Untamed - A. G. Howard Page 0,81

my playmate, the blue-haired boy named Morpheus. Minutes ago, he lifted the veil so Wonderland’s creatures could see me like I do them. In the five years I’ve visited, I’ve only watched them from behind the wall of sleep, like seeing fish inside a tank. This is the first time for me to meet them, and it makes my heart knock and my face hot.

But it’s my own fault. I made it happen.

Earlier, we were at Wonderland’s historical library. The Secret Keeper—as pink as a sunset, with the long neck of a flamingo—helped Morpheus find some books filled with netherling lore. After she patted his eight-year-old head and left the room, Morpheus lifted the veil that kept me invisible to Wonderland, and called me over to a table. He opened a book’s pages, exposing thousands of words written in red ink. I don’t know how to read . . . but it didn’t matter. The sentences and letters floated off the pages, dancing around my head, blending into a real voice—high and whiny like an out-of-tune violin. For an hour, the droning book lectured me about Wonderland’s citizens: their habits, what food they like, their weaknesses and strengths.

“But where’s the pictures?” I asked after the fifth lesson, yawning. “I want pictures . . . like the ones you draw in the Alice book. Talking is BORING.”

Offended, the book slammed itself shut. A waxy red substance oozed from between the sheets of parchment, as if the ink melted. It coated the pages’ edges, sealing them closed. The circle of wax then shaped itself into an angry face, hardened, and huffed.

It refused to peel off, no matter how much Morpheus sweet-talked it.

“Now see what you’ve done.” Morpheus’s young brow tightened to sternness. “There will be no opening it. The only thing that can soften a miffed book seal is a coating of snicker-snap saliva. So, I guess you’re going to get one better than interacting with books and pictures today. You’re going to get to confront a netherling creature, live and up close.”

Though reluctant and scared, I let Morpheus take me from the library and fly me here to the darkest caves of Wonderland. The neon blue trees, orange shrubbery, yellow thistles, and pink moss in the distance look bright from my shadowy perch on the fernlike leaf that hangs over a hungry plant. The snicker-snap species grows only in gloomy places like this, floating on the surface of lakes like toothy water lilies.

I shiver and trace the edge of my wet, fleecy pajamas. I got them for my fifth birthday, two days ago. They have pink and purple superhero girls in the print and should make me feel strong. But I don’t.

I’m as small as a cricket, wondering why I drank the shrinking potion. Kind of because it tasted like butterscotch. But more because my playmate drank it first, and I can’t let him be braver than me. In my world, he’s a moth, and I’m bigger and stronger. But here, he always beats me at everything.

I look again at the drooling plant below. It matches the Venus flytraps at home in Mommy’s photo books even more than it does a water lily. But flytraps aren’t like snicker-snaps. They don’t have jaws lined with wriggling, hungry worms covered with glowing droplets of spit. The light attracts tiny Wonderland creatures into their mouths, and then the jaws snap shut to capture them.

Minutes ago, Luna—a grumpy sprite who had joined our trip to the cave uninvited—was teasing me for my lack of sparkly scales while pointing out the silvery ones covering her like a swimsuit. Morpheus told her to get lost, but she ignored him and chased us as we played follow-the-leader on our hunt for saliva. She was stupid and fell prey to the “glowworms” hanging in the snicker-snap’s mouth.

I hear her whimpering now, even though the hungry plant has snapped its jaws tight and sunk lower into the water. She might be a nasty sprite, but we still have to save her. Because it’s my fault we’re here.

Struggling not to cry, I stare at the turtles bobbing in the stinky lake. I tried to jump across them to reach the plant, but fell in. Morpheus had to drag me out, dripping wet. He’s been bragging ever since.

“You just hop from one to another until you’re across,” he interrupts my thoughts as he shows me the right way to do it—for the hundredth time. He bounces along, never once sinking, as if