by Cameron Jace
I stare at him. Really stare at him. All kinds of thoughts flicker in my head. I want to punch him. I want to bring back time to a point where I have never met him. I want to deliver him to the authorities. But I also want to laugh with him. As he approaches me, a flash of Wonderland sparks before my eyes. It's a short one about me talking to a caterpillar atop of an immense mushroom.
The flash disappears in a flash.
"Who are you?" I ask the Pillar approaching me in Harrods. I am sincerely wishing for an answer. A fragment of an answer will do. "I mean, really, Pillar, who are you?"
He laughs. "I used to ask you that question in Wonderland." He stops before me, knocking his cane against the floor. "And I actually do it with style. Hoo aaare yoooh?" Hookah smoke swirls out of his mouth as he ends his sentence. He hasn't even brought his hookah with him. I cough, closing my eyes, not wanting to get sedated again.
If I close my eyes and open them again, will my world ever change for the better?
When I open my eyes, the Pillar is gone. No wonder Dr. Truckle connects him to Harry Houdini.
30
I sigh at the Pillar's disappearance and get back in the booth. Surely he will come back again.
I pull the curtain back and try on the new dress. I try not to overdress. Nothing too fancy, although I'd love to. A merely noticeable, but moderately proper dress should work just fine. I am not going to the prom. It's just a play at the theatre. A great bonus for a girl locked in an asylum, I must admit. Besides, whatever I wear usually ends up spattered with blood.
I have already chosen a fitting room with no mirrors—the Pillar pretended he had broken it accidentally, and the staff had to remove it when we first entered Harrods. I told them I didn't mind using a mirror-less dressing room. The Pillar covered the rest of the mirror on the wall with a veil he borrowed from an older woman and told me, "What's the use of a dressing room without a mirror? It's just like a book without pictures." He winked and closed the curtain to talk to the girls.
When I look at the dress I chose, I like it on me. Not bad for a mad girl. I think I can look like normal girls, ones who have a few friends, loving parents and siblings, a girl who lives in a nice suburban house, awaits a bright future, and, above all, has a solid memory of her past.
I also think I look like a girl who could have a boyfriend. At least, a mutual interest in a boy. I wonder if this could be my life when all of this is over—if this is ever going to be over.
The accumulation of thoughts reminds me of Jack Diamonds. How is it possible he always appears when I need him? He never complains and is always positive about his energy. I should be flattered; he always wants to have a date with me.
Now that I know Jack is Adam J. Dixon, my dead boyfriend, I understand why I am so into him. My feelings are justified. I am not a love-hungry girl fresh out of the asylum, insta-loving the first boy I meet. I am in love with the boy who had been my boyfriend two years ago. The same boy I killed two years ago.
But how is Adam alive, calling himself Jack?
I shrug and silence my overworking mind. Better pull the curtain and ask the Pillar who's going to pay for my dress. I know he hasn't fully disappeared. He was just playing games with me.
When I pull the curtain, I am surprised someone is standing right behind it. Not the Pillar. Someone I miss dearly but never expected to see here.
Jack Diamonds flashes one of his smiles with cute dimples at me. It's a sexy smile.
31
"Are you wearing this dress for me?" He has his arm resting on the doorframe, a seductive gleam flowering in his eyes.
"Jack!" I tiptoe like a young girl meeting her loved one after he has been away for long.
"With a dress like that, I could get on my knees and propose."
I am sure I am blushing, so I lower my head and lace my hands. Slowly, Jack's finger nudges me back to look at him. "You know I am poor and can't afford a ring, right?"
"You're just silly." I am blushing red roses out of my cheeks.
"I'm not silly. I am mad."
"You're not mad. Trust me." I wrap my fingers around his wrist. I feel as if the world is slowly disappearing all around me. No one's left in it but him and me. "I'm the mad one. I have a Certificate of Ins—"
"I'm mad about you," he says. I don't think he heard what I just said. "I would go to the moon and back for you. You have no idea, Alice."
