Wonder (Insanity Book 5) Page 14

  “Thinking she was a regular girl doing good in the world.”

  “And letting her think she is Alice?”

  “We’re all delusional.” Fabiola didn’t mind her blunt deflations. “If it serves the good cause, so be it.”

  “And now you want her to die in her past, even though you know she may change and become good in the future? Aren’t humans always redeemable? What about absolution?”

  “Don’t feed me the words I fed the world when I was in the Vatican,” Fabiola said. “Evil has to be cut from its roots.”

  “Well, she still has a chance to live,” Mrs. Tock teased her.

  “How so?” Fabiola stood up.

  “She found the Pillar.”

  “The Pillar? The day of the accident?”

  “Yes.”

  “The Pillar was useless that day,” Fabiola said. “His memory was wiped out a year earlier at the time.”

  “Is that so?” Mr. Tick lowered his newspaper. “I don’t quite remember it, Mrs. Tock.”

  “That’s because we’ve got a lot of things to remember. Hundreds of thousands of years of memory mess up our memories.”

  “What happened to him?” Mr. Tick scratched his cantaloupe head.

  “I think someone secretly fed him a string of Lullaby pills to put him to rest.” Mrs. Tock scratched her head as well, hoping to scratch a memory out of it. “I wonder who.”

  “Maybe if you scratch my head you will remember,” Mr. Tick offered.

  “Thanks, dear husband, for allowing me to scratch your head,” Mrs. Tock said. “But I’m afraid if I scratch it you’d lose one of your hairies, and blame it on me.”

  “Wise woman,” Mr. Tick said. “Remind me again, why did I marry you?”

  “That was a long time ago.” She sighed. “I don’t even remember when.”

  “Not even me,” he said. “But I think I remember a big bang rocking this world that day.”

  “That’d be our wedding bells, Mr. Tick.” Mrs. Tock patted him, turning back to Fabiola. “So anyways, even though Alice found the Pillar, she can’t make it, right?”

  “I don’t think so,” Fabiola said. “At this point the Pillar hardly remembered anything.”

  “I’m disappointed. I really wanted to see the Real Alice live,” Mrs. Tock said. “I still can’t understand who was able to fool the Pillar into swallowing Lullaby pills. This has to be someone as devious as devils.”

  “It was me,” Fabiola said. “I had to do it.”

  Chapter 68

  THE PAST: OXFORD UNIVERSITY

  For a whole hour I keep pushing the Pillar to the edges. Until something happens. A headache so severe he drops to the floor, just like Lewis Carroll did a million times. I wonder if this is the moment when another Carolus surfaces out of the Pillar.

  But it doesn’t happen that way.

  “I think I remember something. But I’m not sure what.”

  “I can help you remember more.” I help him stand up. “Does Fabiola ring a bell?”

  “The nun from the Vatican?”

  “The White Queen, actually.”

  “Don’t be silly,” the Pillar says. “Next thing you’ll tell me the Queen of England is the Queen of Hearts.”

  “It hasn’t happened yet, but yes, she will be.”

  The Pillar stops then ruffles his hair. He hasn’t yet acquired a hat at this point.

  “How about you will kill twelve people in the next two years?”

  He laughs, adjust his glasses, and says, “Me?” He raises an eyebrow. “I don’t even know how to use a gun.”

  “Of course you do. Someone has wiped out your memory or something. I can’t figure it out.”

  “I can shoot a gun?” He thinks it’s cool. “I prefer a whip, like Indy.”

  “Stop it!” I say. “You’re much more…”

  “Much more what?”

  I don’t tell him the crazy killer he is going to become. I shouldn’t have told him about the twelve men as well. What if he has a chance to become a different person?

  “Oh.” He jumps on his desk with his hookah hose in one hand. “I will kill them with this.”

  Some things never change. I am starting to worry Mrs. Tock is right. I will not be able to change anything.

  “A brilliant idea.” He examines his hookah. “I’ve always thought it could be a weapon. But I wouldn’t tell anyone. They’d think I’m weird.”

