by Cameron Jace
“So it wasn’t addiction,” I say. “It was a migraine. Carolus has been controlling Lewis for the last hour.”
“Why?” Constance says.
Carolus smiles and wipes his dry mouth. Silently he walks over to the March and pulls him closer. The March wants to shake himself free but can’t.
“Missed me, Alice?” Carolus snickers with pointed teeth like vampires.
“Let him go!” I warn him. “Let the March go.”
“It’s too late,” Carolus says. “I’m much stronger now. I will take him with me, and he will tell me where the Keys are.”
Like a monkey on steroids, Carolus jumps toward the window, gripping the March like a back of chips in his hands.
“He will not tell you, Carolus,” I shout at his back. “He doesn’t know. He’s seen the mushrooms, and he still doesn’t remember.”
Carolus stops and smirks again. “He didn’t remember because these aren’t the mushrooms he is supposed to see.”
“Yeah?” Constance says. “And you happen to know where the real mushrooms are?”
Carolus roars with laughter, so loud the poor mushrooms shrink all around us. “The real mushrooms are not here but there,” he says as the earth starts shaking again.
The place around us is collapsing to the recurring earthquake.
“Can’t you see planet earth is so pissed off it’s shaking?” he says.
“What do you mean?” I say.
“The mushrooms are all around us,” he says and jumps out of the window. Then from a distance, he says, “Look outside.”
Holding onto each other, we exit the building from the other side. And there we see what Carolus meant. The mushrooms are around us.
73
Mr. Jay’s Headquarters
“What the hell?” the Cheshire wiped his eyes so he can take a better look at the scene outside. “I can’t believe my eyes.”
“We better leave,” the Pillar says, pulling a gun to his side.
The Cheshire looked back at him with wide eyes. “Did you just see what’s happening outside?”
“I know what’s happening outside,” the Pillar said, struggling to hold onto the door’s frame. The whole building was shaking. “If we don’t leave, we’re going to die.”
“Don’t you need clothes?” the Cheshire said.
“I’d prefer to meet my maker naked,” he said and smiled at the Mr. Jay. “It’s happening. I guess it’s too late now.”
“What is this, Pillar?” Mr. Jay pointed at the melancholic scene outside his window.
“That?” the Pillar grinned. “You mean the mushrooms outside your building?”
“I can’t believe my eyes,” the Cheshire said.
In that same instant, the floor broke underneath him, and giant mushrooms rose toward the ceiling.
“Sorry, Chesh,” the Pillar said. “I told you,” he tapped Mr. Jay on his shoulder. “My work is done here. It’s all between you and Alice now.”
And so the Pillar left and vanished again.
74
An Elementary school in London
The kids held each other’s hand, closing their eyes and gritting their teeth. They prayed it would all pass soon. The earth was shaking all around. Cabinets fell to their sides, and the ceiling began to collapse.
“Hang on children,” the teacher said. “Soon it’ll stop.”
“When?” a little girl screamed.
“When the truth is revealed,” the teacher said.
“I don’t like this,” another kid said. “Aren’t we supposed to read the books?”
“Not now,” the teacher said. “Once it passes, we’ll start reading.
“I can’t take this. I want to go home,” a third said.
“No one’s home, darling,” the teacher said. “It’s the end. Also the beginning. Only one thing can save us. We’ll start reading soon.”
75
Phone Booth, London
Mother Bird shook hard inside her booth. She lost her grip on the handset and was about to crash against the glass. Holding on, she peeked outside and could not believe her eyes. She had to look up. Way up. The things that cracked the earth open and branched out could not be. This couldn’t be happening.
But then this was written on the paper the Dormouse gave her. This was the nonsensical event she’d laughed at earlier. She gazed at her feet and saw small plants cracking out of the floor and rising. Not plants. Mushrooms.
She took a deep breath and reached for the handset again.
“This shit is real,” she muttered. “I have to make that phone call now.”
But she was too late. A mushroom, a big one, cracked out of the earth and blew out the phone booth. It punched her in the face, and she flew midair only to fall on her back somewhere else.
The phone call that could save the world wasn’t going to be made.
76
The Kew Garden
“Carolus went that way!” Constance says.
But none of us pay attention. True, we should chase him and save the March, but we’re standing mouth agape, staring at the nonsensical event happening all around us. In a million years, even with all the madness, I have witnessed lately, would I have thought this will happen.
Holding on to the side of the school bus, I look up and see it. All around us, mushrooms crack out of the earth and grow with the speed of light to reach for the sky. Big fat mushrooms. Colored. White. Red. Bent. Straight. You name it.
It’s like an alien invasion done by this crazy plant.
“Wow,” Tom says. “This is the optimum of madness.”
It is. He is right. People are dying all around us and none of us understand what this is. The end of the world isn’t a nuclear explosion or a catalytic event of global warming. It’s the insane rise of mushrooms.
