by Cameron Jace
The girl sprawled on the ground was dead… and loving it. Why else would she be grinning like the Cheshire Cat?
It was early in the morning at Christ Church on the Oxford University campus. A thick mist hovered like veiled ghosts over the quadrangle garden known as Tom Quad. Water trickled steadily from a fountain in the middle like a ticking time bomb. The surrounding buildings loomed behind the cold air like a killer, carefully watching the consequences of his brutal crime.
"Do dead people grin, mummy?" a young boy munching on a red cherry tart asked a woman in an expensive red coat.
The woman in the red coat was speechless, hypnotized by the grinning girl lying dead on the grass. It was as if the girl was laughing at the living, reminding everyone of their inevitable fates. Live long or die grinning.
A breeze of cold air chilled the woman in red back to reality. She sensed something evil lurking in the mist, so she dragged her boy away from the scene of the crime. Some people don't like a murder for breakfast. It's just not their thing.
A few early risers stood around the corpse, though. None of them questioned the girl's identity or the significance of the murder taking place at the college. Again, it was that frumious grin on the girl's face that caught them.
"She must be in heaven, with a grin like that," a senior student joked. He was athletic, not funny, and a typical jerk. The grin didn't conjure happiness. It was sinister, hollow, and nonsensical.
A professor in a tweed jacket knelt to inspect the body. "It's not a natural grin. Someone did that to her," he declared. "Oh, my God." He looked away from the corpse, cupping his mouth with his hands.
"What is it?" Senior Jerk panicked.
A nerdy girl with thick glasses appeared from the mist, then knelt next to the professor. "What is it?" she inquired.
"Her lips and cheeks were sewn up with a needle, baring her teeth to look like she is grinning. It's sick," Professor Tweed said.
"That's bloody gross," Senior Jerk mooed like a cow.
"Look what I found." Nerdy Girl held a tattered copy of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in her hands. An original library edition from 1865. "The dead girl was gripping it. She had it open to this page."
"What page?" Professor Tweed's curiosity seemed to have cured his nausea.
"This one, where Alice tells the Cheshire Cat she often sees a cat without a grin, but never a grin without a cat. It's highlighted." Nerdy Girl's mouth hung open, and she locked eyes with Professor Tweed before they stared back at the grinning girl.
"Is this some kind of sick joke?" Senior Jerk growled, craning his ogre-thick neck.
"May I see the book?" I said in my raspy voice. I hadn't spoken at all, but I usually like to speak last, after I've heard what else there is to be said.
"Here," Nerdy Girl kindly handed the book over.
I checked the highlighted page. "It's true," I said. "There's also a message scribbled in the margin," I said as I showed it to them. It read: Save Alice!
"Do you think she wrote it before she died, like a clue or something?" Nerdy Girl adjusted her glasses. "Or maybe her name is Alice." She rummaged through the dead girl's pockets, looking for an ID.
"I don't think so." I pointed out the necklace dangling from the dead girl's neck. "It says her name is Mabel."
"I know who killed her!" another squeaky voice popped in from the mist. It belonged to an old woman, hunching over her wriggling cane. "It's the Cheshire Cat!" The few teeth she had left in her mouth chattered.
Senior Jerk chortled. "Are we seriously having this conversation?"
"Don't laugh, young man." The woman struggled on her cane, eager to see the dead girl. "It's all over the news."
"I remember now." Nerdy Girl snapped her fingers. "Cheshire, the Cat. He's killed four girls, until now. Two in London, two in Cambridge, and now it appears that he's killed one in Oxford. All the girls were grinning after they died. I saw it on TV."
"So, that's what Alice meant by a grin without a cat?" Senior Jerk mocked them, tucking his hands into his pockets and shrugging his shoulders. Being a jerk is more of a habit or a personality trait of sorts, not an attitude. It's incurable.
"Let me take a closer look at her." The old woman held out a hand.
"I don't think we should be doing this." Professor Tweed snatched the book from my hand as if I were a lazy student who just got an F in his class. I don't usually tolerate such behavior, but I made an exception. "We're tampering with evidence," he explained.
