Circus Page 16

  I do. I loosen my grip, and Lorina slumps to the floor.

  But I don’t even bother. Cleaning tools?

  “Yes, Alice.” Edith glares at me. “You were homeless. You were mad. You thought you came from Wonderland. You told us about that stupid circus. And we made fun of you as a kid. And guess what, you were also the maid!”

  Both of them laugh at me again.

  “That’s why you loved your buckets, soaps, and brooms.” Lorina’s voice is sour, but challenging. “Along with your crazy Alice books. You came to us in that dress you wore. Mum wanted to make you one of our sisters, but we insisted you stay the maid you probably were from wherever you came from. Mary Ann the maid.”

  Tears stream down my cheeks, but I try to forget about them. Because my childhood couldn’t have been such a wreck. My existence, mad or not, must have a reason. A noble cause.

  I kneel down and look for that damn thing in the buckets. What is it? Please make it something that brings back some of my dignity, my sanity.

  And there it is, right in front of me.

  I knew it.

  I knew that my existence in this world must have a reason.

  Chapter 71

  Alice Wonder's house, 7 Folly Bridge, Oxford

  Time remaining: 39 minutes

  I am staring at a golden key that looks exactly like the one Lewis Carroll gave me in the Tom Tower dream.

  One of the six keys to Wonderland. The Six Impossible Keys.

  Why I hid it here, I can’t remember. All I know is that it’s one of the six keys, and that as a child I hid this one here, for one reason or another. It meant the world to me, and was worth the humiliation I went through.

  “What did you find?” Lorina demands.

  I push her hand away.

  Edith swings and misses my head as I duck an inch, or less. Time for some None Fu again.

  I pull Edith’s arms and swing her whole body as if she were my own baseball bat against the wall. She sticks like a fat piece of fresh meat for a moment, her eyes rolling back, then slides down into my buckets.

  Lorina surprises me with a kick in the back.

  “Take this, $%$#@!” she shouts.

  I find my body plastered against the wall. She kicks me once again in my lower back and I drop to my knees, drooling.

  How come this Barbie doll is that strong?

  When I turn to face her, I see she has unfolded her fan again. For the first time I notice how edgy it is. It could cut like a knife.

  She throws it at me; it swirls and slices through the air before it reaches me, neck level.

  I find myself catching it with a firm grip, right at a spot without blades.

  “Learned a lot in your None Fu training, huh,” Lorina says.

  I say nothing to her, but threaten to throw the fan back at her while running in her direction. Lorina thinks I am going to try to cut her with the fan’s blades, but I am not a killer. I won’t stain my hands with the blood of scumbag bullies.

  I keep treading with fiery eyes, happy to see the horror in hers. I keep pushing her until she falls backward into the cage through the opening where they wanted to trap me a while ago.

  I watch her trip backward and lock her inside.

  “How does it feel standing inside the circus now?” I say. “How does it feel to be the clown?”

  Lorina starts pleading and playing good sister with me, like last time. Thankfully, I have learned my lesson. I won’t be fooled.

  I stare at the key in my palm and smile. Now I have two keys. I think this is my real journey. To collect the Six Impossible Keys to Wonderland—for what reasons, or cause, I have no idea.

  But just when I think I have it all under control, I sense someone standing behind me. I turn to face them, thinking it will be Edith.

  But it’s not.

  It’s a man with a long hat, and teacups dangling from his black tuxedo.

  Chapter 73

  Alice Wonder's house, 7 Folly Bridge, Oxford

  Time remaining: 22 minutes

  “I’ve been waiting for this moment,” the Hatter says, although I can’t see his face—he wears a funny mask. Not so funny, really, since it’s a clown’s mask.

  “Why show yourself now?” I grip my key harder, feeling it has to do something with it.

  “Because you did like I planned,” he says. “To the letter.”

  “I don’t understand,” I say. “You made me think I am chasing a rabbit, leading from place to place, so I could remember my past. What’s in it for you?”

