by Cameron Jace
“I don’t see the point of you seeing it with your own eyes.” Lewis raised his head and looked at her with swollen, moist, and caring eyes. Like the rain and the grass, he was trying to protect her. But his stare unintentionally exposed her to the great pain she was about to suffer. A prelude to the madness she was about to witness.
“No!” She shrieked, only strides away from him. “This can’t be true.”
“Be strong.” Lewis took her into his arms. “Promise me you’ll be strong.”
Alice sobbed so hard she thought she’d collapse and die from the lack of breathing.
“Say it isn’t so.” Her muffled words longed for Lewis’ warm heart. She hit him feebly, but her hand was too weak. It slipped and then fell as if she were dead already. “Please, tell me it isn’t so.”
“I’m sorry, Alice.” Lewis patted her. “He did it, Alice. I’m so sorry.”
She lifted her head up, her eyes buried in a grave of tears. “All of them?”
“Yes,” Lewis said.
“The children?”
“Them, too.” Lewis said. “He killed them all.”
Prologue Part Two
If birds hummed because they didn’t know how to speak words, then Alice’s silence was the same. She didn’t know what to say. What to feel. She wished she could numb herself to death right now. She didn’t want to feel this. Talking about it only stirred the pain.
“Let me take you somewhere safe,” Lewis offered.
“No. I want to see.”
“God, Alice.” Lewis sighed. “No, you don’t want to see.”
“I do,” She insisted. She decided she wouldn’t shy away from it. In fact, she wanted to engrave the morbid memory in the back of her head, so she would never forget it.
So she would always remember to have her revenge.
“It’s a bloodbath inside,” Lewis confessed.
She nodded, her tears threatening to drown her in a pool of eternal grief. But she rose above it somehow. She never knew she could. “Did He hurt them badly?”
Lewis looked away, saying nothing.
“Talk to me!”
“What do you want me to say?”
“How bad did he hurt them before he killed them?”
Lewis opened his mouth but said nothing. He was about to say his name. But the Wonderland Monster who’d killed the children had scared everyone so much, even Lewis preferred not to taste his name on his tongue.
“He…” Lewis felt the weight of the moment pressing against the back of his skull. He’d not been a man to stutter at this point. In fact, he’d been the most eloquent when he taught mathematics at the university. But this was too much to handle. “He chopped off their heads.”
The image flashed like lightning before Alice’s eyes. “What else?”
“Poked out their eyes.” Lewis felt dizzy reciting what he’d seen inside the dean’s room. “Then burned them. Please, Alice. I can’t go on with this.”
“I can.” She slid her hands from under his arms and turned to walk inside.
“Whatever you see inside will stay with you forever,” Lewis warned her.
“I want it to stay with me forever,” She said, not turning to face him. “I want this, Lewis.”
Alice entered the room and witnessed the gore fest with teary eyes. She fisted her hands and gritted her teeth, so she’d stop crying.
She took it all in.
Every last detail.
And for the rest of her life – until she later lost her memory in the real world – she would have nightmares, thinking about Him. He whom Lewis, and everyone else, feared the most.
Prologue Part Three
A few minutes later, Lewis watched Alice come out into the rain. She nodded briefly but continued walking away. Many years later Lewis would swear the Alice who came out was someone else entirely than the girl who’d entered.
“Where are you going, Alice?” He called from behind her.
“I’m going to kill Him,” She said, not looking back.
“You know He is indestructible,” Lewis said. “You can’t kill him.”
“Sure I can,” she said, talking louder. “I just have to find his weakness.”
“He has no weaknesses,” Lewis argued. “You know I’ve tried.”
“Everyone has a weakness, Lewis,” She said. “All I need is to get close enough to find it.”
“He will burn you, Alice. He will smoke you and puff you into the wind.”
“Not if he thinks I’m a friend, not a foe,” She said, turning back, raindrops distorting the beauty of her adolescent face.
The look in her eyes intimidated Lewis. “What do you have in mind, Alice?”
“From this day on you have to forget about me being an Inkling,” She said. “I’m going to befriend Him. I’m going to spill blood with Him. I’m going to be his apprentice. I’m going to make him trust me. Hell, I’m going to make him need me. From this day on you will always see me by His side.”
“What?” Lewis grimaced, his migraines slowly returning.
“Please forget about me, Lewis. You, Fabiola, Jack, the March, and the little girl,” Alice said. “I’m not one of you anymore. No more Good Alice. From this day on, I’m Black Chess.”
“W-why?” Lewis said. “A-Alice, th-this can’t be t-t-true.”
Alice turned around, took a deep breath and closed her eyes, and walked away, slowly disappearing into the mist. “I can only know His weakness and kill Him if I’m on his side. And knowing how devilish he is, it’s not easy to gain his trust. I have to become a Bad Alice.”
Lewis stood paralyzed, not sure what to say. He couldn’t speak. Alice’s decision broke his heart, and for the first time in his life he began stuttering.
It never went away.
1
Somewhere in the streets of Oxford, Present day
I'm back in Oxford, walking the streets all alone. I’m in a haze, unable to forget the Chessmaster’s words. What secret about my family did he keep for himself before he died?
