Within the Wonder

by A. K. Koonce

  Mud cakes every inch of me; it’s all I breathe and all I feel, and still I keep moving.

  Because the snarls are following.

  “You’re almost there, Madison. Keep going.”

  “Great advice. Super helpful,” I snark.

  The brilliant flash of color falls across my fingertips. It casts across my face. I feel it’s warmth.

  And then agonizingly sharp teeth yank me right back into the darkness.

  It drags me away, growls rumbling, rocks scraping, skin tearing; it’s all a rising feeling of intensifying pain.

  No matter how hard I kick and claw until my fingers bleed, I’m only pulled deeper and deeper into the looming tunnel.

  The darkness owns me.

  Until a stronger shadow bursts right out of me.

  Warm inky black smoke slinks over every inch of my body, touching me inside and out.

  And then Lighton Farrow wrenches me away from it all.

  Sixteen

  Madison

  I’m supposed to be the winner in all of this.

  I’m a cheat.

  Does it really matter?

  It feels like it does. I know it’s stupid, but I wanted to prove I could do this. Without a shadow man rescuing me like I’m a damsel in distress.

  “Don’t do that again,” I whisper, lying flat on my back, looking up at the passing white clouds that…surround us completely. Before, we were underground…now, we’re in the sky, it seems.

  “Yeah, you’re welcome. Please, no groveling. It doesn’t suit you.” His voice is right back in my head again.

  It’s like having an angel and a devil being your voice of reason, except the angel thinks with his fucking cock, and the devil…also thinks entirely with his sinful cock.

  The ground is billowy and soft to the touch. Which is good because every single part of me aches to even move.

  Maybe I’ll just stay here. That’d be an entertaining twist to the Elders’ reality TV. It’d be me just lying around in old sweatpants, binge reading dirty romance books, and eating bags of Cheetos by the pound.

  My show would be canceled before the pilot episode even aired.

  “So which way’s east?”

  Lighton and I are not good teammates.

  “I don’t know,” I grind out.

  “Come on, get up.”

  My teeth clench together hard as a headache pounds through my mind. The mud coating my skin is the only thing that’s covering how much blood is hiding beneath. I feel the sting of my wounds even if I can’t see them.

  “I know you’re tired. But you’re doing great.”

  “I almost just got eaten by a monster in the dark. My childhood fears are starting to creep up on me at a seriously alarming pace, so if I could just have a single moment to catch my breath, that’d be fantastic.”

  “Come on, Cupcake. It’s not that bad. We just have to keep going.”

  I feel him nudge at me. Physically nudge inside of me.

  That’s…concerning.

  And probably shouldn’t excite my ovaries as much as it does.

  When he goes to nudge again, my hand twitches at my side.

  My eyes fly open.

  Neither of us speaks for nearly a minute straight.

  Then he does it again. My whole arm spasms, my body locking in place like I can force control over myself, which is the most ridiculous thing.

  “Holy shit,” Lighton says on a whisper.

  “Yeah, holy shit. Now stop.” I’m starting to sound like Kais. Maybe he was a lighthearted, go-with-the-flow sort of guy before he met the March Hare.

  Maybe this is what Lighton does to people.

  My hand jerks again, and this time, it moves so much it lands on my hip. And then rubs there back and forth along my muddy skin.

  “Lighton, I swear, if you move that hand one more time.”

  “What? What will you do, Cupcake?”

  He teases the spot where my pants rest above my pubic bone.

  Damn. Maybe the Elders are going to get more of a show than they anticipated.

  I have got to get a grip on my sex life. Can I call this a sex life? A Lonely Life of Me and My Right Hand. The saddest biography ever written.

  I push to my feet and hold my right hand with the left rather awkwardly, like the thing is in time out indefinitely.

  “Okay. We’re headed east,” I say matter-of-factly to the cloudy void of nothingness.

  “Sure thing, just hang a left at the McDonald’s.” The voice in my head smiles, making me smile.

  “I hate you,” I whisper to myself.

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  It hurts how hard I roll my eyes at the obnoxious parasite that’s living in my body now. I’m going to have to get some strong antibiotics when I get back from this…place.

  Without admitting how right Light was about my lack of direction here, I start walking. My leg throbs with pain, but for the most part, the leather pants seem to have protected me.

  Let’s not tell Kais how right he was about the wardrobe choice either.

  My steps are weightless and soundless along the fluffy ground. Light shines from everywhere and yet no where all at once. Peering up at the flat white sunless sky sears pain into my eyes, but I can’t help but try to make sense of this senseless place.

  “What’s the point? There has to be something, a reason for this setting.”

  I puff out a pent-up breath and continue to try to think this through as logically as possible.

  “You’re smart, you can figure this out,” Light tells me sweetly.

  Am I? Am I really smart?

  If I were smart, I wouldn’t be wandering around aimlessly in this nirvana of a world. It’s a sort of heaven, and yet, I’m the sole occupant.

  That’s terrifying in a way.

  Anxiety pounds through my heart with that thought.

  If I died, the least they could do is let me see my mother one last time.

  I suck in an unsteady breath, clinging to it in my lungs even though it hurts. My eyes close, stinging with moisture, and I give my self three silent seconds to get it together.

