by Cameron Jace
“Please do,” Margaret laced her hands before her. “I am listening, My Queen.”
“How is my sister doing?”
“As planned,” Margaret said.
“How long has it been?”
“Three months.”
“Is she still cutting herself?” the Queen asked.
“All of the time.”
“So she believes in the dark magic.”
Margaret nodded, “She thinks it’s real.”
“How many cuts?”
“Last time she was here she was a beast of scars,” Margaret said. “She paints over them to make them look like tattoos. She looks terrible.”
“And how is her mind?”
“She is going insane.”
The Queen smiled. It was a slow smile, forming with pleasure and satisfaction. She leaned forward. “Is she suffering?”
“A terrible suffering, my Queen.”
“Fabulous,” she did a little dance on top of the chair. “You have done well, Margaret. I have managed to drive my sister insane. I can’t wait to see when she discovers that I have played her twice. Once with the Pillar, once with you.”
“I hate myself for what I am doing to her,” Margaret says. “She was such young, fine girl.”
“Was.” The Queen nodded agreeably. “Was.”
“I expect you’ll pay now,” Margaret collected herself.
“But of course,” the Queen said. “Here, take this.”
Margaret reached and grabbed a bottle of pink substance. She stared weirdly at it.
“It won’t make you taller,” the Queen mocked her. “But you know what? It will make you beautiful.”
“Does it work?” Margaret was skeptical.
The Queen threw glances left and right, then signaled for Margaret to come closer. She said in a whispering voice, “It does work. How do you think I stay beautiful all the time?”
Margaret cringed. The Queen was far from beautiful, but not as ugly as the Duchess. She nodded and accepted the reward.
“Wait a week or so, and you will see results,” the Queen stated. “I advise you to leave this house, live somewhere else, and change your name too.”
“Why?”
“You will look different,” she said. “If I were you, I’d ditch the Duchess name. Call yourself Margaret maybe.”
“I will consider it,” Margaret couldn’t believe she’d finally be beautiful, though she had done something terrible to get her beauty back. The pink spell had demanded she make someone ugly to be beautiful herself. In this case, the victim had been Fabiola. Not fire with fire, but fire for fairies.
“One last thing before I go,” the Queen said. “I think there is no need for you to hide that baby of yours in the back of the house anymore.”
“You know about it?”
“Almost everyone knows you’re a whore,” the Queen chuckled. “Ugly and a whore.” She chuckled again. “I say give me the child.”
“What? That’s my child.”
“A bastard child.”
“But mine.”
“So was your ugly face,” the Queen rolled her eyes. “You don’t it need anymore. I will raise it and make it mine.”
“I will not give you my only child.”
She rolled her eyes again. “It’s not like you’ve given birth to a Prince Charming. I saw him, he is dumb and fat, like you.”
“No! I will not give him to you.”
“This, or my men will take the pink potion back,” the Queen threatened. “I will take your child for insurance.”
Margaret’s life had been so miserable that she had to compromise between her child and her beauty. But in truth, she didn’t care about the child. He was such a terrible responsibility. Now she could only think about the men who would like her because of her beauty. Eventually, she handed the Queen what she desired.
On her way out, the Queen said, “Thank you, Margaret, for ruining my sister’s life. I am forever in debt.”
40
Present: King’s Cross Train Station
Margaret could not believe what she had just read. On her knees, amidst the chaos of war, on top of a pile of lockers, she feels like she is going to die from anger.
In fact, she was dying. She just didn’t realize it right away though.
The note in her hands wasn’t a Wonder note. Someone had replaced it. Yes, it looked yellow and the same size as the Wonder note, but it has a lot of words written on it, not just one.
The font was small but readable. Many words, but not article-long.
It read:
Dear Ugly Duchess,
Of course, this isn’t what you have expected. I have made sure to remove the real note. You will never know what my Wonder is, though if you, especially you, would have given it some thought, you would have figured it out.
Lifting her eyes off the letter, Margaret didn’t know what he meant. Why would she have guessed what the Pillar’s Wonder was? She had no time or strength to think it over. She was keen to know why he sent her here, playing with her and convincing her that she’d be able to know why he was doing all of this.
She read along:
I don’t know where the Keys are, but I do know something else about them. I know the Keys are not the usual Keys we would expect. They don’t open a safe, they don’t open a door, but they open something more precious, and precious things you don’t have, my dear.
She was puzzled and perplexed. What did he mean? And how did he know these things about the Keys when he didn’t know where they were. Or was he just messing with her?
She gave it a thought but couldn’t figure it out.
In spite of the trick of sending her to chase phantoms, she decided she had to call Mr. Jay and tell him about the Pillar’s message. She called, but the master didn’t pick up, so she left a message.
“Hey, it’s Margaret. The Pillar played us again. There is no wonder message here. But he did leave me a few words, after mocking me of course. I think it’s a puzzle. One of his tricks. It says ‘the keys don’t open a safe or a door but open something more precious, something that I don’t have,’ meaning me, Margaret.”
