Splintered

by A. G. Howard

  If reality is anything like the Alice book, she doesn’t fall so much as floats her way down. The physical laws might be different within the hole.

  So maybe it’s not how far down but how fast.

  I drop the flashlight in. It bobs down slowly, like a glowing bubble. I almost laugh aloud.

  I take a swig of water from one of the bottles at the bottom of the bag. Then I zip it closed and position the pack on my shoulders.

  Perched on my hands and knees at the hole’s edge, I have a moment of doubt. I weigh a lot more than a piece of plastic and some batteries. Maybe I should push in a few heavy rocks, just to be sure.

  “Al!”

  The shout from behind makes me scramble. Dirt gives way beneath my hands. Screaming, I clutch at empty air and tumble in.

  Inside, the hole widens. More like a feather on a breeze than a skydiver, I float, my position shifting from vertical to horizontal. My stomach quivers, trying to adjust to weightlessness.

  Overhead, someone dives in after me.

  In seconds, he latches on to my wrist and tugs to align our bodies.

  It’s impossible …

  “Jeb?”

  His arms lock us together, his gaze intent on the slowly passing scenery. “Sweet mother of—”

  “Stuff and nonsense,” I interrupt with a quote from the original Wonderland book. “How are you here?”

  “Where is here?” he asks, mesmerized by our surroundings.

  Open wardrobes filled with clothes, other furniture, stacks of books on floating shelves, pantries, jelly jars, and empty picture frames all cling randomly to the tunnel’s sides as if stuck with Velcro. Thick ivy curls around each item and embeds it in the dirt walls, pinning everything in place.

  Each time we pass something, Jeb draws me closer, his expression a mix of dread and awe. At one point, I work my arm free and snag a jar wrapped in leaves. I bring it between us and twist off the lid, then stretch out once more to leave the jar upside down, floating alongside us. A dribble of orange marmalade oozes from it and stays suspended as we drift—down, down, down until our feet gently meet the bottom, as if we’ve been lowered on ropes.

  The entrance to the rabbit hole is nothing but a pinhole of sunlight up above. We stand in an empty, windowless room, domed and dimly lit by candles hanging upside down in candelabras. The scent of wax and dust wafts all around us. My legs wobble, as if I’ve been running laps for a week. We must have fallen at least a half mile. We’re still embracing, but neither of us seems to want to let go.

  After a few minutes, Jeb eases us an arm’s length apart and stares at me—into me.

  “How?” I whisper, still unable to grasp that he’s here.

  He pales, shaking his head. “I … I slipped on the porch in the rain. That has to be it. Yeah, that’s why I’m wet. I’m dreaming this now. But …” He presses our foreheads together and I make a mental note of every other place our bodies touch. His hands glide up my rib cage before stopping on either side of my face. “You feel real,” he whispers, his hot breath mingling with mine. Every point of contact between us heats to white flame. “And you’re so pretty.”

  Okay, that’s proof he’s delusional and in shock. First off, he’s never said anything like that to me. Second, my makeup has to look like soggy newspapers by now.

  The key. It’s a wish granter. My dark guide told me to want with all my heart. So when I visualized Jeb by my side before stepping in, because I wanted him with me, he came through, too.

  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, aft
er 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?”

  As I stick the bottle into my backpack, he crouches. “Cake on a satin pillow. Looks like raisins on top. They spell the words ‘Eat Me.’”

  “Yeah. The cake that makes you big again.”

  He whips the bandana off his tux sleeve and wraps up the box with the small white pastry. “I’m assuming you want it, too, for evidence?”

  I nod. But it’s not evidence we’re gathering. Something tells me I might need to use this stuff later, once I’ve sent Jeb home and can continue on alone.

  Back at the walls, I search for a way out. Red velvet curtains hang in intervals with golden cords of rope draped over knoblike finials. The coverings are long enough to hide a door. I flap open the first one, hoping to find some antique, ornate door that might have a lock to fit the key around my neck. There’s nothing but wall behind it. I try another curtain with the same result.

