Figment

by Cameron Jace

  Gorgon loved hearing it from Lewis back then. Those were the lovely days. Still, Lewis couldn't save him from the Queen.

  Sometimes, it struck him as funny being thought of as just a cook for the Duchess, like it was mentioned in the "Pig and Pepper" chapter in the book. He despised people thinking he was fired for using so much pepper and making the Queen sneeze when she was dining at the Duchess' house.

  He reached for a copy of Alice's Adventures Underground, one of the few original copies of the book—he knew the Pillar owned one of them, and that it probably drove him mad that the cook had killed many people, but he didn't care the slightest about the Pillar.

  The Muffin Man opened the book to a part in the "Pig and Pepper" chapter where it said: There was certainly too much of it in the air. Even the Duchess sneezed occasionally. The only things in the kitchen that did not sneeze were the cook and a large cat, which was sitting on the hearth and grinning from ear to ear.

  "Well, here we are." The Cheshire appeared out of nowhere behind him. Gorgon could see him in the mirror showing his real face. "Me and you, immune to the sneezing pepper." He had a horrifying and ugly grin, which even Gorgon wished to avoid.

  "You didn't knock." Gorgon hated surprises.

  "I'm a cat, Gorgy." The Cheshire's grin widened. "We sneak, never ask for permission. Ready?"

  "The Queen didn't apologize?" He knew she wouldn't, but still wished she would.

  "You knew it was never going to happen," the Cheshire said. "That's part of why we're doing this."

  "I thought we were doing this to expose her to the world," Gorgon said, still preferring to talk to the mirror.

  "Well, that's part of it." The Cheshire sniffed for food in the kitchen. "But we're also showing her we're as strong as she is."

  "Why would we need that?"

  "The world is complicated, Gorgy." The Cheshire picked a fish's spine and sucked on it. "The Wonderland Wars are coming. The Queen and her followers will have the upper hand. And since the likes of me and you aren't really considered the good guys, we need to find our place in it."

  "How so?"

  "By proving how badass we are." He licked his paws. "I love that word, 'badass.' People really like it in this world."

  "Are you saying part of us doing this is for her to stop underestimating us so she would have us join her league?" Gorgon turned around, anger flushing his face. This wasn't part of his plan. Under no circumstance would he join the Queen's army.

  "Of course not," the Cheshire lied, and threw the spine away. He clapped his paws clean and said, "I was joking. We're doing this to expose the Queen, of course."

  "I knew I shouldn't have trusted you," Gorgon grunted. "But I have to take my revenge."

  "We all have our dark ticks, Gorgy." The Cheshire patted him. "Don't be hard on yourself. You just killed a few kids, that's all. Kids die every day in the world, be it starving, be it underage soldiers, or dying from diseases. No one ever makes a fuss about it."

  "I don't feel good about it. I only did it for—"

  "I know, I know," the Cheshire said. "To expose the companies working for the Queen and the Duchess. We already said that."

  "I still need to know why you are helping me," Gorgon said. "We haven't been really close in Wonderland."

  "I'm after the Pillar and Alice. I'm sending them a message they will eventually catch on. A terrifying message. But what does it matter? You're on my team now. Look at you." The Cheshire spun Gorgon around to look back in the mirror. He pointed at his reflection with pride and enthusiasm. "Look at the glory of what you have become. From a nobody cook for the Duchess, hardly remembered by any child who read the books, to a lame scientist in this world, to one of the scariest villains on earth." The Cheshire was proud, and Gorgon felt hypnotized by the words. The Cheshire had a way of making everything sinister and bad sound so good and endearing. For a damaged man like Gorgon, it was just an admired trait. "From nobody to a proud Wonderland Monster," the Cheshire repeated. "Now let's show the world your magnum opus. Let's make some humans suffer!" He rubbed his paws together. "Mass-poisoning London. How beautiful."

  Gorgon nodded, angry veins showing in his eyes.

  "We need to give it a word, though," the Cheshire said. "Something catchy. You know, how people like marketing and stuff."

  "Something catchy?"

