I study her tear-streaked face, her pink hair dripping onto her ruffled pajama top, the three tiny freckles on the bridge of her nose. She looks so vulnerable. Do we really want to bring her into this? There’s no turning back once we do.

Jeb forces me to sit up. “You’re the only one who can show her. Make her understand.”

I gulp. “I don’t even know where to start.”

“Somewhere right around here.” He trails a finger down the slits in my dress that reveal my bare shoulder blades. My wing buds tingle at his touch.

Heat scorches my face. “But, I can’t just . . . we need to prepare her.”

Jenara inches backward toward the door. “Prepare me? You guys are freaking me out. I’m calling Mom.” The doorbell rings and she stalls, her face brightening. “Corbin,” she mumbles, and turns toward the hall to let him in.

“No, J.” Jeb tries to stop her but she shrugs him off.

“Wait, Jen!” I jump off the bed. “Corb can’t be here for this.”

“Why not?” She spins, hands on her hips. “He’s been here while Jeb’s been missing. And while you were committed. He loves me, Al. He’s been taking care of me and Mom. Anything you can tell me, you can tell him.” She turns and marches through the bedroom door.

“We-we’ve been to Wonderland!” I blurt, stopping her in her tracks. She does an about-face midway into the hall, her mouth agape.

“Show her your wings,” Jeb adds, narrowing his eyes. His long lashes cast shadows across his cheeks and the luminary lights sparkle across his skin, making him look as much like a netherling as me.

“Wings?” Jenara snaps, stomping back into the room. “Seriously, bro? You want her locked in the asylum again? You have no idea what she went through while they were trying to knock the Wonderland out of her. Don’t enable her delirium!”

“Al . . .” Jeb guides me toward her. “You’re gonna have to own it. There’s no gentle way to make someone believe. It took me a crash course via the rabbit hole.”

Upon hearing the word rabbit, Rabid bursts from the closet, his skeletal form tangled in scarves and belts. He stumbles into Jeb and knocks them both to the floor. Rabid inches along toward me on his belly, looking like a demented caterpillar with only his antlers and pink eyes showing.

“Rabid of White, I be!” He announces in his hissing voice as he rolls around, trying to get liberated.

Jeb curses and Jenara screams so loud all sound deafens to a dull roar, as if my eardrums are stuffed inside a seashell.

The front door slams open and footsteps pound down the hall. Jeb scrambles up to shut Jen’s bedroom, but too late. Corbin arrives at the threshold, panting, reddish-blond hair shimmering in the soft light. He clenches a house key in his hand. His eyes fall on Rabid, who’s managed to peel off the accessories from Jenara’s closet and is standing there, baring all his netherling creeptitude.

The little creature opens his arms in a grand flourish. “Ta-da!” he shouts, froth spritzing from his mouth. I scowl at his showmanship. Morpheus must’ve taught him that move.

“What the hell?” Corbin drawls in his deep Southern accent, grasping Jenara’s elbow and backing her trembling body toward the hall with him.

Jeb frowns, intent on the key chain in Corbin’s hand. “I was about to ask the same thing. Why do you have a key to our house, Corb? Since when are you living with my sister?”

I stare at Jeb. The netherling side of me laughs out loud before I can stop it, reveling in the ridiculousness of the entire situation. It seems we’re all driven by instincts. For Jeb, giving his sister and best pal the shock of their lives takes a backseat to protective-big-brother mode.

Hearing Jenara’s sobs reins my wicked side back in. I grab her robe from the chair by the nightstand and toss it over Rabid. He growls and the smell of singed fabric sharpens the air as his eyes become two glowing red orbs underneath, making smoky holes in the terrycloth.

“No fires, Rabid!” I scold.

He turns off his eyes and hunches lower to the floor.

“Jeb? Al?” Corbin mumbles, as if he’s just now noticing us. He looks dangerously close to passing out. The freckles around his nose appear dark against his pale face. His intense blue gaze stays nailed to Rabid’s hunched and wriggling form beneath the terrycloth robe. “Where’ve you . . . how did you . . . ? That thing. It’s gotta be a robot . . . right?”

“Rabid no robot be!” My royal advisor screeches from under his covering, offended.

“Into the closet,” I command. Rabid mumbles something indecipherable and hops out of sight, dragging the burned robe behind him like a wedding train.

Jeb and I exchange glances. “There’s always forgetting potions,” I offer.

He huffs, studying Corbin and Jenara where they’re propped against the wall outside the room, confused and shaken beyond words. “Losing your memories isn’t all it’s cut out to be. Trust me.”

“So we tell him, too,” I offer. “It’s that, or he forgets and we send him home.”

“I’m not going anywhere without Jen,” Corbin grates out, the color returning to his face. He holds Jenara against him as she buries her nose into his button-up shirt, struggling to breathe normally.

Jeb’s lips turn on a slow, daring smile. “Not going anywhere tonight? So, you plan on being devoted to her for another day or two?”

Corbin’s jaw clenches. “Try forever.” His embrace tightens, drawing Jenara so close her pajama pants cling to his jeans, popping with static.

“Forever’s a long time,” Jeb says, and the twinge of sadness in the statement tugs my insides, as if they were a harp strummed by his fingertips. Sniffling, Jenara turns to look at her brother, her expression bewildered. Jeb’s mood shifts again as he shakes his head—an affectionate gesture. “Looks like you have yourself a regular white knight, sis.”

I catch Jeb’s wrist where a raised scar has replaced his tattoo. “You would know a little about how stubborn those can be. Yeah?”

He chuckles softly and winds our fingers together. “So, Corb. You want to be a part of our family? What say we make it official?”

Corbin and Jenara both squint at us, holding their breath. The house falls deathly quiet. Nothing can be heard but a few whispering insects—on a frequency only I’m attuned to—and Rabid’s grumbles from the closet.

Jeb lifts my hand and kisses my engagement ring. “The thing you both need to know about Al?” he says to our audience. “That asylum never had a chance at curing her. See, you can take the girl out of Wonderland, but you can’t take Wonderland out of the girl.” My hand slips from his as he steps back to give me room. “Show them what you got, fairy queen.”

I put on my most regal smile. And there, in the middle of the pink-striped bedroom, with my best friend and the love of her life staring wide-eyed, I free my netherling wings, and confess all my lies.

MEMORY TWO: SEASHELLS

Four years later . . .

PLEASANCE, TX., JUN 29 — Two Pleasance locals who were reported missing four weeks ago, along with two others who vanished last Wednesday, were discovered alive early Saturday morning, with only a few scrapes and bruises, trapped within a collapsed mining tunnel beneath a condemned activity park.