by Cameron Jace
“I stepped through the door,” he winks. “Never had a thing for entering a plane through a window.”
“Pillar!”
“Ah, you mean, how did I fight hordes of Reds on my own without even staining my suit with their blood?” He rubs a feather off his sleeve. “I’ve always had a thing for staying clean and tidy, right children?”
“Pillar clean!” They raise their hands.
“Besides,” the Pillar continues, “if I hadn’t survived, you wouldn’t have been saved from the Reds.” He leans back into his favorite couch and presses a button. A screen of the beach rolls down behind him, and sounds of chirping birds fill the plane.
One of the kids strolls over, wearing an ice cream man outfit. “Ice Cream. Banana flavor. Mango flavor. Even strawberry. One penny each.”
The Pillar leans forward and tips the boy, rewarding himself with an ice cream cone. “Ice cream, kids?” he turns to the others.
“Yeah!”
It’s a shame I’m drooling over the ice cream in this humid oven of a chopper.
“Ice cream, Alice?” He smiles.
I sneer at him.
“And, please, no need to thank me for saving your pink butt.”
The children can’t stop laughing, their noses stained with some red strawberry flavor.
“I had to leave you behind.” I stick out my neck. “The same way you betrayed me in the Garden of Cosmic Speculation.”
“You left me?” The Pillar pouts like a bratty child. “I’m shocked. I thought you had to save the Scientist and didn’t have the chance to think about me.”
“Stop playing with my head. You know I left you on purpose.”
“But you’re glad that I’m alive, right?” he says. “Come on, aren’t you children glad I’m alive?”
The children gather around him, some of them kissing him. I wonder why they like him so much. It’s as if they’re sharing a special connection I can’t put my hands on. The same way I sensed he and the Executioner kept a secret.
“Are you glad I’m alive, my chauffeur?” He cranes his neck at the cockpit.
“Of course, Professor. I need someone to tell me how to drive this plane properly.”
We hit another air bump.
“Watch out for those clouds you keep bumping into.” The Pillar raises his ice cream cone.
“It’s not a cloud, Professor,” I hear the chauffeur snicker from inside the cockpit. “It’s a big mushroom in the sky.”
The kids laugh at this, too. Suddenly I’m the most boring person on set. But I don’t care. It’s time for the next step in stopping the plague.
“I think we better know who the Scientist really is.” I point at the comatose body on the plane’s floor.
73
“First, I need to know where I’m going,” the chauffeur interrupts.
“London, of course,” the Pillar says. “Alice needs to find Carolus and kill him.”
“Oki doki!”
“I’m still not sure how I’m the one who’s supposed to kill him ,” I say.
“I’m not sure either. But I believe the Scientist. He didn’t tell us this last precious detail until we pushed him hard.”
“Yes, but how? I mean, just shoot him?”
“I doubt the likes of Carolus will die that easily. If only Alice can kill Lewis Carroll’s split persona, then there has to be a certain method to do it. Didn’t Lewis ever tell you how when you met him?”
“Not that I remember.”
“I guess he only wanted to give you the key.” The Pillar eyes it in my hand. I grip it harder. “Don’t worry. I won’t take it from you. We need the Six Keys all together anyway. I have one. You have one. That’s about fair.”
“Lewis told me not to show it to you in particular, in case you want to know.”
“I don’t.” He dismisses me. “But, I do want to know how you can kill Carolus before tomorrow night, or the world will be toast.”
“And how am I supposed to find that out?”
“Well, let’s start with the Scientist, the Executioner, or whoever he is.” The Pillar walks toward the body, about to pull the hood back. “I’m sure he hasn’t told us everything. Nice pants, by the way.”
I sneer at him. “Aren’t all Reds just hollow underneath the cloak?”
“He isn’t a Red, that’s for sure.” He grips the hood.
“How do you know?”
“Didn’t you see how the Reds nudged him to make him talk or stop talking?” the Pillar says. “My assumption is the Scientist was their prisoner. They just wanted us to think otherwise for some reason.”
“So pull it off, then.”
“Are you ready, children?” He acts like a magician again.
Along with the children, I nod eagerly.
Then he pulls the hood back.
It’s not the Executioner, and I am not surprised. I had a feeling the Reds were lying to scare us.
But I never guessed it would be the March Hare.
74
QUEEN’S GARDEN, BUCKINGHAM PALACE, LONDON
The Queen wouldn’t tell Margaret her new plan, and she enjoyed how it drove the Duchess crazy.
“Tell me, Margaret. Aren’t the world’s presidents having a meeting in the United Nations Office at Geneva?”
“Yes, tomorrow afternoon. Why?”
“I want to attend it.”
“But you declined the invitation earlier.”
“That was when I was concerned with stopping Carolus from ending the world.”
“What’s changed? His plague is still going to end the world. We haven’t found a cure.”
“You won’t understand, Margaret. You know why? Because you’re ugly.”
“It’s dumb people who usually don’t understand.” Margaret folded her arms.