"He's right." Nerdy Girl leaned away from the corpse. "We should wait for the police. Did someone call them?"
"They're on their way," I replied. "I called them once I came across the corpse."
"So, you're the one who found her?" Senior Jerk pointed his big finger at me.
"I did." I always do.
"Why are you grinning, then?" he snorted at the same time the professor adjusted his glasses to get a better look at my face. Nerdy Girl shrieked. She bumped against the corpse and fell on her back, not taking her eyes off me. The three of them were in a sudden state of shock. It was the old woman who didn't waste time. She threw her cane at me and galumphed back into the mist, screaming that she'd found the murderer.
My grin widened.
I wondered whom I should kill first—Professor Tweed, Nerdy Girl, or Senior Jerk? I'd save the old woman for last. She wasn't going anywhere, running aimlessly across the garden, like in a Caucus Race.
Part I
We're All Mad Here
1
UNDERGROUND WARD, THE RADCLIFFE LUNATIC ASYLUM, OXFORD
The writing on the wall says it's January 14. I am not sure what year. I haven't been sure of many things lately, but I'm wondering if it's my handwriting I'm looking at.
There is an exquisite-looking key drawn underneath the date. It's carved with a sharp instrument, probably a broken mirror. I couldn't have written this. I'm terrified of mirrors. They love to call it Catoptrophobia around here.
Unlike those of the regular patients in the asylum, my room is windowless, stripped down to a single mattress in the middle, a sink, and bucket for peeing—or puking—when necessary. The tiles on the floor are black and white squares, like a chessboard. I never step on black. Always white. Again, I'm not sure why.
The walls are smeared with a greasy, pale green everywhere. I wonder if it's the previous patient's brains spattered all over from shock therapy. In the Radcliffe Lunatic Asylum, politely known as the Warneford Hospital, the doctors have a fondness for shock therapy. They love watching patients with bulging eyes and shivering limbs, begging for relief from the electricity. It makes me question who is really mad here.
It's been a while since I was sent to shock therapy myself. Dr. Tom Truckle, my supervising physician, said I don't need it anymore, particularly after I stopped mentioning Wonderland. He told me that I used to talk about it all the time; a dangerous place I claim I had been whisked away to when my elder sister lost me when I was seven.
Truth is, I don't remember this Wonderland they are talking about. I don't even know why I am here. My oldest vivid memory is from a week ago. Before that, it's all a purple haze.
I have only one friend in this asylum. It's not a doctor or a nurse. And it's not a human. It doesn't hate, envy, or point a finger at you. My friend is an orange flower I keep in a pot—a Tiger Lily I can't live without. I keep it safely next to a small crack in the wall, where a single ray of sun sneaks through for only ten minutes a day. It might not be enough light to grow a flower, but my Tiger Lily is a tough girl.
Each day I save half of the water they give me for my flower. As for me, better thirsty than mad. My orange flower is also my personal rain check for my sanity. If I talk to her and she doesn't reply, I know I am not hallucinating. If she talks back to me, all kinds of nonsense starts to happen. Insanity prevails. There must be a reason why I am here. It doesn't mean I will easily give in to such a fate.
"Alice Pleasance Wonder. Are you ready?" The nu
rse knocks with her electric prod on my steel door. Her name is Waltraud Wagner. She is German. Everything she says sounds like a threat, and she smells like smoke. My fellow mad people say she is a Nazi—that she used to kill her own patients back in Germany. "Get avay vrom za dor. I'm coming in," she demands.
As I listen to the rattling of her large keychain, my heart pounds in my chest. The turn of the key makes me want to swallow. When the door opens, all I can think of is choking her before she begins to hurt me. Sadly, her neck is too thick for my nimble hands. I stare at her almost-square figure for a moment. Everything about her is four sizes too big. All except her feet, which are as small as mine. My sympathies, little feet.
"Time for your daily ten-minute break upstairs." She approaches me with a straitjacket, a devilish grin on her face. I never get out. My ward is underground, and I'm only allowed to take my break in another empty ward upstairs where patients love to play soccer.