“Us coming here triggered this,” Constance says.
“What do you mean?” I ask her.
“I mean the March will remember when he sees the Mushrooms, and we were right to get him here so he can see them,” she says. “But it’s not the mushrooms in the garden that will make him remember. It’s the mushrooms in the whole world.
“Why?”
“Because, think of it. The March will remember the secret when the world is about to end,” she says. “Remembering it earlier would not have meant anything. No one would have believed him.”
“And what is the secret? Where are the Keys that will show us how to save the children of the world from Mr. Jay?”
The answer comes from the Red Queen, standing next to me, “The March will remember now. These,” she points at the giant mushrooms in the sky. “Are the mushrooms that will make him remember.”
“My God,” I face-palm myself. “This is why Carolus pretended he was Lewis Carroll in pain all of this time. He was waiting for the event.”
“It means something even worse,” Constance says. “It means the March is going to remember and tell Carolus now.”
“And Carolus most probably works for Mr. Jay,” Fabiola says.
“Damn it,” I say. “Mr. Jay fooled us all.”
“And I thought if we had an imposter around us it'd be Tom Truckle,” the Red Queen says.
“I am just a scumbag who wants to secure my children’s future,” Tom announces with a raised hand.
The earth shakes hard and mushrooms start to bend and fall over, squashing everything underneath it.
“Get on the bus!” I shout.
They all hump inside.
“We have to find the March before Carolus gets his hand on the Six Keys.”
I sit in the driver's seat and ignite. Jack nears me and whispers in my ears, “Are you going to be okay, driving the yellow school bus?”
I take a long, thick, shivering breath, “No, Jack, I am not going to be okay, but I will do it.”
I push the gas pedal on, wondering what kind of cruel fate makes me drive such a bus again when I never remembered what happened in the first place. Am I going to end
up killing my friends here again, as I did with my schoolmates years ago?
77
Somewhere in London
Carolus stood amidst the collapsing world, mushrooms breaking out of every building and even mountains. Cars hung on top of mushrooms, and people hung like Tarzan onto the branches, afraid to fall and die.
He pulled the March from one ear, pressing hard. The March was too weak, and Carolus had gained so much power.
“Where are they?” he growled at the March.
“Where is what?”
“The Keys, March,” he said. “The Six Keys.”
The March shrugged, “I still don’t remember.”
“This can’t be,” he slapped him on the mouth. “You will remember when you see the mushrooms. This is what Lewis told you.”
“How are you sure?”
“Because I’ve heard it in his dreams for so many years,” he said. “Every time I wanted to resurface through a migraine and he magically stopped me, I could still hear this sentence in his dream. You will remember the Six Keys when you see the mushrooms.”
The March looked up at the mushrooms and realized he was about to remember. Carolus was right. This is the event. But the March resisted remembering. He didn’t want to tell Carolus.
But how long can he still resist?
Carolus was angry. He pulled March from the cap on his head. “I will torture you with electric prods again if you don’t tell me,” he growled and started screwing the keys harder into the March’s head. The March began pleading. He was in great pain, “Tell me, or I will not stop the pain.”
The March cried like a child. He fell to his knees. The pain in his head was too intense but it was good. It made him remember.
78
A century ago: Room 14, the Radcliffe Asylum,
The March Hare had just arrived back from the Mush Room. He was tired and confused and thirsty as usual. The cap on his head had been installed a few back, and they promised him they would not take it off. It hurt and itched and made him feel uncomfortable, but it made their job easier. Every time they needed to torture the truth out of him, they didn’t need to install the system all over again.
And they had planned to torture him many times, especially since Black Chess had secretly acquired the asylum. Tom Truckle didn’t know it, though. He was just a messed up director trying to make a living. As long as he was paid well, he did whatever they asked of him.
The March leaned on the chair. The room was dark, the way he liked it. The so-called shock therapy made him not know who he was sometimes. Just flickers of a memory of a place called Wonderland attacked him sometimes. All he knew was that he supposedly had been told the whereabouts of the Six Keys.
Lewis must have told him years ago. But the March had forgotten.
Years ago, he still remembered Lewis’ secret. He swore not to tell anyone, so he never did. Even when they caught him in the real world and shocked him daily in the Mush Room, he kept his mouth shut. A secret was a secret.
But then the repeated shock therapy made him forget again.
The irony.
Now he was being tortured for something he’d forgotten from torturing itself.
Double irony.
Tonight, however, someone entered his cell. Not Waltraud. Not any other warden. This was someone in a hood. Someone who wasn’t going to show his face.
“How are you, March?” the someone said.
“I want to go back to Wonderland,” the March wept. “I want to meet the Hatter again.”
“You will someday,” the someone said. “But not now.”
“Why? I don’t remember where the Six Keys are anymore.”
