Follow the White Rabbit (Beautiful Madness, #1) (4 page)

“But we still need someone to track down
this rabbit...” Rose started, stopping when she caught the look in Gwen’s eye.

Both Gwen and Rose raised their eyes to
Marc, waiting expectantly as he blinked back at them, perfectly oblivious.

“What?” he asked, tilting his head to
the side. The hint of a smile played on Gwen’s lips. “Me? I don’t even know who
I’m looking for.”

“It’s simple, really,” Gwen started. She
paused to see if Rose was thinking the same thing.

A huge grin broke onto the young Queen’s
face. “Follow the white rabbit.”

“Yeah... that’s helpful. I’m so glad I
introduced you two.”

The
next morning, Rose wasted no time sending Marc on his way. They had canceled
all their upcoming appointments, knowing that Alice would be their priority for
the foreseeable future. If the Alice prophecy was handled properly, they wouldn’t
need to worry about finding business at all—they’d be hailed as heroes and
sought after for their expertise.

The rabbit hadn’t returned, but Marc
refused to let that stop him. He planned to track it into Neverwood, or at
least to try. He wasn’t exactly an expert tracker, but he liked the forest, and
Gwen suspected Wonderland might give him a nudge in the right direction. If she
had learned anything at all over the past few years, it was that Wonderland
wanted to follow these patterns, that the land itself craved these cycles. It
would be her biggest ally in the weeks to come.

For now, she would be content to dive
back into her books and records to search for key players and places. But to do
that, she was going to need more notebooks. Within the span of forty-eight
hours, Gwen had managed to write on every scrap of paper in the house. Every
napkin, every card. Everything but the books—she would never dream of defacing
the books.

She walked to the market with a spring
in her step. The heart of Tildoor was bustling with people, and Gwen stopped to
chat with various neighbors as she shopped. It was simple to find the things
she needed. Paper, fountain pens, and enough food to last the week. The trip
might only have lasted half an hour if she hadn’t stumbled upon something she
didn’t even realize she needed.

The shopkeeper gawked at her as she
bounced up and down, paying for her found treasure. She carried her find home
in a brown box and was ever so careful to keep it steady, though it would take
more than a fumble to hurt it.

After shutting the front door behind her
Gwen kicked off her shoes in a flurry of leather and laces. Holding back a
childish giggle, she made her way to the floor-length mirror in the front hall.

Gwen couldn’t help but sigh as she
removed her latest find from its packaging. It was beautiful. She lifted it up
to examine it one last time before pinning it to her hair with trembling
fingers, just off to the side—a half-sized, pale blue top hat.

Now, she was ready.

A
small bronze clock ticked incessantly from the wall, tethering Lucky to her
body. At least she hoped that was what it was doing. Otherwise it was driving
her crazy simply for its own enjoyment.

It was almost two days ago that Lucky
had first vacated her body and transported elsewhere against her will. Since
waking up on the forest floor,
it
had happened three more times; the
second and third journeys only lasted a few minutes each, but the fourth went
on for hours no matter what Lucky did to try and get home. She had woken up on
the floor of her kitchen with a gash across her forehead. She probably hit it
against the counter as she fell, but knowing where the injury came from didn’t
make her feel any better.

The trips were becoming more and more
distressing, and they hadn’t been much fun to begin with.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Lucky exhaled and tried to remain aware
of every part of her body. If she maintained absolute control over everything,
from her thoughts to the rhythm of her heart, maybe she could stop whatever was
happening to her.

Except her thoughts continued to spiral
in every direction. She was quite sure that her heart had plans of its own as
its pace still quickened when her mind drifted. She couldn’t escape the images
of the strange places she’d visited—buildings that were taller than any palace,
machines that could communicate over vast distances, people who looked at her
like she should be locked away—and each time, her body reacted with panic.

But attempting to meditate was getting
her absolutely nowhere. With a huff, Lucky stood up from the tattered green
armchair she’d been in for the past five hours. She couldn’t stay underground
any longer, tucked away from fresh air, from life. It wasn’t helping. And this
thing
,
whatever it was, didn’t seem like something she could just wait out. She needed
answers, and she wasn’t going to find them sitting still.

As she stepped outside into a warm
spring day, Lucky found she had little interest in tending her garden, though
weeds were beginning to sprout in the earth. No, after being cooped up inside,
her body needed to walk. Her mind needed to explore.

