by Cameron Jace
“Did you feel weak since the Pillar died?” she asks.
I shrug. Why does she ask me this? I haven’t told anyone about how I miss him.
She nods. “It’s understood.”
“What’s understood?”
“Your weakness. It’s okay,” her grip is that of an enemy, but her eyes are those of a mother.
“You know what that is?” I give in. If she can help I’d be glad. But she has to make it fast before the door breaks.
“It’s a bond.”
“Bond?”
“From the past,” she nods. “From when you and Pillar wrecked havoc on Wonderland.”
“So it’s a dark bond,” I sigh. “I am evil again?”
“You were never evil, Alice. You were angry at Mr. Jay that he killed your parents. You were blinded by revenge and used the Pillar to teach you the dark arts so you could get to Mr. Jay.”
The door is about to break. Constance yells at everyone to stand by.
“It’s too late for sentiments,” I shake myself awake from the overwhelming emotion. “Do you have a solution for me?”
“That’s why I am talking to you now,” she pulls out a sword. “Remember it?”
“It’s the Vorpal sword. I saw it in the Vatican the first time we fought the Reds with the Pillar.”
“That one looked like it, and I know I told you it was the real Vorpal sword, but it’s not,” she hands it to me. “This one is.”
The sword’s grip is heavy. It has a weight about it that I can’t explain. It’s not its real weight, but it feels like a burden to me.
“Thank you,” I am about to turn back to the door.
She stops me again.
“They are getting in,” Tom shouts in panic.
“What now?” I tell Fabiola.
“To use it, you have to do something crazy with it.”
“If I had a mushroom every time I heard the word crazy,” I mumble. “What is it?”
Slowly I watch her take off the jacket she wore of her hospital’s nightgown. The tattoos on her skin show like rivers branching out everywhere. It’s the first time I see her tattoos so near.
It’s shocking.
I realize they are not tattoos.
They are thousands of cuts done with a knife or something. Wait, with this sword?
“Are you suggesting I hurt myself?”
“It’s the only way you get your power back,” she said.
I look at the swords slicing tip and then look at my skin.
“Why do you think I was the fierce warrior I was in Wonderland?” She asks. “The pain you will feel will set you free and only then can you save us from the Reds outside, because, let’s face it, Jack is very wrong about them. We’re stuck in a warehouse. They will raid us with bullets and kill every one of us, including Constance, and then take you to Mr. Jay.”
The door breaks, but the bullets don't sound yet. There is a slow motion feeling my head. I take a deep breath and… cut.
22
Past: Wonderland
The Queen’s sister was beautiful, naive, and Wonderland’s most loved. She was the opposite of everything the ugly Queen of Hearts was. If she hadn’t been younger, she’d have taken her sister's place.
But of course, the Queen of Hearts wouldn’t let that happen.
So many times had the sister saved men and women from the Queen’s chopping blade. She had saved so many heads.
“Take this mushroom,” the Queen told her sister.
They were sitting at the Queen’s lush dining table. A magic one that created a slice of bread from nothing once you picked up one. Mushrooms hadn’t been a typical meal in the palace. Not in Wonderland in general — unless you found your way into the garden where the Pillar lived.
“I hate mushrooms,” said her younger sister.
“But you must, my dear. You look pale this morning, and this mushroom is your medicine.”
“Do I look pale?” the sister naively believed her. She stood up, about to run back to look at her face in a mirror.
The Queen stopped her, “Darling, trust me; you look sick. All the pepper and cooking you love to do, it sickens you further.”
“But I love to cook. Wonderland is boring sometimes. There is nothing else to do.”
“Wonderland is fabulous. It’s not boring.”
“Well, if you’d let me out, I would know,” she rolled her eyes.
“It’s not safe outside. There is a lot of conflict happening now. And it’s full of monsters.”
“Monsters?” the sister laughed. “Like the Pillar?”
The Queen was shocked, “Why did you say that?”
“Look at him, sis. Such an evil man, with his beady eyes and hookah. I heard he deals in drugs.”
The Queen hadn’t expected that. How was she going to convince her to marry the Pillar? But who was she fooling, the Pillar was the devil’s nephew or something. And she wouldn’t be able to convince Mr. Jay to force her bratty sister to marry the Pillar. Mr. Jay was too busy.
But the Queen needed that other mushroom that would make her smarter. She wanted to rule over Wonderland. Most important was her desire to secure herself when Black Chess fell. She did not doubt that the Inklings would win eventually. She’d heard her maids and servants talk. They all secretly love the Inklings. Alice, in particular.
She watched her sister leave, rubbing her chubby chin and working on a plan to get her to eat that mushroom and fall in love with the Pillar.
Outside the naive sister danced among the poppy flowers in the garden, swirling like a flower herself. She was thin. Athletic and beautiful. Whenever someone told her how evil her sister was, she had always defended her, saying she was the older sister and had too much on her plate.
But she wasn’t out here to think about her sister. She was waiting to meet the boy she loved. That funny one in the strange outfit. He usually found a way to sneak into the castle and secretly spend some time with her. She loved him. Wanted to marry him when she gets older. And of course, drink his delicious tea.
