SEVEN. JUST LOOK OUT BELOW.

Other than an unusual skittishness that settles under her skin and makes her jump at movements in her peripheral vision, nothing comes of Morpheus's promise to send the (White, presumably) Rabbit to take her to Wonderland soon—if Jen hadn't been with her, Alyssa would wonder if she hadn't just imagined the whole thing. Four days pass in a flurry of nervous anticipation and schoolwork she can't get her brain to focus on, and she spends the first part of the weekend at Underland, discovering ways to fidget on a skateboard she never would've thought possible just a few days ago.

Hitch notices the second she shows up for his Saturday afternoon skateboarding class. He cocks an eyebrow at her but says nothing until the hourlong lesson ends; afterwards, he ambles over to wear she's wrestling with her new kneepads and sinks into a crouch beside her.

"Something on your mind, kid?"

Alyssa shrugs and doesn't meet his eye. He only calls her kid when he's really serious about something. "I'm okay."

To her embarrassment, he plops down on the concrete next to her instead of leaving her to pretend she's fine in peace. Hesitant, he says, "Rumor is you missed last week's class because of some family thing that came up. I'm not gonna pry, Gardner, don't you worry, but—hey. You ever wanna talk, I'm a good listener and a better secret-keeper. Sometimes it helps to just speak about stuff, yeah?"

"You sound like my guidance counsellor," Alyssa mutters. Hitch snorts.

"Pleasance High, right? Old Mr. Makelke still the counsellor there?" Off her nod, he says, "Yeah. Got real familiar with the inside of his office when I was in school. Practically lived there senior year. He's a good guy."

She doesn't know quite how to respond to that. Hitch had been a senior at Pleasance High when Alyssa was just a freshman, and he'd already had a bad enough reputation that she'd been scared silly of him. He'd been even ganglier, then, with horrible acne, a habit of brawling in the hallways during passing periods, and a long shadow of rumored criminality that followed him wherever he went. Alyssa's pretty sure not a bit of it was true, but even so, it's hard to imagine him sitting in the counsellor's office—among the delicate potted plants and the stupid motivational posters and all the college catalogues and glossy brochures—spilling his problems to a man as mousy and soft-spoken as Mr. Makelke.

"My mom's—sick," Alyssa says after a moment. "Dad and I went to see her in the hospital last weekend."

"Must've been rough."

"She'll get better, but… yeah, I guess so." Focusing on Morpheus and Wonderland had driven Alison's condition to the back of her mind, but it comes rumbling to the forefront again now. By her request, Dad hasn't been sharing the daily updates he gets from the hospital with her; she knows there were more surgeries this week and not much else. "She left when I was five," she adds. "Left, completely, I mean, she never even wrote or called…"

Her voice peters out, and Hitch lets silence fall between them, not uncomfortably. Alyssa shoves her kneepads into her backpack and looks out over the bowl without really seeing it.

"My parents kicked me out," Hitch says. He's not looking at her when she turns, shocked; his gaze, like hers a moment ago, is straight ahead and fixed on nothing in particular. "Right after I turned seventeen. August before senior year. Found out some stuff about me they didn't—found out about Cory." He coughs. "It's, uh, it's rough, when parents don't… parent, you know? That's really, it cuts real deep. 'Cause parents are, you know, they're supposed to be there."

Alyssa flips her hands over to study her palms. The scars are there, always there, clearly visible through the loose netting of her gloves. "These are from her," she says. It feels terrifying to say it out loud. She's never told anyone before, writing the scars off as relics of a childhood car crash—she's not really sure why she's telling Hitch, of all people, but the words pour out easy enough. "The scars. It was an accident, she had garden shears, she didn't see me in time—just an accident—but, anyway, that's why she left. I guess she was too scared she'd do it again to stay. But—but… I wish…"

Alison had suggested in her letter that physical distance was the key, getting far enough away that Morpheus couldn't get into Alyssa's head through hers. But she could have called, or written letters, or sent holiday cards or something—there'd been no reason to cut Alyssa out of her life so thoroughly.

"Yeah. …Yeah," Hitch mutters, and that, Alyssa thinks, just about sums it up.

She sighs. "I've gotta get to work."