A big, muscled warden stands behind Waltraud. Thomas Ogier. He is bald and has an angry-red face and a silver tooth he likes to flash whenever he sees me. His biceps are the size of my head. I have a hard time believing he was ever a four-pound baby.
"Slide your arms into the jacket," Waltraud demands in her German accent, a cigarette puckered between her lips. "Slow and easy, Alice." She nods at Warden Ogier, in case I misbehave.
I comply obediently and stretch out my arms for her to do whatever she wants. Waltraud twists my right arm slightly and checks the tattoo on my arm. It's the only tattoo I have. It's a handwritten sentence that looks like a thick armband from afar. Waltraud feels the need to read it aloud: "'I can't go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.'" I was told I had written it while still believing in Wonderland. "That Alice in Wonderland has really messed with your head," she says as she puffs smoke into my face.
The tattoo and Waltraud's mocking are the least of my concerns right now. I let her tie me up, and while she does, I close my eyes. I imagine I am a sixteenth-century princess, some kind of lucky Cinderella, being squeezed into a corset by my chain-smoking servant in a fairy tale castle above ground, just about to go meet my prince charming. Such imagery always helps me breathe. I once thought that it was hope that saved the day, not sanity. I need to cool down before I begin my grand escape.
2
I twist my arms slightly under the jacket to give myself broader space to move in. As Waltraud buckles me up, I use one of my hands to inconspicuously pinch the front and give myself about three inches for slack. I also take a deep breath, so my upper body takes more space inside the jacket. I make sure my stronger arm is above the weaker while she pulls the sleeves behind me. When she is finished, I breathe out and feel the gap inside the jacket. People think escaping a straitjacket is impossible. A well-spread myth.
"I feel like throwing up," I lie to Ogier and Waltraud. It's not unusual to want to vomit because of the heavy medications patients gulp all day.
"You're not puking on my uniform like last time. I just had it dry-cleaned," Waltraud sighs in her German accent, the cigarette still between her lips. "Puke in the bucket."
I turn around, happy my trick is working. With my back facing them, I push my stronger arm toward my opposite shoulder. I kneel on the floor and pretend to throw up as I bring my arm over my head and begin unbuckling the buckle on my sleeve with my teeth. I stretch my back a little and unbuckle the top and bottom buckles behind me. I do it fast, hoping they won't get it. But when I turn around, Warden Ogier has figured out my trick. A big smirk fills his face. He is happy he's found something to punish me for. If I don't act fast, they'll fry my brains in therapy.
In no time, I grab a sedative syringe from Waltraud's pocket and gleefully stab her in the neck, whizzing the sedative into her brain. It works like a charm, but it doesn't stop me from shoving her face into the bucket. I have wanted to do that all week for the torture she's bestowed on me.
"You little brat," Warden Ogier growls. He holds me from behind by the arms and lifts me up in the air. I can't free myself. I pull my legs up and flip them backward until I touch his shoulders. My hands slip from his grip, and I start clawing his broad back, like a monkey on an elephant. I don't waste time. I pull his prod from his pockets, then buzz him in the neck. He falls to his knees, and I stand on my feet.
Dashing out of the room, I hear him moan behind me. He's going to pick himself up in a few minutes. I need to run through the hallways to get to the ward's main door, then escape this nightmare. I need to tell the world that I am not mad—or, at least, make sure I am not.
Halfway into the hallway, my feet urge me to a halt. I can't help it. It's my heart that's stopping me, remembering that I have left something precious behind. My Tiger Lily.
Don't do it, Alice. It will stall you. It's just a flower. You only have a minute to run away before the guards know what you've done. Be smart and run away.
I defy all logic and turn back to my cell. I courtesy-kick the warden in the face, curse him when my leg hurts, push the nurse's face deeper into the bucket, then get my pot holding Tiger Lily. I don't leave my friends behind.
3
"Tell me I'm going to be all right," I say to my flower. She doesn't reply. She doesn't nod or flap her petals or think I am another huge moving flower myself. Good signs. I'm not hallucinating. This is real. I am actually escaping the asylum.
When I am back in the hallway, the patients are screaming my name on both sides. They are pounding on the bars of their cells, trying to stick out their heads.