"Mad enough to die for me?" I shrug. In the name of Mushroomers, why did I say that?
"Alice." He leans in, still smelling of a deck of cards. Normally, a smell like that would spoil a moment like this. It doesn't. I'm in love with all the nonsense aces, spades, hearts, clubs, and diamonds he brings to my life. "You can kill me anytime you want. I won't complain," he whispers.
A sticky tear threatens to seep out of my eye when he says that. Now, why did he say that? Should I tell him that I killed him? Should I tell him I have no idea how he is standing in front of me?
"Who are you talking to?" The Pillar waves at me from an aisle of dresses a few feet away.
"It's Jack," I reply. "I have never had him appear in your presence before."
The Pillar says nothing as he walks silently toward me. He briefly checks out the crowd around us before he stops and says, "Jack who?"
"Jack Diamonds," I insist, poking Jack at his chest.
The Pillar looks behind him and then back to me, a suspicious gaze in his eyes. Almost pitying.
"Look." I sigh. "I know you don't like him, but it wouldn't hurt you to say 'hi.'"
"I would if I could," the Pillar says. His gaze starts to worry me.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"It means I don't see a 'Jack' in here."
"It's Jack, Pillar," I stress. "Adam, my boyfriend. Don't play games with me."
Slowly, the Pillar closes in, standing right behind Jack. "Alice," he almost whispers. "You need to calm down. There is no one here but you and me. Behind us, everyone is taking care of their own business. But right here, there is no Jack."
"You're lying," I say. "I'm not imagining him."
"I didn't quite say that. I just don't see him."
"Nonsense!" I look back at Jack. "Say something, Jack."
"Like what?" Jack looks uncomfortable with the Pillar's proximity.
"Tell him you're not a figment of my imagination," I plead. "Tell the Pillar you're real."
Jack sighs and walks away, brushing against the Pillar. I see the Pillar slightly make room for him. Why is he saying he can't see him? Where is Jack going?
"I am real, Alice," Jack says from afar. "I just don't like this man." He points at the Pillar. "I think he doesn't like me. And honestly, I think you shouldn't be around him."
"Pillar?" I dare him. "You heard Jack. Is that true?"
"What did Jack say?" The Pillar purses his lips but looks in the direction I am looking at.
"He says you're playing games with my mind."
"Please, Alice," the Pillar says. "Let's forget about Jack. I will tell you who he is when we catch the Muffin Man. You gave me your word."
"And what is that supposed to mean?" Jack protests.
"There is no Jack here, Alice." The Pillar holds me gently by the shoulders.
"He is standing right there!" My high-pitched voice catches the customers' attention. The Pillar looks like he doesn't want anyone to notice me.
"All right." The Pillar sighs. "Ask Jack to talk to one of the staff girls. Let's see if they can see him."
"Don't listen to him, Alice," Jack says.
"Do as he says, Jack," I beg him. "Please."
Jack slowly walks toward a girl in the staff and stretches out a hand. She smiles and shakes it back. No one can resist those dimples. They start chatting.
"See? He is real." I pout at the Pillar. "He is talking to the girl."
"No, he isn't," the Pillar says. "What girl?"
"I can't believe you." I push the Pillar away. I am about to pull my hair and scream. I feel like
I want to hide back in my cell. Something isn't right. It's like a hidden truth that I feel but can't put my hands on. "I don't understand why you are doing this," I shout at the Pillar in public. The hell with people. I am a mad girl. I can do as I please. "I've had it with you!" I walk away with Jack.
It's time to end this.
. I return to the dressing room, away from the Pillar, and grab my clothes so I can leave. Furious, I pull my clothes and accidentally catch on the dark veil covering the mirror. My heart almost explodes at the horror, realizing what I have done. I reach for the veil before it curls down to the ground.
But I am too late.
Once the mirror flashes like summer rays at my eyes, I see that scary rabbit inside it again. My fear of mirrors prickles every hair on my skin. This time, I am too furious and fragile to deal with it.
