by Cameron Jace
“Don’t overestimate yourself. I am a big girl. I can save my ass all alone.”
He smiles, as if my words flatter him, as if he is encouraging me. I don’t get it. It drives me mad, so I let him wheel himself ahead and only follow in the Mushroomers footsteps.
“I haven’t killed your family, Alice,” he says on his way out.
I don’t reply. I don’t believe him. If I give into his lies, I’ll end up believing him. Everything points to him killing them. He’d admitted he was Him, the mysterious man I assisted in Wonderland earlier.
Tom Truckle stops him by the main door, though. “I need to know if this girl isn’t another trick of yours. I need to know she can help us.”
I’m anticipating the Pillar’s reply, as I’ve been curious to know about the little girl from the Inklings’ vision for so long. I only didn’t inquire about her to avoid having more conversation with the man who killed my family.
“The girl isn’t a trick,” the Pillar says. “She is tiny, slim, and small. She is a child. She can do it.”
“I’m still uncomfortable with sending a child down there,” the March protests, and I support him by hugging him close.
“She is an unusual child,” the Pillar says. “She can do a lot. She was once an Inkling. Ask yourself why Lewis brought a little girl along on his team. She is special.”
“Why haven’t we heard about her before if she traveled over to our world?” I ask from the back.
“All will be explained in time, Alice,” the Pillar says over his shoulder. “The same way you will fully understand my grand plan.”
“So, we just let her take over and send her through the crawl space?” Tom rubs his chin.
“Yes.” The Pillar wheels himself closer to him. “And since I may never see you again Tom, easy on the pills. Try M&M’s for a while.”
I watch Tom wince and make room for the Pillar to pass. This is the moment when I see the Pillar has covered his legs with a thick blanket. I wonder if he’s stolen something from the asylum and taken it with him. Then, I realize the Mushroomers are all covered in blankets as well. I could understand their reason, since their pajamas are all tattered and holed.
When I attempt to ask the Pillar, the double door to the asylum slides open. The sun is low outside. It’s afternoon. The scene of the police waiting is intimidating.
This really looks like war.
45
“I’d say you should step forward a little, Alice,” the Pillar says over his shoulder again. “I’d like you to welcome the little girl. She will be in your care.”
Slowly, I step forward, forcing a steady breath. I can’t imagine I’ll be seeing the girl I’ve always been curious about. I wonder if she can answer many of my questions.
“Once last thing,” the Pillar says. “I want to point out that the faces you’ve seen in Fabiola’s vision when you first knew about the Circus don’t stay the same.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll let the girl explain it to you, but for now understand that you will not recognize her face when you see her.”
“Now that sounds like another trick of yours.”
“It’s not,” the Pillar says. “Just bear with me. Open your mind and don’t be stubborn. Not with this girl. She is special, like I said.”
“But you say I will not recognize her from the vision.”
“True, and you will understand why later. Just keep an open mind.” He rolls himself closer. I don’t panic like Tom, but I’m totally apathetic for the moment. “It’s been frabjous meeting you, Alice.”
I swallow hard. Say nothing. It’s been frabjous meeting you, Pillar, I know. But you’re such a dark and terrible man, it’d be a sin if I admitted it.
“I hope you burn for eternity, Pillar.” The words cut like a knife out of my lips, but I manage to make him believe it.
The Pillar nods, sincerely disappointed — or sincerely faking his disappointment. He turns to the Mushroomers. “Get ready to meet the Queen of England boys. Just don’t get close to her nuts.”
The Pillar turns into a silhouette against the low sun outside. I watch him roll himself out into the hands of the Interpol officers. The Mushroomers behind him.
In exchange, a little girl is tapped on the shoulder and instructed to approach me inside. Like the Pillar, she is still a silhouette with the sun in her back. I can tell from her height that she is younger than what I’ve thought of her. Somewhere between seven and ten years old. I still can’t see her face. She is really tiny. If she has skills, she’d fit through the crawlspace of the hole. I see her carrying a box and a suitcase in each hand. They’re too big for her, almost weighing her down.
I stroll up to help her. That’s when her face shines through. That’s when I see her. When I realize she isn’t the girl I saw in Fabiola’s vision — though, I also realize I can’t quite remember the girl from that vision anymore.
But that’s not what’s makes me stop halfway. The surprise is unexpected, but brings such joy to my heart. How can this be?
I kneel down and open my arms for her.
She drops her belongings and runs into mine.
I hug her like I haven’t hugged anyone in a long time.
“I missed you, Alice,” she whispers in my ears. “But I’ve always believed in you.”
“I missed you, too.” I squeeze her in my arms as the doors close. “I missed you so much, Constance.”
46
Constance’s House, Oxford, a few months earlier
The Chauffeur had dropped off Professor Carter Pillar — or whatever his real name is — a few blocks away from Constance’s house. At the time, the police were looking for the professor. He’d just been sentenced to a lifetime in an asylum a day before, after the court denied allegations as a serial killer and declared him insane.
