Splintered (Splintered, #1)(28)

I never meant to drag him into this.

Interlocking our fingers, I coax his palms from my face. “Maybe there’s some way to send you back.” Although I have a bad feeling there’s not. Something he said earlier sinks in. “Wait … what do you mean, you slipped on the porch? I heard the limo drive away.”

“Tae and I had a fight. She left for prom without me. I wanted to check on you one last time—couldn’t leave things like they were. You didn’t answer the door. It was unlocked, so I … that must be when I hit my head.”

I grip his shoulders. “You didn’t hit your head. We’re really here. This is real.”

“Uh-uh.” He steps back. “That would mean you really jumped into the mirror. I really dived in to catch you. Then I got stuck in a tree and had to climb down to find you. No. Not possible.”

“This shouldn’t have happened,” I mumble, wrestling my guilt. “Wonderland is my nightmare. Not yours.”

“Wonderland?” He points to the tunnel overhead. “That was the rabbit hole?”

“Yeah. Alison had clues to this place hidden behind the daisies on Dad’s chair. That’s why I tore it up.”

One look at Jeb’s face and I know he doesn’t buy it.

Taking a deep breath, I slip off the backpack and draw out the brochure and treasures. I consider telling him about the moth and my dark guide, but those details stick inside me, an immovable mass.

“I haven’t had a good look at most of the things yet,” I add. “But I think they’re leading me here. I think—I think the Lewis Carroll book wasn’t exactly fiction. It was a real-life account of my great-great-great-grandmother’s experiences, with some discrepancies. For one, there was nothing mentioned about a sundial covering the rabbit hole.”

We both look at the wink of light overhead.

Jeb rocks back and forth, as if he’s seasick. He gets his bearings and levels his gaze at me again. “Did your dad know about this stuff you found?”

“No. If he did, he would’ve signed Alison up for shock treatments even sooner.”

“Shock treatments? I thought she hit her head in a car accident. Got brain-damaged.”

“I was covering. There was never an accident. She’s been Wonderland-crazy for years. Now I can prove she’s not. That it’s all real.”

Doubt darkens Jeb’s face. “We have to get back first. And that’s not going to be easy.”

He’s right. There’s no door. It’s like we’ve fallen into a genie bottle and the only way out is to become smoke and drift up.

“We’ve got to get help.” He fishes his cell phone out of his jacket. After punching several buttons, he frowns.

“No service?” I ask.

He drops his phone into my backpack and sifts through the contents, his expression determined. “What else do you have in here?”

A bee swoops around me and I swat it away. It must have come in through the opening overhead. “Bottled water … a couple of energy bars. School junk.”

I crouch beside him and reach in, making sure he doesn’t open the pencil box; then I push aside Alison’s Wonderland book to grab the white gloves I found in the chair. I take off my fingerless ones and pull the others on in their place. They’re a perfect fit. Next, I secure the hairpin just above my left ear. In a vague, misty memory, I used to play dress-up in these items with my netherling companion. Now it’s an impulse I can’t resist.

Jeb fishes out Dad’s Swiss Army knife. Eyebrows raised, he holds it up.

“I borrowed it from a Boy Scout?” I blink.

He slides it into the pocket of his tuxedo pants. “No dice. I pounded my share of the locals in seventh grade and kept tokens from the battles. Boy Scouts don’t carry knives this sweet.”

My shakiness eases as he flashes a small smile. I’m not sure if he believes any of this or still thinks he’s dreaming, but at least he’s trying to keep a sense of humor.

He zips the backpack. The slide of the metal teeth echoes in the room. The bee buzzes around my head again. It registers that these are the only two sounds I hear. No white noise. Not a whisper, not a murmur, not a hint of a word.

For the first time in six years, I know silence.

I close my eyes and let it seep into me, soft and numbing.

Silence. Is. Bliss.

Inspired by that thought, I stand up to explore.

“Stay close, skater girl.” Jeb retrieves the flashlight, which ended up on the round table in the middle of the room. I shouldn’t be thinking it, after bringing him here, but it’s amazing how good it feels to hear my nickname.

I stop next to the purple-striped walls, hung with upside-down candelabras. Black-and-white tiles cover the circular floor. A pile of creamy, fragrant wax the size of an anthill rests beneath each dripping candle. How the wicks stay lit is a mystery. Even though the wax melts, the candles don’t seem to shrink.

“I don’t believe it,” Jeb says. He holds up a dark brown bottle with a label tied around its long neck like a price tag. “‘Drink me,’” he reads aloud.

“No way.” I’m at his side in an instant.

“Shrinks you or something, right?” he asks.

“According to the guidebook. Is there a petit four in that glass box under the table?”