Ensnared (18 page)

He lifts his right hand, and rolls his sleeve cuff so the tattoo
shows on his inner wrist. The Latin words
Vivat Musa
aren’t black anymore. They glow with the same violet magic as his brush did earlier, giving new meaning to their translation:
Long live the muse.

“I understand now,” he murmurs. “Why the power seduced you. With just a turn of my hand I can create, kill, maim, and heal.” There’s a dreamlike quality to his movements and words, as if he’s in a trance. Blinking, he drops his arm to his side again. “No one can ever make me, or anyone I care about, a victim again. This place isn’t hell. It’s heaven. And I . . .
I am a god
.”

The ominous declaration hangs between us. My chest caves in, as if someone punched me.

Jeb’s shimmery gaze treks across my face, then he steps out the door.

The moon appears outside the glass ceiling, gilding the surroundings with a silvery haze. Rustles erupt under the drop cloths as the paintings begin to move. They jab at the heavy covers as if trying to break free.

Biting my tongue to keep from screaming, I leap from the table and follow the man responsible for the monsters . . . the man dangerously close to becoming one himself.

“Jeb, slow down, please.”

Some six feet in front of me, he ignores my request as we plod toward Dad’s room. My legs drag as if cement blocks have dried around my boot soles, and it’s only partly because I’m tired. Even more, I’m disturbed. This winding, slanted corridor looks too much like Jeb’s house and mine, each turn embellished with familiar paintings and mosaics from our own collections. Morbid projections stick out from the walls like disembodied hands.

I hold my breath while passing, in hopes nothing grabs me. I can’t stop seeing the red snapping vines, fingers, and eyes that gushed out of Jeb’s monstrous double.

“Jeb, that creature in the hallway . . .”

“Yeah, for future reference, he’s not a
creature
. His name’s CC.”

“CC?”

“Carbon Copy. And he doesn’t have a tattoo on his arm. In case you need help telling us apart. You know, if the pointed ears and gashes under his eye aren’t enough.”

The taunting is so unlike Jeb, I don’t even know how to respond. “Those things inside him. What was that?”

“C’mon now.” He turns a corner and I rush to catch up. “You’re an artist. What are our masterpieces made of?”

Exhaustion threatens to overtake. I fight the urge to fall into a heap on the floor, determined to keep up with him on every level. “Bits and pieces of us?”

Jeb glances over his shoulder. His expression changes for an instant, as if he’s pleased with the answer. Then his emotionless façade returns, and he looks away. “Bits and pieces of everything we’ve ever imagined or experienced—good or bad. So if a painting were to somehow become real . . . instead of intestines, organs, blood . . . what would be at its core?”

“Our dreams and nightmares.”

“Nailed it,” he answers.

I cringe and watch another door go by. Is that what waits inside these rooms? Nightmares?

A spectrum of resentment and anguish colors Jeb’s past. And he’s chosen to delve into
that
palette to build his ideal world. Where are all the happy memories? The hopes? The love?

After what feels like ten minutes, we stop at a door that’s made of diamonds. I’m instantly reminded of the tree on the black sandy beaches of Wonderland. The jewels sparkle even in this low light.

Jeb stalls, his hand on the ruby doorknob. “I didn’t know you were out there today. I wouldn’t have left you and your dad alone . . . defenseless.”

I’m not sure I believe him. I want to, but after the way his creations attacked me?

No.
Jeb deserves the benefit of the doubt. This is the first real glimpse of the boy I’ve grown up with, and I’m going to fight for him.

“Nothing could’ve stopped us from finding you. We missed you. We love you.” I place my hand over his on the doorknob. “
I
love you.”

He tenses. My chest touches his side and his body reaches out to me involuntarily as his ribs expand with every breath.

“Remember what you said the last time we were together?” I whisper, my mouth at his shoulder, aching at the proximity and heat radiating there. I want to lift to my tiptoes and press my lips where his hair curls against his nape, want to feel him tremble at my touch like he used to. “You said you don’t give up without a fight. That was a promise.” I wind my fingers into the spaces between his on the doorknob.