The Pillar’s plans were going well. He’d planned his access into the asylum some time ago. It was the only way he could meet Alice and make her trust him. But before he gave himself in, he needed to make sure of something. He needed a little info only one girl could provide. Constance Westmacott.
Constance’s foster mother opened the door and welcomed Professor Pillar, who’d disguised himself as psychological analyst sent by her child’s school.
“Is she inside?” the Pillar asked.
“She is,” the foster mother said. “Like always, locking herself inside her room.”
“Will she let me in?”
“Only if you told her you believed in Alice.”
“As in Alice from Wonderland?” The Pillar acted as if he didn’t know.
“Yes, that Alice.” The mother sighed. “Can you believe she thinks Alice is real? The Hatter, too?”
“She said something about the Hatter?”
“Many things. He is her second favorite in the story. She thinks he is the one who really understands Alice.”
“I liked Alice in Wonderland as a child, too,” the Pillar said. “Though I preferred the Caterpillar over the Hatter.”
The woman gave the Pillar an inquisitive look. “Are you going to help Constance?”
“I’ll do my best.”
And then the woman let him inside…
Entering Constance’s room wasn’t much trouble. He’d knocked and told her he was the Caterpillar, the real Caterpillar, and that he’d been friends with Alice and the Hatter. Constance opened the door immediately, and though she didn’t buy into his story, she let him in, rewarding his effort.
“You think I’m insane, too?” Constance said while she continued drawing pictures of Alice on the wall.
The drawings were all of Alice Pleasant Wonder. In a logical world it wouldn’t have made any sense that a seven-year-old introvert would guess how the Real Alice looked.
But Constance wasn’t a normal girl. She was the Inklings’ number six. And she knew it. But she rarely told anyone, because who’d believe her?
“I do think you’re insane.” The Pillar sat on the only sof
a in the room, legs resting over one another.
Constance grimaced, and thought of telling him to leave.
“But I love insane people,” the Pillar said. She smiled shyly. “Insane people are the smartest.” He leaned forward as if they were old friends with a life-long secret. “They know things that others don’t know.”
Constance nodded eagerly, but then her faced dimmed. “But the others think they are the ones who are sane.”
“How would the insane know they’re insane?” The Pillar waved a hand. “Don’t bother. Just believe in yourself.”
“You know something?” She leaned forward, too. “I think you really are the Caterpillar.”
“Oh?” He raised an eyebrow. “But you told me you didn’t believe me when I was at the door.”
“I was afraid I’d scare you away. I mean, I knew you were trying to be funny and play along. But you are the Caterpillar. Just like many other Wonderlanders I meet. They don’t know they are Wonderlanders.”
“Hmm…” The Pillar rubbed his chin, thinking deeply. “So Wonderland is real, right?”
“Always has been. I’ve seen you there, but you weren’t a good man.”
“Really?” The Pillar squealed in a funny manner, so she wouldn’t fear him. “Aren’t you afraid of me then?”
“I’m not, because you don’t remember that you were evil. You don’t even remember that you’re the Real Caterpillar.” She snickered playfully, cupping a hand on her mouth.
“So not all Wonderlanders remember, huh?”
“I do. But can’t find anyone else who does.” She looked sad. “I’m an Inkling.”
“Ink-what?”
“Inkling. We’re Lewis Carroll’s army. We used to fight the bad people.”
“And what happened then?”
“It’s a long story, but we were transported to this world. So were the bad guys.”
“Then how come you remember who you are?”
“Because I’m strong.” She flexed her right arm’s muscle in a playful way.
“Come on,” the Pillar teased her. “You’re tiny and short. You’re only seven. You can’t be strong.”
“You don’t understand. Lewis made me strong.”
“How so?”
“Okay, listen.” Constance gave it a thought, as if trying to find the right angle from which she could make him understand. It’s as if she was worried the Pillar wasn’t smart enough to get the picture. “Do you remember the photographs Lewis Carroll took of the children?”
“Of course.”
“Those girls were his power. Some kind of spell.”
“Spell?”
“Lewis knew he’d die after he’d hidden the Six Keys, and…”
“Wait a second,” the Pillar said. “You know about the Six Keys, Constance?”
She nodded silently, her eyes concealing the rest of what she knew.
“Do you know where they are?”
She shook her head.
“Come on, Constance. You’re a terrible liar.”
“Trust me, I don’t know. I just know that Lewis hid them, then chewed a flower that forced him to forget where he did.”
The Pillar wasn’t convinced, but he decided he could postpone looking into the Six Keys for now. He was here for a most important question.
“Never mind,” he said. “Tell me about the girls he photographed and the spell.”
“Lewis knew he was dying soon, but he wanted his spirit to live on,” she began. “Through the photographs, he created a bond with life through the children’s love for him. As long as the photos survived, it was unlikely that his spirit would die in the future.”
“That’s why he needed so many, right?”
“Right. But later, when the Alice in Wonderland books became a bestseller, he didn’t need the pictures anymore.”
