Atlas (Splintered fanfiction)

Chapter 11

Chapter 11 

"Morpheus." I say it more as an accusation than a revelation.

     The winged devil flashes his white teeth in a stunning smile that draws me in as it puts me on guard, my heart beating quickly in my chest. "Mmm." He moves his hand along the hookah as if it's a violin. "Your voice is a song. Say it again." He takes a drag of smoke from the pipe.

     I'm so entranced by seeing him alive and real, I don't even try to resist. "Morpheus."

     "Beautiful. Your mum should've known it would take more than a pair of pruning shears to snip me out of your life. Though it appears she managed to cut me from your memories for a bit." He puffs out circles of smoke. "I'm wounded, Atlas. It shouldn't have taken this long for you to find me." Catching the smoke rings on his finger, he tosses them into the air, where they burst into vaporous stars.

     Jeb and Alyssa struggle under the net next to me. "This is the joker you've been looking for? The one from the website?" he asks, his eyes wide as he stares at Morpheus.

     "More than that," I answer, not even sure the words I'm forming are coherent. "We grew up together, somehow. He was the one in my dreams when I was little. That's right, isn't it? You came to me in my dreams . . . brought me here. Told me things."

     "Taught you things, rather. Oh, but we made time for recreation as well. I shall have to see that we continue that tradition." Morpheus hands off his hookah to some sprites with his pale, elegant fingers. 

     I close my eyes, remembering glimpses of us as children, leaping across rocks as Morpheus took flight and lifted me under my arms — a gentle security. When my eyes open again, I blush bright crimson, remembering how different his touch felt in my bedroom last night. He stands up on the mushroom, wings draped in a flowing arch behind him as he steeples his hands beneath his chin.

     "Hospitality Hat!" he shouts, completely off topic.

     Several of his attendants flutter over with a black velvet cowboy hat and place it on his head. He tilts it cockeyed. The velvet is accented with a band of decomposing white moths, making him appear both suave and savage.

     "She had no right to interfere." He runs a long, slender forefinger across the hat's brim. Lengthy wisps of blue hair touch his shoulders. "It wasn't her place."

     It takes me a minute to realize he's on the subject of Alison again. "You knew her?"

     "Yes. Of all the other candidates, of all of your ancestors, her mind was the most receptive to me. We connected when she heard the nether-call at age thirteen. But she turned her back on her responsibility the moment she met Tommy-toes." He sneers at my father's nickname, furious rage and anger burning in his dark eyes. Then he composes himself, smoothing his jacket. "Never mind all that. I see you wore the gloves. Did you bring the fan, as well?"

     "Along with everything else she had stashed away."

     "And she thought her buried treasures would keep you from coming. Too bad the words in the margins were indecipherable, aye? Perhaps she should've kept her mouth shut and played with her carnations." He smirks.

     Carnations? Indecipherable words? Understanding creeps over me, dawning realization. "It was you. You smeared her notes so I couldn't read them. And at the asylum . . . you're the one who almost killed her!"

     Alyssa squeaks in realization and glares at Morpheus, too.

     "I admit to nothing," he says, shrugging innocently. "Other than that she was out of control. She needed to calm down for her own safety."