catch him off guard. Then his smile is gone and he’s back to concentrating on his work.
His detachment is like a splash of cold water. Dad winks subtly my way, encouraging me to relish the victory, however small it was.
Jeb finishes his sketch on the canvas and starts adding wings. “Unlike Al”—curves and lines flourish flawlessly with a graceful sweep of his hand—“we don’t have the equipment built in. The safest way to travel here is to fly, so you’ll need wings for our trip to the Wonderland gate.”
“We’re going to the gate today?” I have mixed feelings about the news. I know that if I leave without facing Red, it will come back to haunt Wonderland and the ones I love again. She’s proven that she won’t be gone until I make her gone. But I also want to get to Mom as quickly as we can, and it’s impossible not to be excited when Jeb has decided he’s coming. “So you’re going to leave with us?”
Dad watches me with contrition in his eyes.
“You misunderstood,” Jeb answers, punching holes in my buoyant hopes not only with his clipped response, but the flattened tone of his voice. He returns to the table and mixes paint until he has a black pigment with purplish undertones. “Only your dad and I are going today. His choice.”
Dad offers an apologetic frown. “We plan to take the supplies to the guards and feel things out,” he explains. “You’re staying here. So we can be sure everything is on the up-and-up before you and I try to leave together.”