"Alice. Alice. Alice!" they shout and clap their hands. They are enthusiastic. I could be the first ever to escape the asylum. But they're ruining my plan at the same time, by making all this noise. The emergency siren blares all of a sudden. The guards definitely heard the shouts.
"Get out of here. Prove to them Wonderland exists," a patient in striped pajamas and bunny slippers wails. No wonder she believes in Wonderland. Dr. Tom Truckle told me once that I had great influence on patients, telling them about Wonderland. I don't remember any of that.
"Don't go out, Alice," a woman, holding a pillow as if it were her cat, pleads. "I think the world outside is even crazier than in here."
I keep on running.
The asylum is turning into a madhouse. I hear the heavy footsteps of the guards approaching. All I can think of is hiding in the bathroom. I hate bathrooms because they have mirrors, but I have no other choice.
Another patient reaches between the bars and grabs me by my gown. He pulls me closer to the bars. He is unlike the rest. He doesn't believe escaping is possible. He has bad teeth and smells of turtle soup. "Where do you think you're going, Alice?" he whispers in my ear. "You're insane. You belong here."
"Let go of me." I hit him with my elbow and run to the bathroom.
Inside, I shield my eyes with my hands as I dash into one of the stalls, avoiding the mirror. I sit on the stool, holding my pot tight to my chest. Those damn lunatics messed up my plan.
Breathe, Alice. Breathe.
I tap my feet on the floor, contemplating my next move. Then I hear someone singing outside my stall. It's a familiar voice. It has this unexplainably sinister mockery in it. I hate it, but I can't stop it:
"When she was good, she was very, very good.
"And when she was bad, she was horrid."
"Shut up." I cup my ears with my hands. "I'm not insane." I know the voice comes from the mirror. That's why mirrors scare me. But in order to leave the bathroom, I will have to face it. With a drumming heart, I pull the stall's door open. What I see in the mirror paralyzes me, like always. There is a man-sized rabbit inside the mirror. It's white, with floppy pink ears. I can't see its features because its white hair is dangling down in its face. It taps a pocket watch with its fingers, still singing the nursery rhyme. This time, it alters a few words:
"When she was good, she was very, very good.
"And when she was mad, she was Alice."
"Tell me I am going to be all ri
ght," I plead to my Tiger Lily.
"You're not all right," the flower says. "You're insane, Alice. Insane!" It spreads its petals and spits in my face. I am hallucinating again.
The guards bang into the bathroom, and one of them buzzes me with his prod. I shiver and drop the pot, losing my Tiger Lily to the wet floor. When I glance back at the mirror, the rabbit is gone. They will throw me back into my claustrophobic room and probably send me to shock therapy.
As the guards pull me back down the hallway, the turtle-smelling patient sticks his head closer to the bars, shouting at me. "You're not sane, Alice!" He laughs and grabs the bars. "You're not. We're all mad here!"
4
VIP WARD, THE RADCLIFFE LUNATIC ASYLUM, OXFORD
Dr. Tom Truckle, director of the Radcliffe Lunatic Asylum, stood mouth agape among his assistants. They were staring at a cell in the VIP Ward, where they kept the most dangerous patients. Well, it was only one patient the ward was built for: Professor Carter Pillar, publicly known as Pillar the Killer, one of the world's most dangerous psychopaths.
Unlike Alice's cell, this one was almost as big as a luxurious single room in a five-star hotel. The walls were the color of ripe mushrooms, with all kinds of vintage portraits hung on them. They were mostly portraits of plants and flowers, and they made the room look like a forest. The furniture was modern, mostly curvy, with dominant motifs of green and cream colors. It had a refrigerator, a widescreen TV, and a writing desk the color of ravens. Books were piled up in one corner with a couple of tobacco packs on top. A Cuban cigar, a pipe, and dried mushrooms were scattered on the couch. Two lampstands, shaped like bending roses and violets, added a sincere, cozy light onto the big creamy couch in the middle, all facing the bars overlooking the hallway where Dr. Tom Truckle stood. A blue hookah stood right before the couch, threads of smoke still spiraling in the air.
