The same inner melody that gave me courage to speak earlier warns me not to say anything about the moth, the stranger, or the music.
“From what I know about this place,” I offer, “it’s a magical realm. And the thing we just saw was a netherling … one of the occupants.”
“‘Magical’?” Jeb stares at me as if my head’s on crooked. “I don’t remember Lewis Carroll’s version saying anything about little walking skeletons.”
“Alice must’ve been too young to understand what she saw. Maybe her mind blocked out the darker details.” I glance at my gloved palms, empathizing with the desire to hide from bad memories on a level few people could.
“If you’re right,” Jeb says, “then our guidebook is screwed.” He looks at the pinhole of sunlight overhead. “The entrance is still open.” He lowers me to the ground but keeps holding my elbow.
I grip his tuxedo’s lapel. “Don’t you see? It doesn’t matter that Wonderland’s different than what Carroll wrote. All these years, Alison’s been locked up in a psych ward for nothing. It’s real. You weren’t there today. They treated her like an invalid. If they fry her brain, she might end up incapacitated forever. I won’t leave without helping her!”
“We’ve got stuff to help her now. The cake and the bottle.”
“It won’t be enough. I have to fix something Alice did. He told me—” I stop myself too late.
“Who told you?”
“I … I found a website.” I clench my jaw. I’ve already said too much.
“Some perv lured you here via a magical website?” Jeb won’t let go of my arm.
“Not exactly.”
“We’re done.” He’s not even listening to me now. “I’m getting you somewhere safe.” He slides one of the tasseled cords from the curtain behind me, and then drops it to the floor in a golden coil. “First, we get every rope and tie them together to make a lasso. Then we’ll use the furniture along the tunnel wall to get back up. It’ll be like that time we climbed rocks in the canyon a few summers back.”
I don’t know what scares me more: the fact that his plan’s so good it might work, or that I don’t want it to.
My guide’s voice returns, stern this time, almost angry. “I tire of these games. Drink from the bottle. One sip. Find me.”
I wrestle Jeb’s grip, but he’s too strong. He’s already drawing down his fourth rope when a gritty, grinding sound reverberates overhead. We both watch as the pinhole fades to blackness—the statue shutting us in.
Mouth agape, Jeb drops both the rope and my arm. I make a break for the corridor, grabbing the backpack and a candle from the wall on my way. I duck into the darkness with Jeb’s shouts ricocheting all around me.
After nearly tripping over my boot laces, I use my mouth to hold the candle so I can free one hand. I rummage in the backpack for the brown bottle. The candle’s flame casts flickers of yellow along the walls.
Jeb’s close behind. I don’t want him any deeper into my mess, but the only way I can keep him safe is if he’s with me.
I hunch down to keep going as the passage gets smaller. Lifting the chain off my neck, I wrap it on my wrist so the key dangles free at the end. Somehow I know that unless I want it to shrink, too, it can’t touch me. Far ahead, where the passage is smallest, the miniature door comes into sight.
With the backpack looped over one shoulder, I pull out the brown bottle and pop the cork, slopping a dash of liquid into my mouth opposite where I still hold the candle. The bitter flavor burns going down. I recork the bottle and tuck it away into the backpack, dropping it for Jeb.
“Just one drink!” I yell over my shoulder, and leave him the candle.
Muscles jerk—bones click. Every inch of my skin warms and tightens, as if I’m tumbling in a clothes dryer, growing smaller with each step. Nausea turns in my stomach while the corridor seems to grow alongside me.
When I look back, Jeb’s on his belly, snaking toward me with one arm outstretched to catch me in his hand. I weave between his fingers, stumble forward, and, struggling with a key now the size of my palm, I unlock the door and dive headfirst into Wonderland.
I scramble to my feet, as small as a cricket, just like in my recurring nightmare. Only this time I’m not Alice. And so far, I still have my head.
Climbing onto a mound of dirt, I take a look around. A flower garden towers above, casting enormous shadows. Between openings in the trunklike stems, a beach stretches along an endless ocean. An empty rowboat waits on the shore—gigantic compared to me. Salt and pollen season the air.
“It can’t be,” Jeb’s voice thunders.
I spin on my heel to face him, covering my ears. One huge eye peers out from the rabbit hole’s door.
“Drink from the brown bottle,” I answer.
“I can’t hear you.” His mumble shakes the ground under my feet.
I mime drinking something and hold out a forefinger, signaling the number one.
Then he’s gone.