  “A lot,” he says. “But first let’s look into what happened. They call it the Rabbit Hole, a scientific term, I believe?”

  The memory of me sitting in the psychiatry office in the asylum returns. That man in the dark with the smoking pipe telling me I am insane, that I am just a crippled girl living in my own imagination to escape the horrors that happened to me.

  I remember he did tell me about the Rabbit Hole, one of the methods to push a patient’s imagination with their backs against the wall until they remembered what they were trying to forget.

  “I had to go through all these puzzles, so I can tickle your memory,” the Hatter says. “You’d been in the asylum for so long and hadn’t remembered anything yet, Alice. Time was running out, and I needed you to at least remember one part of your past. A part that interests me the most.”

  “My childhood?” I ask.

  He says nothing. I think his clown mask is trying to forge a smile. A dark one.

  “Ah,” I say. “I get it. You weren’t after my memories. Not really. You were after...”

  “This.” He pulls my hand and snatches the key from it in one move. “The first key in six, so I can open the doors to Wonderland again.”

  How foolish am I? Really!

  “I don’t care about you at all,” the Hatter says. “I only care about the keys, which I believe Carroll hid with you, and then you hid them in separate places in this real world. Let’s say it wasn’t hard getting this one.”

  I realize this Hatter is much stronger than me. I can’t get this key back. But I also realize he doesn’t know Lewis gave me a key before, in the Tom Tower dream. So, if it’s any consolation, and even if he finds the next four keys, I will always have one he doesn’t know exists.

  “I am going to leave now,” he says. “Thank you for your cooperation.”

  “What makes you think I won’t stop you?” I step forward.

  “Because you still have a rabbit to catch.” He grins. “Haven’t you seen the TV? The world is in a panic because of a tiny rabbit.”

  “Because you made them, and me, think there is a bomb inside.”

  “Who said that isn’t true?” He pulls off his hat and then a rabbit from underneath, the one ticking with the bomb. “Please take it,” he says. “Figure a way to stop the bomb. You have about eighteen minutes to do that.”

  I hug the rabbit in my arms and pat it gently. Poor thing, pushed into a mad world of Wonderlanders.

  “And by the way,” the Hatter says. “I wanted to make this as exciting a finale as possible, so I called the police. They are surrounding the house. People are out there everywhere. They all demand the rabbit be killed—choked, or drowned in the river to get rid of the bomb.”

  “Why would you do that?” My mouth is agape.

  “Why wouldn’t I? What’s the point of life if there isn’t enough madness?” he says. “See you later, Alice. For now, you’re stuck between exploding with the poor rabbit in your arms or giving it away to the people outside so they can kill it themselves. Talk about a paradox.”

  Chapter 74

  Alice Wonder's house, 7 Folly Bridge, Oxford

  Time remaining: 14 minutes

  Outside, the police point their guns at me.

  Everywhere around me there is some kind of microphone or a news reporter. Behind them, hordes of people boo at me.

  “Get rid of the rabbit!”

  “Kill it!”

  “She is t
he one who let the rabbit loose!”

  Slowly, I step forward as the police demand I hand them the rabbit.

  “Do you have a bomb expert who may know how to defuse the bomb?” I ask politely, well aware my maid’s dress and the blood on my face isn’t really helping my image.

  “We don’t need a bomb squad,” says the lanky officer I saw in the Six O’clock Circus. “We’ll drown it in the river and let it explode in there.”

  “But what about the rabbit?”

  “You’re not going to pull that ‘animal rights’ crap on us again, are you?” another officer says. “We know who you are, you and that imposter, Professor Carter Pillar. You’ve both escaped the asylum.”

  “She is mad!” an old woman yells from the crowd.

  Like always, I wonder who is mad here. Am I such a silly, unreasonable girl because I want to save a rabbit as much as I want to save myself?

