39. Kaz in Wonderland
Chapter thirty-nine
Kaz in Wonderland
Kazimir
P avel’s words hung heavy in the dark, musty air.
Something else?
I gazed around, feeling out of place and on edge. The chill of the damp basement seeped into my very soul.
It was all alien.
Unsettling.
My nerves flared, and this overwhelming sense of dread filled me.
My mind raced, trying to piece together the transition from my bedroom to this dark, confined space.
“No, Pavel.” My eyes settled on Emily, lying motionless on the unforgiving cement floor. “There is no reality where I would allow my mouse to sleep on the ground. Someone would die. This is a dream.”
“It is not, Kazimir.”
But how could I accept his words?
Pavel had died by my own hands, now he stood before me as if no veil of death had ever parted us. He was only a figure relegated to my dreams.
I reached out to Emily.
“I would not do that, Kazimir.”
I froze with my fingers two inches above her arm, ready to touch her.
“I am telling you that this is not a dream.” Pavel stepped forward and terror rose in his eyes. “Why would you then begin to touch things?”
“My mouse is not a thing.” I lowered my hand, and my fingertips brushed against her skin, expecting the cold touch of a figure conjured by dreams.
Instead, her skin was warm, unmistakably alive, but there was something else—a frightening vibration as if her very essence was buzzing.
It was so intense, so unfathomable, that my teeth rattled in response.
Then, her brown skin transformed before my eyes.
Glowing.
And it wasn’t a subtle shimmer, but a radiant, golden light that emanated from within her body. Like the sun itself had been encapsulated beneath her skin.
The dark basement brightened.
And it wasn’t just her skin that changed.
Her black hair went white.
Scared, I yanked my hand back as if burned. The terror that gripped me was primal, a fear of the unknown, of powers beyond my comprehension.
Pavel stepped closer. “This is not a dream. You felt that?”
“I. . .did but. . .” I sat there, transfixed and horrified. “In dreams, things seem real—”
“But they do not feel real—”
“They can—”
“She glowed, Kazimir. She vibrated. I could tell you felt it.” He scowled at me. “This is not a dream or hallucination.”
Slowly, Emily’s glowing gold skin dimmed and darkened back to brown.
Next, her white strands returned to black.
Pavel walked over to the other side of her and gazed down. “This is something far beyond. . . something sacred and profane.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that you need to wake up. Shake your head or—”
“Hold on. If I need to wake up, then this is a dream—”
“It is not—”
“Then, what is it?” I bared my teeth at him. “Stop talking in riddles!”
Pavel didn’t flinch at my outburst. Also, his gaze never left Emily. “You are in her mind.”
“My mouse’s mind?”
“Yes.”
I shook my head. “Impossible.”
“You are talking to a ghost right now—the part of my spirt that chose to haunt you—”
“Correction. You are a figment of my imagination—a metaphor for the guilt that I have over killing you.”
“Correction?” Pavel sneered. “Stubborn fool. This is why you are here in the first place, and somehow you have dragged me into this mess. Wake up!”
Before I could attempt to form a response, a movement caught my eye.
I looked to my right.
There, in the shadowed corner of the basement, stood a little girl.
I froze in further horror.
She was the spitting image of the child from Emily’s painting. She had these two long, thick braids and wore jeans and a blue shirt with a gray mouse on it.
My hands shook. “The. . .little girl.”
She whispered, “You should wake up.”
Pavel spotted the little girl and backed away. “This is not, okay, Kazimir. We must go.”
The little girl remained in that corner and nodded. “And you cannot touch her again.”
I swallowed. “Why not?”
“Because. . .” The little girl shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe, it would be bad if she woke up.”
Pavel bobbed his head. “Perhaps, you would get stuck in her mind.”
“But. . .” Slowly, I rose and then backed away from Emily. “How can I be inside her mind?”
Pavel finally turned to face me. His expression turned grave. “Remember the witch, and the drink she gave Emily? Whatever magic was in that concoction. . .it passed through to her breast milk.”
My thoughts shifted to that night in Delphine’s basement and what she had said.
“Love your mouse, Lion. That is it. However. . .” She lifted one finger up and wagged it. “Do not drink her breast milk. No matter how much you want to.”
Maxwell slowly turned my way. “Man, I know you haven’t been drinking her milk. Right?”
I eyed Delphine. “Why can’t I drink it?”
“Because what I gave her is going to pass through it, and you don’t want to delve into that madness.”
My hand clutched at my stomach, and my face contorted in discomfort. “That cannot be.”
