by Cameron Jace
“I was only coughing.” I wipe the gun’s staining powder from my lips. From the corner of my eye, I can see the kids aren’t hurt.
The Pillar raises an eyebrow at me, probably impressed with my comeback.
The Executioner loads his gun again, ready to finish me.
“Wait,” I say. “Since you’re a Wonderlander, you must be looking for the keys like everyone else.” My look is sharp and challenging. “The Six Impossible Keys.”
The Executioner pulls his gun to a halt. I believe I caught his interest. Behind him, the Pillar scratches his temples.
“Continue...” The Executioner waves the gun at me.
“I know where one of them is,” I say, reminding myself I’ll never tell about the one key I have hidden in my back pocket. The one Lewis Carroll gave me. “Last week, the Mad Hatter took it from me.”
“From you?” The Executioner seems skeptical. “Why would you have a key to Wonderland?”
“Well.” I rub the back of my neck. “Like I said before, I am Alice from Wonderland. I just don’t remember a lot of it. I had the key hidden in a bucket in the basement of my family’s house.”
The Executioner scans me from top to bottom.
“You don’t want to kill me, in case I know of the whereabouts of the other keys,” I follow up, not sure if the Pillar will back me up if I mention him to the Executioner, so I don’t. He wanted me dead a minute ago.
The Executioner gazes back at the Pillar and then back at me. His eyes are sharp, as if he’s trying to read through my soul.
It’s a long moment. I take advantage of it and smile at the children behind me, assuring them they will be all right.
The moment stretches even more, and I begin to worry the Executioner won’t believe me.
But he breaks the long silence with a spitting laugh. His men laugh with him. He lowers his head toward me and says, “You’re the maddest girl I have ever seen.” He raises his eyebrows. “I love mad people. That’s why I will not kill you until I’m thoroughly entertained by your hallucinations.”
Chapter 29
The Pillar, me, and the Executioner are sitting around a table in the middle of his garden. I can hear the sounds of war in the distance, still not sure what his men are fighting over.
But the war is the least of my worries now. It’s the Executioner and his sadistic games. He literally wants us to play a game now.
“It’s a very easy game,” he says. “But most entertaining to me.”
The Pillar says nothing, and neither do I. The Executioner had each of us hold a gun and place it atop the table, both hands placed palm down.
“Here is how it’s going to be played,” the Executioner says. “I will ask you a question.” He is talking to me. I’ve become his priority now. He thinks I am mad, and it amuses him. “If you give the right answer, you will pass for this round. If it’s wrong, I will shoot you.”
“Suspenseful.” The Pillar puffs his cigar. “I love suspense.”
“Then it’ll be your turn to ask me a question.” The Executioner is still talking to me. “If I answer it the wrong way, you can shoot me.”
“Justice,” the Pillar says nonchalantly. “Not a fan.”
“Then Senor Pillardo will join in,” the Executioner follows. “Easy game. Say the truth and you will live.”
“How can you tell I am telling the truth when you ask me?” I say.
“The same way you can tell I am telling the truth when I ask you.” The Executioner grins.
“Nonsense,” the Pillar comments. “My favorite.”
“I’m not following,” I tell the Executioner.
“Here is the thing, young lady,” the Executioner says. “This is a game of nonsense—which, if you think you’re Alice, you should know a lot about.”
“Trust me. Nonsense has been my middle name since I met the Pillar—I mean, Senor Pillardo,” I say. “But I still don’t have a grip on this game.”
“Here is how this game is really played,” the Pillar finally interjects “The thing is that all questions asked have only one answer.”
I tilt my head, worrying I am not going to grasp this fully.
“All questions in this game are answered by saying ‘Hookah Hookah,’” the Pillar explains, his eyes on the Executioner. I am more curious than ever to know whatever is happening between those two. “I ask you, ‘How are you?’ You answer, ‘Hookah Hookah.’ I ask you, ‘Where have you been?’ You say...”
“Hookah Hookah, I get it,” I say. “So how is anyone supposed to know if the other is telling the truth?”
The Pillar and the Executioner exchange mean looks for a moment.
“It’s how you say it, Alice,” the Executioner explains. “If you can convince me with you tonality and facial expressions it’s the truth, then it’s the truth.”
Chapter 30
I don’t have enough time to object.
The Executioner demonstrates the game by asking the Pillar, “What’s your name?”
“Hookah Hookah,” the Pillar says, as if he’s just used to answering it this way. It’s mind boggling how believable he sounds.
“Where are you from?”
“Hookah Hookah,” the Pillar answers with a home-sick expression on his face. I suppose that deeper in his mind he was saying ‘Wonderland.’
Then the Executioner turns to face me. “Do you think the Pillar is a good man?”
Now, that’s a shocker.
Sneaky. The Executioner just asked the question I’m not sure how to answer. The game demands confidence and truth in the way I say Hookah Hookah.
It takes me a while to answer. “Hookah Hookah.”
In my mind, the answer is ‘I don’t know.’ It’s the truth. I try my best to sound as if I mean it.
The Executioner’s sharp eyes pierce through me, his fingers reaching for his gun.
I shrug.
“Good answer,” he says. “I don’t know either.”
