by Cameron Jace
The guards dared to steal the Queen's exotic nuts, exclusively imported from Brazil. She ordered all her precious nuts removed to her private chambers and prevented any of the guards from coming inside.
The Queen's nuts drove everyone nuts.
The Queen was known to love two things dearly: Her five o'clock tea parties, which had once been exclusively hosted by the one and only Mad Hatter—but that was a long story she didn't want to remember now. And, of course, her nuts and munchies.
Right now, the Queen tiptoed as cunningly and slowly as a cat, her back slightly hunched, and proceeded to the corridor outside her enchanting bed—her bed was too high; she needed a small stepladder to embark it. Sometimes, she secretly jumped right off it when no one was around. Being a queen, with all of this etiquette she had to fake, certainly bored her sometimes.
The Queen tiptoed on her way to check her endless bowls of exotic nuts in the corridor. She had them set at five-meter intervals, adjacent to the corridor's wall. They were placed on waist-high tables so she could reach them effortlessly. She considered it ridiculous walking back a few meters when the appetite for a nut hit her. A five-meter span between each bowl of nuts was just convenient. Also, laziness sounded like a brilliant hobby.
If queens didn't indulge in laziness, who would? she'd always asked herself.
She stopped in front of a bowl of nuts and dipped a hand inside. Even with her eyes closed, she could almost tell if a few nuts were missing from each bowl.
The Queen gasped. This bowl seemed to be missing a few.
Who's been nibbling on my nuts?
The Queen's face tightened, and her cheeks began to redden.
"All right," she hissed. "I have to make sure before I punish anyone."
She continued walking ahead, targeting a few other bowls at the end of the corridor.
As she walked, one of her dogs came padding and panting toward her. It was a Welsh corgi. She had five of them. Meals were served for each dog in their own bowl, with Britain's flag drawn on the outer shell. The meals were usually readied here in the corridor, with a few precious nuts on the side. The dogs' diet had been meticulously approved by veterinary experts from all over the world. It cost twice the income of a middle-class citizen who had two children to feed on average. But those weren't just any dogs. They were the Queen's dogs—and, in many ways, Wonderland Dogs.
Sure, the dogs never attended the meetings at Parliament, nor did they have a word in the country's economy. But they were important by law. Again, being the Queen's dogs was no joke.
However, nuts weren't allowed in the dogs' diet. But the Queen, being the Queen, broke the law and allowed them a few nuts as a gesture of love and pampering. Anything to make the Queen's corgis happy.
If the Queen didn't break the rules and get away with it, who would? she had reminded herself.
"Sweet doggie." The Queen knelt against the pain in her knees to play with the dog. This one she called Bulldog—he looked weirdly like a bulldog and was excitedly funny. Her favorite dog, Maddog, wasn't here. Probably still recovering from constant constipation, which had been the reason why she couldn't attend the match at Stamford Bridge. "Are you hungry?" She ruffled Bulldog's ears.
Bulldog panted and gave her a sweet look.
"You haven't by any chance been nibbling at my nuts, have you?" she asked the dog.
Bulldog's smile widened.
"You terrible, bad boy." She squeezed his ears. "I told you only to eat those I personally serve you in your bowl." The dog lowered its chin to the floor and sniffed.
"But wait a minute." She rubbed her chin. "You couldn't have eaten any nuts from those bowls." She pointed at the set of bowls by the end of the corridor. They were higher than the rest. To reach them, the dog had to roll the bowl over. "Let's check those. I have marked them."
She walked ahead with Bulldog and grabbed herself a small stepper, specially designed for her to stand up whenever she wished to reach something that was supposed to be out of reach. The Queen was slightly shorter than most queens.
She stood upon it and stretched her hands, pulling the bowl down. This time, she didn't need to dip her hand inside. She had these bowls previously marked with a yellow marker from inside, so she'd know when the level of nuts dipped below the mark. This was her perfectly planned trap for her nasty guards and footmen who were tall enough to get the nuts—if they had sneaked into the chamber.
