Circus

by Cameron Jace

  The emergency number picks up, and a woman asks me how she can help. I begin telling her a man is shot at Piccadilly Circus and that we need an ambulance.

  “This isn’t making any sense,” the Pillar says to himself next to me. “Why shoot a man when he is wired with dynamite?”

  The Pillar’s questioning alerts me after I hang up with the woman, who promised me an ambulance will arrive in a few minutes.

  “You’re right,” I say. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  The Pillar turns and faces me, his eyes looking over my shoulder, wide open. “Unless this is a joke.” He points at someone behind me.

  I turn around. The homeless man is on his feet, staring at us.

  Chapter 10

  Radcliffe Lunatic Asylum

  Dr. Tom Truckle was gorging on his favorite mock turtle soup when the phone rang.

  “Director of the Radcliffe Lunatic Asylum.” He leaned back in his chair, trying to sound authoritative as possible.

  “The Queen of England sent us a patient,” Waltraud said. She sounded terrified.

  “The Queen of who?” He dropped his spoon.

  “England! Your queen, doctor,” Waltraud said. “My queen, too.”

  “A patient?” He wasn’t quite comprehending the conversation. “Send him in immediately!”

  “But of course.”

  “Waltraud! Wait!” Tom stood up. “Send the patient to the VIP ward with the best room possible.”

  “I thought so.”

  “And Waltraud, is it a male or a female?”

  Waltraud waited for a while. “It’s hard to tell, doctor.”

  “What nonsense is that, Waltraud?”

  “I would ask the patient, but I don’t think this patient talks.”

  “It’s mute?”

  “Mute is someone who once talked—or is supposed to talk.”

  “You’re really not making any sense, Waltraud.” Tom sighed, fed up with his employee’s stupidity. “What is the patient’s problem?”

  “It refuses to get its head chopped off,” Waltraud said. “The Queen demands the patient to obey her.”

  Dr. Tom pushed the button on his desk to check on the surveillance cameras. He spotted Waltraud standing in the hall next to a flamingo in a cage.

  Previously, he’d always thought it was only the Pillar and Alice who wanted to make fun of him. Now the Queen of England, too?

  He swallowed a handful of his pills, without water, and said, “A royal flamingo.” He hissed to himself. “Waltraud. Tell the Queen I will take care of the situation myself.”

  “I will.” Waltraud waved at the camera. “And she left you an invitation, too, doctor.”

  “Invitation? From the Queen herself. What’s it about?”

  “It says an invitation to ‘The Event’ on the envelope.”

  “Bring it to me immediately.”

  Chapter 11

  9:39 a.m.

  The blood on the man’s chest is nothing but red paint. Was this meant to spook us? I honestly have no idea. All I know is that there is a bomb I need to stop.

  “The first time it’s only paint, the Hatter told me," the homeless man explains, looking shocked. “The second time the TNT will explode.”

  “Then why did you fall back?” I say.

  “I was just shocked by the impact of the paint ball on my chest,” he says.

  I look up, trying to locate where the shot came from. I am thinking from the roofs, but I am not sure.

  “What do you want from us?” I raise my hands and shout upward. Instead of asking what's wrong, people walk away from me. “Show your face, ugly Wonderlander!”

  The Pillar raises an eyebrow, as people stare warily at me. “She's got a Certificate of Insanity,” he remarks playfully to the crowd. “She has the right to do that.” He swirls his finger around his ear.

  “Do you have a problem with that?” I snarl at the passing crowd. I have no idea what’s gotten into me, but I am getting sick of all these secret Wonderland games.

  “Screaming always feels good.” The Pillar acts as if he is my counselor or something. “Breathe in. Breathe out.”

  “Get your hands off me,” I snap. Screaming does feel good. Not just because I’ve wanted to scream at anyone for a while, but because it helps me remember the solution to the riddle. “I know the answer to your question now.” I turn back to the homeless man. “In the book, the Mock Turtle says, ‘We called our teacher tortoise because he taught us.’ Tortoise sounds like taught us. A play on words, like the Pillar said.” The Pillar’s smile is ten miles wide. “It’s in the ninth chapter, called ‘The Mock Turtle's Story.’”