  "Yeah, the same way they have catchy names for their products: Snicker Snackers and the like. I got it!" He flashed one of his claws. "We'll call it an 'Epidemic of Tarts.'" The Cheshire laughed.

  Chapter 52

  Graduate Common Room, Christ Church, Oxford University

  Fourteen minutes past midnight, the Pillar guides me through the empty, dimly lit corridors of Tom VII in Christ Church, Oxford University. He is supposedly going to show me into a room that has the ability to help me travel back to Victorian times. Given all the madness I have seen, I am still skeptical about the concept of going back in time. If it were possible, and relatively easy, why wouldn't all Wonderland Monsters use it?

  "Are we there yet?" I whisper.

  "Patience, my dear Alice," he says, counting the doors left and right. "It's been a long time since I've been here. They always change things in the university," he uses his pocket watch as some kind of compass. I don't bother to ask. "A few years ago they made a mess out of the university to shoot a Harry Potter movie," his voice shows he really disliked it. "But I'm not feeling like I am Dumbeldore now. Thank you very much."

  "Until you find that door, I am still wondering why Professor Gorgon Ramstein, a.k.a. Muffin Man, is doing this," I say, neglecting any silly side jokes of his. "I mean, I know the government dismissed his research, killed his lawyer, and he feels responsible to expose the food corruption of companies. Is that enough reason to massacre all those people?"

  "Of course not." The Pillar is still looking for the door leading to the time travel room. "The Muffin Man, like all of us Wonderlanders, took a new identity in this new world. He became a professor. He even got married and had three kids. Margaret Kent ordered his kids killed."

  I stop in my place. The Pillar notices and turns to look at me. I can feel silent anger creep up in my veins.

  "Shocked?" He raises an eyebrow. "Well, do you want to know how his kids were killed?"

  "I think I have an idea." Although I am beginning to get used to shocking deaths, I don't want to say it.

  "Margaret seduced his kids to eat a great amount of expired Queen of Hearts Tarts," the Pillar says. "Enough to get them poisoned...slowly. When Gorgon drove his kids to the hospital, the nurses were ordered to conspire with Margaret and look away until the kids died."

  "The same way he wants to kill everyone in the country," I lament. "And you still think something more sinister happened to him in Wonderland?"

  "I am hoping so," the Pillar says. "Because if the Muffin Man is only fueled by his present-day anger, I don't know of any way we can stop him. To be honest, the man has been squashed like cockroach in this life. And I don't know how to use this time machine to go back a few years. It's a Wonderland time machine. It only goes back to Wonderland. Let's hope we find a trigger point in his past and stop the story from the beginning." The Pillar turns the knob of the door next to him and pushes it open. "Welcome to the time-travel room."

  I read the sign on the door as I enter. "The Graduate Common Room?"

  "Formally known as Professor Einstein's Room." The Pillar follows me in and closes the door behind us.

  The room is modernly decorated with a notable fireplace and a huge desk with old English carvings. There are a few souvenirs here and there, looking as if transported from the Museum of the History of Science. A couple of couches colored red and black are set on one side. There is a table with magazines in front of a large window looking out into the garden. One thing stands out: a blackboard with mathematical writings on it.

  "Albert Einstein?" I ask.

  "He lectured in Oxford for a while, and was given this room in 1930." The
Pillar takes off his suit's jacket, which he rarely does. "I suppose you know Einstein is in many ways the father of the concept of time."

  "I'm insane, but I went to school," I say, eyes on the blackboard. "So Einstein really knew how to time-travel?"

  "Of course he did. Einstein was as mad as Lewis. While Lewis Carroll stuttered, Einstein was actually autistic, but few people know that. Einstein was a great fella—bad haircut, though." The Pillar pulls the blackboard to the middle of the room. He does it with care and respect. "This same room had been Lewis Carroll's room for five years when he studied here."

  "Wow." I like the connection. Didn't know about it. "That's about seventy years before Einstein came."

  "Seventy years, and no one discovered Carroll's secrets but a madman—a.k.a. Professor Einstein himself." The Pillar rubs the blackboard clean. The chalk doesn't come off.

  "Secrets?"

