by Cameron Jace
“Healed into submission? What kind of healing is that?”
“The Wonderland style. Anyways, I found nothing wrong with it, and began to befriend it,” Tom says. “In my darkest hour when I had no one to talk to, it became my best friend.”
“What does all this nonsense have to do with losing the war?”
“The flamingo was the Queen’s bait.” Tom averts his eyes from mine, and keeps them on the road. It’s easy to see he truly regrets his past and wishes to become someone better. Every passing moment, I am more able to believe he did actually lead the revolution.
“Bait?”
“The preposterous Queen fooled me,” he says. “She knew who I was. She knew of Lewis’ mission. And she was the one who put the pills into my coffee and mock turtle soups until I became an addict.”
I am speechless. The Queen of Hearts has always struck me as stupid, impulsive, and borderline naive, like an angry child farting its way through life. I never thought of her as a planner with hidden agendas. I thought she was just mad at the world because of the circus. “I still don’t understand the flamingo’s role in having you work for Black Chess.”
“I guess your IQ just dropped because you’re dying, Alice,” he says. “The flamingo became my best friend, the one I trusted, talked to all the time. I told it about the things I remembered, the exact details of Lewis’ plan. More shattering than anything else is that at some point the flamingo talked telepathically to me, poisoning my thoughts until I weakened and joined Black Chess in exchange for a reputable position in Parliament. A position where I could be respected, feared, pay my children’s tuition, and get back my wife.”
“And the flamingo, what happened to it?”
“Don’t you know?” He glances at me. “The Queen chopped off its head after that. There are signposts everywhere about the incident.”
“I saw it.”
Suddenly, Tom’s glance turns into a glare, as if seeing a ghost.
“What is it?”
“The Reds.” He speeds up. “They’re after us again.”
Chapter 36
THE FUTURE: MOUNT CEMETERY, GUILDFORD
The Pillar felt the rush of wind slapping him in the face while he drove. The cemetery was only a mile or two away now. He was risking Alice’s life by driving this fast to come here. After all, Mount Cemetery was about two hours away from where he had left Alice. But he had bet on the illogical Wonderlastic rules of time traveling. According to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to Wonderlastic Time Travels, distance sometimes meant nothing when time travelers were in different times than where they actually lived. It was the same reason why Alice managed to get from London to Oxford by walking a few streets. According to the book, a traveler could get anywhere he or she wished with good intentions and determination.
Whatever that meant, the Pillar thought. He didn’t care how nonsense worked. What mattered was that it worked. It only took him twenty minutes to arrive.
He didn’t want to give in to thinking about time, and its complications, for too long. After all, time was a loop. A wheel rebirthing and reinventing itself all the time. Which meant he and Alice must have been here before.
But he was thankful he couldn’t remember it, or he would have gone really mad. He thought how perception of time, and life, was nothing but a point of view. It wasn’t real, but there was nothing anyone could do about it. All one could do was live the moment they believed — probably deceivingly — was the present.
He parked the motorcycle and took off his goggles.
Then he jogged toward the gates of Mount Cemetery, not surprised at its decaying form. It was almost buried in vines and crawling insects. No one paid attention or respect to Lewis Carroll’s burial place in the future — and not much in the present, either.
Why would they, when Black Chess’s winning of the war was all about bringing the man’s legacy down?
The Pillar stepped through the shrubs and the mud until he found a crack in the walls. The sky greyed and boomed with rain as he entered the cemetery.
Inside, it wasn’t easy locating Carroll’s burial plot. The cemetery looked like it had been a battlefield at some point in the Wonderland Wars.
The Pillar took off his blue coat, folded it carefully, and placed it at the cleanest place he came across. He pulled back his sleeves, showing his aging skin, peeling off day by day. Something he didn’t want anyone else to see. He didn’t see the point of anyone knowing about his sickness.
After all, why would anyone care?
He located a shovel and walked to the spot where he believed Lewis was buried.
“Sorry for digging you up, mate,” he whispered to the grave. “I need the one thing you took with you to the grave. The Lullaby pills.”
Chapter 37
THE FUTURE: OXFORD STREETS
Tom is a terrible driver. If he keeps driving this way, we’re either going to crash into something or get caught by the Reds who are chasing us on motorcycles now.
“Give me the wheel.” I push him over.
“But you’re bleeding.”
“I can’t None Fu while I’m dying, but I think I can still drive. Look for a gun or something in the back. Do something useful.”
“There is a sleeping dog in the back,” Tom says.
I smile when he says that. That dog was so hungry that when he was fed he felt good enough to sleep through such a chase. “Don’t wake him up,” I say. “Just find a gun and start shooting at the Reds.”
“There is nothing back there, only water hoses.”
I use a lot of what’s left of my power to stare back at him, hoping he will get the message.
Tom smirks and tilts his head. He knuckles his fingers and pops a few pills. “You’re thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Glad to know you’re smart enough to think what I am thinking.” I veer the truck against a couple of motorcycles and squeeze them against a wall.