Oxford, though cold, is much better than the bitter, stinging freeze I experienced in Russia. It feels like home after all. A word I’m not sure I fully know the meaning of. The closest home to my heart is still the asylum. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I miss my solitary confinement in that darkened room with my Tiger Lily and the writing on the wall.
I sit on a bench and try to collect myself underneath the drizzling afternoon rain. The sky above is a veil of grey, the color of my life, the color of all the mysteries I haven't been able to solve.
I look around and see everyone else is tucked under the safety of their umbrellas. I used to own one. It shot Bandersnatch teeth for bullets and assisted me in jumping from the top of a tower once. I killed the Muffin Man with it. Not sure where it is now, but I’m sure it never protected me against the rain – or my madness.
I lift my head up and let the raindrops tickle my face. A good feeling. It helps me think I’m not a figment of my own imagination – or Lewis Carroll’s.
In my silence I pray to the rain that it would help me cleanse myself from whatever evil I’ve committed in the past, when I worked for Black Chess. It’s a mystery how those who seek good in life always ask for forgiveness, while it hardly crosses the mind of the purely evil.
What puzzles me more is the fact that I’d ever joined Black Chess. How did that happen? Was it after the Circus? What was I thinking?
Lowering my head, I realize I’m gripping a phone in my hand – I think it’s the Chessmaster’s, but I can’t seem to remember for sure. Like I said, everything is still a haze after he mentioned my family.
The phone beeps. I’ve been dialing the Pillar’s number for some time, but he hasn’t answered.
Where is he? I need to ask him about my family.
It crossed my mind earlier to ask others. I could have asked Fabiola, but she is still wounded in the hospital from the events in Russia. And the March Hare would be useless, lost in a childhood he fa
iled to outgrow. Jack came to mind, too, but I don’t know where he is.
How come I’m so alone? I’m Alice Wonder, goddammit.
The phone still beeps. No answer.
If there is a puzzle of all puzzles, then it’d be how the Pillar is still my only friend. Such an evil manipulative man who, according to the Chessmaster, taught me everything bad I did back in Wonderland.
Do I really want to ask the Pillar about my family? I doubt he will tell me anything. If he does, it will be all riddles. I’m fed up with riddles. I’m fed up with killing Wonderland Monsters and chasing lost keys, most of the time not really knowing why.
I want to have a normal life, like a normal hormonally-imbalanced, tantrum-throwing, mad nineteen-year-old.
The phone stops beeping. No one picks up. I dial again.
Why isn’t he picking up?
Sometimes I think of him like a puppet master. The Pillar knows everything. He only tells enough to keep his mysterious plan going. He plays me like marionette. Plays everyone. He knows everything, probably more than Lewis Carroll himself.
But why does he fight for me?
Maybe it’s nothing admirable and noble. What if I’m just his apprentice from the days back in Wonderland, and all he wants is to get me back on my feet, so I’ll assist him in more killing and wars?
An inner feeling tells me that’s not it. The moment the Chessmaster told me about my family, an idea flickered in my head. A frightening idea, yet so beautiful – in a wicked way.
Come on, Alice, spit it out. Don’t keep it inside.
It’s a silly thought, but it would explain so much. A thought I shouldn’t be thinking. A haunting revelation that needs confirmation: Could the Pillar be my father?
2
White Hearts Hospital, London
Lying on her back and all alone, Fabiola fixed her stare toward the ceiling. The speed with which her wounds healed exceeded her expectations. Some of her Wonderland powers must have crossed over with her into this world – though the healing wasn’t fast enough to cure her wounds within a day or two.
It’s been three days and no one but the March Hare has visited her. Not even the women who used to confess to her in the Vatican. They were embarrassed of her, she’d heard. None of them loved her anymore. The White Queen who'd denounced the Church and walked away with the devil, they said about her.
At times, she wished she had died in Kalmykia. It’d have been an honorable goodbye, all in the name of protecting Wonderland. All her life, she had trusted in Lewis Carroll's legacy and fought a noble war, not sure what it was all about – as if any warrior or soldier ever knew.
But soon, when she remembered Him, that wish of dying disappeared. She had waited for so long to kill the man who'd once killed the children. She had to see him suffer before she died.
“Him?” A voice echoed in her room, interrupting her thoughts.
She edged on the bed and squinted against the yellow light coming from a dim lamp near the window. Someone was sitting on the couch nearby. Someone in a priest’s outfit.
“Lewis?”
“Yes!” A rabbit peeked its head out of the priest’s pocket. “Lewis and me!”
“You scared me.” She eased her head back onto the pillow. “You seriously need to make up your mind whether you’re dead or alive.”
“Somewhere in b-b-between.” His voice was warm, calm, but stuttering.
“A terrible answer. I mean Carolus wants you dead, but you’re already dead?”
“I’m dead, Fabiola.” Lewis nodded, patting the rabbit, which showed a saddened face. “But my spirit still lives on; thanks to the children reading my book each day, or I’d have vanished forever.”
