by Cameron Jace
“No, we don’t.”
Fabiola titled her head toward him again, a little worried. “What do you mean?”
“It’s time, Fabiola.”
“Time for what?”
“For that thing we’ve been waiting for all along.”
“Of course not.” Fabiola’s face wrinkled. “It’s too soon.”
“No, it’s not.” Lewis stood up. “Alice knows.”
“So what’s new?” Fabiola shook her head. “She knows she is Black Chess. That’s what I’ve been trying —“
“It’s not that,” Lewis interrupted.
The rabbit nodded agreeably. “It’s not about that.”
“I thought you said she knows…” Fabiola interrupted her own words with muffled moan. “Oh, my. You mean she knows about…”
“The Chessmaster told her,” Lewis said. “She doesn’t know everything, but she is a smart girl. She will figure it out. Soon she will know the truth about her family. You know what that means, right?”
Fabiola nodded in silence, lowering her head, tears threatening to burst out of her wounded eyes, and guilt painting her features.
Chapter 3
Somewhere in the streets of Oxford
In my head, I’m picturing this little story: The Pillar, my biological father, was the evilest man in Wonderland. He took me under his wing and showed me what evil really was. He was proud of me, proud of his apprentice daughter, and I seem to have enjoyed his company. Then something happened, I’m not sure what. But Fabiola, who is probably my mother, had been played by the Pillar somehow, decided she’d fight for me and turn me into some kind of a Good Alice. That’s why she hated him. That’s why she didn’t want to acknowledge I was the Real Alice. She both feared for me – and feared me. That’s why she sometimes wants to kill me, and sometimes wants to help.
But what kind of mother would attempt to kill her own daughter? This doesn’t add up.
The phone in my hand is still beeping. I need the Pillar to pick up, or if I keep guessing who my family is I will go insane – pun intended.
But I still can’t help it. Who doesn’t want a family?
Closing my eyes, I daydream of a real home. A father, a mother, and maybe brothers and sisters. Someone to lean on and cry in their laps when madness hits the wall. Someone to have nearby all the time, even if I’m not that fond of them sometimes.
I imagine us having breakfast every day. Telling each other how our lives suck but how we won’t stop dreaming. Even at nineteen, I’d like to have a mother who’d comb my hair from time to time. A father who’d not approve of the boy I’m dating. And sisters, real ones not like Lorina and Edith, to borrow shoes from when I go out on a date.
My eyes flip open to a phone notification. It’s not the Pillar yet, but some urgent BBC headline I’d signed up to read earlier. I check it out. It’s that strange story about Inspector Dormouse again. I’ve marginally heard about it, but now his picture occupies the main page online:
Chief Inspector of the Department of Insanity has gone missing while investigating a serial killer.
It’s not like I was fond of Dormouse, but he seemed harmless, sometimes funny, if ever awake. Which makes me think he isn’t really missing. He’s just napping somewhere and will be back soon.
Looking up from the phone, I see I’ve walked a remarkable distance while thinking about my family. The place where I stand now looks eerily familiar. Slowly, it comes into focus and I can't help but wonder why I've ended up here.
How come I’ve walked to this place? Was it on purpose? Did my legs betray me or is it my subconscious that led me here?
I take the steps up to the front of the house before me. I’ll trust my gut and knock on a door I’d thought I’d left behind forever.
The house where my so-called sisters live.
Chapter 4
Alice’s House, Oxford
“You have some nerve coming here,” Edith welcomes me by the door.
“I’m here to see Mother.” I try to sound indifferent. Last time I was here, the two sisters almost killed me. This time I could kill them, but I don’t want to.
“She is not your mother.” Edith glares at me.
“I know. Just tell her I want to ask her something.”
“She isn’t here.”
“Do you know where I can find her?”
“I don’t. Just go away.” She is about to close the door, but I squeeze my foot in. Edith’s stare tenses. The darkness inside me must have surfaced. She’s scared.
“I just want to know about my real family.” I look away to make it easier on her.
“You have one?” She chuckles.
“So I’m told. I was wondering if my… your mother knew about them.”
“She never mentioned it. She definitely thinks you’re a homeless orphan. Still are, as far as I can tell.”
“So she never mentioned anything about my past?”
“You have no past, Alice,” Edith says. “You don’t even have a mind to rely upon.”
I ignore the comment. “How about the Pillar?”
“Not again.” She sighs.
“When I was here last time you said he was a bad man. You warned me about him.”
“And you never listened.” She puts a hand on her waist, the other against the door-frame.
“I was wrong.” I play along. “Just tell me why you warned me about him.”
“Mother used to say he taught you how to be evil back in Wonderland,” Edith says. “Of course, I have no idea what she was talking about. Your Wonderland stories must have driven my mother crazy.”
“What else?”
“I’m telling you there is no Wonderland. Are you deaf?”
“Just tell me what Mother told you about the Pillar.”
“Some hallucinations about you collaborating with him to find his weakness.”
“Weakness?” I tilt my head.
“Eh, some terrible story, straight out of a cheap late night B movie,” She says. “Something about the Pillar killing people close to you, or maybe children, I am not sure.”
“So?”
