Ensnared (20 page)

Voices from the kitchen nudge me awake a second time. I pull on Jeb’s sweatpants and my plastic boots and head downstairs. Jeb and Dad have been there awhile, judging by the empty mugs and the plate spotted with honeycomb-flower crumbs.

I’m thrown off by the distorted sense of time here. Since Jeb painted the ocean as a night scene, it’s still dark out, but it must be morning because Dad looks rested.

Jeb, however, doesn’t.

The circles under his eyes are more defined, exaggerated by the bright glow within his irises. He’s in holey jeans and a white T-shirt
smeared with red paint. One look at the matching smudges on his hands, and I know he’s been creating something new. I wonder what it might be.

As I take the last step down, Jeb stands and rakes aside some hair that’s fallen across his forehead. The action borders on shy and self-conscious, but it doesn’t take long for his impassive façade to drop back into place. “Now that you’re up, let’s get you two some clothes.” He offers an apple and a bottle of water from our duffel bag of supplies. Looks like his sea-horse patrol was successful.

“Breakfast,” he says, waiting for me to take the food.

I pause. “How did you get here? We have the boat.”

“I walked across the ocean,” he answers, not missing a beat.

His declaration last night, that he’s a god, hits me full force. “You did?”

The flirty tilt to his mouth is as unexpected and lovely as an eclipse. “Actually, I painted more than one boat.”

“Oh, right.” Grinning, I take the fruit and water he’s holding. Our fingers touch. A muscle in his jaw ticks, then he turns to Dad and gestures for us to follow.

I fall into line, munching on the apple, hopeful. Yesterday I thought Jeb was lost to me. But if he still has his sense of humor, I can reach through the barrier of anger.

Once we’ve crossed the ocean, he leads us back to the greenhouse studio. Overhead, white and black moths cloak most of the glass roof. They pile up and creep across one another, forming a living blanket that looks like a midnight sky specked with stars. The result dims the room to shadows. A sheet of soft daylight filters from the only glass panel left bared—creating the disorienting illusion of night and day all at once.

A palette of various colors waits atop the table. The familiar scent of the paint comforts me. I don’t even question where he’s getting his ingredients to make it. Even though it smells normal, its origins are probably magic.

The studio appears bigger this morning in the absence of Jeb’s landscape masterpieces and easels. The only canvas that remains is a sheet along a wall, draped from ceiling to floor. There’s a cheval mirror on one side of the room, and Japanese screens obscure two of the corners. The red cranes embossed atop the panels move as if alive. A moth drops from its place on the ceiling, lands on the farthest screen, and is gobbled up by one of the painted birds with a squishy crunch.

Dad takes it all in with a disturbed frown.

As for me, I’m mesmerized. Last night I was leery of Jeb’s handiwork, but today a tickle stirs inside my blood—the resurgence of my madness. Jeb’s aberrant creations, their wildness and macabre functions, seem to feed my netherling side.

“First,” Jeb says, talking to Dad as he lines his brushes and mechanical pencils along the table, “we have to draw your shadow.”

He has Dad take off his shirt and shoes and roll his pants to his knees. Then he poses him in front of the canvas and snaps on a lamp. Bright light imprints Dad’s form on the sheet.

“Hold still,” Jeb says as he sketches the image. I’ve missed watching him as he works. And to witness the power brewing beneath his skin as he breathes real life into his creations . . . it adds a dimension we never could’ve shared in the human realm.

Like he said last night, he understands the allure of magic now, the passion and the freedom that goes along with giving our masterpieces the ability to interact with the world. The darkness in me
swells with fascination while the human in me nudges a warning—tiny yet powerful . . . demanding to be heard.

Part of accepting power is acknowledging how intoxicating it can be. Jeb’s becoming an addict, just like his dad. I’ve been drunk on magic and madness myself. The only way to find sobriety is to balance it with the best parts of being human. But it won’t be easy to remind someone of humanity’s virtues when they’ve been crushed as many times as Jeb.

“Once I finish the outline,” he says, drawing Dad’s lower half, “I’ll fill it in with paint. Then you’ll need to back up into the painting before it dries. It has to be joined with your skin to be able to follow you anywhere. It’ll stay intact as long as it doesn’t touch water. Since I manipulate the weather and landscapes, that won’t be an issue.”

