“The asylum called this morning, before the crack of dawn.” His eyes mist, smile lines framing them. “I went and visited right after, while you were still asleep. She’s lucid … really lucid. She’s not talking to anything but people. And she ate an omelet off a dinner plate. A dinner plate, Allie! All of this without meds. The doctors are conferring … they think maybe all along she was having a reaction to the meds that somehow exacerbated her symptoms. Weird part is what led them to that conclusion. You know Nurse Jenkins?”
I nod, wary. Last I saw her, she was conked out on the bathroom floor with a hundred-volt smile on her face and an empty syringe in her hand. It looked like she took my advice.
“Well, a janitor found her in the restroom really late last night. She had given herself the same sedative they’ve been giving your mom. When she came to, she was talking about fairies walking through mirrors and stealing her keys. Thing is, the keys were right there next to her. The doctor thinks there’s something wrong with the brand of sedative they’ve been using … they’re sending it out for further testing.” He sighs and chuckles at the same time. “To think, all this time it could’ve been bad medicine making her worse. I’m so glad we found out soon enough to stop the treatments we’d planned for Monday.”
“Me, too.” I catch his hand and hold his knuckles against my cheek.
“Say.” He tugs at one of the red streaks in my hair. “This a new hairpiece?”
“Sure,” I answer mechanically, not even realizing it’s a fib until I’ve already said it.
“I like it. Well, there are doughnuts on the table. I’m going to spend the day at the asylum. Will you come by after work?”
“Nothing in this world could stop me,” I promise.
It hits me that Dad hasn’t asked about his recliner. I look toward the chair, expecting to see the appliqués torn and frayed. Instead, they’re just as they always were. Which makes no sense at all, because that’s another thing I forgot to fix …
Dad heads out the front door, turning once. “Oh, you might want to check your traps today. I found a monster moth in one of them. Must’ve come in looking to get out of the storm last night. It’ll make a great addition to your mosaics. Never seen one so big.”
Monster moth … a brick chucked at my gut would hurt less than those words.
I lay the jade caterpillar on the coffee table and have to force myself to wait until Dad’s truck pulls out of the driveway.
In the garage, I open three buckets before I find him, lying atop a pile of assorted bugs. The stench of Kitty Litter and banana peel stings my nose. I lift him out—glowing blue body and black satin wings unmoving and lifeless.
He escaped somehow … he escaped the bandersnatch’s belly and made it back here, only to be suffocated by me.
Cradling him, I walk numbly into the living room, wavering with a sick sense of guilt and loss. I place him on the coffee table next to his carved counterpart and nudge his wings with a shaky finger.
“What were you thinking?” I murmur. “Why did you fly into the pipe? You had to know better.” It hurts to see him, once so pompous and full of life, now as hollow as the caterpillar carving. I pet his cold blue body. “I believe you now, okay? I believe that you cared. And I won’t forget what you did for me … in the end.”
I won’t let you forget. Morpheus’s voice slides into my head. I jump back as the moth body begins to vibrate.
The wings fold over and grow, opening to reveal Morpheus looming atop the table, in all his freakish glory. He’s wearing a modern suit in sapphire silk that matches his jeweled teardrops. And, of course, a spectacularly eccentric hat.
I stand, struggling to mask my happiness. A smile breaks out against my will.
“I knew you’d miss me.” He lights on the floor and moves in close, pinning me to the wall with his body.
“How did you escape?”
“It would seem”—he blots my tears with his sleeve—“that the bandersnatch’s hide is indestructible from the outside in. Not the inside out.”
Realization dawns. “Oh, my gosh … you had the vorpal sword in your jacket.”
“I did indeed.” He polishes his fingernails on his lapel. “Of course, all the other victims escaped with me. Now they’re following me around like lollygagging pups. They’ve proven useful enough. Fixing things. I had one of them return the stolen money and place the purse under the store’s counter while you were sleeping.”
“You … what?”
He gestures to the recliner behind him. “Then I put several in charge of stitching up daisies on the chair.”
A wave of disbelief and gratitude washes over me. “Thank you.”
“Ah, I deserve better than a thank-you.” His dark eyes simmer with seduction.
I cross my arms at my chest. “Huh. You owe me at least that. You preyed on my mind when I was a child. Forced my mom to leave her family and be boarded up in an asylum so she could protect me. Then you lured me into Wonderland so I could fix everything for you but be left with nothing in return.”
Raising one hand, he tilts his hat to that sexy slant. “You want me. Admit it.”
Even if he’s partly right, I’ll never tell him. “Why would I want you?”
He lifts three fingers to countdown. “Mysterious. Rebellious. Troubled. All those qualities women find irresistible.”
“Such an optimist.”
“My cup is never empty.”