She was waiting for the Hatter.
23
Present: Warehouse Location, London
The bullets shower the warehouse.
The Mushroomers hide behind stacks of boxes full of roses. Not the best hideout. Jack is courageous and shoots back. He is so fearless. He might be dead, so that would explain it.
Lewis is a sword’s man. Guns aren’t his thing. He joins Constance. They wait for whoever wants in near the door to kill him. Lewis is also a fearless warrior. Constance is just heartless with the enemy.
Tom hides behind me, looking for protection.
But I am busy. I am cutting myself while Fabiola protects me with her guns. If there is anyone who is truly heartless, then it’s her. Constance may be brave. Lewis is honorable. Jack is young and powerful. But boy, Fabiola is a bitch of war.
Before I cut myself, even once, I can’t take my eyes away from her. She has so much pain inside. So much. She kills with punishment and execution. When she shoots someone, it’s never a clean cut. She doesn’t shoot a man in the heart or the brain. She shoots in the jaw — though it’s hard to see the Red’s jaw under their hoods — on the side of the waist, in their private areas. She does it on purpose. She wants her victims to suffer. Not because she has darkness in her. No. Darkness makes one confused and hard to live with, conflicted and weakened by the lack of decisiveness. Fabiola doesn’t have darkness. She has pain.
“Are you going to cut yourself?” Tom’s eyes are wide with terror.
“Duck somewhere and try to stay alive,” I say.
“You’re mad,” he watches me cut the first cut across my hands.
“If I had a mushroom every time I heard that,” I tell him. “I have a Certificate of Insanity, so be it.”
“You’re all nuts!” he shouts, but no one hears him. No one cares about him. There is killing going on here. “I want a phone.”
I am not sure why he always wants a phone
. Probably he needs to call his children.
The cuts hurt. They run deep. In the beginning, they are tolerable, but then they began to sting. I don’t care for the sight of the blood anymore — thanks to the Pillar for traumatizing me with blood in Russia when were after the Checkmaster.
The stings turn into bolts of electric pain. Then when the wounds are many, the skin begins to heal. This makes it contract. The pain intensifies. The pain of the wound and the pain the healing. The intensity is so much that I can’t take it. The only way to counter it is to go mad.
“I can’t cut myself anymore,” I tell Fabiola as she shoots Reds.
“Toughen up,” she says over her shoulder. “It will heal once you cross over from pain to pure madness.”
“Madness?” Tom is about to pull out his hair. “Listen, I promise if you get me out of here alive, I will turn myself into an asylum, wear a straightjacket for the rest of my life. But please, save me!”
I keep cutting, “Am I not going to faint?” I ask Fabiola.
“Not if you’re the Real Alice,” she says, mocking me, encouraging me to become a beast, not a beauty.
“Why didn't you say so when I first met you? It would have solved everything,” I roll my eyes.
“How does the sword feel in your hand?”
“Heavy,” I reply. “It’s strange. As if it doesn’t want me to hold it. I can’t explain it.”
“It means you’re not ready. Once you cross over with the pain, it will work. You will be so strong. Trust me.”
I take a deeper breath, ashamed it’s taking me so long, and that I am not fighting with the rest.
“Look at all this blood on the floor,” I say. “Do I come from Wonderland or a Halloween movie set?”
The pain is too much. I am drowsy. I am going to fall dead, being stupid, and trusting the troubled Fabiola. I am waiting for the madness to arrive. Waiting for the sword to lighten up in my hand.
Instead, I am awakened from my drowsiness by a scream.
Who is it?
Constance?
Jack?
Lewis?
No, it’s Fabiola. She’s been shot. She turns and looks at me with frozen eyes as if she didn’t expect it. As if someone had told her she’d be invincible for life. She tries to touch me, but before she does, she falls on the floor.
24
Past: Wonderland
The Hatter didn’t come that day, nor did he ever.
The Queen had found the Hatter’s love letters in her sister’s bedroom. All stained with tea and full of nonsensical words that meant nothing to the Queen. Very typical of a nonsensical being like the Hatter. The Queen of Hearts had never understood why everyone loved him so much. Especially the March Hare, who was as mad and stupid and as naive as the Hatter.
The sister found the Queen’s guard surrounding her in the middle of the garden. Panicking, she asked about the Hatter, but she was too late. The Queen had let her Bandersnatch beast hunt him down outside.
Wriggling and crying and protesting didn’t help. The guards chained the sister and forced her to her knees. The Queen showed her that she had caught the Hatter and was about to torture him. That was when the first Mush Room instrument had been invented. The Queen had just discovered the fun side of electricity. She realized it had a greater purpose than bringing light out into the world. Electricity could, in fact, fry someone’s brains, which was better than chopping it off. Much, much fun.
The little sister couldn’t take it. She promised to do anything so the Queen of Hearts would let the Hatter go. The Queen smirked. Her plan had worked. Now her little sister would eat the mushroom willingly.
And she finally summoned to it and ate it.
A week later she got engaged to the Pillar… willingly… or mushroomy, or nonsensically. Whichever way you want to put it.
25
Present: Warehouse in the London
Fabiola isn’t waking up. It is as if her heart has stopped beating. Nothing.