“Water hose wars it is,” Tom chirps like a child. What can I say? He’s a Wonderlander, after all.
Behind me, he starts hitting the Reds with full-throttle water bullets.
“You remember I’m here for the keys, don’t you?” I shout back.
“I know.” He struggles with the pumping hose, but is doing a good job at keeping the Reds at bay. “That’s what I was going to ask about. How did you find me?”
“I found the note.”
“What note?”
“The one where I kept your address with a scribbling saying that I kept the keys with you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Alice.”
“What do you mean? We must have had a deal or something. I must have kept the keys with you after the war. Or why do I have this note?”
“True, I was in possession of the keys once.” He sounds like he is keeping something from me again. “But you couldn’t have possibly made a note to come and take them from me.”
“Why not?” I want to face him but I am busy with the wheel, totally ignoring my bleeding nose, although my blood is staining the wheel by now, and my vision is dimming.
“Because you know I lost the Six Keys a long time ago.”
“What?” I almost hit the brakes. “You lost the keys?”
“Not that they are of any particular use anymore. We lost the war when the Queen grabbed hold of the Six Keys,” Tom says. “But you already know I lost the keys. Oh, wait. I mean the real version of you in this world knows that. Of course, you don’t know, because you’re not really from this time.”
I am too dizzy to think about this paradoxical situation. “I just want to know how you lost the keys, and how come I found this note.”
Tom takes a moment to think it over. I trust he has figured out the puzzle. “I get it now.”
“What is it? Please tell me, because nothing makes sense in this future anymore.”
“Mr. Tick and Mrs. Tock.”
“What about them?”
“They don’t really want you
to die,” Tom speculates. “They wanted everything that happened to happen the way it did.”
“How so?”
“They have access to the future. They planted the note so you’d follow it, because they knew I stole the keys from you.”
“You stole them.” The truck bumps against something on the road. I speed up to cross it, realizing I have so little strength in me now. “I thought I gave them to you.”
“Don’t worry about this part,” Tom says. “What matters is that Mr. Tick and Mrs. Tock, or whoever hired them, thought I have the keys, and wanted to find them through you. They planted the note because they knew I wouldn’t open up to anyone, even you, about their location.”
“Even me?” I am dizzy, not sure if I am catching every word, barely able to drive ahead. “Why wouldn’t you tell me about their location?”
“Because in this future I trust no one. You could be the Cheshire disguised, for all I know — and don’t talk to me about him being unable to possess Wonderlanders,” Tom says. “I am only opening up to you because I know you’re from the past, because if you find the keys and put them in the right hands, you can change the future.”
“And that’s what they want exactly,” I say. “They want me to return with the keys so they can take them from me.”
“You’re getting the picture now. Think of it—why isn’t there another Alice from the future? They must have done something to her so she wouldn’t warn you or tell you the truth.”
“It’s hard to really comprehend all of this,” I say. “But I get their plan to get the keys now. I get it that they thought you’d give me the keys only when you realized I am from the past. What puzzles me is how you lost the keys.”
“Didn’t exactly lose them,” he says. “I handed them to the wrong person.”
“Who?” I enter a dark tunnel, wishing I could lose the Reds in here.
“I gave them to Jack.”
And with that the darkness drapes its curtain of deception down on me. Because let’s face it. In the future, Jack is not Jack. He is the Cheshire, fooling Tom. Having fooled me as well, making me think that Jack affected him so much he loved me. The Cheshire never changed. A nobody, disguising in people he meets, parasitizing on their thoughts and emotions, just like the sneakiest of devils.
My hands give up on the wheel. My strength withers. And I fall down on my head.
Chapter 38
THE FUTURE: MOUNT CEMETERY, GUILDFORD
The Pillar was digging with all his might. As fast as he could. Sweating and panting. He’d never felt the need to save someone like he needed to save Alice now.
And there it was, finally, Carroll’s corpse, lying on its back, strangely mummified, looking as if he were still alive. The Pillar wasn’t surprised. Carroll was full of surprises. He wouldn’t discard the possibility that the famous mathematician had found an embalming method like the ancient Egyptians.
The Pillar knelt down to reach for Carroll’s pockets. The dead man’s shoulders snapped, just a little, probably an odd reflex of muscles being exposed to oxygen or light.
“Relax,” the Pillar told him. “I’m just here for the Pills. She needs them or she will die.”
But Carroll’s dead body snapped again, as if not wanting him to reach for them.
“Look,” the Pillar said. “I know you don’t want her to take the pills, not in the future, but I can help her.”
The corpse still stiffened, its arm bent awkwardly. The Pillar needed to break it to get to the pills.
“Aren’t you the one who kept showing up in her dreams? Didn’t you meet her in the Tom Tower? Didn’t you meet her back in Wonderland through the Einstein Blackboard? And after the circus, she said she saw you with the Inklings.” The Pillar talked to Carroll’s corpse as if it were alive. “Didn’t you show up to her in the Inkling, thanking her for saving you from Carolus and telling her she is the Real Alice?”
The corpse didn’t move—and, of course, it didn’t talk back.
