Follow the White Rabbit (Beautiful Madness #1)(12)

“So perhaps it’s your lucky day then.”

“I don’t doubt it for a second.” He smiled, but Lucky found herself suddenly uneasy. Was he trying to flirt with her? Here? She tried to find any hidden intentions in his words, but there were none. He was simply being friendly. “It’s strange, actually. Not five minutes ago I was thinking that I could use a little luck. I feel like I’ve been walking in circles trying to find something that clearly does not want to be found.”

“Anything I can do to help?”

“Well, you see...” Marc ran his hand over the dark stubble on his chin. “I’ve been tracking some rather uncooperative wildlife.”

Lucky wasn’t sure what she had been expecting, but that wasn’t it. He didn’t have the look of a tracker, and he clearly didn’t have any feel for the forest. “Have you tried a trap?”

“A trap?” Marc cocked his head to the side. “Oh. No! I’m not looking to kill anything. Would you believe me if I said I was looking for a dimension-jumping white rabbit?”

Instinctively, Lucky took two quick steps backward. Her mind was screaming at her to grab hold of him, to just shake him until he gave her answers. But all she could do was gape back at him.

She had asked for answers, and Neverwood had listened.

––––––––

Marc led Lucky through the streets of Tildoor at a quick pace that seemed more excited than rushed. But every time Lucky would slow down and question her decision to follow some stranger home with the promise of answers, he would stop immediately and let her talk through what she was thinking. They ended up stopping four times in a town she could have run through in only a few minutes, but he didn’t seem to mind. If anything, she should have been the one to feel hurried, as there was no way to know how long she had before her next journey. But instead, she allowed herself to trust in what the forest was trying to tell her, and in her own abilities to defend herself.

She told Marc about her experiences over the past few days, though they were hard to explain. He listened without commenting, and as she spoke she could see the connections forming in his head. But when she asked him to explain why he was looking for that particular rabbit they both hoped there was only one of, he didn’t answer. He swore that he had only been doing as he’d been asked, and insisted he didn’t know much more than she did. But he did know something, and that had been enough to make her listen when he’d asked her to go back to Tildoor with him to meet with his friend.

His friend who apparently lived in the oddest looking home in Wonderland.

The house stood apart from its neighbors in both location and structure. It backed up right against the forest, standing out from the greenery like a boulder in a flower garden. The wooden house was painted in varying shades of blue, which was strange enough, but its defining feature was its shape—narrow, but with three stories, and incredibly crooked. Each level appeared as though it had been dropped haphazardly onto the last with little attention paid to placement. The second story sat about six feet to the left of the first, with the third leaning just as far in the opposite direction. Every window was a different shape or size from the one beside it, and the front door seemed to be slightly slanted, but Lucky couldn’t say for sure because it was rounded on either side.

“Are you coming?” Marc called as he let himself inside.

Lucky was still standing on his lawn, her head tilted at an awkward angle as she tried to make sense of what was in front of her.

“Yes, sorry.”

“Not to worry,” Marc said, peeking around the door. “This house has that effect on people quite frequently.”

Lucky nodded mutely and followed him inside.

She was having the strangest day. And that wasn’t even counting the odd out-of-body experience.

“Gwen, Lucky. Lucky, this is my partner, Gwen.”

Lucky had stepped through the door only to come face to face with an eclectically dressed girl about her age who seemed to fit perfectly with her strange home.

The girl didn’t respond. Instead, she pulled Marc by the arm towards the corner of the room.

“Why did you bring her here?” she hissed. Clearly Lucky wasn’t intended to overhear, but she had no intention of stepping away. If this girl had answers, Lucky would take them. Even when they weren’t being offered.

“You’ll want to talk to her. Trust me,” Marc said. His voice was patient, but it also held a touch of excitement that his friend must have picked up on as well.

Lucky watched as the girl’s retort caught in her throat. “Why’s that?”

“I’ll let her tell you about it.”

Lucky followed her hosts into their lounge area, which was larger than her entire home. Very little in the room seemed to have been chosen to compliment the rest. If that said anything about Marc or Gwen, Lucky had no idea what it was.

An oak table sat between a plaid sofa and two paisley chairs. Lucky chose the couch simply because it was closest to the exit. Gwen sat across from her in one of the chairs, but she was surprised when Marc sat beside Lucky rather than his partner. She wondered what partner was supposed to imply, but chose to focus on the issue at hand. She was here for answers, she reminded herself, not for information about Marc’s relationship status.

As Lucky opened her mouth, icy fingers clenched around her heart and a wave of dizziness flooded her mind. No!