  “How about love?” I ask him. “You remember loving Fabiola?”

  “Who wants to love a nun in the Vatican?” he says. “Is that even legal?” Then his eyes glitter. “I’m really going to be that bad? Seducing a nun?”

  “Forget about it.” I rest my hands on my hips.

  “What else do you know about me?”

  This is when I nail it. “The Executioner.” The most suppressed memories will always surface when tickled long enough.

  The Pillar drops the hookah. His eyes are gleaming.

  I take advantage of the moment and grip his hands. I pull off the gloves and point at his missing fingers. “Remember this?” It’s odd that I don’t even know what really happened to him. I was just told about the Pillar’s missing fingers by Fabiola last week. She refused to tell me the whole story, though.

  The Pillar shrugs. The shrug turns into inanimate features. Then into a darker part of him, not so much like in the future, but noticeable.

  “I remember something,” he says. “Can’t fully remember it.” He pulls off his glasses and throws them on the desk. “It hurts so much, though.”

  “I’m sorry to do this to you, but I need your help.”

  “I need to kill the Executioner, don’t I?”

  I nod.

  “Why?”

  “I’m not sure, but you may have been his child slave in some drug cartel in the past. Whether it was in Wonderland or the real world, I don’t know.”

  “So Wonderland is real?” He sits back.

  “It is.”

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “Why? You seem to have persuaded half of the girls in Oxford it is.”

  “A hope. A child’s wish. Reality is a bit scary. And I’m a Wonderlander?”

  “Yes. The Pillar himself.”

  “That whack atop a mushroom.”

  “If you want to call yourself names, yes.”

  “Wait.” He closes his eyes. “Why do I remember a book?”

  “A book?”

  “A book by Lewis Carroll.” He stands up again and starts to rummage through his wall-long library, dropping books left and right. “If you’re from the future you should know what I am searching for.”

  “I’m not sure. What book?”

  “This!” He shows it to me. “Alice’s Adventures Under Ground.”

  I am about to shriek. It’s the same book he showed me in the future, the first time I met him.

  “One of the few original copies in the world,” the Pillar says. “Just remembered now when you told me. Why do I remember it now?”

  I watch the dark smile on the Pillar’s face. A nerdy professor about to turn into a madman and kill twelve people. He is staring at the same book that drove him mad. This time, I really need to sit down and contemplate. I realized I’ve just triggered the Pillar’s madness.

  Mrs. Tock is definitely right. The future can’t be changed. It will always find a way.

  Chapter 69

  THE PRESENT: THE DEPARTMENT OF INSANITY, HA HA STREET, LONDON

  Inspector Dormouse drank his fifth coffee in the last hour. Never had he felt the urge to stay awake like today. Since last week’s incidents with the mad Carolus, he’d begun to realize that sleeping wasn’t going to help him at his job. He needed to stay alert. Something was going on in this world. Something he needed to figure out.

  He’d been tracing Alice and Pillar’s past through the documents on his desk. Never mind they had fooled him into thinking she was a girl called Amy Watson and he was an animal rights activist called Petmaster. He’
d figured out they were frauds last week. He’d also figured out they were mad and connected to some mysterious Wonderland War. Whatever that meant.

  After dozing off again, Inspector Dormouse snapped awake and walked to the coffee machine, gulping himself another shot of caffeine. Staying awake was hard work, really. A pillow and a cushiony bed would be heaven right now.

  But he had to get a grip of himself. He was about to discover something.

  And there it was, right in front of him, in the Pillar’s profile.

  The controversial professor had killed twelve people. Why twelve? Who were they?

  Inspector Dormouse sat sipping his coffee, flipping pages in the Pillar’s profile. It mentioned the professor pleading insanity and ending up in Radcliffe Asylum. Inspector Dormouse wondered if that was what it was all about. The Pillar had killed those people to plead insanity in court and end up near this girl Alice for some reason.