Pavel turned to me. “Why not?”
“I drank her breast milk that night and went to sleep. Nothing happened. Then, I drank again.”
“But, your mouse did not go to sleep the first night.”
I considered that and remembered she stayed up all night painting.
This is the first time since we left Delphine’s that she has gone to sleep.
“It is the breast milk, Kazimir.” Pavel’s voice was a mix of certainty and disbelief. “The witch told you not to drank it, and instead of listening, you gulped. Twice.”
I trembled.
“And whatever magic Emily ingested, whatever power was meant to lock her in her own psyche. . . You ingested it too. Through her.”
“No, that cannot be,” I protested, even as the reality of his words sank in like claws into my flesh.
“Think about it, Kazimir. How else could you explain this? You are here, feeling, experiencing things that are impossible in the waking world. This is not some dream conjured by your subconscious. You are in her mind now, and even more, you dragged me into this.”
The room seemed to spin, the basement walls closing in as the weight of Pavel’s words pressed down on me.
I remembered the taste, the warmth, the bond I felt each time I drank from my mouse. And the milk had been sweeter and sweeter with each swallow.
Addicting.
More than just nourishment.
And each time I placed my mouth upon her nipples, it had felt like a ritual.
A sacred connection between us.
“No.” I shook my head at Pavel. “I do not want the reason to be the milk—”
“Why not?”
“Because I still will not stop drinking it.”
“Dear God! Are you insane?!” Then, Pavel turned to the little girl. “Why am I asking him? Of course he is insane. I have known this fact, since we were kids.”
I scanned the space, looking at the basement with new eyes. “I am in my mouse’s mind.”
The concept was overwhelming, unfathomable. Yet, as I looked at Emily’s peaceful form on the basement floor, the truth of it resonated within me like a struck chord.
I lifted my view to the little girl. “Why is my mouse on the floor?”
“It’s always that way. When she comes to sleep, it is here.”
“But why not on a bed?”
“She was born here on the floor, right in the blood.”
I leaned my head to the side. “Whose blood?”
“His blood.” She hugged the lion tighter. “The nasty man.”
Pavel cleared his throat. “I am sorry, but Emily being on the floor is not important. Get us out of here, Kazimir.”
I lowered my view to the little girl’s stuffed lion. “That lion should be much bigger. Fluffy, yet ferocious.”
She curved her small lips into the sweetest smile.
“Do you know how to make it bigger?”
She shook her head.
“One day, we will figure that out.”
“Alright, Kazimir.” Pavel frowned. “You have your answers. Now let us go—”
“We are not going anywhere.” I held up my hand. “If I am here, then this means something.”
“Means something?” Pavel hissed. “What are you talking about?”
“Perhaps, the Universe or God—”
“It means you are a stubborn fool for going against the witch’s warning. That is it. There is no deeper spiritual meaning to your idiot ways.”
I studied the little girl. “You do not think I should wake up my mouse?”
Worry covered her face. “Maybe. . .it will wake you up too and you will leave.”
“Oh.” Pavel blinked. “Then, perhaps you should wake Emily up.”
“Or. . .” The little girl stared down at her lion.
I quirked my brows. “Or?”
“You may live here forever.”
Pavel rubbed his forehead. “Which means that I will probably live here forever.”
I glared at him. “What is wrong with you?”
Pavel touched his chest. “Me?”
“You are dead. Stop worrying about yourself—”
“I am not as dead as you understand, and this reality.” He gazed around. “I do not want to be here. If I am to haunt you, it is your mind, not hers.”
I turned my gaze to the gray walls. “This is her. . .mind. . .”
“Yes.” Pavel bobbed his head. “So, let us go. Now.”
I stood there, unable to move.
On one hand, the urge to wake Emily, to pull us both out of this surreal mindscape, tugged at me with the urgency of survival. In fact, the thought of being trapped here forever, in the depths of her psyche, was horrifying.
What if this moment were my only chance to escape, to go back to the tangible world where I understood the rules, where I could protect her with muscle, guns, and might instead of wading through the murky waters of her subconscious?
But then, there was the other, more daunting path.
Staying.
The possibility that there was a reason I was here, inside her mind, couldn’t be ignored.
What if this was a rare opportunity to mend something broken, to understand and heal aspects of Emily that were otherwise locked away from me, from even her alters?
Was there damage done that I could undo, secrets I could unearth that would fortify her psyche in the real world?
What-ifs and maybes gnawed at me.