I lift an eyebrow. “So, you’re basically playing the part of Wendy.”

Jeb pauses and glances at me. “Windy?”

“Wendy, from
Peter Pan
. You’re stitching Dad’s shadow into place.”
Peter Pan
was his favorite fairy tale as a child. His mom read it to him every night.

There’s the hint of a shy, boyish grin on his face—the one he used to give me when I’d catch him off guard. Then his smile is gone and he’s back to concentrating on his work.

His detachment is like a splash of cold water. Dad winks subtly my way, encouraging me to relish the victory, however small it was.

Jeb finishes his sketch on the canvas and starts adding wings. “Unlike Al”—curves and lines flourish flawlessly with a graceful sweep of his hand—“we don’t have the equipment built in. The safest way to travel here is to fly, so you’ll need wings for our trip to the Wonderland gate.”

“We’re going to the gate today?” I have mixed feelings about the
news. I know that if I leave without facing Red, it will come back to haunt Wonderland and the ones I love again. She’s proven that she won’t be gone until I
make
her gone. But I also want to get to Mom as quickly as we can, and it’s impossible not to be excited when Jeb has decided he’s coming. “So you’re going to leave with us?”

Dad watches me with contrition in his eyes.

“You misunderstood,” Jeb answers, punching holes in my buoyant hopes not only with his clipped response, but the flattened tone of his voice. He returns to the table and mixes paint until he has a black pigment with purplish undertones. “Only your dad and I are going today. His choice.”

Dad offers an apologetic frown. “We plan to take the supplies to the guards and feel things out,” he explains. “You’re staying here. So we can be sure everything is on the up-and-up before you and I try to leave together.”

You and I.
The room grows gloomier.

I clench my hands to fists. “There’s no way I’m sitting here while you two face all the weirdness out there. I’m going.”

I want to add one thing more: that if Jeb thinks for one second I’m going to let him stay behind when we leave for Wonderland, he’s mistaken. I’ll use my magic to force him to come home if I have to.

The thought of his graffiti army stomps through me. I had no power over them. Jeb is my match now, in every way. It would be a difficult fight to win.

“Allie, please,” Dad presses.

“What?” I snap. “You still don’t think I can hold my own? Even after everything you’ve seen?”

“That’s not it at all. It’s your bloodlust I’m worried about. None of us knows where Red is. But it’s a given she knows you’re here now
after our encounter with those birds. I don’t want you running into her. Remember our deal? We get in, we get to the gate, we get out.”

I can’t help but notice he omitted the part about getting Jeb. Frustration burns my eyes. There’s nothing I can do about Jeb until I have some time with him. But maybe I can use his and Dad’s absence today to my advantage. After they leave, I’ll go out on my own and search for Red. I have a feeling the diary will lead me straight to her.

I look up at the moths on the ceiling to maintain an angry facade. If Jeb were to find out about my plan, he could paint a gilded cage around me and I’d be trapped. “So, what am I supposed to do all day while you’re gone? Play with bugs?”

Jeb crouches to fill in the sketch’s lower half with paint. His lips twist to a cruel sneer. “That’s your favorite pastime, right? And you’ll have your prince of moths for company.”

I keep my expression unreadable. Morpheus staying behind is actually a good thing. He can accompany me to find Red. He knows his way around this world and understands its occupants better than me. The only downside is my vow to him, how determined he is to collect, and how a part of me is starting to crave those twenty-four hours at his side in Wonderland.

“So . . . you’re not taking Morpheus?” I manage to sound nonchalant.

“He’d be lost without his griffon.” It’s impossible to miss the smugness in Jeb’s voice. “He can’t fly without it, and he needs its homing device to lead him back here if he gets turned around.”

“So
that’s
his compass.”

“Right. All my paintings have the ability to find their way back to this mountain—to me—no matter how far they wander.”

“But Morpheus can use his shadow.” I attempt to reason with him.

“I took it away. It needs some repairs,” Jeb says—an answer for everything.

Unable to hide my annoyance, I blurt, “Well, that seems like a pretty stupid move. There’s safety in numbers, you know.” I bite my tongue so they won’t know I’m the one needing a safety net.

“We’re taking reserves.” Jeb motions toward one of the Japanese screens in the corner. The crane flaps its wings and pecks at the panel it’s stuck to.