  “Check this out.” Jeb pulls a sheet off a wooden contraption propped against the opposite wall. Strings, pulleys, and a giant clock’s face form the convoluted frame. A sign reads: JABBERLOCKY’S MOUSETRAP. I think back on the Jabberwocky poem associated with Carroll’s books. The misspelling of the word is yet another inconsistency with a story I thought I knew by heart.

  Wonderland characters cover the front in vivid shades of paint. A long platform juts out at the bottom, connected to some pulleys.

  “It looks like a Rube Goldberg,” Jeb says, cocking his head sideways to scope it out.

  “A what?”

  “Rube Goldberg—the cartoonist and inventor. He drew complex devices that performed simple tasks in convoluted ways. This one is a mousetrap.”

  I stare at him.

  “What?” he asks.

  Laughing, I shake my head. “Your geek undies are showing. I thought you outgrew them in seventh grade.” He used to be obsessed with constructing things—building mazes and marble ramps with his dad out in their garage. It was the only time I ever saw them get along.

  A sad smile flits across his face, and I know he’s remembering, too.

  “What’s that thing on the platform?” I ask to change the subject, kicking myself for bringing it up.

  He taps what looks like a chunk of cheese. “A sponge. Wonder if the trap actually works.”

  “One way to find out.” I reach for a lever with the words Push Me written in red.

  “Wait.” Jeb drops the sheet and pulls me away. “Why would a mousetrap be down here? What if it’s set up for bigger prey—like intruders?”

  The bee returns, buzzing around me again. I swat it away. Lazily, it hovers in midair, then lands on the same lever I was about to try.

  With a whirring sound, the machine initiates a chain reaction.

  First, the big hand of the clock clicks into place, pointing to the Roman numeral IV. This activates a pulley’s wheel that in turn twists a corkscrew through a nest to a drilled hole. The corkscrew’s pointed end pushes through and unbalances a seesaw slab on the next level.

  Jeb and I back up several steps, hand in hand.

  I’ve seen this process before. I dig in my shirt pocket and pull out the Wonderland notes from that website, looking over the “’Twas brillig” definitions again.

  Jeb eases behind me to read over my shoulder. “Where did you find those?”

  “Shh …” It’s all there: the four o’clock, the nest, the corkscrew. After emitting a piercing whistle, the machine launches the yellowish orange sponge into the air. It flies to the other side of the room.

  I chase it, skidding to a stop as it drops to the floor next to one of the curtains I looked behind earlier.

  “Pick it up.” That British voice fills my mind, a reminder of the reason I’ve come. Not to gather proof of Wonderland but to cure my family’s curse. I have to find the guy from my memories. He’ll tell me how to fix my great-great-great-grandmother’s mistakes. I pick up the sponge and tuck it into my skirt pocket.

  The whirring starts again. Over where Jeb stands, the pulleys and wheels reverse to their original position. As if connected to the machine by invisible strings, the curtain next to me lifts, revealing a trap door that wasn’t there two minutes ago.

  “Open it.”

  As if I’m a puppet controlled by my netherling guide, I reach for the door.

  “Al, don’t!” Jeb shouts.

  I slide it open before he can get to me.

  A long, dark corridor juts off from the room. I duck my head in. There’s enough light coming from behind me to see that the tunnel gets gradually smaller. A flash of movement in the blackness sends me tumbling backward into Jeb. He slips an arm around my waist and holds me against him as a small rabbit-shaped shadow, standing on two legs, appears in the doorway.

  “Late,” its tiny voice says.

  I clench my teeth against screaming. I can’t believe it. The White Rabbit is real.

  “Late, I say. Lady Alice, too late be you.” The rabbit hops into the wavering candlelight. His unbuttoned red tailcoat flaps open, revealing his rib cage.

  Jeb curses, and I slap a palm over my mouth.