  “Hand me the rabbit, Alice,” a familiar voice says. It’s Inspector Dormouse, wide awake now. “I know who you are now. We got the memo. Let’s make this easier on everyone. Hand the rabbit over and let us escort you back to the asylum. You’re not well, young lady.”

  I don’t move, patting the scared rabbit and hugging it closer to my chest. I can feel its escalating heartbeat.

  For a moment, I realize the scope of what I have been through for two days. This Hatter, not only did he push me to remember the circus to get to the key, he also managed to raise my uneasiness with the world around me. Looking at the police, the reporters, and the crowd, I can’t overlook the fact that they are the descendants of those who created the circus and used the mentally ill as a form of entertainment.

  The idea confuses me.

  Am I supposed to take the Wonderland Monsters’ side? If not, then give me one reason why I should keep saving a human life every day.

  “Pillar!” I shout. “Where are you?”

  It’s funny, yet sad, how he is always my last resort. With all the madness surrounding me, I prefer his madness the most.

  “The Pillar has been sent back to the asylum, Alice,” Inspector Dormouse tells me. “He can’t help you. Give back the rabbit. I think you only have three minutes left. Give it to us and we’ll drown it in the river. And we’ll all be safe.”

  The world is such a useless place, that’s all I can think of now. It’s full of hypocrites, liars, and selfish people. And even if I’m dramatizing things, I realize I prefer to go back to the asylum. At least I know who is who in there.

  But first, and since I am a mad girl on national TV, I need to do one last crazy thing.

  I run through the cops with the rabbit in my arms, neglecting all the panic and shouting around me. I run away with the rabbit, which I am not going to hand over or drown in the water.

  I don’t know what will happen to both of us. But I feel we’re both the same in this world. We’re both overwhelmed by human cruelty—and stupidity—in this mad world. I hug tighter and run away with it.

  And before I know it, I hear the explosion.

  Chapter 75

  Buckingham Palace, London

  “Hoooraaay!”

  Tom Truckle was overwhelmed by the hailing crowd staring at the screen. They all stood up, clinking glasses and smiling and congratulating each other, as if celebrating an independence day.

  Tom stood up, pretending to be as enthusiastic, unable to believe what he’d just seen.

  Did he just watch Alice Wonder explode with that rabbit on live TV?

  It seemed like it.

  And it seemed normal, in a very abnormal way, to have all those lunatic guests of the Queen hail the explosion and the madness it caused. But why were people in the streets happy about Alice’s explosion?

  Families congratulated each other and let out sighs of relief, as did the police officers and reporters. It seemed like Alice’s death was the best thing that had happened to them in their lives. Everyone was happy the bomb went off on the poor mad girl who’d just escaped the asylum. As long as it didn’t hurt them, it was just okay.

  “And this, my fellow loons”—the Queen of England snickered in the microphone—“is just a small example of the kinds of madness we’ll bestow on this world we live in.”

  Was that the plan? To drive the world mad, really?

  “Enjoy this hilarious scene for a while,” the Queen said. “And then I will tell you about the ultimate plan. I will tell you about the real Wonderland Wars!” she said as if she were Hitler, brought back from the grave and wearing a wig.

  Chapter 76

  Psychiatry, Radcliffe Lunatic Asylum

  I am back were it all started, in that awful dark room with that awful doctor. I am lying on the couch, and my leg feels numb.

  “So that’s all that happened?” he asks.

  “More or less,” I reply. “It was a hectic adventure. The most nonsensical of all.”

  “And how did you survive the explosion?”

  “It turned out the Pillar managed to escape his cell—of course, since when could anyone keep him locked inside?” I say. “He created this hoax of an explosion to drive people away from me, and also to give them what they wanted. A relief that it was all over.”

  “And the rabbit?”

  “It didn’t explode. This whole rabbit bomb was a hoax, too. The Hatter made it swallow a flashing device to fool me.”

  “So all he really wanted from you was the key,” he says, skeptically, as usual.

  “I believe so,” I say. “He also wanted to mess with my head for some reason.”