“What, the
cranes
?”

Preoccupied and silent, Jeb guides Dad to back up into the painting, then seals them together with a flash of magic from his brush.

Dad steps away and the painting peels off the canvas—a quiescent, fluid trail along the floor—looking like an ordinary shadow with the addition of wings.

I wander over to the Japanese screen Jeb pointed to, curious.

“Al, wait,” Jeb warns, dropping his brush in some water and rushing my direction.

Before he can reach me, I peer behind the screen. A drop cloth hangs in place atop something shaped like a hat rack. I tug the covering away.

CC screeches and scrambles out, almost knocking me over in its haste to escape.

I scream.

“Hey!” Dad starts toward the creature.

Jeb catches it before it can run out the door. “It’s okay. I’ve forbidden him to ever touch either of you again.” He pats his doppelganger’s
shoulder. “Show them, CC,” he urges—his voice tender, as if speaking to a child or a pet.

The creature turns and I steel myself for the macabre fissures in its face. Instead, a red heart-shaped patch covers its eye along with the gaping holes I saw yesterday. There’s a slit in the middle for CC to see out. The other perfect eye and cheek are uncovered, and the elfin markings sparkle in the daylight. It’s easier now to make out the creature’s porcelain coloring—somewhat lighter than Jeb’s olive complexion. With the heart over its eye, CC resembles a harlequin from a pantomime. All that’s missing is a diamond-patterned costume instead of jeans and a T-shirt.

Considering the red smudges on Jeb’s clothes and hands, this is the project he was working on before coming to the island.

“You made a mask for CC this morning?” I ask.

“I made it for you. Last night. I didn’t want his grotesque appearance scaring you again.”

The kindness of the gesture touches me. No wonder the circles under Jeb’s eyes seem so much darker today. I wonder if he slept at all.

He sends the creature out and avoids looking at me. “I’ll coax your shadow out when it’s time to fly,” he says to Dad.

Dad nods and watches the dark shape move with him along the floor.

“Clothes are next,” Jeb says, rinsing his brush. “They’ll be removable once they’re dry, and you can wear them multiple times. But the paint has to touch as much of your bare skin as possible to make them fit.”

Dad stalls. “As much as possible?”

“You’ll wear a loincloth. That’s how I make roach-boy’s clothes.”

Imagining Jeb and Morpheus in such an intimate position is both sexy and comical. As vain as Morpheus is, a lot of bickering about fashion choices must’ve taken place.

“What about Allie?” Dad asks, a paternal defensiveness raising the pitch of his voice.

Jeb concentrates on the paint he’s mixing. “Unless she wants to wear my clothes, we don’t have any other option.”

I shrug, accentuating the size of his shirt. “These are about to fall off. They won’t work for traveling.”

“She’s not going to wear just a loincloth while you paint on her,” Dad insists.

“Of course not.” Jeb tosses two rolls of elastic bandages my way. “I found these in your duffel bag. They’ll adhere to the paint to become part of the outfit. Cover your underclothes. Leave your arms, stomach, and legs bare. It’ll be no worse than wearing a bikini. And there’s a clip for you to pin up your hair.”

His curtness stings. Four weeks ago, he wouldn’t have suggested me wearing something like that without anticipation in his eyes. In fact, before all of Wonderland broke loose at prom, we were talking about taking the next physical step in our relationship. The biggest step. It’s excruciating to know I’ve lost the power to move him on a human level.

I slip behind the closest screen and strip down, then pin up my hair.

Dad comes out from his screen first. While Jeb works on his clothes, I take my time so I don’t have to see my dad in a loincloth. Of all the horrifying things I’ve witnessed, that would rank up at the top.

I wind the bandages around Morpheus’s lingerie and craft a
swimsuit any mummy would be proud of. After I check to be sure Dad and Jeb are done, I step out, using the flannel shirt like a robe.

Dad takes a quick look at me and seems satisfied I’m properly covered.

My jaw drops. He’s cloaked in feathers, has four wings, and reminds me of the goon birds we encountered yesterday. “What is that?”

“We’ll blend in better if we look like Manti’s lynch mob,” Jeb explains, rinsing his brushes. “They run surveillance across the sky. I have a goon costume of my own. It’s the perfect camouflage.”