Staying could mean getting stuck—or worse, causing further damage to her.
But leaving so fast. . .what if leaving meant missing the chance to fix something crucial, something vital?
Think. You must think. What is the right thing to do?
Sighing, I considered all of this some more.
If I stayed, delved deeper into this obscure world, I risked becoming an unwelcome intruder in her inner sanctum.
But if I left without helping my mouse, would I ever forgive myself for the missed opportunity to understand her better, to heal her?
Never. I would hate myself for being a coward.
Pavel watched me. “No. No. I do not like that look on your face, Kazimir.”
The little girl widened her eyes, probably not sure of what Pavel was thinking.
“Kazimir.” Pavel pointed at me. “Listen, cousin. There is no other option for us, but to leave. You are not Alice . This is not Wonderland . We will not be going on an adventure. I think that you must wake yourself up somehow.”
I studied the little girl some more, and something profound stirred within me.
She was a mirror to the past, a haunting reflection of what Emily must have looked like at her age—wide-eyed, clutching her stuffed lion as if it were her only anchor in a tumultuous sea.
The sight of her sparked so much warmth in my heart.
Pavel shook his head. “Kazimir, stop looking at her. Put your view on me.”
Soon Emily would have my daughter. I could sense her arrival deep within my soul.
She would like the little girl.
I smiled.
Pavel groaned in annoyance.
But then, sorrow crept in.
Dark sorrow.
This little girl—an alter formed probably from the purest parts of Emily—was confined to a surreal world of shattered trauma.
The little girl’s eyes met mine, and in them, I saw a depth that was upsetting. They were pools of knowing, of understanding far beyond her years, and it pained me to think that she experienced a legacy of pain.
I swallowed. “I cannot leave you so soon.”
She widened her eyes. “But. . .”
“Do you want me to go?”
She shook her head no.
My smile widened.
Pavel raised his hands to his head and held it. “You are insane! Do you think you can simply do whatever you want to do?”
I truly believed that this alter was the embodiment of Emily’s innocence and maybe other hidden truths. And if that was correct, then all the alters held clues.
I put my view back on my mouse as she lay asleep on the floor. “I have a unique vantage point, Pavel.”
“You have nothing in this existence—”
“I could piece together—”
“Piece together what? Do you think this is a puzzle that you solve on a coffee table? Because this is not.” He pointed to the ground. “This is her mind. This is insanity formed into solid brick, paint, and walls.”
I shivered.
“You will not be okay after leaving. You will be changed forever.”
I tilted my head to the side. “Have I ever been okay, Pavel?”
“Well. . .no, but at least—”
“This is a puzzle that I can solve.”
“No, Kazimir. This is a shattered vase that is impossible to glue back together.”
I turned to the little girl. “What do you think?”
She squeezed her lion tighter and remained silent.
“I think I could help you and the others.” I touched my chest. “Sometimes it’s hard to heal ourselves because we are right in the center of the problem. Sometimes. . .a stranger, friend, anybody can help because they are looking in from the outside.”
Pavel began pacing. “Finally, I have accepted death. I have even. . .found the joy of it. And the Lion shows me that there are other things more terrifying than death.”
“I could find the original.”
The little girl blinked. “Can you?”
Pavel continued to pace. “He does not know what he is talking about.”
“My perspective is different.” I touched my chin and rubbed it. “I am an outsider, not just to her mind but to her entire experience.”
“Life is a game, Kazimir that you have played well, but death is not a game and Emily’s subconscious is not. . .I do not know what this is.”
“Then, shut up so I can think.” I rubbed my chin some more.
The little girl whispered, “You both should go.”
“I will go.” I dropped my hand from my chin. “But, not before looking around a little.”
The little girl stepped back into the shadows. “I don’t know if you should do that.”
“Why not?”
“You do not belong here.”
I scanned the space. “Emily said she always woke up in the building from Harlem.”
The little girl nodded.
“Where do you usually sleep?”
“In the apartment upstairs.”
“And M has an office and big room.”
She nodded.
“And where does Lunita sleep?”
“On the roof.”
“What about Amber?”
The little girl pointed to a space behind me.
I turned and there was a gate that covered a huge hole in the wall.
The little girl kept her voice low. “That is how you get to her sewer.”
“But, it is connected to the basement.” I considered the stuff that Emily had told me, and even thought of what Maxwell had said once. “Maxwell’s father would play hide and seek with all of you in the basement.”
The little girl looked down at the lion and hugged it tighter.
