by Cameron Jace
“Like most of the other monsters, he turned into a beast after the Circus, except that he works on his own, and doesn’t like any of the Wonderlanders much. Now shut up and let me speak with those madmen.”
“Here is something for you,” one of the men says. “We’re sending you a man who’s been trying to pass the Mushroom Trail.”
“I thought most men die from the dangers of the trail. Either die or make it to the Executioner.”
The men laugh again. “Well, this one ate a lot of mushrooms and lost it, so we keep him for entertainment purposes.”
We stare at a half-naked and skinny man, barely straightening his back as he walks toward us. He is old, skinny, and disoriented.
“Why is he so unstable?” The Pillar asks.
“He thinks he is walking the rope.” A man muses from afar.
We wait for the man to arrive.
“Nice job,” the Pillar plays along. “I’ve never seen a man walk a rope like that.”
“I’m not walking the rope,” the scruffy man retorts. “I’m being careful while walking. Can’t you see I’m a bottle of milk?”
I am going to burst out laughing.
The Pillar pushes the man to the ground. “I guess I spilled the milk now.” He raises his head at the men afar. “Listen, I have no time for games. Let me walk the trail to meet the Executioner. I will take my chances.”
Silence hovers all over Mushroomland, except for the faint rattling of grass.
One of the men approaches us.
Slowly, he shows up. Scarred, wasted, a muscular giant with a machine gun.
Normally, I would be worried, but I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I want to laugh even more now.
The man flashes his gun toward the Pillar. “I’ll let you pass,” he says in a foreign accent. “If you tell me the password.”
“There is no password.” The Pillar steps up to him.
“Of course there is.” The man nudges the muzzle of his machine gun against the Pillar’s chest. “Can you do division?”
“As in mathematics?”
“Yes, but not the stupid real-life mathematics. The Lewis Carroll mathematics.”
This is when the need to laugh ends. How do these men at the other side of the world know about Lewis Carroll? Not just that. The man is about to tell us a Carroll puzzle to solve?
“Only a few people are allowed to see the Executioner. They all are capable of answering this question,” the man says.
“I’m listening.” The Pillar and I await the puzzle.
“In mathematical Wonderland terms, what do you get when you divide a loaf by a knife?”
11
Another Lewis Carroll puzzle. Ugh.
That’s all that comes to mind, and I have no idea why I am thinking this. Staring at the man with the machine gun, I should act more mature and responsible, but I still have this strange feeling; I just want to burst out laughing like him.
“I don’t quite remember this,” the Pillar says. Is that possible, a puzzle he doesn’t know of?
“It’s simple mathematics,” the man says. “Wonderlastic Mathematics, if I may say so.”
“Look,” the Pillar says, “we just want to pass through.”
“No can do.” The machine gun man roars with laughter again, followed by the same mockery from a few others, farther beyond the mushrooms. It’s the kind of pretentious laugh all cartoonish evil villains have in movies. “Or I will shoot you like this man.” He points at the man on the floor who thinks he is a bottle of milk.
Then something horrible happens.
Something that makes living in this world too hard to understand. The machine gun man shoots the man on the ground, blood spilling all over the mushrooms around us.
The Pillar fakes a smile.
I try not to pee my pants. Only for a second. Then I see the men take a selfie with the dead man.
The Pillar’s face tenses, as if telling me to hold it together.
But I can’t. I am scared mindless.
Then something even stranger happens.
I burst into laughter. The kind of laughter that hurts in the stomach and makes it harder to listen to what others are saying.
The Pillar stares at me with fiery eyes. He’s even tenser now. I haven’t seen him this angry at me before. “Hold yourself together.”
“Why?” I barely mouth the words between my hiccupping episodes of laughter. “I feel good. Really good. Tararara!”
“I get it. It’s the mushrooms,” the Pillar leans over and whispers. “They affect your brain like I told you. But you seem to be too sensitive to the effect.”
“Mushrooms!” I find myself hailing. I grab one and give it a big smoochy kiss. Then hug it. Then snuggle it.
As I do, I see the stars in the sky have turned into diamonds. So awesome!
I’m Alice in the sky of diamonds.
“What’s wrong with your daughter?” the machine gun man grunts.
Did he just shoot bees from between his teeth? I can’t stop myself. I start chasing the bees flying around in Mushroomland.
“She’s not my daughter.” The Pillar purses his lips. He’s pissed at me. I know it. But you know what? I love the mushrooms’ effect. Because I don’t freakin’ care. “Don’t pay attention to her.”
“I’m beginning to lose my patience,” the machine gun man says. “You don’t know the password, and your daughter is a lunatic.”
“I told you she isn’t my daughter,” I hear the Pillar say while I’m trying to catch a diamond from the sky. “And I don’t know the answer to your puzzle. Divide a loaf by a knife? What kind of mathematical question is that?”
“Wrong answer.” The man is about to shoot the Pillar while I’m chasing stars.
This is when I find myself standing before the Pillar to protect him. “You will not shoot my father!” I have no idea what I am saying, or why I am saying it. It’s strange that in the middle of my hallucination, I care for the Pillar.
