by Cameron Jace
The phone in her pocket vibrated. She was thankful for that. Most phones were said to stop working in a few hours. But she wouldn’t reply. Not yet. She had nothing to say to the caller.
Not yet. Not unless she reached her destination.
And here it was.
She stood, looking at the rows of lockers, wondering which one it was. The area wasn’t empty. A few worrisome people stood there. Vagabonds, she thought. Outlaws.
She approached slowly, looking at each locker, wondering if one of them would scream at her and tell her: open me up. How was she supposed to find the specific one she came for?
But she’d made it so far. Not only to the locker, but survived this long in the end of the world.
Her phone vibrated again.
She decided to pick up this time, though she had no answers, but she needed to report back.
“Hello,” Mr. Jay’s gruff voice said.
“Yes,” she said from under the hood.
“Found it?”
“I arrived, but don’t know which locker it is.”
“Blow them all up.”
“That’d be impossible with all the thugs here,” she said. “And what if the explosion burns the note.”
“Damn it,” Mr. Jay said. “We need that note. What if the Pillar told Alice something crucial? Who he really is, for instance?”
“It will be of importance, but will not tell us where the Six Keys are, because the Pillar didn’t know.”
“At least it would tell us why he did all of this.”
“I don’t see how this a priority,” she said. “But I followed your instructions.”
“Good,” he said. “Now don’t waste my time and go find that note in the Tiger Lily pot.”
“I will.”
“How is your face by the way?”
“I am uglier than I have ever been,” she fought the tears rolling down her cheeks. “How I wish I’ve killed the Pillar with my own hands.”
“Don’t worry. You survived, that’s what matters,” Mr. Jay said. “And Margaret, I will fix your face when we win this war.”
17
Warehouse location, London
Seeing Fabiola enter the warehouse is quite a surprise. Though we’ve had our differences, I’ve always respected her. She looks tired, a bit weakened, but tough enough to kill her enemies. Who would have thought the White Queen of the Vatican looks so badass?
“Fabiola,” I ask her, “What are you doing here? I thought you were ill in the hospital.”
“Thanks for sending me roses,” she makes a face, eyes on Constance. “I came to help you, misfits. We’re all Inklings, aren’t we?”
Jack looks confused. It occurs to me that even though he knows a few secrets, he’s never seen the Inklings foe himself. I only showed him part of us when I went to Wonderland through Einstein’s Blackboard and saw the Circus. I’ll have to find a way to clarify things for him.
“So, you are the boss?” Constance asks. I can tell she and Fabiola might not get along easily.
“You’re Constance,” Fabiola smiles. “Look at you.”
“And you’re Fabiola, the confused Vatican woman who has tattoos all over her body.”
“I am the White Queen,” Fabiola answers.
“And why did you want to kill Alice at some point, if you were such a White Queen?”
“Stop it, Constance.” I stand between her and Fabiola. “Tell me, Fabiola. What happened? How did you find us?”
“Actually, I found you through Constance,” Fabiola says.
Constance and I exchange looks. We’re oblivious of what the White Queen means.
“I have a special connection with Constance,” Fabiola says. “It’s like telepathy.”
“I don’t feel anything coming from you,” Constance says. “Thank God for that.”
“Well,” Fabiola says, “it’s not exactly me.”
“I didn’t know women in the Vatican lied,” Constance retorts.
“Who is it then?” I ask her. “Are you saying you didn’t come alone?”
“Great,” Constance waves a hand in the air. “Just great. You brought an intruder with you?” she reaches for her gun.
“Not an intruder,” a voice behind Fabiola says.
I know this voice. We’ve met a few times in this life. Hundreds of times in my past life, in Wonderland.
Lewis Carroll enters the warehouse, walking slowly. His appearance is that of an angel or something. I can’t tell if he is real or a phantom, though he looks real. There is something about him I can’t explain. It doesn’t have to do with my memories of him. It has to do with something else. I can’t put my finger on it.
“Lewis?” Jack is stunned. He is the most confused in the warehouse now.
Of course, Tom Truckle is even more confused. I just don’t count him. I don’t even know why we’re keeping him.
I watch Lewis walk closer, neglecting all of us. His eyes are also fixed on Constance. Except that this time the little girl doesn’t oppose him like she did with Fabiola. Her eyes glitter with anticipation. She takes a step closer, as if a magnetic power is pulling her toward the man.
It’s so surreal you’d think she is his daughter.
“Lewis,” Constance whispers as he kneels down to let her touch his face. “You’re alive.”
“Not really,” he explains. “I am like a wraith, a spirit of someone who once died but is resurrected through the love of the people who read my book.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” she says. “But I don’t care.”
The she hugs him.
Then she cries.
Then Lewis sobs.
Jack is perplexed, unable to fathom what’s going on. I need to explain a lot to him. Fabiola is fighting the tears in her eyes. Tom’s jaw drops and he can’t pick it up.
As for me, I am standing, watching, trying to understand how Lewis and Constance know each other. Why they have this emotionally empowered bond.
Then it hits me. How stupid am I? How didn’t I understand?