  “Right answer,” the homeless man says. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it,” I say, proud of myself. “How come you didn't remember it?” I ask the Pillar.

  “Maybe I did.” I can’t tell whether he is joking or not. “Maybe I'm not fond of homeless people. I think they should get a job.” He cocks his head.

  “Unbelievable.” I shake my head at the Pillar’s cruelty. I am definitely not fond of him today.

  “So we saved a homeless man from being killed in a silly game,” the Pillar says. “How are we going to catch the rabbit?”

  Before I contemplate the question, the homeless man answers it: “By answering the second question.”

  It takes me a moment to realize what I am looking at. The homeless man simply pulls the dynamite off, sneering at me and the Pillar. It’s not dynamite. It’s a hoax. The homeless man grins, showing his silver tooth, and few other absent ones.

  Chapter 12

  9:43 a.m.

  “I guess you have a job after all.” The Pillar grits his teeth. “A brilliant actor.”

  “Oh, but thank you. I can’t believe you two took the bait too easily.” The homeless man grins.

  “Why would you do that?” I ask him.

  “The Hatter pays well,” he says. “Which reminds me, he wants you to answer the second question now.”

  “And why should we answer that?” I say.

  “Because of this.” He wraps a bracelet around my wrist. I shriek when I look at it. It's made of steel, and I can’t pull it off. It’s blinking a small red light. “It’s another small bomb.” The man smirks. “It won’t kill you, but it will blow off that cute little arm of yours. Do you happen to know where you got this tattoo, by the way?” He points at the one on my arm. I can’t go back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.

  Angry, I raise my hand to punch the man, but the Pillar stops me. “Don’t punch him,” the Pillar says through gritted teeth. “The Hatter is playing his cards well.”

  “Why wouldn’t I hit him?” I snap. “I have a Certificate of Insanity.”

  “If you hit him, you won’t know how to rid yourself of the bracelet.”

  “How do we know it’s really a bomb?” I touch it, wanting to pull it away.

  “We don’t,” the Pillar says. Then he shoots me a sincere look. “But I can’t risk that.”

  “Aw.” The creepy man sneers. “I’ve always loved sentimental moments. Papa and his little girl, the best.”

  “He’s not my papa,” I blurt at the man, and shy my eyes away from the Pillar.

  The Pillar’s face knots. He seems to have changed his mind about hitting the man. “And I don’t care if she lives or dies.”

  I am rather shocked now. I don’t know why. Am I expecting him to stand up for me after saying he couldn’t risk my death? I suppose he just couldn’t, because of whatever reason he has been helping from the beginning. Who are you, Pillar? Sometimes I don’t know which side he is on. “Seriously, I’ve hated homeless people all my life. If you don’t tell us how to free her from the bracelet, I will eat you for dinner. Wait. That’s not quite impressive. I will kill you, cremate you, and then smoke you and get high on your grave.”

  The way the Pillar says it forces the man to slightly wince. “Like I said, answer the question.” He does his best to not sound
intimidated. “‘Who is really described as mad in the Alice in Wonderland book?’”

  “The Mad Hatter, of course!” I reply.

  “Wrong answer.” The man grins again. My bracelet vibrates and blinks faster.

  How could that be the wrong answer? What have I done?

  Chapter 13

  9:49 a.m.

  “It’s not the Hatter,” the Pillar says.

  “But—” I try to say something. I am sure it’s the Hatter that is called “mad” in the book. Everyone knows he is called the Mad Hatter.

  “No,” the Pillar says. “The Hatter was never called ‘mad’ in Lewis Carroll’s book. Not once. It’s a universal misconception.”

  “Really?” I retort in disbelief. “Then who was called mad in the book?”

  “The March Hare,” the Pillar tells me, but he is staring directly at the homeless man. “You have no idea how an original text can be twisted though the years, only because someone misheard or misremembered the original story.”

