by Cameron Jace
There is nowhere out of here, except climbing over the high walls in the back or through the door we came from.
I find myself stranded, but unafraid of the Reds by the door. It’s not like I haven’t confronted them before. It’s just never happened with my back against the wall.
“What are you doing?” Tom Truckle says from behind the bushes. “They’ll kill you. You’re wanted since you broke the treaty and left the compound.”
What am I doing? Heck, I have no idea. Something inside urges me to fight back. I suppose this is a more experienced version of myself in the future, even with the few pounds I’ve put on.
One of the Reds steps forward and talks to me from the hollow darkness of his mask. “We don’t have to do this, Mrs. Wonder. If you comply and let me send you back to the compound, everything will be fine.”
I am about to scratch my head. Just like that, bring me back to the compound? Didn’t the Queen declare me a fugitive? Is that a trick?
He extends a hand. “Please, will you come with me?”
“And my friends?”
“You have no friends in here, Mrs. Wonder,” the Red says. “You’re only a bit confused. Have you taken your medication today?”
Again? Tiger, my son, asked me if I had taken my pills this morning. What is that all about?
I resort to silence, readying my fist for a fight.
“Mrs. Wonder, please don’t,” the Red says.
“I’m not leaving without my friends. Either you let us go, or else.”
“I can’t let you go. Queen’s orders. But I can spare you from having your head chopped off and send you back to the compound.” Why do I have a feeling he also fears me?
“No, I will not comply,” I say.
The Reds behind him gather and begin to approach me. First the nines, then the eights, the sevens, and so on. There’s about thirty of them in this small garden in Christ Church. I wonder why the Pillar lets me fight alone. I know he can choke them with his hookah.
The first two Reds run toward me. I find myself curving my body and slightly maneuvering to one side. The two slash the air with their swords, but one hurts the other.
Well, that was neat. Where did I learn that?
“Reds!” the leader roars, and four others approach, grunting behind their cloaks. It’s time for a real fight.
29
This time, and I still don’t know how I am doing this, I run to the nearest tree, and with speed, I find myself walk perpendicularly on its surface for a second. Then I somersault back in the air. Just as if I am a professional parkour runner, tapping on the edges of walls and trees and walking on thin wires.
Wow. That feels good.
Instead of landing back on the ground, I land on their heads. Amazingly, I tap on each Red’s head quickly, breaking them, but never falling to the ground. Then finally, when they’re nothing but empty cloaks crumbled on the grass, I land on my feet like a ballerina.
“Huh.” I rub imaginary dust from my clothes. “Not bad for a thirty-three-year-old mum.”
“You think you can outsmart all of us?” the leader says. “With that silly None Fu of yours?”
Oh, so that’s it. None Fu in the future. Pretty dope.
“Reds!”
Now it’s ten of them. They’re carrying swords. I don’t carry one because I am swift, agile, and can almost walk on air.
I raise my hands in the air as if I were the Karate Kid. Tension fills the air. They can’t predict my next move. I give in to my inner future powers and let my body do what feels right. This time I am running in their direction. I duck the first sword. Pull the cloak from under a Red. When he disappears, and I have the cloak for myself, I use it against the slashing sword of another Red. The cloak is incredibly uncuttable — a bit elastic, though. I wrap it around the Red’s sword until I force him to let go of it. I catch the sword in midair with one hand while I choke him with the cloak.
I am so having fun.
Too stubborn to use the sword, I throw it up in the air and, like a mad ballerina, kick the Reds left and right while binding their cloaks into one another. I’m basically like a hurricane in a cartoon movie, swirling through them, and there is nothing they can do about it.
I end up with a bunch of Red cloaks that I can make a good, long rope from.
Standing erect, I finally face the leader of the Reds, now standing alone, pretending he isn’t afraid of me.
“You think we will spare you, Mrs. Wonder?” he says. “More Reds are on their way.”
“That’s sad,” I say. “Because you will not have enough time to give them orders.”