“So it’s true, you’re alive as long as the Alice books aren't out of print?”
“Not alive. Just there. My spirit.”
“And Carolus wants to kill even that?”
“Correct.” Lewis crossed one leg over the other. “But I’m not here to talk about me. I’m here to talk about you – and Him.”
“I don’t want to talk about Him.”
“None of us wants to, but we have no choice.”
“Of course we have.”
“No, we don’t.”
Fabiola titled her head toward him again, a little worried. “What do you mean?”
“It’s time, Fabiola.”
“Time for what?”
“For that thing we’ve been waiting for all along.”
“Of course not.” Fabiola’s face wrinkled. “It’s too soon.”
“No, it’s not.” Lewis stood up. “Alice knows.”
“So what’s new?” Fabiola shook her head. “She knows she is Black Chess. That’s what I’ve been trying —“
“It’s not that,” Lewis interrupted.
The rabbit nodded agreeably. “It’s not about that.”
“I thought you said she knows…” Fabiola interrupted her own words with muffled moan. “Oh, my. You mean she knows about…”
“The Chessmaster told her,” Lewis said. “She doesn’t know everything, but she is a smart girl. She will figure it out. Soon she will know the truth about her family. You know what that means, right?”
Fabiola nodded in silence, lowering her head, tears threatening to burst out of her wounded eyes, and guilt painting her features.
3
Somewhere in the streets of Oxford
In my head, I’m picturing this little story: The Pillar, my biological father, was the evilest man in Wonderland. He took me under his wing and showed me what evil really was. He was proud of me, proud of his apprentice daughter, and I seem to have enjoyed his company. Then something happened, I’m not sure what. But Fabiola, who is probably my mother, had been played by the Pillar somehow, decided she’d fight for me and turn me into some kind of a Good Alice. That’s why she hated him. That’s why she didn’t want to acknowledge I was the Real Alice. She both feared for me – and feared me. That’s why she sometimes wants to kill me, and sometimes wants to help.
But what kind of mother would attempt to kill her own daughter? This doesn’t add up.
The phone in my hand is still beeping. I need the Pillar to pick up, or if I keep guessing who my family is I will go insane – pun intended.
But I still can’t help it. Who doesn’t want a family?
Closing my eyes, I daydream of a real home. A father, a mother, and maybe brothers and sisters. Someone to lean on and cry in their laps when madness hits the wall. Someone to have nearby all the time, even if I’m not that fond of them sometimes.
I imagine us having breakfast every day. Telling each other how our lives suck but how we won’t stop dreaming. Even at nineteen, I’d like to have a mother who’d comb my hair from time to time. A father who’d not approve of the boy I’m dating. And sisters, real ones not like Lorina and Edith, to borrow shoes from when I go out on a date.
My eyes flip open to a phone notification. It’s not the Pillar yet, but some urgent BBC headline I’d signed up to read earlier. I check it out. It’s that strange story about Inspector Dormouse again. I’ve marginally heard about it, but now his picture occupies the main page online:
Chief Inspector of the Department of Insanity has gone missing while investigating a serial killer.
It’s not like I was fond of Dormouse, but he seemed harmless, sometimes funny, if ever awake. Which makes me think he isn’t really missing. He’s just napping somewhere and will be back soon.
Looking up from the phone, I see I’ve walked a remarkable distance while thinking about my family. The place where I stand now looks eerily familiar. Slowly, it comes into focus and I can't help but wonder why I've ended up here.
How come I’ve walked to this place? Was it on purpose? Did my legs betray me or is it my subconscious that led me here?
I take the steps up to the front of the house before me. I’ll trust my gut and knock on a door I’d thought I’d left behind forever.
The house where my so-called s
isters live.
4
Alice’s House, Oxford
“You have some nerve coming here,” Edith welcomes me by the door.
“I’m here to see Mother.” I try to sound indifferent. Last time I was here, the two sisters almost killed me. This time I could kill them, but I don’t want to.
“She is not your mother.” Edith glares at me.
“I know. Just tell her I want to ask her something.”
“She isn’t here.”
“Do you know where I can find her?”
“I don’t. Just go away.” She is about to close the door, but I squeeze my foot in. Edith’s stare tenses. The darkness inside me must have surfaced. She’s scared.
“I just want to know about my real family.” I look away to make it easier on her.
“You have one?” She chuckles.
“So I’m told. I was wondering if my… your mother knew about them.”
“She never mentioned it. She definitely thinks you’re a homeless orphan. Still are, as far as I can tell.”
“So she never mentioned anything about my past?”
“You have no past, Alice,” Edith says. “You don’t even have a mind to rely upon.”
I ignore the comment. “How about the Pillar?”
“Not again.” She sighs.
“When I was here last time you said he was a bad man. You warned me about him.”
“And you never listened.” She puts a hand on her waist, the other against the door-frame.
“I was wrong.” I play along. “Just tell me why you warned me about him.”
“Mother used to say he taught you how to be evil back in Wonderland,” Edith says. “Of course, I have no idea what she was talking about. Your Wonderland stories must have driven my mother crazy.”