“Story goes that the Pillar was invincible, and that you planned your revenge by befriending him, killing people all over Wonderland, hoping to find his weakness and eventually kill him.”
Chapter 5
“So I joined Black Chess to win his trust and later find his weakness and kill him?” I mumble.
“See? It’s all cheap comic book revenge crap – or a lousy excuse for you to go on a killing spree, if that’s even a true story.” Edith says.
“Did I ever find his weakness?”
“I doubt it.”
“Why so sure?”
She laughs. “Because look at you. The Pillar must have driven you insane.”
“But you’re sure she said it was the Pillar, right?”
“Of course. Mother always told us the story of when you first came, you feared him so much you could not taste his name on your tongue.”
“How so?”
“You always referred to the Pillar as ‘He’ or ‘Him’. But one day you finally confessed. Mother says that’s when you forgot everything, even telling her that little story.”
“And that’s why you warned me about him?”
“Can you imagine spending our childhood warned of ‘He’ or ‘Him’ as if he were the Boogeyman, then seeing him walk into the house?” She steps forward as if to tell me a secret. “What’s wrong with you, Alice? I mean, really? Didn’t you see he was about to kill us in here?”
I don’t argue with her. She and Lorina tried to kill me as well. Every killer in this world argues they are right, that they’d killed for a reason.
“Anything else?” Edith taps the doorframe, impatiently.
“No, thanks.” I nod and turn to walk away.
“I would call Lorina and ask her,” Edith says behind me. I can imagine the wide, ugly smirk on her face right now. “But she’s cuddling with Jack upstairs. You want me to call her?”
I continue walking, pretending I didn’t hear her. Then, when I hear the door slam behind me, I detour into the nearest alley, hold my breath so I don’t vomit, lean against a wall and wait to make sure no one is watching.
Then cry my heart out.
***
It’s hard to say how long I keep sobbing. As long as no one, especially Edith or Lorina, sees my tears, I will be alright.
I can’t believe I gave Jack to Lorina. I am so regretting saving his life right now. I’d have preferred him dead but mine, however selfish it now sounds.
Standing against the wall proves futile, as the weight of my sadness pulls me down to the ground. And there, in my darkest hours, a flicker of light shines through. It’s not a divine beam of twilight or lightning in the sky, not even an alien space ship promising to take me to a better place. It’s my phone. A message from the Pillar:
It’s happening. Everything I feared. We have no time. Meet me at the Radcliffe Asylum. Now!
Chapter 6
Buckingham Palace, London
The Queen of Hearts accidentally farted. It was a comical one, a few meaningless air bubbles floating like fish breaths in the aquarium of life. Politicians do it all the time. They call them presidential debates.
"That was a relief,” She wheezed, eyes wide while leaning back on her favorite couch in her chamber.
She'd meant to let out a moan from the pain of the wounds she had endured in Kalmykia, but it came out all wrong – and smelly. Glad she was all alone, she wondered if the citizens of Britain ever imagined their Queen being a slob just like everyone else.
“Humpty!” She summoned Margaret’s son.
“Coming, Majesty.” Humpty came limping in, a satirical version of the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
The Queen looked irritated, watching the poor child trudging across the hall. “They did a horrible job stitching you up, darling,” She mused. “I mean, is that your head?”
“It is, Majesty.” The poor child sat by her feet. “Something wrong?”
“Nah,” The Queen lied. His egg-shaped head had taken a few bumps here and there. It was by no means egg-shaped anymore, let alone coherent enough to be called a head. “You look beautiful, darling. Now why don’t you be a good boy and lick mum’s tired feet?”
Humpty didn’t object and began doing what her dogs once did in the past. The boy was helpless, but the Queen still loved him. She could not conceive children, so he was her one and only. Of course, he was Margaret’s really. But it felt much better to have another’s child as her own. The Queen loved taking from other people what wasn't hers. A little attitude she had grown up with. She used to love to take anything that belonged to her sister when they were children.
The sister she wouldn’t want to remember now.
“My baby.” She scooped Humpty’s head off the floor and kissed the nose. “Don’t worry, baby. Mum will fix you soon. No one will ever laugh at you like they did to me when I was a child.”
“Does that mean I won’t be as ugly anymore?” Humpty questioned.
“You will always be ugly, darling.” She patted the decapitated head. “But you will rule the world. That’s what ugly people do.”
Suddenly, the Queen heard Margaret’s voice nearby.
Confused, she pushed Humpty’s body under the bed next to the couch. “How did you get in, Margaret?”
“It’s important. The guards let me in.” Margaret wasn’t yet visible, probably standing behind a column at the other end of the huge chamber. “Can I come in?”
“Just a second,” The Queen said, attempting to roll Humpty’s head under the bed after shushing him.
But the child’s head refused to budge. She’d accidentally poked his eyes with her thumb and forefinger, like bowling ball – and the head stuck.
“Just a sec!” The Queen said again, pulling Humpty’s head off her fingers and kicking it under the bed.
Clapping her hands free and then turning around, she realized Margaret stood behind her. “I told you to wait.”
“I didn’t hear you,” Margaret said, eager to peek behind her. “What’s under the bed?”
