“You will? You mean it? What about your precious ‘Black and Whites’?”
“It does seem unfair that you don’t get a say in your own stories.”
He placed the back of his hand across my temple.
“No fever,” he said. “Are you the real Rainy March or have you been replaced with an impostor?”
Playing along, I glanced at myself in the rearview mirror.
“Looks like me,” I said. “But that’s exactly what an impostor would say…Wait.”
Sometimes that’s all it takes. A word. A glance. Two things that seemingly have nothing to do with each other and then—click. And the moment I glanced at myself in the mirror, I heard the click.
“Duke, here’s a riddle for you—”
“You know I hate riddles as much as you hate puns. They’re for children and the shiftless.”
“You’ll like this one. Remember, the answer is staring us in the face? Well, what stares you in the face every single day of your life?”
“Impending doom?”
“Your own face in the mirror.”
His eyes widened. He glanced at the side mirror, then at me.
“Another word for a mirror…” he said.
“Looking-glass, Duke. Looking-glass. The March Hare’s inThrough the Looking-Glass.The sequel toAlice in Wonderland.Of course!”
“But, darling,” Duke said, “I thought you said it’s the same March Hare in both books. We ruled it out.”
“I’m ruling it back in again. It’s the only thing that makes sense. A mirror stares me in the face. ‘Mirror’ is another word for ‘looking-glass.’ And the March Hare inThrough the Looking-Glassgoes by a different name.Haigha,which is pronounced to rhyme with ‘mayor.’ ”
“Why?”
“Who knows? Lewis Carroll was a weird guy. What do you think?”
Duke took a breath.
“You know I’ll go anywhere with you,” he said. “Lead the way. But please don’t be disappointed if we…well, if our rabbit hunt turns into a wild-goose chase.”
From my bag, I pulled outThe Secret of the Old Clock,staring at the cover, Nancy Drew in blue running through the woods with a clock under her arm, like she was trying to stop time. If only that worked. Our own clock was ticking. The afternoon was fading into evening, and by the time we were home, it would be dark.
“I have to try,” I told Duke. “For Pops.”
“Then let’s go through the looking-glass, love.”
“We’ll need to go back into Gatsby’s library,” I said. “Since both Alice books are Code Reds. Gotta be a library around here somewhere…”
We would need a library, but when I’d scrolled through my phone, I couldn’t find any libraries still open. And the nearest bookstore was a thirty-minute drive away. Doing immersions in a bookstore wasn’t a good idea anyway. You always ran the risk of an employee reshelving your book, which can make escaping much, much harder. And if someone bought the book, when we escaped we could end up anywhere.
“We’ll have to hurry home,” I said. “Buckle up. I’m going to floor it.”
Fifteen minutes later, we’d gotten up to the speed limit.
“By floor it,” I explained to Duke, “I meant not floor it.”
“Of course.”