  But why kill? Weren’t there easier ways to sneak into an asylum?

  Flipping pages, he couldn’t get the answer. Not right away. Not until he came about the victims’ names and the locations of death. That was when the inspector had his suspicions. Could it be?

  Inspector Dormouse tapped the file and said, “So that’s why you killed them, professor.” And before he could follow up with a conclusion, the inspector fell asleep again. Coffee definitely wasn’t the answer for consciousness.

  Chapter 70

  THE PAST: AN ALLEY IN OXFORD

  Despite the Pillar’s dilemma with remembering the past, he does in fact know Jack’s whereabouts. Turns out Jack is a well-known young hustler all over Oxford and London. Not in the ways I imagined, though. Jack is a card player of distinctive qualities.

  I stand with the Pillar, peeking into an alley from the edges of a garbage can, watching Jack. He sits among a bunch of older men playing cards on the back of an abandoned vehicle.

  “Five pounds for the next round.” Jack bites on the tip of a matchstick, mocking the muscled man before him.

  “Ten pounds,” the man offers. “If I win this round of blackjack, I get ten pounds.”

  “And if I win?” Jack inquires.

  “You get five.”

  “What kind of logic is that?”

  “The logic of muscles.” The man stretches out his broad torso. His gargoyle friends back him up with a laugh behind folded arms.

  Jack is really thin. He looks mischievous and slick, but he wouldn’t have a chance in a fight.

  “I have a better idea,” Jack says. “If I win, I take all of your clothes.”

  “What did you just say?” the man growled.

  “In exchange, you get to beat the bonkers out of me if I lose.” Jack winks. “I swear I won’t file charges.”

  “Who bets this way?” The man frowns.

  “A boy who’s sure he is going to win.”

  “Are you even aware of what you will become if we beat you? You’d be lying flat on the floor.”

  “Just like this card on the table?” Jack lays down his first card.

  “Rethink this, Jack,” the man says. “You’ve got all those fluffy girls liking you back in school. They won’t like you with a bruise for a nose and hole for an eye.”

  “Truth is, I need the money,” Jack says. “And your heavy metal cha cha cha clothes look like they’re worth a hundred pounds.”

  The semi-nerdy Pillar whispers in my ear, “This Jack is badass. Better than Indy.”

  I try not to roll my eyes. They hurt from doing this too much already. “Are we going to let him do this to himself?” I ask the Pillar. “Jack may need help.”

  “Help him if you want. I’m staying here,” says a cowardly Pillar. “Besides, I think he is going to win.”

  But the Pillar is wrong. Whatever version of blackjack they’re playing, Jack is losing fast. The muscular men roar with laughter and start knuckling their fingers.

  “Here is your ten pounds.” Jack grins.

  “What?” the man says.

  “You said you’d take ten if you won.”

  “No, that was the first deal. Then you said we could beat you if you lose.”

  “Who said that?” Jack says. “You guys must be dreaming.”

  “What? Are you calling us mad?”

  “Think of it. Why would I play cards for you to beat me when you can just beat me whenever you want? You just misunderstood me.”

  The muscular men scratch their temples, thinking it over. “So we don’t need to win to beat you?”

  “Right on.”

  “Then no problem. Let’s beat him up, boys.”

  “But hey.” Jack raises his hands. “That’s not a fair fight. And as strong and muscular as you are, you surely want a fair fight. You wouldn’t brag about squashing a cockroach, right? It’s just not good manners.”

  They scratch their heads again. “So what do you suggest we do?”

  “I’ll fight one man at a time.”

  “Deal.” The man takes off his jacket, his muscles spilling over on the sides. “I’ll go first.”

  “Hey,” Jack says. “Come on. Look at you. You’re twice my age, four times my size, six times my weight. In fact, you’re the size of my whole family.”

  “So what now, Jack?”

  “I can’t fight you all at once. It’s like you squishing a rat.”

  “Then how am I going to beat you, Jack?” The man starts to lose patience.