"Well, don't let me keep you." Hitch jumps to his feet, quick and agile, and offers her a hand. Alyssa clasps it, and he hauls her upright without even a grunt of effort. "Same time next week, yeah? You take care of yourself in the meantime, Gardner."

Alyssa grins as she slings her bag over her shoulder. She feels lighter, somehow. "You too. And… thanks."

"Anytime." He sets one foot on his board and waves as he pushes off, popping an ollie at the edge of the bowl and then swooping down along the curves of concrete with a casual grace she envies.

She turns to go and crashes right into Jeb. His arms are folded, pulling the white T-shirt he wears under his manager's vest taught across his chest, and he makes no effort to catch her when she reels back, dazed more by the suddenness of his appearance than the actual impact.

That alone is enough to tell her he's ticked; the stormy glower he's directing at the bowl is just the proverbial cherry on top. Alyssa stifles a groan. Not like she can't guess what this is about. "Hitch is bad news, blah blah blah, don't date evil players, blah blah. There. I get it. Lecture over. Can I go? I'm gonna be late for work."

His jaw clenches. "Do you get it? 'Cause it looked to me like you were getting nice and cosy with Mr. Bad News."

"He wanted to know why I missed his class last week, that's all. It's called being nice." Frowning, Alyssa steps around Jeb and marches for the exit.

Jeb flashes out a hand, grabbing her elbow and spinning her around. "There's no 'nice' with guys like him," he says. "I know his type, Al. They'll slime their way in by being nice and then as soon as you give 'em a chance—"

Alyssa twists out of his grip and resumes her stomp towards the exit. To her annoyance, Jeb follows, easily keeping pace with his longer legs. "I'm serious," he says. "You deserve better than some prison sentence waiting to happen, okay?"

"I deserve better than being late for work," Alyssa retorts.

"I'll drive you. I already clocked out."

"Seriously?"

This time, it's she who stops; Jeb pivots around her and gets the full force of her incredulous glare.

"Yeah," he says, unapologetic. "You've been avoiding me since you got back—longer, actually—and, look, I get that you're mad about the London thing, and worried about your mom, but you can't go acting out and getting tangled up with guys like Hitch." He pauses. "I'm not gonna let you do stupid things and get hurt just 'cause you're angry at me, okay?"

For a second she thinks about saying something childish, you're not the boss of me or a mocking okay, DAD—but her heart isn't in it. Things were rocky between her and Jeb even before he interfered with her study abroad plans, have been rough, really, ever since he started dating Taelor a month ago and riled up a jealous streak Alyssa hadn't known she possessed. She's tired of it. Tired of feeling like their friendship's slipping away, like she's losing him piece by piece to Pleasance High's own Head Bitch In Charge and her own anger and the looming shadow of his departure to University of Arts London. And she's got bigger problems to deal with than nursing a grudge against one of her two best friends. She relents with a grudging huff.

"Fine. Drive me to Butterfly Threads, but spare me the rest of your lecture. I could probably recite it in my sleep anyways."

Jeb's lips twitch. "Deal."

The rest of her anger melts away as they head for the parking lot together. What's left is a kind of weary optimism; she and Jeb still need to have it out over him stabbing her in the back on the London plan, but after that, she thinks, they'll be okay again. Even if his bossy-big-brother crap is obnoxious.

It's grey and hot outside, the heat a wet, heavy thing that promises thunderstorms later. Alyssa glances across the lot, searching for Jeb's beloved Honda CT70 and unsurprised to see it's nowhere to be found. "Jen drop you off today?" she asks.

"Yeah. Supposed to rain." Jeb holds out his hand for her keys, grinning when she slaps them into his palm. "Guess I'll just walk home from the mall."

"You could hang with me," Alyssa says. "Persephone won't mind as long as you don't mess with the displays."

He hums noncommittally, but Alyssa can tell he's considering as they make their way across the lot to where she parked Gizmo, her 1975 Gremlin; she tosses her bag under the passenger side dash and sinks into the seat with a sigh. The car rocks gently when Jeb drops into the driver's seat a few seconds later.

"I've got a date with Taelor tonight," he says. "Gotta get home by four to get ready."

Alyssa feels her stomach drop. It's almost three, and her shift doesn't end until seven. "Oh."

Jeb shoots her an apologetic grin. "Maybe some other time."