“A head,” The Queen’s tongue slipped.
“A head?” Margaret curved an eyebrow. “Under the bed?”
“Who said head?”
“You said head.”
“I didn’t say head.”
“I heard head.”
“I said dead. I mean ted. No, I said bed. Yes, bed.”
“You shoved a bed under the bed?”
“Aye.” The Queen nodded, chin up, hands behind her back, blocking Margaret’s stare.
“Who puts a bed under a bed?”
“What’s wrong with a bed under a bed?”
“No one ever puts a bed under a bed.”
“They put boxes, shoes, and other things. Why not a bed?”
“So you mean you have a smaller bed you just shoved under the bed?”
“Aye.”
“What’s in the small bed?”
“Another bed.”
“Seriously?” Margaret challenged her.
“Why do you ask so many questions?” The Queen’s voice pitched up. “I’m the Queen of England. I can do whatever I want. Why did you want to see me?”
“Ah, almost forgot.” Margaret’s face returned to its spider web of seriousness again, though not so much as to defuse her plastic surgeries. “I received a message from an anonymous informant.”
“So?”
“It’s someone who knows about us, about each one of us. The details mentioned worried me.”
“Did he blackmail you?”
“It’s not about that. That person, whomever he or she is, claims to have important news coming.”
“News about what?”
“About the Six Keys.”
“So it’s a Wonderlander who sent the message.”
“Can’t be sure,” Margaret said. “All I know is that he asked me to wait here with you.”
“Wait? For what?”
“Something that, according to the messenger, will please us.”
“What kind of nonsense is that?” T he Queen protested. “And why in Wonderland’s name would you even pay attention to it?”
Margaret stared right into the Queen’s eyes, then showed her the written message. “Because whoever the messenger is, he mentioned this phrase.”
The Queen picked up the paper and unfolded it. The words at the bottom were clear. A phrase most Wonderlanders knew about. A phrase she didn’t expect to hear so soon. “It’s happening.”
Chapter 7
Radcliffe Asylum, Oxford
Tom Truckle swallows two of his pills upon seeing me. He doesn’t even greet me. He slumps deeper into his chair, pushing with his feet against the edge of his desk.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “I’m not here as a patient.”
“Then why would an insane girl who left the asylum come back?” He says, staring at me suspiciously from the corner of his eye. “You love it here, don’t you? You love being insane?”
“Calm down.” I roll my eyes. “I know the Pillar and I gave you a hard time, but you weren’t the most honest of men either. You should have told us Lewis made you build the asylum.”
“Trust me, even that, I’m not sure of anymore,” he says. “The many pills I took compromised my thinking.”
“I noticed.” I sit down opposite to him, slightly enjoying his involuntarily flinches. He reminds me of the old days when I first met the Pillar and snatched a Certificate of Insanity out of him. “Now calm down, seriously. I thought we’d become friends after we met in the future.”
“We met in the future?” His eyes widen.
“Now I’m sure the pills you take messed up your mind.” I wave my hands in the air. “But never mind,” The whole trip to the future is confusing me as well. I’m not sure how I ended up outside the asylum in the new timeline, but I have to play along. “Just tell me where the Pillar is.”
�
��The Pillar? Why would he be here?”
“He sent me a message a while ago, requesting I meet him here.”
“In the Asylum?” Tom pulled himself closer to the desk again. “I don’t see why he’d want to meet you here.”
“Me neither. I’ve been trying to call him since I came back from Russia, but he doesn’t answer. Finally, he sent me this message saying ‘it’s happening’. Do you have any idea what he means?”
“It’s probably nothing. The Pillar is playing some game of his, like always.”
Did Tom just put stress on the word his, or is it my imagination playing games on me. “Tell me something,” I try to sound friendlier. “Do you still remember things from Wonderland?”
“Some.”
“Anything about the Pillar and me?”
“Anything like what?”
“Like us on a killing spree. All of this backstory most of you seem to know, but I don’t.”
“I didn’t mingle with many Wonderlanders back then. I was a teacher in some obscure school; I lived in the outskirts. I was a loner. A medicine nerd. No one wanted to talk to me. I think it’s why Lewis trusted me with building the asylum.”
“I suppose so.” I tongue my cheek from the inside. “So even Lewis didn't tell you about me and the Pillar? Something about me seeking revenge by joining him and figuring out his weakness?”
“Ah, that story. I’ve always assumed it was a myth. I don’t know much about it,” Tom says.
“Do you know anyone who does?”
“I do.” He shrugs. “Not a reliable source, though.”
“Who?”
“I don’t think you want to know.”
“Who, Truckle?” I rap a hand on the desk.
Tom stiffens with fear, mostly influenced by the pill, not my voice. Then he stands up and walks to the door. “Follow me.”
Chapter 8
Dr. Tom Truckle takes me to the Mushroomers’ ward. My footsteps echo in the overwhelming silence. On both sides, the Mushroomers are gripping the bars, speechlessly staring at me. I still remember when they’ve been my dearest friends and fans. I remember the times they encouraged me to escape and when they helped the Pillar dress me up and forge a university card. They don’t seem so fond of me anymore.