The Reds leader seems confused by my confidence. I raise my head and look for the sword I’d thrown up in the sky. Now it comes down, slashing him in two symmetrical halves.
Someone claps behind me, applauding my performance. I swirl back to face my next enemy, but it’s only the Pillar, sitting on a chair, smoking a hookah in the middle of the garden. Now back in real Pillar form. No more possessing doctors.
“You abandoned me,” I say. “I fought them all alone while you smoked your hookah?”
“It’s a good one, trust me.” He takes a drag. “Moroccan tobacco, brewed and chewed and extracted from a forty-year-old virgin plant.”
I turn and look at Tom Truckle, hiding behind the trees. “It’s time for you to talk to me.” I pull him out.
“Not before you get me out of here,” Tom says. “More of them are coming.”
He is right about that. “All right, follow me.”
I pull Tom with me toward the door, intending to keep using my skills to leave Oxford Asylum. The Pillar, however, keeps smoking in the garden.
“You’re not coming?” I grimace.
“After you kill ’em all.” He breathes out a curl of smoke in the air. “You’re the one who has a triple black belt in None Fu. Welcome to the future, Alice.”
30
THE FUTURE: ST. ALDATES STREET, OUTSIDE OXFORD ASYLUM FOR THE CRIMINALLY SANE
As I continue using my unmatchable None Fu skills, Tom Truckle hides behind me. He also answers some of my questions. It’s a weird way to have a conversation, but I want to know all about him.
“It’s my fault we lost the Wonderland War,” he says, as I strangle a few Reds.
“We?” I punch another. “Since when were you on the Inklings side?”
“There is so much you don’t know about me.”
“Better talk now, or I’ll do to you what I am doing to them.” I smash Reds into each other. “How come you’re the Mock Turtle? You’re a Wonderlander?”
“A neglected one, actually.” He ducks behind me. “No one ever noticed me back then.”
“I guess that’s why Lewis wrote so briefly about you.”
“Even though I inspired the famous mock turtle soup.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.” I somersault and kick two Reds in midair. “Its taste sucks. Who eats turtle soup?”
“That’s why I decided I’d be the director of an insane asylum,” he says. “Among the Mushroomers who fear and respect me.”
“I doubt that. They thought you were the maddest one in the asylum.”
“I don’t care what they thought. I had a plan.”
“A plan?”
“Of course. I was supposed to connect with all asylums in the world and make sure they were filled with sane people.”
“What kind of plan was that? Who told you that?”
“Lewis told me to.”
31
I turn back and glare at him, choking a Red with one hand. With all of my skills, I wonder how we lost the war. “Don’t lie to me, Turtle!”
“I’m not,” he says. “Look behind you.”
I do, pulling Tom up with me while I’m doing another parkour move in the asylum’s corridor.
“Lewis wanted to guarantee the Inklings win the war. He set alternative plans everywhere to help the cause,” he says. “One day, when I was crying myself to death in
Wonderland, he offered me a chance to be a hero.”
“You?” I don’t know if I am supposed to believe him. Shouldn’t it be me who becomes the hero?
“It was a long shot. The plan was that I collect the sanest scientists, teachers, and useful men and women into an asylum.”
“Are you saying the Mushroomers were sane?”
“In the beginning, yes. Although spending too much time in the asylum messed with their minds.”
“That’s the most stupid plan I ever heard.”
“It’s not. Lewis knew the Queen would wreak havoc on the sane world, spreading the insane everywhere. Remember how mad the world already was when you were in the asylum? The wars, the poverty, and sickness? The Queen of Hearts has been planning this since long ago, even before she posed as the Queen of England.”
“Go on.” I punch another Red, advancing in the corridor. “Be brief.”
“I framed sane people into being insane so that I could get them into the asylum,” he says. “Of course, they weren’t supposed to know that. Who’d have believed me when I told them about Wonderland?”
“Are you saying I was framed into thinking I’m mad?”