“Tell her to move, or I will shoot you both,” the machine gun man warns.
Then another totally bonkers thing happens. This time it’s too insane to swallow.
“Tell you what? You look like you’re itching to shoot someone today,” the Pillar says, pushing me away toward the man. “Why not shoot her, and let me pass?”
Suddenly, I am two feet away from the machine gun itself, unable to determine if what I just heard was part of my hallucination or for real.
My attempt to turn back and confront the Pillar goes out the window when the machine gun man decides he’s had it with me.
He shoots me straight in the chest.
12
BUCKINGHAM PALACE, LONDON
Margaret Kent told the Queen about the mayhem her employees had been ravishing the world with for some time. More Wonderlanders all over the world were secretly planted like sleeper cells among governments, and they were doing a good job.
All in all, the Queen’s men and women were making sure the world was going more and more insane.
“Well, I’m not satisfied,” The Queen pouted. “More. More. More. I want every child to become an orphan. Every mother to become childless. Every father to lose his family. I don’t care if it’s contradictory. Just find a way to do it.” She strolled all over the place. “I want fascism. Oh, I love that. I want every human to hate another human for being different. Not just color or nationality. I want those with crooked noses to hate those with round noses. Those who have mustaches to hate those who don’t. Do you understand?”
Margaret nodded and scribbled something down in her notebook:
Once this is all over and I get the keys, I will kill you, you stupid short and stuffed thing!
“Did you write it down?”
“Of course, My Queen.”
“But you can’t overdo it.” The Queen confused Margaret again. “The idea is to create enough chaos without turning the world into a chaotic place.”
“I am not sure I follow
you, My Queen.”
“That’s because you’re stupid, Margaret. Ugly and stupid.”
I am going to rip you apart when this is over. Chop off your head and roll it all over every soccer field in the world.
“People have to see the world tumble all around them, but stay safe at the same time. Why? Because if we kill everyone, who’s going to pay the taxes, buy our products, and ask us to protect them? The key is to scare the citizens, enough to make them need us. And that’s when I will rule the world the same way I ruled Wonderland.”
Margaret squinted, listening to the Queen. It actually made sense. What was the point of everyone in the world living in pain? They needed a few wars and hassles here and there, so the others, believing the need for them, would simply do as they said.
It had been very much the Queen’s philosophy since the Wonderland days, until Alice arrived.
“Understood, My Queen. Anything else?”
“Yes, I just saw a documentary about that short man with the short mustache and short fuse of a temper.” She clicked her fingers together. “What was his name again? Charlie Chaplin?”
“Ah, very funny man. What about him?”
“Funny? No, then it’s not him. The man I’m talking about was going to kill everyone in the world.”
“Uh-huh,” Margaret said. “You mean Hitler.”
“Yes, that obnoxious little troll. I love him! Can we wake him up? I think he will fit into my plans.”
“Hitler is dead, My Queen.”
“Unfortunate,” the Queen said. “I’d have sworn he was a Wonderland Monster.”
“Speaking of Wonderland Monsters,” Margaret had to interrupt. “I have been trying to tell you about the new monster for a while, and you just don’t want to listen.”
“Not again, Margaret. Find me a flamingo that can sing instead. I am in the mood for music.”
“I think you should watch this.” Margaret turned on the TV.
All of a sudden, the Queen shrieked when she saw the Lewis Carroll man on the news. “What?” she neared the screen. “This isn’t happening.”
“Like I said, I’ve been trying to tell you all day.”
“Is he real?” The Queen’s face flushed with fear.
“It’s him.”
“But, he should be dead.”
“He isn’t.”
“Oh, my.” The Queen clamped her hands over her mouth. “This can’t be happening.”
13
MUSHROOMLAND, COLUMBIA
Okay. So I am dying.
Why am I falling deep through the mud into a pool of marshmallows underground?
And how come fish are swimming inside the mud?
Those mushrooms have really messed me up. I have no idea what’s going on.
Sinking deep into a marshmallow abyss, I see the Pillar far beyond the translucent mud, arguing with the machine gun man. When they talk, bubbles foam out of their mouths.
This is so trippy.
I’m Alice underground in the marshmallow water world. I’m Alice, who may not be Alice. Hello, nice to meet you. Where have you been? How long am I going to keep sinking?
“Alice!” The Pillar’s voice shakes me from the inside.
“Yes?” I manage to say—or have I? It could be all in my mind.
“You must know the answer to this puzzle,” the Pillar says.
“The Wonderland mathematics puzzle?” I think I said that. How am I talking beneath the sea of marshmallows?
“Yes. What do you get when you divide a loaf with a knife?”
Suddenly, there is this aching pop in my ears.
“I know the answer!” I raise a hand like a student in a class.
The pop in my ears blew off the pressure in my head. The effect of the mushrooms all around me, I guess. I am back in the real world.
Running my palm all over my chest, I realize I wasn’t shot. Not with marshmallows or real bullets.
Sneaky mushrooms.
“That’s some wickedly mad daughter you have here,” the machine gun man tells the Pillar. “So, what’s the answer? I don’t have all day.”