I faint and drop to the floor like an empty satin dress, devoid of its owner, swirling lonely to the ground.
32
THEATRE ROYAL, DRURY LANE, LONDON, 1862
I am standing in front of Theatre Royal in Drury Lane on Brydges Street—renamed Catherine Street two centuries later. It's 1862 again. I am back in Lewis' vision, only we're in London this time.
There is a coach and a small crowd waiting outside the theatre's façade. All in all, a few people. Hiding at the edges of my vision I still see a lot of homeless people and beggars scattered all around like invisible diseases. Those waiting by the theatre pretend they don't see the poor.
A man with a pipe tells his wife about the theatre's history. How it had been mysteriously burned down in 1809. How Richard Sheridan, Irish playwright, and owner of the theatre, watched the fire from a coffee house with a bottle of wine. The man laughs and takes another drag from his pipe, which smells of the exact flavor the Pillar smokes.
With all the poverty, mud, and stinky smell of open sewers, these few aristocrats manage to wait outside the theatre, demanding entry to a famous play. Whenever a poor girl or boy in tattered clothes approaches them, they shoo them away like an annoying fly buzzing near their ears. They drink their wine, tell their stories, and talk about the dinner party they should attend after the play.
Not sure if I am invisible in this dream, I keep approaching the rich, wanting to listen to them. They argue whether last night's turkey wasn't cooked properly, whether they should fire their cook. The man's wife, wearing a lot of jewelry, wishes they could afford to hire Alexis Benoist Soyer, a French celebrity chef. Her husband can't agree more. He jokes that their cook, although they pay him decently in such filthy times, probably steals all his meals from a book called Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management.
My mind flickers when I hear the name. I think I have seen a copy of the book in Lewis' private studio when I entered it through the Tom Tower a week ago.
But all this interest in food, whether in this vision or the real world, confuses me. Am I supposed to read between the lines and learn something about food?
The world around me here is all filth and dirt, aggressively ignored by a few rich men and women waiting to enter the Drury Lane Theatre.
Still vaguely listening to the man and woman speaking about food, I see the man interrupt his wife and raise his glass of wine at someone in the crowd.
Someone almost dressed like a priest.
Lewis.
The men and women greet him as he steps down from the theatre's entrance. They hail his name and seem to love him, but he looks absent and disinterested. He walks among them, nodding politely, and tries to step away from them. A big suitcase with clothes showing from its edges is tucked under his arm. The other arm is hiding a package wrapped in a newspaper.
"Excuse me," Lewis says, and vanishes into the filthy dark. London is so dirty that the moon refrained from shining through tonight.
I follow Lewis into the dark. I even call for him, but he doesn't return my call.
This must be it. This must be why I am here.
I trudge through the muddy dark. Smog is the only guiding light for me.
"Lewis!" I finally see him kneeling down to talk to homeless kids. They gather around him as if he were Santa Claus. He unwraps the newspaper and offers them loaves of bread.
The kids nibble on the bread with their dirty hands. If a loaf drops down in the mud, they pick it up again and eat it right away. Some of them fight for it, but Lewis teaches them how to be as one, promising he will bring them more.
I stand in my place, watching. The kids are too skinny, even when wearing layers of tattered and hole filled clothes.
I step closer. No one seems to see me.
It baffles me to realize the kids are much older than I thought. Their faces suggest they are about fifteen years old, although their contracted bodies look no more than nine years old.
One of the kids asks Lewis what he keeps in the suitcase. Lewis' smile shines like a crescent moon absent in the sky, but I can't hear what he says.
"Lewis!" I call again.
He doesn't reply.
"Lewis." I feel dizzy.
Otherworldly voices are calling my name from the sky.
"Lewis!" I repeat before they wake me up in the real world.
But I am too late.
As I leave my vision, my eyes are fixed on Lewis' suitcase. Why are clothes tucked inside? They look like costumes.
Then the vision is gone.