“That’s why I am here,” the someone said. “The Six Keys are nearer to you than anyone would have ever imagined.”
“That couldn’t be,” the March said. “Where would they be. The room is empty all around. They’d have found them if they were near.”
“Have you ever heard of Closer Blind?” the someone said.
“Nah.”
“It’s a Wonderland scientist who once discovered a great secret,” the someone said. “Closer discovered that the closer and more obvious a secret is, the harder it becomes for humans to figure out.”
The March blinked.
“Let me explain,” the someone said. “Humans tend to complicate things. They have theories and tactics and all kinds of studies, trying to figure things out. Life is much easier, and the truth is much closer. So what Closer Blind meant was that, in slang terms, the best place to hide a leaf was always a forest.”
“I don’t see a forest nearby.”
The someone smiled. “No, there isn’t, March, but the Keys are just right above your head.”
The March looked up, squinted against the dark. “You mean the ceiling?”
“I mean your head.”
“I don’t understand.”
The someone slowly touched the March’s head. The March bowed it and let the someone touch the cap made for the electric prods, “Vicious machine, isn’t it?”
“It hurts,” the March says. “Can you help me take it off?”
“I wouldn’t do that,” the someone said. “You see this cap has screws.”
“I know,” the March said. “Six of them.”
The someone titled his head, a smirk showing through.
The March’s eyes dilated, “You mean…?”
“Six Screws,” the someone whispered. “Hold this cap. Six Keys to open your mind.”
The March couldn’t believe it, “You mean…?”
“Yes,” the someone nodded. “The Six Keys are in the cap in your head. They can’t be removed because now they’ve bee tightened so much that taking them off will hinder your mortality.”
“That’s incredible.”
“Black Chess will be using them as prods every day,” the someone said. “For centuries, without knowing that what they are looking for is right under their noses.”
“I have to wear it that long?”
“I’m sorry but yes,” the someone said. “You will also forget everything I told you once I leave this room.”
“How will remember then?”
“When the times comes.”
“When is that?”
“When you see the mushrooms.”
“And?”
“The Keys will glow on their own when you see the mushrooms,” the some said. “They will glow in numbers. It will be easy for anyone to know how to screw them the right way. I mean to turn the keys in the right order.”
“And then? What will happen?”
“Your mind will be free, March,” the some said. “And when it’s free you will know exactly what to do to protect the children of the world.”
“I will.”
“You will find something that will tell you how to save the children, the most precious thing from Mr. Jay.”
“You think so?” the March giggled. “I can save the children of the world?”
“Yes?”
“Will I be able to play with them?”
The someone smiled, “All of them, March. All of them. They will love you dearly.”
“I guess I can happily fry in the Mush Room now,” the March said.
“I guess so,” the someone patted him and left. “Soon they will take you to the Hold. So hold on, my friend.”
79
Yellow School Bus
My hands grip the wheel so tight as I drive through the wastelands of London. The hardest part is not to avoid people or to find clear routes to drive through. The hardest part is to predict falling mushrooms.
If one hits us, we’re dead.
In the rearview mirror, everyone is staring me, dead silent and with anticipation. Flickers of memories of the school bus with my classmates attack me. But they’re not clear enough.
All I know for sure is that I drove a similar bus years ago. Did I kill my classmates then? I can’t tell.
The bus takes thud down from a hill
and swerves to the right. I lean forward onto the large wheel and grits my teeth as I swerve it back on track.
“You can do it, Alice,” a voice in my head says. It’s not mine. It’s not Jack’s. It’s the Pillar’s.
I push the gas pedal further as I near the heart of the city. It doesn’t take long before I see Carolus holding the March in his hands.
Wait, what’s glittering on the March’s head?
Carolus has the March kneeling down in the middle of the street with mushrooms rising all around them. The cap on the March’s head is glowing with a golden light, just like the mushrooms back in the Kew Garden.
“I think I see six light bulbs!” Constance points at the March’s head.
“Six Keys,” I say.
“Six screws!” Constance shrieks. “How have we not seen this?”
“I’m going to get there faster,” I say and push the pedal. “Before Carolus knows the secrets.”
“I guess they are in the March’s mind?” Constance says. “Is that what he meant with the Keys open the mind?”
“I would say so,” Jack says. “The March’s mind must have the secret to how to control the children’s minds.”
“Alice,” Fabiola says. “Bear in mind we can’t kill Carolus.”
“Why not?” Constance says.
“Because killing Carolus will kill Lewis,” I tell her. “I tried killing him before, and the Pillar stopped me.”
“But if Carolus knows the secret before we arrive, then he will pass it to Mr. Jay.”
“I know, it’s a paradox,” Fabiola says. “But if Lewis dies, the children’s future is compromised.”
“What do you mean?” I say, swerving to the far left to avoid squashing a family trying to escape the growing mushrooms.