“In Carrollian terms, if you divide a loaf by a knife you get,” I say, “bread and butter.”
“Right answer!” the machine gun man cheers.
The Pillar raises an eyebrow at me.
“What?” I shake my shoulders. “It’s lame, but it’s Lewis Carroll. And don’t ask me how I know. I just remembered it. I think the real question is how those lowlife gangsters use Lewis Carroll’s puzzles as passwords.”
“Shut your mouth, girl.” The machine gun man is provoked. “You and your father are good to go.”
“About time,” the Pillar sighs, grabbing my hand.
“You’ll meet other gangs on the Mushroom Trail. Good luck with that.” The machine gun man says behind us.
I am trying my best to stay focused as the mushrooms grow bigger all around me. “You’re sure of this Executioner we’re risking our lives for?”
“I’m sure. He definitely knows who cooked the plague.” The Pillar clears the way through the thick mushrooms. “Can’t you see what the mushrooms are doing to you already?”
“Why aren’t you as affected, then?”
“The substance I’ve been smoking in my hookah for years. It gives me immunity.”
“You sound like you’ve been preparing to come here for a long time.”
“Sort of.” The Pillar chugged through the darkness. “I’d stop asking questions if I were you. The mushrooms’ effects aren’t just in your brain. It’s like a sleeping poison. If you don’t drink from the Executioner’s special coconuts in less than an hour, you’ll...”
“I will what?” I fold my drugged arms before me.
“You will die, Alice. Why do you think no one outlives the Mushroom Trail unless they meet the Executioner?”
14
AN ABANDONED CHURCH IN LONDON
The Lewis Carroll man entered the abandoned church among his few silent followers, sitting and waiting in silence.
Outside the church, the world was getting worse by the minute. What had started with red bubbles had now escalated to furious anger on the verge of violence. So many people were getting in fights that there wasn’t enough room in jail for anyone. Some individuals were burning cars and houses, and others were blocking all traffic intersections in London.
Lewis closed the church’s door behind him, a smirk stretching from cheek to cheek.
He turned around, walking to the podium while his followers clapped their hands.
“We love you!”
Lewis got to the podium and turned to face his followers. He looked terrible. He hadn’t slept for days, and that headache was killing him.
“I-I kn-know you all have it in your heart. A good thing, that is,” he began. His voice was soothing and relatable. He’d used to lure tens of children with it in the past. Sometimes he imagined his voice seeping through the paper of his Alice in Wonderland books. “It’s not an easy task to believe in the end of the world like you do.”
“The world has to end!” an old woman with a cane spat out.
“It’s about time!” another middle-aged man cheered.
“I know. I know,” Lewis said. “Those people outside have no idea what’s happening to them. First, they didn’t believe me when I told them about the plague. Then they couldn’t deny it when they saw its effect on everyone who had bought the Hookah of Hearts last year. And trust me, this is only the beginning.”
“We’re curious, Lewis,” the old woman said. “You say you’ve been alive all these years. That you were imprisoned in Wonderland. We get that. But what does this plague do to people? Why do they hate each other so much now?”
Lewis smiled inwardly. As if I am going to tell you.
“The plague holds the one virus mankind can’t stand,” he began. “Revealing it now would spoil the impact of realizing what an awful world this is. But rest assured. Just right before the world really ends, I
will tell you what it does to people.”
“So why are we gathered here?” another man asked. “You said you wanted us to help you with something.”
“Yes, I want you to find me a c...” Suddenly that migraine attacked him again.
Lewis swirled to the floor like a dying hurricane. It’d been so long since the migraine had attacked him this way. Long ago, since Wonderland. His head was about to split open. He couldn’t take it.
His tongue curled inward. He was choking.
And as he did, he saw himself sinking into muddy ground. Deep down into a sea of mushrooms.
15
MUSHROOMLAND, COLUMBIA
My feet drag me through the Mushroom Trail.
Never mind my hallucinations. Never mind that I am going to die if I don’t get that drink from the Executioner’s coconut. I am just a girl trekking her way through a muddy mushroom-infested world, hoping to make sense of it all.
Aren’t we all?
“Tell me if the hallucinations increase to a point you’re going bonkers,” the cigar-smoking Pillar, acting like an older Indiana Jones, tells me.
But what am I supposed to tell him? That I just saw a playing card with legs running next to us in the mud? That when I asked it what it was doing, it told me it was ‘playing’ because apparently it’s a ‘playing card’?
No, I don’t tell him that. I pretend that never happened.
“In case I die, I need to know how come Lewis Carroll is a Wonderland Monster,” I say. “I am sure it’s impossible. I met him. He was the sweetest man in the world. I saw him leading the Inklings—which reminds me, why did you buy it for me?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” He’s pulling a mushroom off its roots to clear a way. “That’s your new headquarters in your war against Black Chess. Not everyone has access to the asylum.”
“Which reminds me again.” I am just babbling whatever comes to mind to forget about the fact that I’m drugged. “Shouldn’t it be Black Chess who manufactured the Hookah of Hearts?”