She doesn't answer, instead staring out the window as Gizmo's engine grumbles to life and Jeb peels them out of the lot. She never knows what to say when it comes to Jeb's relationship with Taelor. On the one hand, she and Taelor have been friends since kindergarten, even if Taelor's ascension to popularity back in middle school put a strain on their friendship that's been driving them apart inch by inch. Jeb could do a lot worse. On the other—

Alyssa grimaces. Them getting together stirred up the echoes of a middle school crush she'd thought long since dead and buried, and the way she'd reacted when she found out feels like it might've been the last nail in the coffin of her and Taelor's friendship. The whole thing still feels… uncomfortable a month later.

Clearing his throat, Jeb says, "So, uh, there's this speed painting thing at Wilcox Plaza tomorrow afternoon."

Grateful for the change in subject, Alyssa turns to look at him again. "Are you one of the painters?"

"Mmm. We get a canvas and ten minutes, and all the pieces get auctioned off at the end. Pleasance Council of Arts takes a share of the proceeds, but I could still make a decent bit of cash if mine sells well." His labret spike bounces as he chews his lip, like he's worried no one will bid on his artwork. Fat chance of that—Jeb's one of the best artists Alyssa knows. "Mom and Jen'll be there. You could come too, if you wanted. Could be fun. And there's gonna be barbecue after, so…"

It does sound fun, and a welcome reprieve from the stress of the past week. "Sure. Maybe I'll bring Dad, too. You know he can't say no to free barbecue."

Relief breaks over Jeb's face. "Great! Painting starts at eleven."

"We'll be there," Alyssa says, grinning, and just like that—just for a minute—it's like there's no problems between them at all, and it hits her just how much she's missed him, missed him at least as much as he's missed her.

The spell breaks as Jeb guides Gizmo into the narrow alley behind Butterfly Threads, edging carefully around Persephone's dusty Prius to park next to the dumpsters. She'd like nothing more than for him to come in with her, keep her company between customers and help her dust the shelves or re-arrange the racks of used clothing to stay busy during the usual five o'clock slowdown. If it weren't for Taelor…

She sighs and accepts the car keys he hands her. "Thanks for the lift."

Jeb nods. "Sure, Al. It's nice talking to you again."

"Yeah."

"Yeah…"

He rubs his chin, his finger swiping over the labret spike, looking like there's a lot more he'd like to say. Alyssa's tempted to ask him to stay, at least a little while—Taelor won't die if her boyfriend takes a bit less time to prep for their date, right?

But she hesitates too long, and Jeb just coughs awkwardly and says, "Well. Guess I'll see you tomorrow, huh?"

"Eleven o'clock," Alyssa says, managing a smile.

"Right."

His eyes crinkle up as he grins, and then he steps away and turns and slopes off down the alley—the loose waves of his hair ruffling as the wind catches him on the way out—and in a few seconds he's gone.

Alyssa turns slowly and heads into the shop.


It starts raining about forty minutes into her shift. Alyssa pays it little mind as the light drizzle escalates to a miserable downpour, coming down so heavy she can't see more than a few feet out the front windows. Every so often a mall patron dashes by, arms over their heads or brandishing their umbrellas like shields against the driving rain.

A little past five, the lights flicker and die, plunging the shop into a chilly gloom.

She's rearranging the crystal display when it happens, and pauses for a count of thirty to see if the lights come back on. Quick blips and momentary outages aren't unheard of during thunderstorms, but this one seems set to last longer than the usual.

Persephone's voice drifts out of the backroom, low and indistinct; a few minutes later she leans into the shop proper and says, "Someone hit a pole on Route 60. Power's out 'til it's fixed."

"Is that a 'lucky you, you get to head home early'?"

Though Alyssa can't see it in the darkness, she hears the smile in Persephone's voice. "Drive safe, Alyssa."

The roads aren't bad, but the rain outpaces Gizmo's wipers just enough to make her nervous. She drives home with brights on and both hands on the wheel, squinting to see through the water streaming down her windshield.

Dad's spot in the garage is empty when Alyssa gets home—probably still closing up his sporting goods store. She shoots him a text to let him know she's home safe as she fumbles around for one of the flashlights they keep in the utility room.