"Hmm..." The Queen's face reddened again. "So there was an intruder in the chamber a few minutes ago," she said to Bulldog, who nodded obediently. "Did you see the intruder?"
The dog shook its head with bulging Scooby-Doo eyes.
"Bloody traitors!" The Queen jumped off her stepladder and plowed the bowl against a precious painting of Lewis Carroll that hung on the wall. The painting was called Alice's Adventures Under Ground, the original cover of one of the very few original copies that bore this name before changing it into Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The painting, an older property of Queen Victoria, was signed by John Tenniel, Lewis' illustrator himself.
In the middle of the corridor, the angry Queen stood with clenched hands and stiffened feet, about to burst into tears like a child. Her shoulders were hunched but stiffened. Her hair thin and uncombed. Bulldog beside her had his tail clutched between his legs. The Queen's wrath wasn't to be underestimated.
"Something isn't right." She gasped again. "This can't be. The guards couldn't have entered and nibbled on my nuts." It briefly occurred to her that she sounded like the evil witch from Hansel and Gretel. "Who's nibbling on my nuts, muahaha!" But she flashed the thought away. "I am sure the chamber is locked. Only I own the remote control to lock it."
Bulldog nodded with approval, as long as it would calm her down. Dogs, in general, knew their owners were a bunch of cuckoos in the head. They had to pamper them and make humans feel good about themselves in exchange for charitable food and shelter. Nothing wrong with fooling a human to get what you want.
"So who's been nibbling on my nuts!" she screamed again from the top of her lungs, her voice echoing in the chamber. "Nuts. Nuts. Nuts!"
She tiptoed, clenched her hands again, and the thin veins on her neck protruded outward. For another brief moment she felt like the Queen of Hearts in Lewis Carroll's book; that scene when she was upset about who stole her tarts. But then again, this wasn't the time for thinking about Wonderland. Her nuts mattered the most.
The anger showing on her face was gradually intensifying. It looked like she could explode like a full-blown balloon.
The Queen's dog had no means to tuck his head inside his body as turtles did, or he would not have hesitated to do it now. The hair on his skin prickled like needles and pins.
Suddenly, the Queen's mobile phone rang.
Now she got really furious. Who dared to call her that late?
Maybe a citizen in need, Your Majesty, her inner voice told her. But she was sure that only a few selected people had her number.
Trotting back to her room, anger spitting out of her ears, she wondered if anyone knew about her secret Facebook profile, but there was no way she'd really give it a thought now.
She picked up the phone and read the caller's name.
Now, this is alarming.
She calmed down a little, as this was an unusually worrying call.
She clicked the answer button. "You know what time it is?"
"Yes, Your Majesty," Margaret Kent, the Duchess, and revered Parliament member, said from another side. "But it's important."
"It better be." The Queen sighed impatiently.
"I know this will sound inappropriate if I ask, but..." Margaret hesitated.
"I hate the word 'but,'" the Queen said.
"Are you missing any of your precious nuts, My Majesty?"
The Queen was silent, and her knees felt wobbly all of a sudden.
"I see," Margaret responded to the Queen's utter silence. "So someone's been stealing from your nuts again. And it's not the guard
s, I assume."
The Queen nodded. Now, fear wrapped itself around her skin like a pale ghost. Bulldog was really starting to worry. Suddenly, it seemed apparent who took her nuts. The same man who broke in many years ago. It couldn't be. After all these years?
"Is it him? Is he back?" she asked, watching her dog's ears perk up. Of course, Bulldog must have been confused. What was so utterly scary about a thief stealing nuts from the Queen?
"I am afraid he is." Margaret sighed. "And it doesn't look good. He stole the nuts to remind you he's back. It's a message. A threatening message. We have to get rid of him. We can't handle him, not this time."
"You promised me last week's killings would be the last of Wonderland's nonsense," the Queen retorted. "I can't allow this in my country."
"I know. Don't worry. We'll contain the matter."
"Then do something about it!" The Queen's hands shivered. "Kill him. Do anything. Make sure I never see the Muffin Man again!"