  “I suggest I fight with just your arms first.” He raps the man’s arms. “Just about the right size. Your arms against the whole me.”

  “And where do you suggest the rest of me goes?”

  “I don’t know.” Jack shakes his shoulders. “That’s your problem. You could cut off your arm or something.”

  The man grunts, stepping forward.

  “Okay, bad joke.” Jack shrugs. “I have a better idea. Just hear me out.”

  “Last chance.”

  “You wouldn’t be able to move your arm if it wasn’t for your brain, right?”

  “Come again?”

  “The brain sends signals to an arm for it to move and punch someone. You know that, right?”

  “Is that true?” the man asks his buddies.

  They shake their shoulders. “How would we know?”

  “It’s true. Science, they call it,” Jack explains.

  “So what’s the point?”

  “The point is your arm wouldn’t work without your brain. But your brain works without your arm.”

  “And?”

  “Let’s fight brain to brain.”

  “Why didn’t you say so?” The man laughs. “You want us to fight like bulls. Come here, Jack. I’ll crash your skull for giggles.”

  “Didn’t quite mean that,” Jack protests. “People usually use their brains, not fight with them.”

  “Now you’re really losing me.”

  “I mean to play brain to brain. We need to simply go play cards again. See who wins, have this talk all over again, realize fights are useless, then play again.”

  The man’s head whizzes around. “What?”

  That’s when Jack pulls out a set of cards and flicks them one after the other in their faces. It seems childish at first, until I realize the cards are covered with a thick substance that sticks to their faces. When they try to pull it off, it snaps at their skins.

  The men begin to roar.

  Jack runs out of the alley. It happens so fast I don’t have a chance to call after him. When I’m about to, I see Jack jumping into the back of a car filled with girls.

  And who do you think is driving it?

  Lorina Wonder.

  Chapter 71

  ”You really like this boy,” the Pillar comments behind me.

  I watch Lorina’s car drive away, and say nothing.

  “Look,” the Pillar says. “You came to me to ask me what to do with Jack. If you’re really from the future, I suggest you let him go.”

  “You think so?”

  “I do
.” He adjusts his glasses. “Better look for your Wonder, bring yourself home while I try to remember everything about myself.”

  I glance one last time at the empty street where Lorina’s car once stood. Maybe he is right. “I think you’re right, Pillar.”

  “See?” He is proud of himself.

  “Logically, I should be the Bad Alice right now, looking for a bus full of students. But I’m not. I feel fine. Maybe I’ve been cured of my darkness.”

  “I’m not sure I’m following. But I’m with you all the way.”

  “Actually, it’s you who I should thank.” I pat him on the shoulder.

  “Me?”

  “You’re the one who helped me become a better person in the future. You—”

  “Stop!” the Pillar says. “Don’t spoil the future for me. I already know I will kill twelve people.”

  “Maybe you know it for a reason. So you can prevent it.”

  “You think so?” He raises an eyebrow. But then his face dims. “No, I don’t think so. I think I’m a badass, ruthless killer. I need to kill the Executioner.”

  “Shouldn’t you remember why you want to kill him first?”

  “I’m sure it’ll all come to me.” He taps the book in his hands. “So you want to eat ice cream?”

  “Ice cream?” I try not to laugh. “You like ice cream?”

  “Yes.” He lowers his head and whispers, “It helps me with my hookah cravings. I think I’m addicted to smoke.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Come on, Alice of Wonderland,” he chirps. “Let me introduce you to the greatest invention of all time.”

  “Which is?”

  “Licking ice cream. Not ice cream, but the act of licking it. Hazelnut and chocolate ice cream cones.”

  “I’ll pass. I need to find my Wonder.”

  “Ah, that. What could it be? I wonder?”

  I wheeze out half a laugh. “Even if I don’t find it, I’m good. Maybe the Bad Alice isn’t supposed to return to the present. I saved Jack. That’s what matters.”

  “If you say so. It really confused me how you were going to kill him in the first place. Nothing in the events of this day suggests that.”