She hung up, disappointed and lost. She was about to crumble the paper and throw it away when the question presented itself again: why did he send her here? Why plan this silly game? Of course, the Pillar enjoyed humiliating her, but that didn’t answer anything.
She stopped herself from throwing the note, and flattened it back out, only to realize he’d scribbled a few words on the back.
Ah, I forgot. The paper you just read has a poisonous flavor, from a mushroom I have created just for you. It will kill you so slowly that you will end up begging to die to avoid the pain. By slowly, I mean around three days. Three. Long. Days. No one will be able to help because it’s a Wonderland mushroom. A special gem.
Margaret found herself coughing. Blood. It was as if reading this ignited the sickness. She felt dizzy and disoriented. Tiny pinches like pins and needles pained her all over her body. The bastard fooled her, but why didn’t he finish her at the limousine? Because he wanted her to suffer deeply on a personal level?
In her darkest hour, the ugly Duchess read the Pillar’s last words.
Suffer and die, ugly bitch.
For Fabiola.
41
Somewhere in Chaos of London’s Streets
The two kids were brothers. Twelve and thirteen years old. They’d been pickpocketing since they were seven. Better than being homeless. In the beginning, they’d worked for an old, bald, and evil man who hired homeless children to profit from them. Then later when they’d learned the secrets of the trade, they decided to go solo.
Entrepreneurial millennial’s frame of mind, you could say.
Now that the world was going down the rabbit hole, they didn’t need to pickpocket anyone. Loot was everywhere. All they had to do was rummage in the pockets of the dead and find all the money they wanted.
London was full of dead people, in
every alley, every street, you name it. Happy World War III, they thought.
This street, in particular, was full of dead people. It was the street where this madman, Pilla da Killa had killed the Queen of England, blowing her head off with a gun.
The police had cared for no one but the Queen’s body since then. Of course, they couldn’t find her head because there was no head. Imagine a watermelon blown up with dynamite. All red and juicy.
The kids laughed when they’d seen it on the news. When everyone avoided the street, they knew they had to come. Most of the richest people in England had been here when the shooting and explosion happened. Which means a lot of wallets. A lot of money.
Of course, the task wasn’t easy since most of the money would have burned. But some wallets were strong. Those thick wallets, you know. Not filled with ten pounds or so, but the ones with five hundred or a thousand. Older people still carried money sometimes, the kids giggled.
“Hey, found anything?” the older brother asked.
“Not money,” the younger said, soot all over his face. He wore sneakers of different sizes and colors. One belonged to a woman the other to a man. Both dead of course. “But I found this arm.”
“Stop that you disgusting pig,” the older brother said.
“What? It’s funny,” the younger waves the dead arm in the air, blood dripping from it. “It’s still warm,” he teased.
“So?”
“Warm means it belonged to a man who had money,” the younger brother joked. “Let’s find him and his wallet.”
“You’re sick.”
“You’re sick too. You’re just pretending you’re not because you’re playing the role of being an older brother.”
“Enough, smarts,” the old brother said. “Come here. I found a hand.”
“A dead hand?”
The younger laughed. “Yes, but intact,” he pointed at a hand sticking out of a pile of bodies.
“The hand is holding a wallet,” the younger brother said. “Did he want to bribe someone to save him before he died?”
“Looks like it,” the older brother ginned. “It could be a woman too. She’s wearing gloves.”
“So what’s stopping you. Get the wallet.”
The older brother tipped over the pile of bodies to reach for it.
“You’re slow, old brother,” the younger said, embarking the pile of flesh. “Let me help you.”
“I can do it,” the older insisted.
The two of them met near the hand, competing to reach it.
Then something happened.
The hand moved.
“Wow,” the younger said. “Back from the dead.”
Both of them watched a man rising from under the bodies and standing up on his feet. He seems so nonchalant about coming back from the dead.
“Congratulations,” the younger brother said to the man. “You made it out alive.”
“You should give us ten percent of the wallet,” the older said. “We found it.”
The man seemed puzzled as if he was asking, ‘found it, really?’
“We found it in your hand,” the younger joked.
“Don’t you kids have school?” the man asked.
The two brothers looked at each other and laughed.
“School?” the younger said. “This is the end of the world, dude. Where are you from? The future?”
“No,” the man said, rubbing the dust off his clothes. “I’m from Wonderland.”
The two brothers resided in a sudden silence.
“Are you one of the … what was their name?” The older tried to remember.
“Inklings?” The man asked.
“Yes, that’s the name,” the older said.
The younger followed, “You don’t look like a terrorist.”
“Oh trust me,” the man replies. “I am worse. Now give me all of your money
” He pulled out a gun.
The brothers were shocked. They’d never been robbed before.
“Dude,” the younger said to the man. “You’re the coolest dude I’ve ever met. Are you robbing us?”
“My limousine is out of order, and my chauffeur went home.”