What? He read my mind?
“My turn,” I say. “Do you truly believe I will not shoot you without waiting for the next question?”
“Hookah Hookah.” He nods toward his guards standing all around us.
Okay. He can actually read my mind. And I am toast because of the guards. But wait!
“But this means that even if I catch you lying in this game, I won’t be able to shoot you,” I argue. “Because your guards will shoot me first.”
“Smart girl,” the Executioner says. “In this game, only you or the Pillar will end up dead. Can you see how nonsense always plays in my favor?”
Chapter 31
Somewhere in the streets of London
The mayhem in the streets of London fascinated the Cheshire.
All those lowlife human beings getting in fights with each other, some of them taking it far, as in really hurting one another. That was just fantastic.
He roamed the streets on foot, possessing one person after another and contributing to the madness. A punch in the face here. A tickle there. Setting a place on fire here. It was all fun.
Revenge on humankind felt so sweet he was about to purr like his ancestors once did.
Blood was everywhere on the streets. Traffic had stopped hours ago. This was better than anything he’d ever seen. He wondered what kind of plague it was, but couldn’t put his paws on it.
Lewis Carroll turned out to be one mad nut, even crazier than all the rest. How hadn’t the Cheshire ever known about this man’s crazy tendencies to spread chaos to the world?
But even though he enjoyed possessing a soul after another, it suddenly occurred to him that he had no idea of who he really was.
Of course, he was a cat in a way or another. But he’d even lost his recollection of what he looked like as a cat many years ago.
Who was he, really? What did he look like? What was the look that really suited his personality?
Had the Cheshire been lost among the many faces he’d possessed, now that he was just a nobody
?
His thoughts were interrupted by a phone call. Yes, he possessed many souls, but always passed on his phone so he’d be in contact with whoever wanted to benefit from his expertise.
Like all cats, the Cheshire needed to make a living.
“It’s Margaret,” the Duchess told him on the line. “I need your help.”
“You know I stopped assassinating for you long ago.”
“Yes, but this isn’t about assassinations,” she explained. “I want you to send someone after the Pillar in Columbia.”
“What’s the Pillar doing in Columbia?”
“He’s looking for a cure for the plague.”
“Why? I was beginning to just enjoy it. Did you know it doesn’t affect Wonderlanders?”
“No, I didn’t. That’s good to hear. But the Queen made her point.” Margaret explained how none of them would benefit from the end of the world. Not an argument the Cheshire was fond of.
Who said I wouldn’t be happy with the end of the world?
Although he’d never been on good terms with the Queen of Hearts in Wonderland, he’d started to warm up to her and Black Chess a little. After all, he’d been a bit too lonely in this real world.
It was time to choose a side. Black Chess or Inklings.
“Okay,” he said. “I will send someone to Columbia.”
“You know what kind of someone that is, right? The Executioner will kill anyone who enters his territory.”
“Trust me, I know. That’s why I can’t go there myself. Whatever person I use as a disguise, the Executioner will recognize me. We didn’t all stay away from him for nothing in Wonderland. I will send someone.”
“Do you mean...?”
“Yes,” he said. “Only if I can find them. Because no one’s been able to since we left Wonderland.”
Chapter 32
Mushroomland, Columbia
“My turn,” the Executioner says.
Looking at guards all around us, I wonder what I’m going to do now. I have no way out of this, unless I shoot him and risk being killed one second later.
But why would I shoot him without freeing the children or knowing who cooked the plague?
This is some paradox I’m trapped in.
“So tell me, Alice,” the Executioner says. “Do you think you’re getting out of here alive today?”
“Hookah Hookah.” In my mind, the answer is ‘Hell yeah!’ I just have no idea how.
“Impressive,” the Executioner says. “Even though I know you will die in a few minutes, I still believe you. You know why? Because you definitely believe it. Now ask me.”
“Who cooked the plague?” I shoot.
The Executioner laughs. “Hookah Hookah,” he says. And I realize that in his mind he just answered, but I am not going to know it, not in a million years. Some silly game.
But wait, he doesn’t look like he is telling the truth. What am I supposed to do?
My hand grips my gun. A wide smile forms on the Executioner’s face.
That’s when I realize how tricky this game is. He deliberately gave me the wrong answer. At least he made sure I’d sense it, so I’d try to shoot him and then have his guards finish me off.
Chapter 33
Never have I been so much on the edge of my seat.
The Executioner’s sly grin cuts through me. My hand gripping the gun starts shivering in the nonsensical game played in a nonsensical world. The one thought that is on my brain is: am I still under the mushrooms’ influence, unable to make the right decision?
“It’s the perfect paradox!” the Pillar compliments the Executioner. “Now, that you’re lying—and it shows on your face—she is obliged to pull the trigger and shoot you, but your guards wouldn’t let her.” He leans forward, looking very amused by the situation. “It’s like playing cards with the lion in his den. You winning isn’t really going to prevent him from having you for lunch.”
An inner voice tells me to pick up the gun and shoot the Pillar instead. I have tolerated many of his crazy actions in the past, but I can’t anymore. I should have listened to everyone who warned me of him.