  “He’s right,” the homeless man says.

  “March Hares were known to be called mad in Victorian times,” the Pillar elaborates. “Probably because they went bonkers in the mating seasons.”

  While I am shocked by this new fact, I watch the homeless man push a button on some device in his hand. My bracelet stops blinking, and I can pull it off.

  Instantly, the Pillar pulls the man by his collar again.

  “You don’t want to kill me yet.” The man waves his hands. “Not before the last questions, do you?” He smiles and shows that silver tooth. "Or you will never find the rabbit and stop the bomb."

  The Pillar and I are perplexed at this sick wack. I wonder why people like him aren’t institutionalized in the asylum.

  The man frees himself from the Pillar. “Are you ready for the last question?”

  “The suspense is killing me.” The Pillar rolls his eyes.

  “Like I said before, the Hatter says only one girl can catch the rabbit,” the homeless man says.

  “Mary Ann,” I interrupt. “Who is Mary Ann?”

  The man turns around and runs away. When I am about to chase him, the Pillar grips my hand again. “Let him go, Alice. I know who Mary Ann is now. I should have put it together from the beginning.” He sighs then scans his surroundings, as if he is looking for someone.

  “What is going on? Who is Mary Ann?” I ask him. “And how is she supposed to lead us to the rabbit’s whereabouts?”

  “You seriously don’t know?” He looks straight into my eyes, as if I should. “I mean, I didn’t get it first, but I’m surprised you didn’t, too. I thought you knew Lewis Carroll’s book by heart.”

  “There is a Mary Ann in the book?” I say as the memory hits me. It’s just a trivial sentence in the White Rabbit chapter, a detail everyone usually overlooks. “I get it now.” I feel like I am in a haze. “When the White Rabbit first meets Alice in the book, he mistakes her for someone. The rabbit says, ‘Why, Mary Ann, what are you doing out here?’

  “Mary Ann is me?” I sound as if I’m asking, but deep inside I know it's a fact. I can't tell why I am sure about it. “This whole game was to tell me it’s me? Why?”

  I am utterly, madly, deeply confused.

  “Doesn’t matter why now,” the Pillar says. “What matters is how you’re supposed to have the secrets in you to find the rabbit.”

  “I am tired of these games.” The imaginary haze around me is purple. I feel like I am going to drop to the ground any moment. “What is the point of all that?”

  The Pillar holds me before I collapse. “I have no idea. You need to be stronger than this, Alice. It’s already 9:52 a.m. A little more than an hour is left. Look inside you, Alice. This is weird, but the solution is buried inside your memory somehow.”

  A moment of silence imprisons both of us before I speak again. A moment that feels like forever. I realize that there is a big chance I am a nobody. Maybe I was just adopted, left on the doorstep of some church when I was a kid. Maybe I was raised in the jungle among apes and elephants. Maybe I am an alien, and I just don’t know it. I am saying this because I truly don’t know who I am. This Alice everyone is infatuated with can't be me. I just don't feel it anymore.

  My blurry eyes dart toward the tattoo on my arm. What did the homeless man mean when he asked me about it?

  “So?” the Pillar says.

  “So what?”

  “I have no clue to the next step,” he says. “You need to help me catch the rabbit.”

  I have no idea what he is talking about. Not since I left the asylum have I searched within me and found answers. Not for who I am, not for what happened in the bus accident, and certainly not now.

  I try to think of my Tiger Lily, of Jack, and of any kind of strength I have inside me. What motivates people to wake themselves up from a haze, I wonder. What motivates people to stay sane in all this insanity, I don’t know.

  But, surprisingly, a memory hits me like a lightning bolt.

  “I think I know the next step,” I say reluctantly.

  "Excellent!" The Pillar cheers. "What is it?"

  “It depends on how fast we can go back to Oxford.”

  "Oxford?"

  "Yes, the house where I was supposedly born and raised."

  Chapter 14

  Radcliffe Lunatic Asylum

  Dr. Tom Truckle stared at the envelope for a while.