His hand tightens. “I never promised.”

“You said it. And your word is as good as a promise. I refuse to believe that’s changed.”

He relaxes, as if I’ve gotten through. He turns his head and his scruffy jaw brushes my temple. His breath rustles the top of my hair.

The Barbie diary grows hot at my chest, lit up again under my tunic.

“You’re wrong, Al,” Jeb mumbles against me, as if the red glow brought him to his senses. “Everything has changed.”

The bitterness in his voice shatters me.

“Open,” he commands the doorknob. With a flash of purple light, it turns. Jeb drags me inside and shuts the door behind us. Disoriented, I spin around to take it all in.

It’s not a room with my dad asleep on a couch or bed. We’ve stepped into a facsimile of a beach at night. A warm, salty breeze rushes through my hair. The sound of an ocean laps at the edge of a white, sandy bank, and the ceiling is an endless sky. Moonlight shimmers off the waves and stars twinkle, casting soft light on the flower garden at our feet.

“The ocean of tears,” I whisper, overwhelmed by thoughts of the first night we spent in Wonderland on a rowboat. Even though we were in a mystical place with death and lunacy at every turn, it was the safest I’ve ever felt because I fell asleep in Jeb’s arms.

Now, following him to the shoreline in silence, all I can think of is how gentle he was then, how he rolled me to face him in the hull of the boat while I slept, how he stroked my hair and promised to watch over me.

He’s reconstructed one of the most romantic moments we’ve ever shared. Maybe that means he’s been trying to forgive me all this time.

Unless he considers this a bad memory.

“Jeb, why are we—”

“You’ll be going to the island to sleep,” he interrupts. A surge of white light sweeps by. In the distance, a plateau looms high in the middle of the ocean. A working lighthouse sits atop the rocky slope. Jeb kneels and digs out a rope hidden in the sand. He tugs, straining the shimmery fabric of his shirt. A rowboat comes into view, closer with each pull. “You’ll be out of reach of the others across the water.”

Others.
His cryptic explanation reminds me of the fairy sketch’s threat:
You should be in pieces like the others.

“What others, Jeb? What else have you made?”

He hesitates, his body stiff.

“Butterfly!” Dad’s eager shout startles me. His form takes shape in the dim light, sitting in the hull.

Jeb heaves the boat ashore.

Dad leans forward and shakes his hand. “Thank you for bringing her.”

Jeb dips his head in acknowledgment. He steps back, giving me room to climb in.

Dad holds out a palm. I reach for him, but only when my fingers meet his warm and callused skin do I relax and step over the bow. He helps me onto a seat.

“Dad, I thought you were—”

“I’m okay, sweetie,” he answers, hugging me. “I’ll tell you everything later.”

I turn back to Jeb. “You’re going to stay with us tonight, aren’t you? We have to plan how to get everyone home. Please . . .”

“I’ll take the sea horse out to search for your duffel bag,” he says, avoiding my gaze. “There are clothes in the lighthouse for tonight. I’ll see that you have your own to wear tomorrow. Then we’ll discuss getting you both to the Wonderland gate.”

“Getting
us
there?” I gape at him in disbelief. “We’re not leaving AnyElsewhere without you!”

He scoots the boat into the water. Sand grates along the bottom as we cast off. “You’ll find food in the cupboards. There’s a yellow flower indigenous to this world. Morpheus saw some wildlife eating it once. It must have all the nutrients we need, because we’ve been
living off of it and the occasional rabbit. There’s rainwater to drink. It won’t take much to fill you.” Having said that, he nods to Dad, a signal for him to row.

“Jebediah, you know you’re welcome to come.” Dad pauses, waiting to see if Jeb will change his mind. When he doesn’t, Dad picks up the oars.

Jeb watches our progress as glistening waves lap at the bow and the paddles dig through the water. The lighthouse’s beam sweeps by, illuminating the glint of his green eyes and his glowing tattoo. Then he’s gone, back the way he came, headed for the door.

