“This way, please.” The beetle motioned for Morpheus to follow.
Morpheus removed his hat and raked a hand through his hair. When the insect opened the door to a windowless memory compartment, the scent of almonds wafted from a plate of fresh-baked moonbeam cookies on an end table. A cream-colored chaise lounge was wedged against a wall, and an ornate brass floor lamp lit the space with a soft glow.
Morpheus’s attention locked on the small stage across the compartment. His heartbeat thudded with anticipation, a deep and steady rhythm. Red velvet curtains waited to part at any moment, to play Jebediah’s memories on a silver screen.
“Since you’ll be riding in the boy’s head to visit his lost memories,” the beetle said, “I’m bound by policy to warn you … Human emotions can be a powerful thing. They can make you see things in an entirely different light.”
“I’m counting on that.” Morpheus smirked. “Ever hear the saying about friends and enemies?”
The beetle scratched his shaggy hide. “Um … keep your friends close and your enemies closer?”
Morpheus settled onto the cushioned lounge chair, smoothing his pin-striped pant legs as he crossed his ankles. “Even better to take a walk in your enemy’s shoes. ’Tis the best way to control their footsteps. Or erase them altogether, should the opportunity arise.”
The beetle, trembling again, punched a button on the wall with one spindly arm. The stage curtains opened, revealing a movie screen. “Picture the boy’s face in your mind whilst staring at the empty screen, and you will experience his past as if it were today.”
His spiel was rehearsed—mechanical, even—but Morpheus’s pulse raced. He waited for the beetle to shut off the lamp. As soon as the insect had left the room and closed the door, Morpheus’s body came apart at the seams—floating through the darkness as if he were made of dust motes. All the pieces reassembled themselves on the silver screen in vivid, cinematic colors, until he was inside Jebediah Holt’s head, wearing his body, feeling his emotions.
In that moment, Morpheus gave himself over to the experience, seeing things as a human for the first time in his life.
2
Memory One: Kryptonite
Jeb woke up on a swinging bed.
He was naked. Why was he naked?
Before that fact could fully register, thirty or more moth-sized sprites dropped out of the air, caressing and whispering over every part of him. He tried to move his arms and legs. The sprites’ wings—purring at the speed of hummingbirds’—released particles like dandelion fuzz that somehow immobilized him. The seeds gave off the scent of cinnamon and vanilla and flooded his consciousness until the room blurred.
When the fog lifted, he was at home in bed. Night spilled through the window, and Taelor straddled him, half dressed. French-manicured fingers trailed down the hairs of his chest and abdomen toward the waist of his jeans.
This couldn’t be right. He and Taelor had had a fight before prom, had broken up.
He gently flipped her beneath him and propped himself up on his elbows, dragging the hair from her face. But Taelor’s eyes didn’t meet his. Alyssa’s icy blue ones did—staring in dreamy, innocent wonder. His fingers grew fat and clumsy at her temples.
Al was in his bed?
No. This couldn’t happen. Alyssa hadn’t even kissed a guy yet. And Jeb had never been any girl’s first anything.
Al was untouchable to him. She’d experienced enough turbulence in her life. And he wasn’t exactly the poster child for stability.
Jerking his hands free, he rose to his knees.
“Jeb, don’t you want me?” Al asked, rubbing a palm over his chest.
He couldn’t answer. His fingers itched and felt stretchy, as if they were growing. He held them up in the moonlight, watching in horror as they fell off one by one and morphed into caterpillars. The caterpillars then inched toward Alyssa, and he couldn’t do a thing to stop them. He fell to the bed on his back, hands held above his face, staring in disbelief at the raw and bloody stumps where his fingers once were.
Screaming, Alyssa tried to scramble off the mattress, but the caterpillars caught her, creeping over her skin and spinning webs until only her wriggling form inside a cocoon remained.
“Let her go!” Jeb shouted. A light flashed across his eyes, and then he wasn’t at home in his bed anymore. He was somewhere in Morpheus’s mansion, and the sprites were rushing over his skin, hypnotizing him … using some kind of hallucinogenic pheromones.
They’re holding me hostage so Morpheus can be alone with Al. The instant that reality came crashing in, the spell broke.
Jeb tumbled off the swinging mattress and out of his captors’ seductive mist. Snagging a pillow, he covered himself. “Give me something to wear!”
The sprites floated in midair, their dragonfly eyes watching him.