“I took every picture of you,” Lewis says to Constance.
She laughs like a baby and says. “Yes, us.”
Constance is the sum of the girls Lewis had ever photographed in the past. She and him are connected, have always been connected, by the power of creation. They have practically always known each other, and she is probably the closest to his heart.
18
In London
The Reds had spotted Fabiola and Lewis an hour ago. They could have attacked and tried to kill them instantly, though it would have been a hard job. The two Wonderlanders were killing machines. They’d seen them kill whoever attacked them. They were even scarier as a team, fighting back to back.
But that wasn’t why they hadn’t attacked them.
“Mr. Jay,” the Red called his employer. “I see them.”
“Are you sure it’s Fabiola?”
“Not just her, Lewis too.”
“That’s impossible,” said Mr. Jay. “Lewis is still alive?”
“He doesn’t die, you told us that.”
“Yes, but I had wished he’d disappear.”
“What are your orders, Master?”
“Kill them,” Mr. Jay said. “I have no use for them. I don’t think any of them know where the Keys are.”
“Not even Lewis?”
“Well, he knows. But has forgotten since he’d eaten the mushroom. He is a lunatic. He will never remember, just kill them both.”
“Aye aye, Sir.”
“Wait,” Mr. Jay seemed to have changed his mind. “What are they doing, Lewis and Fabiola?”
“Fighting, Sir.”
“I know. I mean do they look lost, or do they seem to have plan?”
“They do seem to have a plan,” the Red said. “They’ve been on a journey since they’ve left the hospital. Lewis seems to know where he is going.”
“Then don’t kill him,” Mr. Jay said.
“As you wish,” the Red s
aid. “May I ask why you changed your mind?”
“Because you will follow them.”
“Where?”
“I think Lewis and Fabiola will want to reunite with the Inklings,” Mr. Jay replies. “He will want to find Alice.”
“Do you think he knows where she is?”
“He does,” Mr. Jay says. “I don’t know how, but he does. Follow him and once you confirm they’ve met with the rest of the Inklings, attack. Kill everyone except Alice.”
19
Warehouse location, London
Seeing all of us gathered again is a joy to the heart. Of course, Lewis could be just a figment of our imagination, but hey, Alice, me, in the books had been the figment of everyone’s imagination throughout the years.
“You know me?” Lewis kneels down and talks to Constance.
“With every beat of my heart,” she touches his face gently. I am not sure I understand how Constance is magically the sum of the all the girls Lewis took a photograph of. And why the hell did he do that? I hope I will eventually know. “I am happy you know me.”
“I know everyone one of you,” he said pointing at her brain.
Okay it’s getting a little bit weird. But what isn’t?
“I need a phone!” Tom interrupts. A Mushroomer kicks him in the balls, on behalf of Constance.
“Are you real?” Constance asks Lewis.
“That’s debatable,” he says. “I am here and not here. But then again I am here.”
“I miss you.”
“Me too,” he says. “At least the part of me that still remembers things does.”
“I don’t remember everything either,” she explains. “Too many memories of other girls in my head. It makes me weary and anxious sometimes.”
Now I understand why she’s so feisty. I can’t imagine the burden on this young girl’s shoulders.
“It should pass soon,” he smiles at her. “Soon we'll get the most precious thing.”
Oh, again, I roll my eyes. Should I ask him what the hell it is and spoil this sentimental, wondertastic moment?
“I know,” Constance nods. “The most precious thing.”
“You know what it is?” I ask her.
She shakes her head into a no again, without taking her eyes off Lewis. “I only trust Lewis that we need to find it.” She keeps touching his face, as if not sure he is real yet. She says, “I remember you, Lewis.”
He tilts his head. Fabiola and I exchange confused looks.
“Remember everything?” Lewis shrugs. “Wonderland?”
“Some.”
“Do you know where the Six Keys are?” he asks.
She shakes her head into a no. “You never told us.”
I still can’t get the ‘us’ part, but I am watching, like Fabiola is watching, like the Mushroomers are watching. As for Jack, he is stunned with what’s happening.
“Yeah, I know.” Lewis raises his head and looks over Constance’s shoulder. “I only told the March.”
“So you must know about the mushrooms?” I ask him.
Lewis stands up and gazes serenely at me. “Alice,” he says, “we haven’t met for some time.”
“Depends on what you mean exactly,” I reply. “We met in strange, hallucinatory circumstances, in other worlds. Or do you mean when we last met in Wonderland two centuries ago?”
“You never cease to surprise me. You want to know everything precisely. You want to make everything right. You want to help people. You want justice,” he says.
“Do I?” I grimace. In my mind I think I haven’t done enough to save the world that is now in chaos. I am just a girl looking for truth. If someone tells me why I killed everyone on the bus, I’d settle for that. But then again, I don’t think it’s the proper time to ask.
“I missed you,” he smiles.
A small, funny rabbit popped its head out and says, “Me, too.”
I fold my arms. “Am I supposed to remember you?”
The rabbit looks confused and gazes back at Lewis. “Is she?”