  "Technically, Carroll discovered time travel." The Pillar looks at me. "But since he wasn't sure a Wonderland Monster would end up using it, he kept it a secret."

  "And Einstein discovered that secret seventy years later when he entered the room?"

  "Along with other things, like the Zebra Puzzle, but that's irrelevant now. Lewis Carroll wasn't just anyone, Alice. He was an artist, photographer, writer, priest, and mathematician. Have you ever met anyone like that?" the Pillar chirps. Suddenly, I remember Lewis telling me about Einstein the last time I climbed up the Tom Tower. I believe the Pillar isn't lying. "Einstein reinterpreted Carroll's work by staying in his room in Oxford many years later. Do you know his messy hair was an aftermath of repeatedly using the time machine in this room? It rather fried."

  "Why didn't Einstein tell the world about it, then?"

  "Are you kidding me? You know what those lunatic politicians and businessmen out there would do with such a device?" He stops and looks at the blackboard. "Besides, the time-travel machine has never been fully functioning."

  "Are you saying it doesn't work?"

  "I never tried, myself," the Pillar says. "I only read about it, and Carroll used to hint at it. It works for only fourteen minutes, and I believe it has certain limits."

  "Fourteen?" I grimace. "What's with this number popping up everywhere?"

  "It only popped up once on your wall in the cell. This is the second time," the Pillar says, and then shoots me a suspicious glance. I know it shows up all he time. "Did it show up somewhere else?"

  I shrug. Lewis' vision was on the 14th of January, but he told me not to tell the Pillar about the vision.

  "Aha." His tongue plays with the insides of his cheeks. "Little Alice has been having visions." I try to act oblivious of what he says. "Are you sure Lewis didn't give you anything last time when you met him through the Tom Tower?"

  I hesitate, thinking he knows about the key to one of Wonderland's doors. I am glad I hid in the wall.

  "It's okay." The Pillar doesn't push it. "We'll talk about that later. Now, we need you to go back in time to meet the Muffin Man."

  "Which we will do how?" I crane my neck and squint.

  The Pillar says nothing, and points at the blackboard with sticky chalk. "This is called Einstein's Blackboard, the one he used for lecturing when he was here. It's one of the world's most valuable artifacts. Historians will claim the original one is in the in Museum of the History of Science, and that this one here is a replica. Actually, it's vice versa but they don't know it. Originally it was Carroll's blackboard, and it is used to time-travel."

  "And how is that possible?"

  "It's easy," he says. "You write the date, time, and name of person you want to meet, and then use it as a doorway to the past."

  The blackboard is actually tall. Hypothetically, it looks like a door a mad girl like me could walk into. But unless the board's surface turns into rippling water or air, I don't see how.

  "So I just walk into it?" I give up and assume fantastically.

  "Oh." The Pillar's lips twitch. "Of course not. Don't be silly."

  Chapter 53

  The Pillar paces toward the red curtain by the window and looks for something behind it. "There it is," he murmurs, and looks back at me with a smile that soon shifts to a serious straight line again. "Now, before I show you how, you need to know what you're getting yourself into."

  "I was waiting for you to say that."

  "This time-travel method lasts for only fourteen minutes." He pulls out his pocket watch and tucks it in my hands. "It's very close to my heart. Use it with care and bring it back to me—along with you, of course. It's an old watch, so there is no timer. You have to memorize the fourteen minutes."

  "What else should I know?"

  "There are two possibilities where you won't come back and probably die." He has that piercing look again.

  I pretend I am not afraid, and hold a shrug.

  "The first one is if something happens to you in the past, you get killed, set back, or simply stay there more than fourteen minutes. I can't help you if any of that happens."

  "And the second?" I feel I can deal with the first one myself.

  "If you're not the Real Alice," he says. "Which I believe you are."

  "Believe or know?"

  "Believing is knowing," he says. "It's up to you if you believe in yourself or not. You still can walk away from this."

  "And stay for what?" I say. "The death of millions tomorrow?"

  "I thought you'd say you could never live without me." He musters a sad face.

  "I'd rather succeed, come back tomorrow, and find you gone," I tease.