She picked a direction and didn’t
question it. She just walked.

––––––––

A
stroll through the forest ended up being exactly what she had needed. Not only
did her stiff muscles manage to relax, but there were no unpleasant surprises.
The trees of Neverwood came in a variety of types and sizes, in combinations
that couldn’t be found in any other parts of Wonderland. Palm trees and oak
trees grew together, though even the brightest minds couldn’t determine why.
Lucky didn’t require explanations. All she knew was that the forest was the
most wonderful part of Wonderland, and that was enough.

She made her way through the trees while
her eyes scanned the ground for any signs of life. More specifically, for any
signs of rabbits. She had tried to tell herself that her crossing paths with
that
animal at
that
moment had been a coincidence—he certainly hadn’t been in
her bedroom the next time it had happened—but she couldn’t shake the feeling
that everything was connected, somehow.

There had never been an intended
destination for her outing, but after an hour of walking Lucky found herself
near the northern part of the forest where a few of Neverwood’s small towns and
villages could be found. There were four within a few hours’ walk of each
other, right on the edge of the forest, and she frequented two of them for food
and supplies. Usually she felt as safe there as she did in the heart of the
forest where she’d grown up. It was only as she started to see marked roads and
then people on those roads that she realized her absentmindedness could be
putting her in danger.

If she were to pass out on the side of
some unknown street, she would be completely vulnerable. But she couldn’t
expect to figure out what was happening to her by hiding at home and hoping it
went away.

“Excuse me,” a voice called from
somewhere within the forest. Lucky turned around, but didn’t spot anyone. A
moment later, a mop of chestnut-brown curls popped out from a cluster of
bushes. It was a head belonging to the body of a young man.

“Yes?” Lucky arched an eyebrow as she
watched the man pull himself up from the dirt and dust off his slacks.

“I was wondering if you happened to know
where I am.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’ve been wandering this forest all
day, and I think I might have gotten turned around at some point. Do you know
whereabouts in the forest we are?”

“Ten minutes in that direction is Noc.”
Lucky pointed to the east. “And twenty minutes that way you’ll find Tildoor.”

“Wonderful!”

“Oh?”

“I live in Tildoor! I managed to get
lost and be exactly where I needed to be all at once.” The realization seemed
to make him incredibly happy, and Lucky couldn’t help but smile back at him.
“Do you live in the area, or are you just infinitely smarter than I am?”

“I usually make it a priority to know
where it is I place my feet.”

“That’s very pragmatic of you.” He
hoisted himself over a fallen tree before coming to stand on the pathway beside
Lucky. “I’m Marc,” he said, extending his hand.

Lucky let her eyes wander over his body,
judging everything from the way he held his shoulders to his stance. He was
tall and lean—probably fast enough to keep pace with her if she ran. But his
brown eyes were friendly, and his posture was relaxed. He seemed genuinely
happy just to have stumbled across someone in the forest, and somehow she
couldn’t help but be happy to have met him too.

“Lucky.” She shook his hand.

“You’re lucky, or that’s your name?”

“A little bit of both. On a good day.”

“Well let me be the first to tell you
that today is an especially lucky day for you.” The stranger, Marc, wore a
goofy grin on his face that made it hard for Lucky to keep her guard up. He
could have just nodded politely as they passed each other, but he was going out
of his way to engage her in conversation.

At first, Lucky felt herself recoil from
his friendly demeanor. She was used to going unseen, or having those she spoke
to be uneasy of her demeanor and her weapons. But something about Marc made her
want to play along.

“Oh, and why is that?”

“Today will go down in Wonderland’s
history as the day Lucky...” he paused, waiting for Lucky to fill in her last
name, which she didn’t. “The day I, Marc George Donovan, met you.”

“So perhaps it’s
your
lucky day
then.”

“I don’t doubt it for a second.” He
smiled, but Lucky found herself suddenly uneasy. Was he trying to flirt with
her?
Here
? She tried to find any hidden intentions in his words, but
there were none. He was simply being friendly. “It’s strange, actually. Not
five minutes ago I was thinking that I could use a little luck. I feel like
I’ve been walking in circles trying to find something that clearly does not
want to be found.”

“Anything I can do to help?”

“Well, you see...” Marc ran his hand over
the dark stubble on his chin. “I’ve been tracking some rather uncooperative
wildlife.”