The Pillar wasn’t sure what was going on. He didn’t want to break Carroll’s arm to get the pill. But, looking at his watch, he knew he was losing time.
“She will die, Carroll,” Pillar said in Carroll’s ear. “This future is a mistake. What’s done is done. I can go back and save her. She doesn’t have to take the same route again. She just messed up.”
The corpse’s hand stiffened even more.
“It’s not her fault, Carroll,” the Pillar pleaded. “Let me help her. She saved your life, for God’s sake. This is only a possible future. You of all people know this. We can always change the future.” The Pillar was fighting a tear, threatening to break his lifetime record of never crying, not once.
He gently put his hands on Carroll’s chest. “For the sake of the good memories, Carroll,” the Pillar said. “Don’t let what happened after the circus do this to you. She needs to live, find the keys, and save the world. For the sake of your memories with her in the garden in Christ Church.”
Carroll’s stiffened hands loosened a bit at the Pillar’s last words.
“Remember those days, her playing in garden, behind the door to Wonderland? Remember her fluttering hair, the sparkling eyes of a child who loved rabbits and turtles? The girl who hated books without pictures and lived in the minds of every child in the world until this day?”
Carroll’s hands shifted, giving way for the Pillar to reach for the pills. They were still intact inside a plastic bag in his chest pocket. Three pills. Probably preserved in the same manner Carroll’s corpse was.
The Pillar took the pills and tucked them in his back pocket. He grabbed for the shovel and said, “Now it’s time to bury you again, old man.” He sighed. “Not that burying your corpse lessens your presence in the world. Somehow you’re immortal.”
A few minutes later, the job was done. The Pillar rolled his sleeves back down and put on his suit. He walked out toward the motorcycle, counting on the trick of time to get back to Alice as soon as he could.
On his way, he stumbled across a set of tombstones outside the church. He was sure they hadn’t been here in the past, and wondered who was buried next to Carroll. Who died in the future and deserved this burial place?
The Pillar stepped up and read the name on the tombstone. It didn’t make sense, but it hurt reading that name. Someone was going to die in the future, sooner than anyone would have expected.
And boy, what a loss that would be.
Chapter 39
THE FUTURE: OXFORD STREETS
Every now and then I manage to open my eyes for a few seconds. Dying is a horrible thing. I feel I am being stripped of everything I have, one second after the other. My skin, my vision, my hearing, my breath, and my soul. All is withering away.
The fire truck seems to have been flipped on its side, because I see things at a ninety-degree angle. Tom is in an awkward position, firing the water hose in all directions. But it doesn’t look like a lasting plan.
I see the poor dog, now awake, swimming in a pool of puddles, trying to escape the Reds’ bullets. Bandersnatch bullets. If I could just stand up to save the poor thing from the human madness…
But I can’t. My eyelids droop on me again. It’s so hard to flip them open again. It’s like pushing open a gate of steel.
“No!” I hear Tom scream.
My vision is almost gone.
The only thought that comes to me is: What kind of a lame hero am I?
No wonder I’m not leading the revolution in the future. I am assuming I wasn’t up to the mission and failed somehow. That’s why I am hiding beyond the walls of a so-called Wonderland compound. What kind of future scenario is that?
And my children? How can I leave them like this? I am really hoping Tom is right, that there is another version of me, a real responsible mother, who will take care of Tiger and Lily in this life.
As for me, it looks like my time has come. It wasn’t such a bad ride, I tell myself. I saved a few lives, didn’t I? Of course, I killed t
hose on the bus earlier, but like the tattoo on my arm rants: I can’t go back to yesterday because… blah blah blah.
A shot resonates in my head. A scream follows. Adrenalin pumps into my thin veins, a little push that helps me open my eyes again.
“I’m here, Alice,” a voice tells me. It’s the Pillar. “I’ve got the pills.”
“Really?” I cough blood.
“I just need to straighten you up and shelter you somewhere safe, or a stray bullet could end us both.” He begins to pull me into a shaded area. I can’t make out what is what. The world is upside down, skewed and ridiculous.
“That’s it.” He lays me back against the truck’s front, I believe. “Can you swallow it?” He tucks the pill into my mouth.
I shake my head, realizing my jaw has tightened. I can hardly give the pill a kick with my tongue.
“Don’t worry,” the Pillar says, pulling something nearby. “Thankfully, we’re in a fire truck.”
I don’t understand what this means. The pill is melting on my tongue, but I can’t swallow it. What’s worse than that?
“Here.” He pulls the water hose and drowns my face with water. “That’s why I’m thankful.”
The water splashes on my face and the pill slides inside me. I will be forever grateful to the Pillar. Maybe I can return to the past and fix this messed-up future.
But I am not feeling better.
“Alice?” The Pillar begins to shake me violently.
I can’t even feel his hands now. I am withering away. The pills aren’t the answer to saving my life.
Chapter 40
THE PRESENT: THE INKLINGS, OXFORD
“So the pills won’t work?” Mr. Tick put his teacup aside and wiped his thin lips with a napkin.