  Or it would be silent. Except for that pesky parasite.

  “Hey, what’s going on, Cupcake? Your heartbeat is so loud I can’t even hear myself think.”

  Welcome to my world.

  When my damp lashes open, deep green eyes are looking back at me. Fiery red hair blows in the wind, breaking the flat white color up with the brightest color of crimson.

  And then my mother smiles.

  “You’re smart, you can do this,” she whispers in that soothing tone she always had.

  That’s how I remember her. That’s the one thing I’ll always remember, the confidence her gentle tone had. It could command attention and never raise above a hushed whisper.

  It was a delicate sound that I never mastered.

  And I’m hearing it again for the first time since she died.

  “What—what are you doing here?” The tension in my chest makes simply breathing and talking impossible. It comes out in clipped words and half breaths.

  “I knew I had to help you. You needed me.” The smallest, gentlest smile curves her lips, highlighting that dimple in her left cheek that I had nearly forgotten about.

  I miss her.

  I miss her so much it hurts with a pressing pain from the swirl of emotions that I’m holding in.

  “Mom,” I gasp on the quietest tone. A thousand words follow, but I can’t seem to say a single one.

  There’s no transparency to her. She’s as real as I am. And all I want is to cling to her and hug her and remind myself of the way she smelled.

  But I’m terrified that if I touch her, I’ll ruin whatever’s keeping her here in front of me. So I keep my space, I keep the few feet of white clouds that separate me from the one person who always believed in me when I needed her the most.

  During school, during chemo, during life itself.

  She always knew what to say and what to
do. And now she’s here for me again.

  “Madison, this doesn’t feel right,” the parasite says even though no one at no point in time asked him.

  I close my eyes to the sound of Lighton’s voice, and when I open them again, my mother’s still smiling at me. Still here.

  She’s still here.

  “You’re looking for the way out, aren’t you?”

  I nod, my throat still thick with unspoken words.

  “Madison, doesn’t it seem strange? Any of this? All of this?” Lighton rambles on, but I oddly don’t hear the voice in my head or his warnings.

  “I know you want to help me, and I know you’ll have the right advice, but I need you to know, I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you needed me.”

  It’s guilt. The emotions in me are all infected with guilt.

  A stroke was all it took.

  And I wasn’t there for her in the end. I have to say what I should have said when she was still alive.

  “You were always there for me, but I wasn’t there for you.” The pressure in my chest gives room for a meager gasp to slip in just before hot tears streak down my face.

  “Madison, that’s not your mom.”

  “Shut up, Lighton. Shut up!” My whole body shakes, but mom’s serene smile never fades, she doesn’t judge me. Not one bit.

  “I’m sorry. What I’m trying to say is, I’m sorry, mom.” I exhale all that guilt in one forceful but trembling breath and tip my chin up to her.

  “It’s okay, Maddy. It’s okay.” That warm calming voice spreads all through me. “I’m not here for the past. I’m here for the now. Don’t look back or ahead. Consider the ground. Look down.” Her big emerald gaze drifts until her attention settles on the fluffy white ground between us.”

  “That even sounds like some Wonderland shit. Listen to me. Madison, don’t get sucked into all of this. You know your mom. When was the last time she gave advice that sounded like a fucking haiku?” Lighton’s irrational rant is spoken to no one.

  Because I know exactly what I’m supposed to do now.

  I’m just not ready to leave yet.

  I don’t want to complete the task because that means I’ll have to walk away from her.

  Again.

  The thing about seeing someone just one more time is that it makes knowing that they’ll be gone again so much worse. The wound will be fresh all over again. And forever without her will feel longer now.

  “Go,” she says with the strangest hint of sternness in her tone. It’s a cutting sound that interrupts her perfect melody.

  “I-I’m just not ready yet. Not yet. Don’t leave yet, mom.” I remember the way I used to beg her not to go to work when I was a small child.

  I sound needier right now than I ever did then.

  Because I need her. Every girl needs her mom, and I need her for so much more than a fucking game.

  More tears than I can manage stream down my face, but it doesn’t matter.

  “Go, Madison. You’re so close. Just go.”

  I hate the way she’s pushing me away, even if it is for the best.

  I’m going to go soon. Or she is. And then I’ll never see her again.

  Without thought, my legs stumble and my arms wrap around her in a jarring way, holding her so tight I’m terrified it’ll all slip away from me.

  And then she does just that.

  A floral scent hits my lungs just as the solid body against me gives way. She’s replaced with an odd assortment of colors. Bright yellow daisies and deep red roses with sharp thorns fill my arms. The cut flowers fall to the billowing ground one after the other before I finally drop them all.

  My eyebrows pull tightly together as I watch each flower sink into the white ground. Slowly they glide right through it. And disappear entirely.

  Not one petal is left in their wake.

  She’s gone.

  I’m bent over and digging into the cloud in less than a second. They scoop away one after the other, and knowing her flowers disappeared here only makes me throw aside the weightless handfuls at a distraught, rapid pace.