The brothers were stunned. With open mouths, they emptied their pockets and gave him all they had looted that day.
“Good,” he stuffed the money in his pocket. “Keep the arm, though. You can slap yourself with it all day long.”
The man trudges over the bodies and walks off.
“Hey,” the younger said. “Do you have a name?”
The man stopped and seemed to think about it.
“You don’t remember your name?”
“I do. The point is that I have two names,” the man said. “One I am. One I am not.”
“A puzzle?” The older asked with a dropped jaw.
“A madness.” The man said, then rubbed his chin thinking. “You boys didn’t happen to have seen my hookah, did you?”
42
Ice-Cream Truck
I watch Constance throttle back so hard she hits the truck’s edge. A shriek escapes Fabiola, but her attempt to kill Tom with her own hands fails when Tom points his guns at the March. Apparently, the lunatic director of the asylum has lost his mind.
“Okay,” I say. “Let’s calm down.” I am talking to the Reds and Tom. This could easily turn into a massacre. “Tom?” I say.
“You made me shoot her,” he says, sweating now. He is looking at his gun as if he had never shot anyone before, as if he was only bluffing and a bullet came out accidentally. “I didn’t want to shoot her, but I did. Will you come down now?”
“I will Tom, just calm down.” I, the former patient of the asylum, am trying to tame the supposedly sane director or this situation will turn into a bloodbath. Of course, I haven’t had the time to digest that Constance may be dead.
“Then come over here and surrender your Verbal Sword,” he growls, sweating even more.
It’s a Vorpal Sword, but I don’t care to correct him.
“Listen, Tom,” I say, handing the sword to the Reds — I can recall it anytime I want to later, just like I had done in the warehouse. “I will only come with you, if you allow me to save Constance.”
“Can she be saved?” he wonders.
“I don’t know—” my words are cut off by Lewis.
“I can save her,” he says.
“How so?” I ask, the same question Tom asked a breath later.
“We’re bonded,” he says. “Through the picture of the past.”
For a moment I wonder if he knows about my telepathy with Constance. I thought me and her were bonded.
“Then go save her,” Tom waves his gun in her direction. “And you, Alice, go the other way, surrender yourself to the Reds.”
I comply slowly, hands up in the air. At a certain angle, I am sure I can kick Tom in the legs and take his gun, but I can’t risk another bullet in the March Hare’s chest or something. Is it not weird that the March hasn’t awoken in all this noise? Is he drugged or something?
The thought brings a sudden noise to my ear. I lower one hand to cup my ear. The Reds point their guns at me.
“Up with the hands,” Tom says, fidgeting in his place now, like an angry child with a toy gun.
“My ears hurt so much,” I say.
“Seriously?” Tom says. “Try another trick. Lewis, what’s going on?”
“I can save her,” he says. “But I need space.”
“What?” Tom grimaces.
My eyes catch Jack’s eyes. He is too silent. I wonder why.
“The magic I will use needs open space, or she will die, Tom,” Lewis eyes him with intent. “You said you didn’t want to shoot her and were bluffing. Be a man and let me save her. You have Alice and the March. It’s a good deal. We all walk away happy.”
“You don’t walk away Lewis,” Tom snorted. “Why do you always think you’re so slick and important?”
“I don’t think that.”
“Yes, you
do.” Tom waves the gun in the air, as if this proves his point. Then he waves it at the rest of us. “And you Fabiola, always so cool, helping people in the Vatican.”
“What’s this about?” She asks.
“And Jack,” Tom points the gun at him now. I have a brief chance to kick him, but Lewis looks my way, his eyes saying no. “You’re dead, Jack. What the hell are you doing here?”
Most of us don’t understand what’s going on, but then Fabiola seems to understand. She stares at Tom in a strange way, like a dog tilting its head and inspecting someone. It feels like she recognizes something in him. She’s seen this madness before. She has felt this confusion and utter hate for everyone in the world before, and in some wicked way, she seems to sympathize.
“Tom?” she says. Her voice is motherly and soft. True and unmasked. “I feel your pain.”
In a moment of pure weirdness, Tom’s eyes moist as he looks back at her. His hand unconsciously lowers the gun, but for only a knuckle of a small finger or so.
Tom seems in a haze. It’s a perfect move for me, but Lewis still grits his teeth, denying me the pleasure. I wonder if he's sure he can save Constance.
“Imagine your kids seeing you now, Tom,” Fabiola conjures her persuasion capabilities from her work in the Vatican. “They love you and don’t want to see you like this.”
Tom lowers the gun another knuckle. I hate myself for not taking this chance. Maybe Lewis is counting on Fabiola solving this without blood being spilled. So he must be sure he can save Constance? I can’t see her as his body is shadowing hers now.
Damn my ears hurt again when I think about her.
Fabiola continues her magic, “I have been in your situation before.”
This phases him off. He pulls the gun up again. “What situation? You know nothing about me.”
“I know about the pills,” she says. “I have been an addict before.”