My art teacher says that a real artist bleeds for her craft, but he never told us that blood can become your medium, can take on a life of its own and shape your art in vile and gruesome ways.
I shove my hair over my shoulder, puncture my forefinger with the sterilized safety pin I had tucked in my pocket, then position the final glass gem on my mosaic and wait.
As I press the translucent bead into the wet white plaster, I shudder at the seeping sensation. It’s like a leech at the tip of my finger where I touch the glass, sucking and siphoning my blood to the underside of the gem, forming a pool of deep, velvet red. But it doesn’t stop there.
The blood dances … moves from gem to gem, coloring the back of each with a line of crimson—forming a picture. Breath locks in my lungs and I wait for the lines to connect … wondering what the end result will be this time. Hoping it won’t be her again.
The last bell of the day rings, and I scramble to cover my mosaic with a drop cloth, terrified someone might see the transformation taking place.
It’s yet another reminder that the Wonderland fairy tale is real, that my being a descendant of Alice Liddell means I’m different from everyone else. No matter how much distance I try to put between us, I’m connected forever to a strange and eerie sect of magical creatures called netherlings.