She's always liked blackouts. The mingled peace and spookiness of wandering through your own home in the dark—with nothing but a flashlight and the occasional flash of lightning to guide you, while thunder booms and rolls outside—speaks to the same sensibilities that drive her to incorporate dead insects into her artwork.

A kind of poetic creepiness.

Humming, Alyssa leaves her bag on the kitchen table and makes her way upstairs to check on her fish. Both Aphrodite's tank and the twenty gallon where she keeps her feeder fish are wired into a backup generator programmed to start if the power goes out, but she spends a few minutes checking to make sure all the tank equipment is still online just in case. Satisfied that her fish aren't going to freeze or choke to death before the power comes back on, she scoops a jacket out of her closet and heads back downstairs, intending to duck out to the covered back porch and enjoy the storm. Maybe keep an eye out for Morpheus's rabbit.

Just as she hits the bottom step, there's a squeal of tires and then a heart-stopping crunch from outside; Alyssa runs for the door, thinking of Dad coming home from his store and old tires on slippery gravel, heart galloping in her chest as she hurts out of the duplex—

Not Dad. It's Taelor stumbling out of her car, whose front bumper is crumpled around the telephone pole at the end of the drive. She's dead pale, heedless of the rain soaking her lacy T-shirt. Shaken but, Alyssa is relieved to see as she splashes toward the wreck, unhurt.

"What happened?!"

"There—there was—" Taelor grasps for Alyssa's arm, gripping tight enough to hurt. She's shaking hard. "Some—some idiot jumped in front of—I swerved—and th-the car…" Her hand rakes through her hair, pulling thick strands out of her sudden ponytail and leaving her looking even more bedraggled. Her voice fails her, but Alyssa can see her lips forming the words oh my god over and over.

"Tae…"

Taelor bursts into tears. Wracking sobs bend her in half until her forehead's resting on Alyssa's shoulder, her lithe frame heaving with hysteria as she cries. Alyssa wraps an arm around her, at a loss. "Listen," she says awkwardly, "lis—you didn't hit anybody, you're fine—"

"I am not fine, Alyssa! The power—and Dad—and we're going to miss—everything was supposed to be perfect and now it's ruined! Not that it means anything to you—you're probably so pleased." She spits the final word through her tears and wrenches away, reaches up to pat at the sopping ruins of her hair. Alyssa takes half a step back, shocked by the outburst.

Well, fine. Be a bitch about it, then. "Your date. Ruined. Right. Stupid me, thinking the important thing is no one got hurt."

"That's not…" Taelor sniffs. "You don't get it."

"Sure don't." Alyssa folds her arms, glaring. "Look, just—ugh. Whatever. God, you're shallow sometimes."

Standing here with the rain soaking her shirt and plastering her hair to her cheeks, trying to comfort a girl she's barely friends with anymore, is not how she wants to spend her unexpected evening off. She turns on her heel and heads back toward the duplex. "Whatever. Jeb's probably inside—go cry on him."

"Alyssa!"

"What?"

She rounds on Taelor, who's given up on her hair and now stands limply in Alyssa's driveway like some pathetic, waterlogged puppy.

"Sorry. I just…"

But whatever she's about to say is lost under a low, ominous grinding noise; the ground quivers, and there's a crack somewhere under Alyssa's feet—

A piece of driveway the size of her torso shudders and falls away into deep black nothing. As Taelor screams and the duplex door slams, more pieces follow, cratering in under the weight of the rain and her and Taelor's scrambling to reach the lip of the sinkhole—mud and gravel and Jeb shouting and Taelor's fingers locking around her wrist and Alyssa thinks oh god we're both dead—

And then she's running on nothing but air, plummeting into darkness.

Down and down and down.

…And down…

…Are sinkholes always this deep? Shouldn't we have…?

It dawns on her that they're no longer falling through a dark, empty cavern but some sort of shaft—flat stone walls flank them on four sides. Through the murky darkness, Alyssa can just make out the flowing lines of graffiti tags, and here and there clusters of weather-beaten posters, all scrolling by at a relatively sedate pace.

No way.

She twists around as they fall, or sink, trying to see the bottom. There's a greenish glow six or seven feet down, but as they get deeper that proves to be nothing but the words YOU ARE HERE spelled out in flickering neon.

Taelor whispers, "What the hell."