Maybe, the basement was the first time he touched her inappropriately, and he did something until Amber was born.
The more I delved into the labyrinth of Emily’s mind, the more evident it became that my role was not merely that of a spectator.
If I could just. . .piece together. . .at least some of the fragmented aspects of her trauma.
I took one step toward the little girl. “Can you take me to the roof? I want to see Lunita.”
The little girl opened her mouth in shock.
“Absolutely not, Kazimir.” Pavel hurried around Emily and got in front of me. “I do not want to meet Lunita, and you have gone far enough in Emily’s mind. Let us count ourselves lucky and—”
“I need to find answers for my mouse.”
“Kazimir,” Pavel’s voice broke through my turmoil, softer now, tinged with an empathy I hadn’t expected. “There are no right answers in a place like this, and especially for you . There are only bad choices and consequences.”
No.
This was Emily.
My mouse.
The one person who had seen beyond the murderous beast inside of me and had reached into the darkness to find my heart.
“Pavel.” I scowled at him. “If there is even a sliver of a chance that I could help Emily, protect her in a way that I never could in the physical world. . .”
Pavel shook his head.
“I owe it to her to try.”
“And if you get lost in here or trapped—”
“I raced around Paris naked, wielding my rocket launcher. I have bombed for Emily and killed many. Even recently. . .” I let out a long breath and turned my view to my mouse on the ground. “I jumped into a pit of alligators just to get an eye.”
Pavel sighed. “Kazimir, think of Emilio.”
I snapped my view to him and sneered. “And you think of Paolo.”
Pavel blinked and edged back as if I had slapped him.
I pointed at my mouse. “Paolo needs Emily to be healed. To him, she is everything. Just think of the mother my mouse would be if she were truly able to fully heal.”
Pavel rubbed his forehead.
But still the fear of becoming trapped, of becoming a ghost in her psyche, unable to leave, unable to live, haunted me.
I was a man of action, not of introspection.
Yet, here, action and introspection were one and the same.
I gritted my teeth and did my best to shove away the fears.
The little girl watched me. “I can take you to Lunita.”
Am I going to do it? Go to Lunita? Or wake up?
And there it was—the crux of it all.
Choice.
The foundation of all our lives, human or otherwise. Every action, every decision, tended to lead to the crossroads between action and reflection.
Echoes of my past life, the cold steel of guns, the whispered oaths of loyalty to the Brotherhood, the blood spilled, the deaths, all seemed distant yet hauntingly present, as if Emily’s subconscious had somehow entangled with the dark undercurrents of my own existence.
“I should meet everyone,” I murmured, more to myself than to Pavel and the little girl. “It could help somehow.”
Pavel frowned. “Help?”
“I could search for the original. Narrow down places or. . .somehow get clues.”
“Clues?” Pavel deepened his frown. “This is not a mystery, cousin. This is a horror—one where if you die at the end. . .in here. . .you may be a vegetable in the real world.”
A cold shiver ran through me.
Pavel pleaded with me. “Would that be helping Emily?”
I sighed. “We do not know what could happen.”
“Kazimir, every moment here could be a gamble against her sanity—and yours.”
I fisted my hands at my side.
“Which is why we should leave.”
I wanted to punch him in his face. “How can you be dead and also be a coward at the same time?”
“I am being smart. That is a big difference.”
I turned back to Emily, her form still and peaceful on the cold cement. This was more than about getting out; it was about going in, deeper into the heart of my mouse’s darkness, to maybe, just maybe, bring her into the light.
To my surprise, the little girl whispered into the stuffed lion’s ear, her small frame leaning in close to the toy as if sharing a secret with a trusted friend.
And for some reason, that made me smile and. . .it helped me to truly understand what I needed to do.
I knew the risks.
I could become lost, a shadow in Emily’s mind forever.
But love. . .
It was not just about holding someone close; it was about diving into the unknown for them.
I love you, mysh.
With a deep, steadying breath, I made my choice. I would stay, for now, delve deeper into the enigma of Emily’s mind. I would face her demons, confront any fears, and unearth the secrets buried within.
Because if there was even the smallest chance that this could bring her healing, mend her shattered pieces, then it was a risk worth taking.
For her, I would brave the unknown, even if it meant losing myself in the process.
“Alright,” My voice steadied. “Let’s go deeper.”
“No, Kazimir. No.” Pavel waved his hands in front of me. “You must listen. It is time to go.”
I kept my view on the little girl. “Take me to the roof. I want to see Lunita.”