  It’s not the White Rabbit or any kind of rabbit at all. It’s a tiny, dwarfish creature the size of a bunny. The legs, arms, and body are humanoid but fleshless—a bleached-out skeleton. White gloves cover cadaverous hands; white lace-up boots protect his feet. The exception to the skeletal appearance is his bald head and his face of an old man, covered with flesh as pale as an albino’s. His eyes—wide and inquisitive like a doe’s—glow pink. Long white antlers sprout from behind each of his small human ears.

  It’s clear how young Alice might’ve mistaken him for a rabbit. His horns look like ears when viewed in the shadows.

  “White Rabbit?” I venture, feeling Jeb’s arm tighten around me as he mumbles in disbelief.

  “White, Rabid,” the pint-size skeleton says. “Liddell, Alice … you not be. But her hands you have.”

  I stare at my gloves. “I’m her great—”

  “No one,” Jeb interrupts as he steps between me and the creature. He won’t let me out from behind him. I sense him going for the knife in his pocket and clutch his arm to stop him. Then I peer around his shoulder.

  “Great No One, are you?” the creature asks, tilting his antlers to one side to see me.

  “No. That’s not my name. Did you say Rabid is yours?”

  The creature glances at the table, then back to us again, twisting his gloved hands nervously. “Rabid, I am. My family White be.” Appearing flustered by our lack of response, he bows at the waist. “Rabid White, of the Red Court be I. And are you?”

  I can’t find my voice. My memories and the online stories were true. We’ve stepped into a nether-realm and are face-to-face with a netherling. That strange melody sings inside my heart, the one put there by my forgotten childhood playmate. It’s even more powerful than the fluttery sensation I sometimes feel. It tells me to embrace my identity, to be proud of who I am.

  Without even thinking, I blurt out, “Alyssa Gardner of the human court, I be.”

  Jeb hisses and his shoulders tense, but he doesn’t lose focus on our guest.

  “Ohhhh.” The cadaverous creature swoons with an odd clacking sound, like a chime made of bones. His lips twist into a hideous snarl, revealing two long
, bucked teeth. “Her gloves those be. A thief are you!”

  Jeb snaps out the knife and flicks open the blade in one fluid movement, his other arm holding me behind him.

  “Everything you’ll ruin.” Our guest’s pink eyes glow hot red. Saliva foams at his mouth. “Not welcome. So says Queen Grenadine, not welcome you be!” His screech hangs in the air as he hops into the shadowed corridor and vanishes.

  “What do you mean, Queen Grenadine?” I shout after Rabid. “Since when is there a new queen? What happened to Red?”

  Jeb tucks the knife away and grabs me before I can follow the creature into the hallway. “What was that?” His fingers dig into my shoulders as I strain to break free. “Seriously, what was it, Al? There isn’t a rabbit alive that looks like that!”

  “Jeb! He’s getting away!” I thrash like a wild animal. “I know where he’s going … it’s the door my key was made for. Please!” There is fear in Jeb’s eyes, and I wonder why I don’t share it. All I know is I’ve always been different in my world. In a place like this, I’m actually ordinary.

  “No.” Jeb crosses my arms over my chest, then lifts me against one of the curtains on the wall so my feet dangle, pinning me like a butterfly to a corkboard. “We’re not going anywhere. That foaming freak thinks you stole those gloves. And now he knows your name. Very smooth, by the way.”

  “I didn’t say it intentionally,” I grind out, boots swinging with my effort to get down.

  “What does that mean—intentionally?”

  The same inner melody that gave me courage to speak earlier warns me not to say anything about the moth, the stranger, or the music.

  “From what I know about this place,” I offer, “it’s a magical realm. And the thing we just saw was a netherling … one of the occupants.”

  “‘Magical’?” Jeb stares at me as if my head’s on crooked. “I don’t remember Lewis Carroll’s version saying anything about little walking skeletons.”

  “Alice must’ve been too young to understand what she saw. Maybe her mind blocked out the darker details.” I glance at my gloved palms, empathizing with the desire to hide from bad memories on a level few people could.