25
DIRECTOR'S OFFICE, RADCLIFFE LUNATIC ASYLUM, OXFORD
When we get back to the asylum, the Pillar and I separate so we won't be seen together by the guards. I still don't know how he is capable of escaping and returning to his cell, but I enter through the main door as if the ambulance just dropped me back from the hospital I was sent to in London.
Inside, I have to pass by Tom Truckle's office.
"Before I let you in, I want to ask you something," Dr. Truckle says. He is eating his favorite mock turtle soup, exclusively delivered from a famous restaurant called Fat Duck in London. Fat Duck is owned by one of the world's best cooks, Gorgon Ramstein. The restaurant is rumored to have stolen their amazing mock turtle soup from a Victorian kitchen in Oxford University's basement, supposedly the same kitchen that inspired Lewis Carroll's Mock Turtle character.
"And what would that be?" I ask flatly. He is mean, and he means nothing to me.
"Did Professor Pillar, under any circumstance, ever mention Houdini?" he asks after wiping his greasy lips on a napkin.
"Who's Houdini?"
"Harry Houdini, the most famous American magician of all time. The escape artist who could escape a box chained and submerged underwater." He seems offended by my ignorance.
"Ah, that Houdini." Lately, no historical figure matters much to me. I am now all fixated on Wonderland Monsters. Who's Houdini compared to the Cheshire, really? "No, I don't remember him talking about him. Why would the Pillar mention him?"
"To cut it short, do you know how he escapes and sneaks back into the asylum without my cameras ever catching him?" Dr. Truckle points at the many new surveillance cameras in his office. "I've researched the matter, and only found one incident in history that matches the Pillar's skills."
I smile. It's amusing how the Pillar gets on his nerves.
"It happened 1819 in New York's Hippodrome Theatre, wildly known as the Disappearing Elephant event."
"Why are you asking me about this?" I am too tired to deal with his paranoia now.
"I figured you might know, since..."
"Since?" I tilt my head.
"Since you are an expert in escaping a straitjacket," he blurts.
I try not to shrug. I find it a plausible train of thought. Where did I ever learn to escape a straitjacket? I have no idea.
"You know how many people in the world are capable of escaping a straitjacket as tight as the one we used on you?" he explains, then makes a V sign with his fore and middle fingers. "You and Houdini."
I laugh. "Look, I don't know how I do it. I just know I can. If Houdini did it too, rest assured, I am in no way related to him. Besides, how did you ever connect those events together?"
"Because of this." He hands me an old copy of the New Yorker listing the honorable guests attending the Houdini event. I scan it, and among the names find the following:
Carter Chrysalis Cocoon Pillar,
VIP guest,
A personal friend of Mister Harry Houdini.
"Is that his real name?" I raise my eyebrows as high as I can. Dr. Truckle nods.
Although I am astonished, I don't know what to make of it. The documents could be forged. "Listen," I say. "I'm not friends with Professor Pillar, and I need rest. Can I go now?"
Sighing, he waves the path to the door to me, then asks, "Is he going to ask for you again tomorrow?"
"I believe so." We still have tons of work in the Muffin Man case. "Look!" I point at the surveillance camera behind him. "The Pillar is back."
Dr. Truckle turns around, looking like an angry turtle about to explode. He watches the Pillar smoking his hookah, leaning back on his sofa, and wiggling his feet. If you take the cell out of the picture, you'd think he was on vacation in Ibiza. When Dr. Truckle turns on the sound, there is a song playing in the background. It's "Crazy" by Seal.
I try my best not to laugh as I walk away, wondering if Waltraud would allow me a shower today.
26
After dismissing Waltraud's insults and a few unnecessary chuckles by Ogier, I am back in my cell.
The first thing I do is check on my terribly insane flower. She seems to be enjoying the bigger crack in the wall, and the sunlight seeping through. She isn't sleeping, nor talking to me. It's better that way. I already had my share of madness for a day. Still, I wonder why she means so much to me. It's not like she is a pet I keep at home and come back to. Deep inside, I know she means more to me, but have no clue why.