The Queen knew how much Margaret hated her but couldn’t oppose her, not before they found the keys. She enjoyed such suppression a lot, even better than painting white roses red.
“Well, then we’re about to change that,” the Queen said. “Once this plague is over, teachers should tell students that it’s ugly people who don’t understand, and that dumb people only look horrible. Now back to what I was saying.”
“All ears, My Queen.”
“Get me on a plane to Geneva to meet up with the presidents of the world tomorrow. Remind me, what was the meeting about?”
“The plague, of course.” Margaret sighed. “The world’s only concern at the moment. They’re looking for a solution.”
“Of course, I knew that, Margaret. Did you think I was dumb—I mean ugly like you?” The Queen grinned.
“And what about Carolus, if I may ask?”
“He’s coming with me.” The Queen prided herself. “Those presidents of the world have no idea what I have prepared for them. It’s so amazing I feel taller already!”
75
THE PILLAR’S CHOPPER
“Professor Jittery?” I cup my hands over my mouth.
The March Hare snaps out of his sleep, stretching his arms out like a blind man. “Where am I?”
“Relax.” The Pillar knocks his butt with his cane. “You’re on my plane.”
I sneer at the Pillar and take the March Hare in my arms to calm him down. I have no idea how he is the Scientist, but I still feel for him since we met in the Hole. One look at him, and you realize he is nothing but a child in an old man’s body.
“Oh, I remember now,” he rubs his head. “You hit me on the head, Alice.”
“I had to, so I could bring you here with me. You have no idea what kind of adventure we had while you were unconscious. I still can’t believe you’re the Scientist. Why would you do such a horrible thing like cooking this plague?”
“Because he wants to go back to Wonderland.” The Pillar stands over us, about to pull the March’s long hair and smash him into the wall, I think.
“Is that true?” I pat the March Hare, who’s still shivering in my hands.
“It’s com
plicated.”
“Explain it to me, please ,” I say.
“As if we have all the time in the world.” The Pillar looks at his pocket watch.
“Two years ago, Carolus visited me in the Hole,” the March begins. “I had no idea how he got in, let alone how he escaped Wonderland. I even thought he was Lewis in the beginning.”
I turn to look at the Pillar.
“It happened a lot in Wonderland. People mistook Carolus for being Carroll,” he says. “We didn’t even know about Carroll’s split persona for some time.”
“Okay. Tell me more, Jittery.”
“Carolus promised me he’d get me out of the Hole in exchange for cooking the plague, which he knew about from meeting Nobody in Peru,” the March says. “I said no.”
“I know you’re a scientist, among other things,” I say. “But why would Carolus think you could cook this unusual plague?”
“Because of a plant I accidentally came across in the Garden of Cosmic Speculation.”
“A plant that makes one tell the truth?” I ask.
“In the strangest ways,” the March says. “I think it’s not from this world, but from Wonderland. It must have crossed over somehow when one of those portals opened.”
“Cut the chit-chat, and get to the meat of the matter,” the Pillar says.
“I refused Carolus’s offer, although he was too tense that day, suffering from his migraines as usual. He offered to bring me back to Wonderland, but I still refused because I knew he was lying to me.”
“How can you be sure?” I say.
“Think about it. Lewis Carroll was never trapped in Wonderland, and neither was his split persona. Lewis was the one who locked most of the monsters in,” the March says. “Lastly, Carolus made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”
“What was it?”
Just as the March is about to tell me, we hear the sound of another engine in the air.
“Who’s following us?” the Pillar asks his chauffeur.
“The Reds!”
And they are starting to shoot at us, midair.
76
“What was the offer you couldn’t refuse?” The Pillar aggressively pulls the March by his ears.
“He offered to help me get rid of the one thing that made the Reds follow us up here in the air.” the March cries.
“You mean some kind of a detector?” the Pillar says.
“No.” The March’s eyes dart upwards. “The light bulb in my head. The one Black Chess installed to know what I’m thinking about.”
The Pillar sighs, his neck stretching as he stares up at the ceiling. His stare is so intense that I feel the need to protect the March. The sound of showering bullets outside makes things worse.
“Guess what, kiddo,” the Pillar tells the March. “If Black Chess had access to that light bulb in your head, they’d have known how to stop the plague, because they have no use for a disease that will end the world for good like that.”
The March’s ears tense in the Pillar’s hands, and at the same time, I hug the kids, worried they’ll get hit with the bullets. “Have you ever had a light bulb in your head?” the March grunts back.
The Pillar says nothing.
“Then you have no idea what you’re talking about.” The March pulls away from the Pillar’s grip, not like a strong man would do, but like an angry child. “What you’re not paying attention to is what is really going on, Pillar!”
The March spits all over the Pillar’s face.
“Tell us, March.” I squeeze the Pillar’s hand. “Tell us the whole story. Why did you pretend you’re with the Reds? I noticed they nudged you to tell us the things you told us in that room in Brazil.”
“I’d better help my chauffeur with firing at the Reds.” The Pillar disappears into the cockpit, although I know he can hear us from there.