A peculiar smoke invades my nostrils. I surrender to sneezing, opening my eyes. The Pillar stands over me in the ambulance, saying, "Wonderland hookah smoke never fails to wake up anyone. It's even better than an onion."
33
THEATRE ROYAL, DRURY LANE, CATHERINE STREET, LONDON
PRESENT DAY
The play we're attending in the Theatre Royal is Alice's Adventures Under Ground. It's a new play that has only been running from a week ago when the killings started. I think the Pillar might be right. There is too much coincidence here. We should meet the mysterious Muffin Man tonight.
"The 'Pig and Pepper' chapter where Duchess appears is hilariously funny," the Pillar reads from a local newspaper. Behind us, the chauffeur buys our tickets.
"Really?" I am stretching my tight dress a bit. I am not used to this kind of intimacy on my skin. Neither am I comfortable with my heels. What's wrong with sneakers, or better, being barefoot?
"That's what the papers say." The Pillar looks at the billboards showing "previous attractions." "Damn," he mumbles. "We missed Shrek the Musical."
"And Coraline by Neil Gaiman," I point out.
"Who's your favorite, Lewis Carroll or Neil Gaiman?" He points his finger playfully at me.
"Carroll." I don't hesitate. "Lewis Carroll or J. R. R. Tolkien?" I shoot back.
"Carroll." He doesn't hesitate either. "Lewis Carroll or C. S. Lewis?"
"Hmm." I love the Narnia books. "Nah, Carroll." I can't resist. "Lewis Carroll or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?" I am starting to love this game.
"Can't compare an author to a single book, Alice," he says. "Here is a good one: who has a better sense of absurd humor, Lewis Carroll or God?"
I raise an eyebrow. I can't answer that. "Who do you think?" I feel eerily playful.
"God, of course." He waves hi at his approaching mousy chauffer, panting with the tickets in his hands. "Just look at what he has created." He secretly points at his chauffeur. "It can't get absurder than this."
"There is no such word as 'absurder.'" I bite my lips at his blunt sense of sarcasm.
"Who said it's a word? Absurd is an emotion." He winks and welcomes the tickets the chauffeur gives him.
"Eight tickets, like you ordered," the chauffeur remarks.
"Eight?" I grimace at the Pillar.
"My seat and yours." The Pillar counts on his fingers. "Two seats to our left and right, two behind us, and the two front of us."
"Why?"
"Precautions, Alice," the Pillar says. "Who knows what might happen inside? I have a bad feeling about this."
"All seats are also right i
n the middle of the theatre," the chauffeur elaborates.
"Evil people, such as terrorists, are dumb." The Pillar spares me the burden of asking. "They usually start bombing the back seats if they've intrusively entered from outside. Or bomb the front seats if they're sleeper cells. The middle is just fine."
"Not if the theatre's chandelier falls on your heads in the middle." My knack for opposing him grows in me.
"If something hits you in a perpendicular line straight down from the sky, that's not a terrorist," the Pillar says while he hands a piece of his portable hookah to hide in my dress. "That would be God's sense of humor."
"What is that for?" I look at his Lego hookah.
"They don't allow hookahs inside, and I have a bad feeling I will need it."
I tuck it under my dress, counting on the Pillar to deal with security on our way in.
"So, let me be your guide for tonight, Miss Edith Wonder." He requests I engage him, and I do. "Pretend I am your father," he hisses between almost-sealed lips as we stare at the security gate. "A smile will do wonders, too."
We both smile, but I have to ask, hissing, "Why did you call me Edith?"
"In case something horrible happens, I don't want them looking for you," he says, not looking at me. "Also, your sister has been mean to you. Let's get her in trouble." We keep on smiling at the guards. "Tell the security man on your side that his taste of clothes is exceptionally très chic. That'd be a good distraction."
"But he is wearing a boring uniform," I hiss through my plastic smile.
"And he happens to be in his mid-forties, not wearing a ring, and probably desperate to hear a compliment from a beautiful young lady too," the Pillar says as we close in. "Make him think this a special conversation between you and him, behind Daddy's back."