Tom shrugs, pulls out a pill and swallows it in the middle of my fighting. “I’ll explain all about you, but last.”
“Why? I want to know what you know about me now.”
“You have to hear the rest first.”
I am too busy to argue, having reached the vast Tom Quad. The garden is thronged with too many Reds waiting for me. I have incredible None Flu skills, but even Bruce Lee can’t fight an army.
“I kept framing sane people. I even created the Hole, where the March Hare was kept,” Tom continues. “Lewis had told me he was so valuable he needed to be kept away from the Queen and Black Chess.”
“Can’t you just summarize the story?” I am busy now, fighting aimlessly, with hopes of reaching the door at the Tom Tower. Once we reach it, we’ll be out of here. “I get it. Lewis ordered you to collect the sane people and keep them in the asylum, so when the Wonderland Wars came we’d have a secret army, disguised as mad people. I changed my mind now; the plan seems brilliant because it’d go undetected by Black Chess. But you said you were the reason why we lost the war. Why, Tom?”
“The pills,” he says. “Life in the asylum was driving me mad. My kids and wife hated me, and Lewis denied me the luxury to tell anyone about it.”
32
“Not even me?” I say. “If you were on my side, you should have told me. Why did you resist the Pillar when he asked for me to kill Wonderland Monsters?”
“Like I said, I’ll be getting into that part later. What matters now is that when I took those pills, I didn’t know they had side effects.”
“Don’t tell me you forgot things.”
“I did.”
In the middle of my war, I try not to panic. It has been one of my worries that the Lullaby pills messed with my head. Now, Tom is proof I was right.
“Slowly, I forgot who I was,” he explains. “Not like a clean slate, but visions came and went from me. One minute I remembered my purpose in life, another I didn’t. But in the later days when you and the Pillar were always leaving the asylum, I began to realize I had a purpose. That I had been told to do this, though I was not quite sure who told me. Then when Carolus Ludovicus came to London, I remembered that I was supposed to protect the Mushroomers. I remembered everything and was about to lock the asylum and protect them all until the Cheshire snuck in and suspected I was a Wonderlander. I guess he knew when he tried to possess my soul and couldn’t.”
“So why did you cause us to lose the war?” I’m nearer to the gate now.
“Because I sold myself to Black Chess at the last moment.”
“What? After all that Lewis told you?”
“It’s a complicated story. I was forced to do it. As a result, the Mushroomers were killed, and the Inklings had no real army to face Black Chess. I’m really sorry.”
“Damn it, Turtle.” I pull him harder and kick the last two Reds away, then we rush outside the gate. “I need to hear more, but we need an escape vehicle first.”
“Which one?” There are a lot of damaged cars lined up outside.
“Like this one.” I smile, pointing at the Pillar’s fire truck.
I run toward it, Tom behind me, but I still have a question I can’t keep for later. “So, if the pills made you forget, how about the pills you fed me in the asylum?”
Tom shrugs again. I wonder what he is keeping from me. I reach for the truck’s door handle, climb up, and pull Tom with me. As I am about to get into the driver’s seat, I find the Pillar waiting inside, tapping the wheel and staring at his watch. “Seven minutes and thirty-nine seconds.” He pouts, staring at his watch. “With a triple belt in None Fu, you should do better than that.”
“Don’t make me punch you in the face.” I climb down and pace around to the other door. I push Tom up, squeeze him between me and the Pillar, then lock the door behind me.
“You haven’t answered my question, Tom.” I grab him by his sleeve as the Pillar guns down the road. “What about my pills?”
“They were Lullaby pills.” Tom chokes, glancing at the Pillar. I wonder why.
“Like Carolus?” I ask.
Tom nods, but the Pillar ignores his gaze.
“Are you saying I have an evil Alice doppelgänger?”
“I don’t…” He hesitates. “It’s complicated.”
“Talk or I swear I will kill you, Tom.”