“Why not?” the Pillar wondered.
“Because the many children who read his books and loved them granted his spirit the ability to live on. It’s the power of love through books. A reader’s mind, when stimulated and provoked, rewards the author with such love so strong that their spirit may live forever.”
“Understood.” The Pillar nodded. “But where do you fit in all of this?”
“I have the spirit of every girl he photographed in me,” Constance announced proudly. “That’s why I am strong, and that’s why I look different now from when I was in Wonderland. Every few years I change my look to be like one of the girls in the photographs.”
“Oh.” The Pillar had never heard about the spell before, but Lewis had been a man of many secrets, so he wasn’t surprised. What mattered was knowing that Constance still remembered who she was herself out of being so many girls inside one body. This made her an unusual little girl, and a strong one.
Now, the Pillar needed to ask her the question he’d come for. He’d already guessed the answer through Constance’s behavior, but it didn’t hurt to ask.
“Who is that girl in the pictures you’re drawing, Constance?” the Pillar asked.
“That’s Alice.”
“How did you remember her features so well?”
“Because she’d been my friend back in Wonderland.”
“But I know a girl in this life who looks just the same. You think it’s her, too?”
“The one in the asylum?”
Constance’s words shook him. He wondered what kind of powers Lewis had granted the little child. “Yes, that one.” The Pillar smiled.
“She just doesn’t remember much after the accident.”
“The bus?”
Constance nodded eagerly.
“Do you know what exactly happened on the bus? Do you know why she had to kill everyone on it?”
Constance continued her nods and told the Pillar why. The Pillar listened carefully and then asked her another question. “So here is my final question, Constance, but you have to really pay attention because lives will be counting on your answer.”
“I know what you want to ask me,” she said. “And the answer is yes, the girl in the asylum is the Real Alice.”
The Pillar leaned back and let out a long sigh. He was finally ready to start this journey. He kissed Constance on the head and left to go to the asylum.
47
The Vatican, present day
The man in the black suit watched Angelo through the keyhole in the door. Angelo had gulped down the whiskey bottle he’d given him hours ago and lost control. He’d been playing James Brown’s I Feel Good and dancing to it alone in the room.
“This is a disaster,” the man in black told another man in black standing next to him.
“You shouldn’t have given him the whiskey.”
“I thought he was tense and wanted to help him ease up before his speech.”
“What are we going to do now? The crowd is awaiting the new pope.”
“And not just any new pope.” The man in black sighed. “The one we’ve been counting on for more than two hundred years.”
“I’d say one of us acts as if we’re Angelo.”
“No. It has to be Angelo. This is a prophecy. It has to be him.”
“So you want the new pope to do a James Brown number to the masses? Good luck with that.”
“I’m not sure what to do. Maybe wait a little.”
“Until?”
“The whiskey wears off.” The man in black sighed again. “We have no other choice. We have to be patient. Today is a day that will be remembered all throughout history.”
48
The Radcliffe Asylum
I’m baffled listening to Constance telling me about who she is and about her powers. It’s not quite clear to me how she is the embodiment of every girl Lewis has ever photographed, but it’s something I’m willing to understand later. What needs clarification is how I saw another girl in Fabiola’s vision.
“Like I told you, it’s a trick of perception.” Constance is cute, but determined. She has a sense of unusual sarcasm to her tone, and she
treats adults as if they’re stupid. “Do you even remember the face of the girl you saw in your vision?”
“No, I don’t.” I can’t understand why yet.
“That’s it. It’s like dreaming. Most people can’t recall the stranger’s face they encounter in their dreams. Fabiola’s vision did that to you.”
“Then why do I remember every other face I saw?”
“Because you’ve already known them in real life,” she says. “And because I’m not one girl. I’m all of Lewis Carroll’s girls in one.”
“That’s odd, Constance.”
“It is. What’s odder is that my face changes through the years. Can you imagine being seven-years-old for two hundred years?”
“I can’t, really. But I assume Lewis had a plan for you.”
“Of course he had. Part of it was to fly under the radar of Black Chess.”
“What do you mean?”
“All this time they’ve known me as an Inkling. That small helpless girl who draws Alice in Wonderland images on the wall. This led them to neglect me and underestimate my powers.”
“Which are?”
“Coming to save you, for instance. That’s only part of the secrets I hold.” She prided herself.
“But why didn’t you tell me when I first met you?”
Constance’s face changed. She looks sideways and begins whispering in my ear. “I will tell you later.”
“Why?” I whisper back, being playful and childish, which she seems not to like.
“Don’t talk to me as if I were a child.” She sighed. “Anyway, I’m not comfortable with telling you everything now, because there is a chance we have a traitor among us. Let’s escape this place first.”
It is my intention to insist on knowing more, but then Tom points at the TV screen. Outside the Pillar is approaching the crowd. It’s an important moment. A heavy one. The Mushroomers behind me consider him heroic by giving himself up and letting Constance in. Tom is still skeptical and thinks the Pillar may have fooled us by faking his way out of the situation.