  "I'm hurt." He puts a hand on his heart and blinks twice. "Which reminds me." He pulls out a small piece of paper. It looks like it was an A4 size and folded repeatedly to become that small. "I've got a present for you." He doesn't hand it to me but squeezes it in my front jeans pocket.

  The sincere look on his face worries me. "What is it?"

  "It says who Jack really is."

  The urge of pulling the paper out and reading it now tickles my finger. There is this burning sensation of anticipation in my chest.

  "I thought if something happens to you there, or you're about to die, you get to know what you desire the most," the Pillar says, walking toward the red curtain before the balcony. "Not that I am fond of Jack, not one little bit."

  "I think I should thank you," I say.

  He shakes his head, lips pursed. "No, you don't," he says, and looks peeks behind the curtain to check on something. "Because the only way to walk into Einstein's Blackboard isn't going to be pleasant." He turns back to me.

  "I'm ready to know how." I straighten my back.

  "No, you aren't." He is sure of himself. "Think of how no one else all these years was able to figure Carroll's time traveling secret. I mean, the blackboard was here, right in front of them. Carroll and Einstein's writings fill the university's archives. Still, no one ever found out about the secret."

  "Tell me how, Pillar," I say. I am both impatient and worried at the same time. "I'm not afraid."

  "You can only time-travel through the one thing you're scared of the most."

  I shriek immediately. There is no question about it. A lot of things scare me and intimidate me, but one is the one, and only that brings to my knees.

  "A mirror," the Pillar says, confirming my fears. "I have one behind the curtain. If I lay it opposite to the blackboard, you will be able to step inside through the—"

  "Looking Glass." It all starts to connect now. "Like Alice did in Lewis' book Through the Looking Glass." I remember clearly how in one chapter she entered Wonderland through a mirror. Lewis wasn't over-imagining or fictionalizing. This was true, except the mirror had to be entered while set opposite to Einstein's Blackboard.

  "The book is called Through the Looking Glass, and what Alice Found There," the Pillar lectures me again. "Now it's more of an Einstein's Blackboard Looking Glass now." He tries to sound funny, but he isn't. He knows the gravity of my fears.

  "Is that why only the Real A
lice can do it?"

  He nods.

  "But I am unimaginably afraid of mirrors," I say. "I will faint like in the fitting room."

  "You can close your eyes, Alice, and I can guide you inside, hold your hand until you step inside," he offers. "The problem will be on your way back."

  "How am I supposed to come back?"

  "The same mirror and blackboard should be in Carroll's studio on the roof of the university, next to the Tom Tower."

  "But there is no one to help there with closing my eyes."

  "I know," he says. "Maybe Carroll could help."

  "Why can't we just use the Tom Tower like last time?"

  "The Tom Tower is the Bridge of Realities," the Pillar says. "It's like dreaming or crossing realms. Whatever you change there isn't going to change the future."

  "But I gave Lewis the idea to write the Alice in Wonderland book last time."

  "You might have, but it's not necessarily the real reason. Who knows why he wrote the book, really?" The Pillar pulls his hand back from behind the curtain. "Like I said, we still can go back to the asylum and be happy, insane people. You don't have to do it."

  "If there is no one who can do it but me, then I have to do it." I rub the pocket in my jeans, right over the folded paper with Jack's identity. It's insane how safe it makes me feel.

  I walk to the blackboard and write the date of January 14th 1862, the place of Lewis' study—because I don't know how to reach the Muffin Man if not through him. With my back to the blackboard, I close my eyes and ask the Pillar to bring the mirror and guide me through it.

  As he pulls it close, I feel the walls closing in on me, because how good am I at closing my eyes and making sure they won't disobey me by just opening up?

  Chapter 54

  Lewis Carroll's studio, Oxford University, 1862

  The transition to the past isn't as complicated as I thought. Once I step into the mirror, I feel the creaking wooden floor underneath me. I am in Lewis Carroll's studio. The air smells of violets and a scent called Fleurs de Bulgarie. I don't know how I know it. I just do, although it's not sold in the modern world.