“After I cooked him his plague, Carolus betrayed me,” the March says. “That was two years ago. I didn’t see the point in telling you when you visited me, because the plague wasn’t known to the public then.”
“I understand.”
“Three days ago, he kidnapped me from the Hole and hired the Reds to imprison me in Brazil.”
“So the Pillar was right. Everything you told us down there was influenced by the Reds.”
“They drugged me with a different plant that forced me to say whatever they told me to say, and they were secretly threatening me with a knife, but none of you noticed.”
“And the Executioner part?”
“That was the Pillar’s suggestion because he always feared the Executioner, so we went with the flow, letting you believe whatever you wanted to believe.”
“What was the point of all of this?”
“I don’t know,” the March says. “I don’t think even the Reds know. But it was all Carolus’s plan.”
“Which means he knew we’d end up in Brazil. How about the part about only me being capable of killing him? I’m not sure that’s even true.” I face the March Hare again. “Or?”
“Actually, that’s the one thing that is true,” the March explains. “If you remember, I only told you this part later in the conversation when the effect of their drug was wearing off. It still hasn’t completely.”
“And that’s all you remember?”
“For now. I’m sure I’ll remember more when it wears off completely,” the March says. “But the part of killing him, I heard it when one of the Reds was talking to him on the phone yesterday.”
“But you didn’t hear how I can kill him?”
“Sorry, no. They didn’t discuss it.”
“Let’s say this is true. How is killing Carolus going to stop the plague?”
“There is only one explanation,” the March says. “That I cooked it that way.”
“Is that possible?”
“It is, but I can’t remember if I did. Why would I cook a plague that can only be stopped when Carolus dies?”
77
“Look.” The Pillar returns, rubbing off powder from his suit. “This whole story doesn’t make sense. I know this kiddo isn’t lying.” He points at the March Hare. “Because I know he’s one of the Inklings. But whatever Carolus staged for us, there is something that doesn’t make sense.”
“And?” I say.
“Your only hope is that you get back to London and kill Carolus.”
“Even if I do, I don’t know how.”
“I’m sure you do, Alice.”
“I don’t. Stop counting on me that much. There are things that I don’t know.”
“You know more than you think.” The Pillar steps up. “Like the key Carroll gave you and you didn’t tell me about. Try to remember. He must have given you a clue how to kill his split persona.”
“He didn’t even mention it.”
“Well, then let’s have a tea party here on the plane with this loon and his light bulb and watch the world end from above.” The Pillar steps away and starts rummaging through some stuff. “I hope we have enough fuel to last after the end of the world.”
“All right,” I snap. “I will try my best to kill Carolus.”
“Good girl.” He pulls out two machine guns.
“But first, I need to send the kids to Fabiola to take care of.”
The Pillar stops, stares back at the kids, that serene smile flashing again. I think those kids are the only ones he smiles at that way. I wish I could know more about his connection to them. “Of course,” he says. “Although the Vatican is already a mess. I’m hoping Fabiola can accommodate you safely in her church.”
“So to the Vatican first?” asks the chauffeur.
I nod at him.
“Oh, God. I miss Fabiola so much.” The March Hare claps his hands.
The Pillar looks back into his guns and straps on a backpack.
“And where are you going?” I grimace.
“Get closer to the Reds’ plane and open the back of the plane,” the Pillar shouts at the chauffeur. He stares at me with adm
iration as the back door slides open. “It was nice meeting you, Alice.”
The air swirls like angry ghosts into the plane, as the Pillar puts on his goggles.
“I have a war of my own,” he says, turns around, and jumps midair onto the Reds’ plane, which is a little lower than ours.
The door slides back to a close. All of us are totally astonished.
“Where is he going?” I ask the chauffeur.
“To hell, my dear Alice.” The chauffeur nods. “To hell and back.”
78
THE REDS’ PLANE
“Is that the Pillar who just jumped on our plane?” Ace, the leader of the Reds, asks.
“It’s him, Ace.” said number Three.
“So, he’s about to do it?”
“It looks like it,” said number Three. “It was inevitable if you ask me.”
“Bring my parachute,” Ace ordered. “I’d get your parachute too, if I were you.”
“So, we’re abandoning the mission?”
“We’ve done all Carolus asked of us,” Ace said. “He wanted us to bring him Alice, and I believe she is on her way to London now. Our job is done.”
“And the Pillar?”
“We should be all gone when he enters the plane,” Ace said. “His war isn’t with us.”
“I heard he’s unstoppable when he’s angry.” Number Three said, strapping up. “You said his war isn’t with us, Sir. May I ask who the Pillar’s real enemy is in his war?”
“His past, number three,” Ace said, and jumped out, leaving the rain of bullets attacking the plane behind.
The Pillar had arrived.
79
RADCLIFFE ASYLUM, OXFORD
A rat, with a cell phone between its teeth, scurried its way through the sewers into the asylum.
“That’s the worst thing that has happened to me, possessing a rat’s body twice in one day,” the Cheshire thought.