  “Madison, stop. Wake up and flower the smells.” Every absurd word Lighton says makes me claw faster and faster. “You know that wasn’t your mom. And you’re just going to take advice from fucking bouquets now? You don’t see me calling up a florist to plan my 401k and retirement, do you?”

  “He’d probably understand 401k’s better than most of us.” I physically feel him roll his eyes at me. “Lighton, if you want to make your own decisions, I suggest you get your own fucking body to inhabit.

  “I would, but none would feel as good as yours, Cupcake.”

  I think it’s a contest to see who can make the other roll their eyes the hardest.

  One more cheesy pick up line like that, and Lighton will win.

  I’ve made it close to two feet into the soft wafting ground when my fingers twitch nervously. It’s the most subtle spasm that I barely notice. I keep digging. I claw and scrape and tear the divine ground away.

  I’m working so fast. I’ll win in no time.

  With my next heaping handful, my wrist turns oddly. It tilts toward me instead of away. And then the white cloud is planted square in my fucking face.

  I pied myself…

  The thick substance clings to my skin like bubbles from a bath. The sky, on your face, it feels disgusting. It’s the worst heavenly facial I’ve ever gotten. I breathe through it, exhaling hard enough to flake some of the clumps of cloud off of my upper lip.

  I glare out at the empty void of land like I can kill the man I’m imagining with a single look.

  “Do I have your attention now?” His low smug voice reverberates through my body.

  I cannot believe I ever touched his dick.

  “When I get back to Wonderland, I’m going to exorcise your ass.” I growl, flinging the cloud from my scowling face.

  “Try all you like, but you’ll always remember the way I felt inside of you, baby.”

  Aaand with that spastic eye roll, we have a winner.

  I huff out a heavy breath and finally plop back until my ass hits the ground.

  Then it all gives away.

  The soft earth crumbles from the deep hole I dug, and beneath me, it falls completely.

  And so do I.

  Seventeen

  Madison

  Hair tangles around my face, but it doesn’t matter.

  Everything is dark once again as I fall away from the bright light above.

  Peculiar flashes of faint white images pass, but I can’t stop screaming enough to focus on any of it. Until so much time has passed that the fear in my lungs tires out. Wind and darkness and those bizarre flickering images sail by.

  And finally, I catch sight of one.

  A glimpse of a beautiful woman with bright pink hair and soft furry ears glances at me, but I fall away from her too fast. Kais’s handsome face is pulled together with so much worry in his eyes, more worry than I’ve ever seen in the fearless man. The excited smile that Liddell is wearing makes me turn away, and I realize they’re all watching me even now.

  Until I land. The wind becomes billowing and caressing around me, and I step down onto solid ground on two feet without a sound and without injury. I stand stunned, and it all hits at once as I stare around at the total darkness.

  Suddenly, I wish the magic of the wind would have just let me hit the ground hard so I’d have a reason to wallow a bit.

  “I’m a fucking idiot,” I breathe out on a frustrated sigh.

  “You’re not an idiot.” A light breeze wafts from my lips, pulling itself from within me until I gasp from the unnatural feel of it. And then his warm hands are pushing down my hips as he pulls my back against his solid chest. I settle there, my eyes closing as he holds the weight of my failures completely. “I mean, you did flat out ignore all of the warnings I gave you, but…I guess that doesn’t make you an idiot.” His amused words fan along my hair, and then his cheek brushes my temple lightly at fi
rst before settling fully against me.

  “You’re an ass,” I say with a smile pulling at my lips.

  He’s an ass who always makes me feel better.

  “It was a distraction technique that they pulled. A great technique. No one could blame you.” His body melds to mine, his palms pushing a little lower, holding me a little tighter.

  It’s enough to almost dissolve the terrible feeling eating up my heart right now. With so much slowness, I turn in his arms, my body brushing along his in a way that changes my emotions in a single instant. Darkness secludes us, and I think it makes all the little touches of his warm skin that much more searing. With my chest pressed to his, his warm breath whispering along my lips, I know that there’s a reason he gets to me so easily.

  I like him. Way too much. So much it’s bad for me. It’s bad for me to want someone I can’t trust. And yet, I want him in the worst possible way.

  “You okay, Cupcake?”

  No. “Yeah,” I whisper, my chin tilting up just an inch higher.

  I can’t see him at all, but I feel his mouth skim, hovering over mine like bait for the weakest prey this beautiful man has probably ever met.

  But I refuse to take it. “I’m fine,” I say, my voice ringing out with complete clarity.

  A beat passes, my lips still ghosting over his like a forgotten breath.

  “Good,” he finally says. “Now keep going.”

  Smoke tinges the air just before his strong hands slip away from me, his touch, his body, his words becoming nothing more than smoke in the breeze.

  Keep going.

  I stiffen my spine until my posture is as perfect as can be.

  Keep going.

  It’s one of the first things he said to me in this challenge. And it’ll be the last. Because I am so fucking sick of these Wonderland games.

  Cold air meets my lungs, and I breathe it in on the deepest breath as if I’m not sure I’ll surface again anytime soon.

  A burning sensation stings along my fingertips, and it heightens my focused destination. Something like burnt hair wafts up, and there’s a single scary moment where I’m terrified I’m doing the magic wrong.