  “Do you have any idea what the key will do?”

  “I suppose it’s one of six keys to go back to Wonderland.” I don’t tell him I have a key in my cell. I don’t trust him that much.

  “Hmm...” I hear him write something down.

  “Hmm... what?”

  “Nothing,” he says. “I think your condition is worsening, Alice. I mean, look at your story. It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t even have a context. It’s contradictory. And yet you have not come back to your senses.”

  “Madness doesn’t make sense. And it’s contradictory.”

  “So you finally admit your madness?”

  “Not that madness,” I say. “The other madness.”

  “There are two kinds of madness now?” He really doesn’t like this conversation.

  “Yes, of course. There is that loony-toony bonkers madness where you’re wrapped up in a straitjacket and locked inside a room.”

  “And the other madness?”

  “It’s all out there in the world you live in, doctor,” I say. “I mean, you may think it’s not madness, only because you’re used to it. But it surely is all messed up.”

  “Uh-huh.” He takes a deep breath. “Look, Alice. I have no idea where to take the therapy from here. All I know is that I will prescribe you more Lullaby pills, and, sorry to say, this time I prefer you go back to the Mush Room. A few shock sessions might stir some sort of progress.”

  I purse my lips for a while, contemplating if the shock therapy still scares me. I think it doesn’t. It’s just pain. And trust me, there are much worse things in this life than pain. “Tell me, doctor,” I say, “do you at least believe what I said about the circus, the Invisible Plague?”

  “I know for a fact it’s real,” he says. “Sadly, many mentally ill have been wrongfully treated in the past. What I don’t believe is that you time-traveled to witness it with your own eyes, let alone the patients were all Wonderlanders.”

  “But let’s say you believe,” I say. “What would you do? I mean, would you take the people’s side or the mentally ill’s side?”

  The doctor stays silent for a long time, then he says something that shocks me: “To a degree, we’re all mentally ill, Alice. It’s just that on a scale of one to ten, you’re infinity in your illness. Infinity means straitjacket in an isolated cell.”

  Chapter 77

  Alice’s cell, Radcliffe Lunatic Asylum

  I can’t take my
eyes off Waltraud as she ushers me into my cell. I want to tell her that I saw her in the circus, but I am sure she will deny it, and then I wouldn’t know where to take the conversation from there.

  I watch her lock me up. Today she says nothing. She doesn’t mock or make fun of me. I wonder why.

  “Rest the night,” she says. “Tomorrow, you’re first on my shock therapy list. And you know how good of a customer you are to me.”

  “I know,” I say behind bars. “I assume I am as good as those you tortured in the circus?”

  She takes a moment to look at me, but she doesn’t seem to grasp any of it. “I guess that’s one of your loony stories again. A circus? Is that part of the Alice Underground book?”

  “Nah.” I wave it off. “It’s nothing.”

  I could ask her if she saw me on the news, running away with a rabbit in my hand, but I know she usually denies I was on the news.

  I watch her walk away, and sit down next to my Tiger Lily. It’s weird how I feel at home. I am sorry, but I really missed my cell.

  Chapter 78

  Alice’s cell, Radcliffe Lunatic Asylum

  Sometime around midnight, I hear a knock on my door. I stand up and stare at whoever it is behind the bars. I am sure I won’t panic if it turns out to be the Cheshire disguised as Ogier again. I have seen my share of spooks lately.

  But it’s not the Cheshire. It’s Margaret Kent.

  “I am not dreaming, am I?” I say to her.

  “Nor are you hallucinating,” she says, wearing her expensive jewelry and dress.

  “That’s hard to swallow,” I reply. “Because why in the world would you visit me, Duchess?”

  “It’s an unofficial visit, Alice—or whoever you really are.” She chews on the words. It’s apparent that she is disgusted by the asylum. “I have a message for you.”

  “From whom?”

  “From the Queen of England.”

  “Her majesty?” I say it in an ironic way, still wondering if this is really happening.