Lewis loses his grip on the fight and gets wounded when he turns to check on Fabiola. Jack gets aggressive and runs into the Reds, killing a few like he had done so many times before. But then he realizes they’ve trapped him in the middle and are about to kill him. Constance is still fighting but is now giving me that blaming look. I should have saved everyone. Tom is hiding somewhere; we can’t find him. The Chauffeur disappeared some time ago.
As for me, I am drowsy from cutting myself. Soon, I’ll fall dead next to Fabiola.
In this rollercoaster of all the wrong emotions, something happens. It’s not like I am getting better as Fabiola said earlier, but the sword lightens in my hand. The Vorpal sword seems to send shivers down my spine. Good shivers.
A bolt of energy surges through my soul. With a pint of anger, I’m all good.
I raise my sword and run as fast as I can to save Jack. It’s not long before I find myself running on air, above the Reds’ heads. I don’t resist the transition. The power. Evil meets good meets efficiency. I slice the first head with the lightest and smoothest sword I’ve ever seen.
Jack’s eyes widen. He starts shooting as well, but can’t stop glancing at me now and then.
The elevation isn’t permanent. It’s like I need to feed it. If I stay up in the air too long, I tend to fall again. I realize it’s fed every time I kill a Red.
Chop. Chop. Chop.
Easy like a thin knife into butter.
“It’s about time!” Constance cheers.
I use the Reds’ shoulders as standing poles between my jumps, in case the elevation doesn’t last long. This damn power needs feeding, which means killing.
The Reds scatter all around me, trying to confuse me so they won’t be an easy target. They’ve forgotten about the others. They’re all on me now.
“Don’t kill her,” one of them shouts. “Mr. Jay wants her alive—”
His last words. I chop off his head.
From the corner of my eye, I see Constance use the Reds leftover cloaks to make a bed for Fabiola. Who knows where those Reds disappear to when you kill them?
Funny, I notice now my wounds are suddenly healing.
The Reds scattering maneuvers don’t help me, and they keep coming through the door. I need to find a way to gather them closer to each other.
“I can tease them, if you want,” Constance yells from afar, jokingly.
What did she just say? Distracted, I turn and look in her direction.
“Yes,” she nods while mending Fabiola. “I heard your thoughts.”
“How is that possible—” I start to ask.
Red slices a wound at my thigh.
The pain is so abrupt that I lose my grip on my sword. It skids before me on the floor as I tumble sideways.
“No!” I shout.
Jack gets to his feet and does the right thing. Instead of helping me up, he shoots the Reds trying to get their hands on the sword. Lewis returns and starts fighting the Reds who are trying to kill me while I am on the floor.
The pain is too much, but then I hear a voice in my head. “Reach out for the sword. It will come to you.”
I turn my head and gaze at Constance. “Reach out,” she says it out loud now. “I don’t know how I know, but I do.”
My hand stretches as much as I can. I glimpse Tom picking up a cellular from the floor. One of the Reds lost their phone? That’s absurd.
Suddenly, lightning surges through my body again, and my brain feels as if it’s frying. The Vorpal sword flips in the air, high, somersaulting back to me.
“Wow!” Constance exclaims.
One of the Reds near me has a more precise thought, “Shit,” he says as I grip the sword and I slice him open.
This time, I am much stronger. Lewis, Jack, and Constance appear much stronger now too.
“We can do it,” Constance says. “Fabiola is well, by the way. She only hit her head into something. No bullet.”
“Like the old days, all over again,” Lewis says to her.
Jack stands perplexed, not remembering anything about the past. Lewis’s rabbit peeks out of his pocket and tells him, “Just don’t say anything like ‘awesome’ or ‘fantabulous.’ Don’t spoil the moment, Jack.”
And then we bring hell on the Reds. The Inklings are back.
26
Past: Wonderland, Wedding Day
The Pillar and the Queen’s sister kissed. She had to bow down a little to kiss him. She was wearing the fanciest wedding dress, made from the feathers of swans, and the Pillar was wearing a blue tuxedo, buttoned with pieces of gold. He was wearing a hat which he hadn’t done before. Actually, the hat belonged to the Hatter. The Queen had confiscated it the day she gave her sister the mushroom.
The Queen’s sister is so happy. The crowd is puzzled. The Hatter is older, shorter, uglier, and meaner. How come this beautiful girl loved him so much?
Her face was red from too much happiness. It’s like she had been in love with him for years. Rumors had it that she had been the one who proposed. Rumors also had it that she had been doing drugs, and he was her dealer.
None of that made sense, but none of the Wonderlanders spoke against it. None of them knew how to stop a girl so madly in love.
The Pillar had made sure everything went smoothly, so he’d brought his hookah along. A few puffs here and there and the crowd got dizzy, giggled, and were happier than the bride. The wedding wasn’t just the happiest day in the Pillar’s life, but it was also good business. He’d made a few high-class clients as well. He used to say the difference between ‘wed,’ and ‘weed’ was just the added letter E. Nothing much.
Flowers showered the bride and the groom, and the Queen’s guards played the music. Wonderland had been so colorful that day. A dark day full of rainbows.