  An invitation from the Queen of England.

  Really?

  He pulled out the card from the gold-tinted envelope and read with intent. The Queen was inviting him to what she called the Event.

  That’s creative, he thought.

  The message was brief, demanding a formal tuxedo dress, arrival on time, and the utmost secrecy.

  Tom Truckle smiled broadly. The most important event he had ever been invited to was his divorce—even his daughter never invited him to her birthday.

  But why him? What did the Queen of England want with him? Did she know who he really was?

  Of course not, his mind shushed him.

  Then why invite a mere director of an asylum?

  He stared at the invitation again, wondering if he should really attend the Event. He scrolled down for his name on the invitation, only to be shocked it wasn’t for him.

  The doctor gritted his teeth in anger, wondering what this event could be about. The name at the bottom of the invitation provoked him like nothing else. He wondered why the Queen would invite that person, and how they even knew each other.

  Something was wrong here. Very wrong.

  Chapter 15

  Upstairs, Alice Wonder's house, 7 Folly Bridge, Oxford, 10:56 a.m.

  Like a mad thief, I am climbing up the water pipe leading to my room in the house I supposedly lived at in the past. The Pillar waits by the corner of the streets to make sure no one sees me. Two-thirds of my climb up, I ask myself who I really am, and what in the world is happening all around me. When I almost slip and fall, I forget all about it and realize that sometimes in life all we can do is keep climbing, even when it doesn’t make any sense anymore.

  I guess it’s some sort of survival mechanism for those who have no clue to what the snicker snack is going on with their lives.

  At the top of the pipe, I look down at the Pillar, making sure this is my room I am about to enter. He nods and pulls out binoculars. He begins to track my sisters’ movements downstairs while I find the window to my room half open. I have very little time to get this done. About ten minutes.

  There is a pot of tiger lilies by the windowsill of my room. It reminds of Jack. But I can’t afford remembering what happened to him at the Fat Duck restaurant right now. I avoid the lilies and try not to make a sound while I get inside.

  The reason why I am here is the clue left by the Hatter. If I am supposed to be Mary Ann, according to the White Rabbit chapter in Alice in Wonderland, then I should also be here fetching gloves and a fan.

  In the book, Mary Ann is supposed to
be the housemaid, and the White Rabbit says the following to Alice after mistaking her for Mary Ann: “Run home this moment, and fetch me a pair of gloves and a fan! Quick, now!”

  It might seem far-fetched—insane, to say the least. But I have no other choice but to hang on the thin thread of a clue in hopes of stopping the bomb.

  I am back home—if it was ever mine.

  I am pulling out the drawers and looking under the beds for a pair of gloves and a fan while the Pillar makes sure I won’t get caught by my obnoxious sisters downstairs.

  Now I only have nine minutes to get this done.

  The room means nothing to me. Nothing. I don’t remember being here before. I don’t remember sleeping in this bed or playing inside these four walls. I don’t remember a mother tucking me into bed at night, nor do I remember playing with my sisters.

  The room is strangely covered in yellow wallpaper, which also means nothing to me—what child has yellow wallpaper in her room? It reminds me of the asylum. The Pillar told me once that Alice’s dress was yellow in the original copy of the book, a gesture of madness.

  As I rummage for the gloves and the fan, I wonder if I could sink deeper into my memories. How deep should I dig to get there? Will I ever remember what happened to me when I was seven years old, claiming I fell in a rabbit hole? Why don’t I have even one single memory of my younger self?

  Eight minutes to go.

  I shake the useless thoughts away, and think about saving lives by stopping the bomb.

  It takes me a few seconds to actually find what I am looking for. It’s too simple to be true.

  There is an exquisite fan tucked in the bottom of my lower drawer near the bed. It’s a bit old, although intact and unused. When I open it, I see pictures of tiger lilies, pink umbrellas, and golden keys, like the one Lewis gave me. This is definitely the fan I am looking for. It definitely belongs to me. But how is it supposed to help me stop the bomb?