Untamed - A. G. Howard Page 0,10

hands. Power is the only path to happiness, and I can help you acquire it. My name is Morpheus. Find a looking glass and call on me when you are ready to claim your destiny.”

With that, the huge bug turned and flew out the window.

“Wait!” I shouted. Tears scalding my lashes, I stumbled over to the sill and gazed down. Two teen boys on bicycles stared up at me from beside Wally’s corpse. Just moments ago the man had been overpowering me . . . now he looked like a broken doll whose arms and legs had been twisted in unnatural poses until they’d popped out of their sockets. The rain puddles beside him were tinged red with the blood seeping from the back of his skull.

Dogs barked and people screamed as more spectators emerged from our apartment building. Slowly, each one turned to my window. Several pointed at me; some shook their heads.

I wanted to run but couldn’t release my white-knuckled grip on the sill. The spiders were gone, having slipped within the thousands of hiding places accessible only to insects, leaving me to wish I was their size, so I could disappear and never have to face the accusations and questions about to come my way.

Morpheus was right. I didn’t belong anywhere after that. And I suspected that’s why he arranged for Wally to find that note and prey on me in the first place.

Child welfare services accused Mrs. Bunsby of negligence, stating someone with my “violent tendencies” shouldn’t have been left to my own devices while she ran errands. They also pointed out that I’d been skipping classes, which only made her look more inept. They took me out of her care that very evening.

While the police and my child care advocates interviewed Mrs. Bunsby in the living room, I packed up my sparse belongings, trying to avoid looking at the window. Mrs. Bunsby had left a brown grocery sack on the bed. Funny, how she thought she’d failed me. I could see it reflected in her teary hazel eyes when she came home to the mess I’d made. Too bad I couldn’t tell her the truth. That she wasn’t to blame for me being an accomplice to murder . . . that the responsibility fell on Wally himself, along with a mystical moth and a swarm of daddy longlegs.

Inside the grocery sack, she’d tucked her husband’s camera, film, and a book on picture developing. There was also a packet of peanut butter crackers, an apple, and a bottle of water. My heart twisted tight, because I knew I could’ve been happy with her, if only Morpheus hadn’t had other plans for me. But as much as my chest hurt, I refused to cry. I was done crying.

And I would never be a victim again.

As I left the apartment, Mrs. Bunsby promised to try to visit sometime. I knew better.

A month passed, filled with psych evaluations and doctor exams, to make sure I wasn’t traumatized. Hard as they tried, the doctors couldn’t pin any crazy on me, because I refused to give details about the event. All I said was that the landlord had tried to force himself on me, we wrestled, and he fell out the window. Simple as that.

When the psychiatrist held up the cards for the inkblot tests, I never confessed what each one really looked like. I didn’t tell them that I saw rabbit holes, hookah-smoking caterpillars, little girls in aprons with knives in their hands, winged men, sparrow-size moths, or armies of spiders. I also never let anyone catch me talking to the flowers and bugs that kept me company. I knew how to appear sane.

I did such a great job, I was released from any more evaluations after only six weeks. The problem was child care services wouldn’t be able to place me with a foster family considering all the baggage I carried. So the children’s home became my permanent residence.

Or so they thought. I didn’t intend to stay. I planned to go someplace where their laws and watchful eyes could never find me again. And I knew just who would aid me on my escape.

All those weeks in therapy, I’d procrastinated reaching out to Morpheus. I needed that time to think things through. And I’d come to three realizations. One, my family really was somehow tied to the Lewis Carroll tales, which meant Wonderland had to exist on some level. Two, Morpheus was also tied to Wonderland, and he needed