They sink past the sign, until it's nothing but an indistinct glow far above their heads.

"I hit my head," Taelor says faintly. "I must've—"

"No," Alyssa says. "No, this is—if we're both seeing it, it's got to be real. Right?" She squints again into the blackness below, trying to gauge the distance to the bottom. Nothing. "Looks like the rabbit found me…"

"AL!"

Jeb.

She can't see him when she looks up, can't see anything but shadows and the fading light of the sign, but her imagination fills him in—teetering on the edge of the sinkhole, screaming her name, panic rising up—

"We're okay!" she shouts.

"We are NOT OKAY!"

There's no indication that Jeb hears either of them; his cries become fainter and fainter and then vanish altogether. Taelor shouts his name a couple times and strains to reach the walls, muttering about climbing out again, but they always seem to be just out of reach.

They might have been falling for minutes or hours or days, even, when at last a concrete floor rushes up to meet them. The impact is no worse than a hard landing on a skateboard—rattling Alyssa's bones and leaving her wobbling but still upright; Taelor collapses in a heap beside her and groans.

"You okay?"

More groaning. "What fresh hell have you dragged me into now, Alyssa?" Taelor pushes herself upright, her well-toned arms shaking—from fear, Alyssa imagines—and wipes damp hair out of her face. "I mean, bad enough that your nutjob neighbors can't stay out of the fucking road, now—"

"Wonderland," Alyssa says, too awed by the reality of it to care about the venom in Taelor's voice. "We're in—this isn't what I imagined."

It's very… plain. They're in a spacious room with concrete floors and barren sheetrock walls. Electric lights hum at regular intervals across the ceiling, filling the room with an unpleasant, sallow glare; there's nothing else here, no doors or tables or little boxes of magical cake or anything. They might as well be standing in an abandoned warehouse.

Still, it's Wonderland. It must be.

"That's right!"

Alyssa almost jumps out of her skin as the voice bounces around in the vast emptiness of the room. She spins in a full circle, searching for the source, and then Taelor screams and scrambles to her feet, pointing—

There, standing a little ways away from them and shaking gravel and dust out of his messy white quiff, standing in what seconds ago was an empty stretch of concrete, is a man. He's a little taller than Alyssa and decidedly pear-shaped, dressed in white slacks and a white grid coat; the only spot of color on him anywhere is a little red heart pinned to his lapels.

"And he'd better appreciate it, too!" the man continues bitterly. "The Hatter's going to be absolutely savage with me once she learns you're here! Stupid! I shouldn't have done this! She'll have my ears for it, sure as sure—!"

"You!" Taelor snarls, startling him out of his raving. He cringes away as she stalks towards him. "You were the idiot in the middle of the road!"

He pales. "You! You-y-y-you nearly hit me!"

"You totaled my car!"

"Better the car than me!" He jogs backwards to keep a safe distance between himself and Taelor, who looks mad enough to kill. "And don't blame me. How was I supposed to know people would be driving in those conditions?"

Alyssa hurries to get between them before the situation can escalate any further. "Taelor! Taelor, calm down. Your dad'll just buy you a new car anyway."

Taelor growls, but makes no effort to escape Alyssa's grip on her shoulders. In another moment, the flash of anger is gone; she goes pale again and hangs her head, shivering. Probably still shaken by the crash, Alyssa thinks with a pang of sympathy.

She turns back to the man, who's patting at his chest with his nose in the air, looking very offended.

"Sorry," she says, figuring Taelor's in no state to apologize for herself. "Who are you?"

"Who do I look like?" he says, scandalized, then mutters, "Kids today…"

"…Um."

Still muttering to himself, he draws a silver pocket watch out of his waistcoat, glances at it, and turns a sickly shade of green. "Oh my ears and whiskers, is it that time already!? Sorry, kids, have to run!"

"Wait—!"

The man spins on his heel and dashes away—on the fourth or fifth stride his body seems to fall and twist, and there's a blur of movement Alyssa can't make sense of—and then she blinks, and he's gone altogether; in his place there's a small, white rabbit, zig-zagging across the concrete as it races away.

Oh.

"WAIT!"

Ignoring Taelor's splutters, Alyssa seizes the other girl by the wrist and charges full tilt after the rabbit.