I spend a few minutes staring at the six days I carved on the wall, wondering if I will live long enough to scratch the seventh diagonal stroke tomorrow. Next to the carvings, I glimpse the date, January 14th, still not knowing what it really means or why the number 14 keeps popping up everywhere.
Then there is the key, like the one Lewis gave me, drawn on the wall. I still have no idea who drew this key, but this time, I notice the key is almost the same size as the real one. I take off the necklace and pick up the key. Slowly, I near it to the drawing on the wall. I am right. It's the same size. I wonder if this means anything. Before I decide to give up on the crazy idea, the key on the wall glitters, and so does the real one in my hand. I push it even closer, and then the coolest and craziest thing happens. The key in my hand dissolves into the one in the wall, still sticking out slightly so I can pick it up later. I realize I've found a place to hide it, finally.
I wonder again: is it possible that my mind keeps coming up with such things?
I close my eyes and sigh, wanting to trust my mind. At least, I've hidden the key somewhere safe now. I don't have to hide it from the Pillar anymore, as Lewis had warned not to show it to anyone as well. This isn't just any key. It's one of the keys to one of Wonderland doors, whatever that really means.
I open my eyes and feel a bit relieved. Time to rest and prepare for a hectic day tomorrow.
Since Waltraud denied me a shower, I lie on the mattress on the floor, wishing for some sleep. They bought me a new one with a picture of a huge rabbit on it.
Waltraud knocks on my door again and tells me I will get my shower after I get my postponed dose of shock therapy. "No point in showering when you haven't sweated enough yet," she says and tries to talk me into telling her where I have been. I tell her I am not allowed to say. She laughs and says they must be experimenting on me like a lab rat because I don't even count as a human. It's interesting how insults don't count when you're in dire need of sleep.
Waltraud doesn't give up, though. She pulls the sliding window in the door and peeks in. "I just found a way to get you in the Mush Room."
"Huh?" I pull myself up and rub my eyes.
"I requested you for interrogation in the Mush Room tomorrow." She rubs her hands with childish enthusiasm.
"On what basis?"
"I requested I interrogate you about the patient who escaped last week, remember?"
"Yeah, I do. But I don't think my cell is close to the patient's."
"It's isn't. But I just remembered you acted strangely that night."
"How strange?" What night was that, exactly?
"You asked me if I saw a White Queen enter your cell." She laughs. "I mentioned it in my report. Maybe you were distracting me so the patient could escape."
"I don't even know this patient."
"The patient never had a real name on his file," Waltraud says. "We call him the Muffin Man because he had an obsession with muffins." She shoots me one last evil laugh and then shuts the window in the door, dimming my room into a mysterious darkness.
I take a few seconds to digest what I just heard.
27
THE PILLAR'S CELL, VIP WARD, RADCLIFFE ASYLUM, OXFORD
In the morning, when I am sent to the Pillar's cell, he is in one of those happy Caucus Race moods again.
I stand before the cell and watch him through the black bars. He is dancing in place, holding his cane up to the ceiling.
He is not alone.
Several of his favorite Mushroomers dance next to him. They aren't dancing to music, though. They're tapping their feet and drooling to the silly words of a nursery rhyme.
One of them faces the rest of the Mushroomers in their pajamas and chants:
"Do you know the Muffin Man,
The Muffin Man, the Muffin Man,
Do you know the Muffin Man,
Who lives on Drury Lane?"
Then the Pillar claps to the beat, the same way children would sing the song in a kindergarten. Then one of the Mushroomers facing the first chanter responds:
"Oh, yes! I know the Muffin Man,
The Muffin Man, the Muffin Man,
Yes, I know the Muffin Man,
Who lives on Drury Lane."
The Pillar claps his hands and then rewards the Mushroomer by allowing him to slide over to the first one on the other side. Then both of them face the rest and start all over again:
"Do you know the Muffin Man,
The Muffin Man, the Muffin Man,