One last gaze at the Pillar, then he spits it out: “The Lullaby pills were meant for you to…”
And there, when I am about to hear a crucial truth about my past, I suddenly bleed from the nose, feeling disoriented and dizzy. My hands loosen up, and my head falls on one shoulder.
“Alice?” The Pillar sounds worried. “What’s going on?”
“I — ” My eyes meet his. I’m most perplexed and confused. Did one of the Reds stab me? “I think I’m going to faint.”
The Pillar orders Tom to take the wheel. He scoots over and examines me. “No, Alice, it’s not that.”
“What is it, then?”
“You’re dying, Alice,” the Pillar says.
“What do you mean I’m dying? You said I’m not hit.”
“It’s not the Reds who attempted to kill you.” The Pillar’s jaw tenses. “It’s those who sent you to the future.”
“Mr. Tick and Mrs. Tock?” My eyes widen.
“I think they fooled us both,” the Pillar says. “They sent you here to die.”
33
THE PRESENT: THE INKLINGS, OXFORD
“What a frabjous trick, Mrs. Tock,” Mr. Tick said, sipping his six o’clock tea — although it wasn’t six o’clock yet.
“I’m flattered you liked it, Mr. Tick,” said Mrs. Tock. “For a man who always ticks on time, a woman who tocks too late is most delighted.”
“She is suffering now, right?” He pointed at the spasming Alice on the bed in the back room of the Inklings.
“Beautifully.” Mrs. Tock snickered. “Soon she’ll spit blood.”
“It’s a remarkable achievement, I have to say,” Mr. Tick said. “Not since the invention of time have I been so impressed. Imagine her dying in both the future and the past at once.”
“Mind-boggling, right?” She whizzed a hand next to her head.
“I have to be honest with you,” Mr. Tick said. “Although I always arrive sharply on time, I never really understood time.”
“How so, Mr. Tick?”
“For example, what time is it right now?”
“It’s twelve-thirty in the afternoon.”
“Is that the time now? Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“You just think so. That was the time when you checked your watch a few seconds ago,” Mr. Tick pointed out. “But between learning what the time is and telling it to me, you were already three or four seconds late. So you basically didn’t tel
l me the real time. Meaning no one can really arrive on time.”
“Aha.” Mrs. Tock had always been confused by the idea. No wonder she preferred to arrive later.
“Also, it’s around twelve-thirty here in Oxford, but not so in Cambridge,” Mr. Tick said. “I very much believe time is an impostor.”
“I agree, Mr. Tick. Look at poor Alice here. She is dying in the now and in the later,” she said. “But wait a minute, aren’t we time?”
“No, Mrs. Tock.” He sipped his tea. “I’m Mr. Tick. You’re Mrs. Tock. We work for time. Remember?”
“I always forget. Forgive me. I prefer we skip this conversation,” Mrs. Tock said. “I think men like Einstein are an expert on time.”
“Really? Did you ever see his hair? Time drove him mad. He only fooled us into thinking he knew about it,” Mr. Tick said. “So tell me, what’s the plan from here on?” He pointed at Alice.
“She is dying because there is a limit for the time an individual can stay in the future,” Mrs. Tock explained.
“Does she know that?”
“Of course not. We didn’t tell her. What’d be the fun in that?”
“And if she wants to come back, what does she have to do?”
“Two things. First, someone has to inject her with a Lullaby serum so she can make it back to our present time.”
“Which I suppose the Pillar has the resources to accomplish in the future, right?”
“Indeed. Or we wouldn’t have let him think that he managed to visit the future through the Tom Tower,” Mrs. Tock said. “The poor bastard doesn’t know that I secretly helped him do it.”
“And he has no idea Margaret intentionally made him listen to her conversation, either.” Mr. Tick sipped his tea. “Ingenious plan, Mrs. Tock.”
“Thank you, Mr. Tick.” Mrs. Tock blushed. Mr. Tick hadn’t flattered her since about two hundred years ago.