Lewis pats it back inside and looks back to me. “Time is scant,” he says. “I think we all know what we need to do,” he nods at the March Hare. “And the answer to your question is ’no I don’t know about the mushrooms.’”
“Not at all?” Jack steps up into the conversation.
Lewis doesn’t pay much attention to Jack, and answers me instead. “I know that I told him he will remember when he sees the mushrooms. That’s all.”
“Why did the March forget?” I ask. “I thought you kept the secret with him, and assume you had to rid yourself of it because of Carolus.”
“True.” Lewis explains, “though I can’t remember I did even that. I ate a mushroom that’d help me forget. I was confused. The migraines were still new to me. I was in a haze. Carolus was killing me from the inside out. I had learned from my diaries that I came across the secret of the Keys somehow and had to protect the knowledge.”
“The knowledge of?”
“The most precious thing,” Fabiola says.
I let out a sigh. “Which I assume none of you wants to tell me what it is.”
Lewis and Fabiola exchange gazes now. “It will confuse everyone, knowing what it is now,” Fabiola says. “Let’s take it slow.”
“Slow?” Tom bursts out. “This is the end of the world and you want us to take it slow?”
“I prefer if you don’t speak, Tom,” Lewis shows a darker side of him now. His eyes are burning. “You did a terrible job with the asylum. I told you to help those Mushroomers, not pain them like you did.”
“That was Waltraud, not me.”
Lewis averts away and looks at the March. “So the March told you, Alice, that he will remember if sees the mushrooms?”
“I am not sure if he said mushroom or mushrooms,” I tell him. “But he said it’s in London. One of his designs.”
“Oh?” Fabiola seems happy about that piece of info. “This narrows it.”
“What do you mean?” I ask her, but then we hear loud knocks on the warehouse doors outside.
“Shit,” Constance says. “It’s the Reds.” She turns serious again and sneers at Fabiola. “You let them follow you.”
20
The Vatican
Angelo trudged over to his drunken friends, swaying like Jack Sparrow, out to the balcony. He had no issues with addressing the people while he was drunk out of his mind. They’d got used to it. Outside, he was surprised he saw no one. The piazza was empty.
“No one believes in the lord anymore, these days,” he swayed and gulped again.
He rubbed his eyes, wondering where everyone had gone. But then again, wasn’t it clear? Everyone went to kill the Inklings. The fact that a few bad words about a person in the news would turn them into a public enemy within seconds unsettled him a little.
Not that the Cheshire cared, but humans were so strange. Maybe that was part of why he hated them. Strange creatures. Judgmental. Prejudicing, and with an uncanny lust for blood. You just have to convince yourself you’re the good one, and the others are the bad ones, and you’re good to go and shoot them.
The Cheshire took another drink. The bottle was empty. He looked at it, hating it for a moment. A hallucinatory moment with a bottle.
“I hate you,” he told it. “How come they haven't invented bottles that don’t empty yet,” he raised a finger and said, “Ah, I know why. People would drink themselves to death then.”
He rested his hands on the balcony and addressed the emptiness, “Can anyone get me a bottle of wine at least?”
His voice echoed to the emptiness. It sucked that there wasn’t enough to drink in the end of the world. He turned back inside and saw the TV was still on. The same reporter was announcing that the authorities have located the Inklings’ whereabouts. An anonymous person had called them. The police were on their way to get them.
The Cheshire laughed out loud, hands on his stomach. “I love the news. They’re just sending out a message
for the Inklings to escape.”
He sat down and shut off the TV. The whole thing about the end of the world wasn’t as satisfying as he had wished. This wasn’t painful enough for the humans he hated. It sucked when the movie you’ve waited for so long ends up being a letdown.
“Maybe I have to reside to the form of a cat again,” he told himself. “Find some kid in a wealthy family and seduce her into sheltering me. Let her feed me and live the boring life of a cat. I could get so fat, eating so much.”
He leaned his head back on the couch. His eyes were beady, encouraging sleep. As they closed, he remembered how the world sucked without the Pillar. Humans were boring. The Pillar wasn’t. He hated him but loved him as well.
“Oh, man,” Angelo slurred. “Blowing up the Queen’s head was so funny,” he began snoring, a few last words pooling out of his drooling mouth. “Unlike what you had done to her sister. Man, that was so evil, even by my standards.”
21
Warehouse Location, London
“I need a phone!” Tom wails like bratty child.
“Guns!” Jack instructs the Mushroomers.
“I got mine,” Constance run toward the door, then away from it.
I am about to run after her when Fabiola stops me.
“Let go,” I shout.
“Wait,” she hisses. “I can help.”
“What?” I grimace. Behind me, Jack and Lewis are readying themselves for the shooting already.
“How are you feeling?” Fabiola whispers in my ears.
“Do you think this is the time to ask?” I try to slide my arm away, but boy, she is so strong. What happened to her?
She pulls me into a corner. The Red’s knocks are deafening. Soon they’ll break the door and get inside.
“We should be good,” Jack tells Lewis. “We just shoot when they get inside. We’re safe. They’re the ones who want us.”