Lucky wasn’t sure what she had been
expecting, but that wasn’t it. He didn’t have the look of a tracker, and he
clearly didn’t have any feel for the forest. “Have you tried a trap?”

“A trap?” Marc cocked his head to the
side. “Oh. No! I’m not looking to kill anything. Would you believe me if I said
I was looking for a dimension-jumping white rabbit?”

Instinctively, Lucky took two quick
steps backward. Her mind was screaming at her to grab hold of him, to just
shake him until he gave her answers. But all she could do was gape back at him.

She had asked for answers, and Neverwood
had listened.

––––––––

M
arc
led Lucky through the streets of Tildoor at a quick pace that seemed more
excited than rushed. But every time Lucky would slow down and question her
decision to follow some stranger home with the promise of answers, he would
stop immediately and let her talk through what she was thinking. They ended up
stopping four times in a town she could have run through in only a few minutes,
but he didn’t seem to mind. If anything, she should have been the one to feel
hurried, as there was no way to know how long she had before her next journey.
But instead, she allowed herself to trust in what the forest was trying to tell
her, and in her own abilities to defend herself.

She told Marc about her experiences over
the past few days, though they were hard to explain. He listened without
commenting, and as she spoke she could see the connections forming in his head.
But when she asked him to explain why he was looking for that particular rabbit
they both hoped there was only one of, he didn’t answer. He swore that he had
only been doing as he’d been asked, and insisted he didn’t know much more than
she did. But he did know something, and that had been enough to make her listen
when he’d asked her to go back to Tildoor with him to meet with his friend.

His friend who apparently lived in the
oddest looking home in Wonderland.

The house stood apart from its neighbors
in both location and structure. It backed up right against the forest, standing
out from the greenery like a boulder in a flower garden. The wooden house was
painted in varying shades of blue, which was strange enough, but its defining
feature was its shape—narrow, but with three stories, and incredibly crooked.
Each level appeared as though it had been dropped haphazardly onto the last
with little attention paid to placement. The second story sat about six feet to
the left of the first, with the third leaning just as far in the opposite
direction. Every window was a different shape or size from the one beside it,
and the front door seemed to be slightly slanted, but Lucky couldn’t say for
sure because it was rounded on either side.

“Are you coming?” Marc called as he let
himself inside.

Lucky was still standing on his lawn,
her head tilted at an awkward angle as she tried to make sense of what was in
front of her.

“Yes, sorry.”

“Not to worry,” Marc said, peeking
around the door. “This house has that effect on people quite frequently.”

Lucky nodded mutely and followed him inside.

She was having the strangest day. And
that wasn’t even counting the odd out-of-body experience.

“Gwen, Lucky. Lucky, this is my partner,
Gwen.”

Lucky had stepped through the door only
to come face to face with an eclectically dressed girl about her age who seemed
to fit perfectly with her strange home.

The girl didn’t respond. Instead, she
pulled Marc by the arm towards the corner of the room.

“Why did you bring her here?” she
hissed. Clearly Lucky wasn’t intended to overhear, but she had no intention of
stepping away. If this girl had answers, Lucky would take them. Even when they
weren’t being offered.

“You’ll want to talk to her. Trust me,”
Marc said. His voice was patient, but it also held a touch of excitement that
his friend must have picked up on as well.

Lucky watched as the girl’s retort
caught in her throat. “Why’s that?”

“I’ll let her tell you about it.”

Lucky followed her hosts into their
lounge area, which was larger than her entire home. Very little in the room
seemed to have been chosen to compliment the rest. If that said anything about
Marc or Gwen, Lucky had no idea what it was.

An oak table sat between a plaid sofa
and two paisley chairs. Lucky chose the couch simply because it was closest to
the exit. Gwen sat across from her in one of the chairs, but she was surprised
when Marc sat beside Lucky rather than his partner. She wondered what
partner
was supposed to imply, but chose to focus on the issue at hand. She was here
for answers, she reminded herself, not for information about Marc’s
relationship status.

As Lucky opened her mouth, icy fingers
clenched around her heart and a wave of dizziness flooded her mind.
No!

Lucky reached out, her hand landing on
Marc’s forearm as she tried to steady herself, tried to stay connected to her
body. Her fingernails dug into his skin, too hard. She wanted to apologize, but
she couldn’t. It was too late. By the time she turned her head and locked on to
Marc’s eyes, she could feel her soul leaving her body.

He looked back at her, his eyes full of
concern, but there was nothing to be done.