“I applaud you, Executioner.” The Pillar stands up, raising his glass. “I mean, shouldn’t we toast for this before the girl dies? I totally think we should have this on video.”
The Executioner seems puzzled for a moment, shifting his focus from me to the Pillar. Or is it something else that has been going on between them that I am not picking up?
“I didn’t think you’d like my trick, Senor Pillardo,” the Executioner says. “You really have nothing against killing her?”
“I don’t give a Jub Jub about her.” The Pillar sips his own drink and let’s out a big ah. “Frankly, I brought her here as a gift to you. I mean, all your slave boys are, let’s face it, boys. I thought, why not get the Executioner a girl. She’s very feisty and can be of pretty good use to you.”
I’m tired of gritting my teeth. Who invented it anyways? It doesn’t do any good when your anger hurts so much inside.
“But it doesn’t make any sense,” the Executioner says. “Why would you bring her to me? We both know this isn’t true.”
I don’t know what the Executioner means, but I sense the underlined tension between them.
“Of course it’s true.” The Pillar asks the guards for one of their hunting knives. “And here is proof.” He pulls my hand violently toward him and plasters it on the table, then does the one thing that never crossed my mind. The Pillar raises his knife. “I will cut her two fingers myself. Isn’t that how you like your slaves marked? Isn’t that what the war beyond Mushroomland is about? All you drug cartels fighting over the kids, so you get the most labor in your business?”
The realization sends surges of lightning into my body. Even though the Pillar is about to mark me, I can’t seem to fathom the cruel world, the real world, outside my asylum walls.
“Interesting.” The Executioner stands up. “So I suppose you want to know who cooked the plague now in exchange?”
“Now you get it,” the Pillar says, tightly gripping my hand. “You said you wanted us to go back to your house, get a meal, and ask me to entertain you. I know you thought we’d shoot jokes and drink like the old days, but this wasn’t the kind of entertainment I had cooked for you.”
The Executioner laughs, glancing around at his guards. “Senor Pillardo. I don’t know what to say. You certainly have entertained me. I’m surprised I didn’t understand at first.”
“That’s because you’re one dumb animal hiding behind an army of poor little kids you think you’re enslaving!” I shout at him.
It only makes him laugh more and then address the Pillar. “Shouldn’t you cut her fingers first to fulfill the deal?” The Executioner folds his arms and watches.
Again, there is something in the air between those two. Something I’m dying to find out.
“Alice.” The Pillar turns to me, lowering the knife to my fingers. “This is going to hurt.”
Chapter 34
Somewhere in London
Lewis Carroll had left the church, afraid his followers would lose faith in him seeing his weakness to the migraines.
Walking among the insane people who’d lost their minds, he should have been happy with his work.
But he wasn’t.
For two reasons.
The first one was his sudden migraines. Those horrible lightning bolts inside his skull, just like the old days back in Oxford in the 19th century, when he was still a priest and a scholar, long before he wrote the books.
He could remember being part of the Christ Church’s Choir, singing and singing for hours, and loving it. But then the migraines began. And he couldn’t take the sound of organs or choirs anymore.
He’d run like a madman across the Tom Quad, back to his studio on the roof next to the Tom Tower, kicking and screaming in pain until he fainted all alone on the floor.
One day he woke up from his episode, only to realize he couldn’t talk
normally anymore. He’d begun to stutter.
And that was when his introverted life began.
Spending hours and hours alone, making up mathematical equations, writing poems, drawing rabbits. The rest was too surreal to remember now.
Still strolling among the mad people of London, he gripped his head as if it was a bomb about to explode. And although he had a plan to follow, he needed to fix his head.
Just like the old days. There was only one substance that could relieve him from the pain. A drug.
But unlike the drug he had someone cook for him for this plague in South America, this drug he needed, or rather cure for his migraine, was only available from the few Wonderlanders left.
He wasn’t sure if he should interrupt his plans by searching for the cure for his migraines.
Which brought him to think of the second reason…
Chapter 35
Mushroomland, Columbia
All this time, I thought I was stronger than the Pillar. But I can’t free myself from his grip. Seeing his knife sink, it weakens me, thinking I have been fooled.
I can even feel the pain in my fingers before the knife touches them. A string of razor-sharp headaches invade my brain. An image of a school bus flashes before me. Everyone inside is laughing. It’s a sunny day, probably spring. I can’t see myself in that vision, but I feel butterflies of happiness in my stomach.
The Pillar’s knife is on its way down to my fingers.
Then the vision continues. I am trying my best to identify the faces, but I only see Jack. I look harder, but the vision prevents me from looking somehow. However, I recognize the sudden fear on their faces. I turn to look at the driver, hoping it won’t be the rabbit, hoping it won’t be me like every other hazy memory I have of the incident.
The Pillar’s knife touches my fingers. It doesn’t cut through yet, but its surface sends shivers to my spine.
The vision continues. My run across the bus seems to take forever. Everyone on it is so scared they don’t utter a word. Then I realize they’re not looking at the driver. In fact, the bus isn’t about to hit anything yet. This part of the vision is way before the accident happened. Everyone is staring at the new passenger getting on the bus. This is who they’re scared of.