Dad stops rowing long enough to touch my hand. “Allie.”

Loneliness cleaves through me in all the places that Jeb has always occupied. “He can’t stay here. He has to go back home, Dad.”

“It’s late. We’re all tired. I’m sure tomorrow he’ll see things differently. If we give him space, he’ll make the right decision. We need to have faith in him.”

“He hates me.”

Dad sighs. “No, sweetie. If that were true, then why is he still protecting you? He’s sending us to the island because he’s worried for your safety.”

“How is being on some lame island supposed to protect us?”

Dad resumes rowing. “Not sure. I was hoping he would’ve explained that to you.”

I clench my hands on the edges of the boat. “He won’t confide in me about anything. He’s even closer to
Morpheus
than me.” My bones weigh heavy, and my emotions are wrung dry. I lean my head back, closing my eyes so the sound of swirling water can unwind my knotted nerves.

“Well, it makes sense that they’re close,” Dad says. “Considering
Jeb fused with Morpheus’s magic when they came through the gate.”

My eyes snap open and I sit up, stunned.

That’s why.
Jeb’s barb to Morpheus about the pupil and the tutor, the strange purple color of the magic . . . how they’ve overlooked their hatred for each other and learned to coexist.
More
than coexist. Bond. Two guys who once were enemies have learned to rely on each other for survival.

“Allie, you okay?”

“I just . . . I wish he’d told me himself.”

“He was closed off with me, too,” Dad says. “When he first found me in the empty room where that creature left me. But we talked about my past and your mom’s predicament. I apologized for being wrong about him on prom night. He forgave me. He’ll do the same for you. Just be honest with him. Deep inside, he understands you didn’t mean to send him here.”

It’s so much worse than that. You don’t even know.
If only I had the energy to tell Dad everything, but I’m too tired to even try. The light passes over the boat before leaving us in darkness again. I won’t fall victim to the pity party gnawing at me. I’ll win Jeb’s trust back. Till then, I’ll take comfort in the fact that he can confide in Dad.

“On the upside,” Dad continues, “it looks like Jeb has the lion’s share of the powers since he’s human and the iron doesn’t affect him the same. He rations it out to Morpheus through his creations. That’s how Morpheus can perform magic without mutating.”

I purse my lips. “Wait. It was the griffon cane that was magic, not Morpheus? That’s what needed to recharge?”

Dad nods.

So, without Morpheus’s magic, Jeb would be a sitting duck, and without Jeb, Morpheus would be magically impotent—a fate worse
than death in his mind. Come to think of it, he won’t be pleased when he learns we melted his walking stick.

I lean over the edge to let my palm skim a current. “The cane turned into a puddle of paint. Jeb created it, and the water dissolved it.” I frown. “It’s the water that will protect us tonight. Not the island. But why is the rowboat still intact? And the sea horse? They’re also his creations. Why aren’t they melting?” I dry my hand on my pants.

“Jeb didn’t paint the sea horse.” Dad tows the oars through the sloshing waves. “It’s part of the wildlife here. Jeb and Morpheus tamed it. As for the boat. Maybe it has something to do with the answer he gave when I asked about that . . . thing. His image. Why it’s marred.”

“Yeah?”

“He said something about the boundaries of a painting’s reality. That whatever originates on the same canvas can coexist. Most of his paintings are contained within a setting he creates. But the few that aren’t—that he paints on blank canvases—when they stumble into another painting’s territory, unpredictable things can happen.”

I pull apart the threads of his explanation. That explains how Nikki can fly outside in the looking-glass world, and how the elfin doppelganger—CC—could wander the halls. “So, if something is painted in a scene with water, it won’t erode. But if it’s not . . .”

“Right. And I guess in the case of Jeb’s image, it got mixed up with some territorial paintings and its face was ripped to pieces.”

Dad’s words trigger the graffiti’s reaction to me:
You should be in pieces.
Morpheus said that all the creations know my image, and Jeb had mentioned something about my face turning up in his art. Which means he must’ve painted me.