Stupidly, my phone slips from my anxious finger. It drops to the floor and scatters in pieces. Looking at it, I feel my jaw hurting from the tension in my body. I have screwed up.
What have I done?
The clock on the wall says it’s 11:02 a.m.
love
“It’s a mad world, sis.” Lorina plucked a stray hair away. A smile captured her lips, as if she’d conquered Rome. “Even if someone knows, who’d believe them?”
“I don’t know.” Edith sighed, frustrated with her sister’s carelessness. “But...”
“But what?” Lorina was done with her eyebrows. “Listen, sis. You need to get yourself together. Actually, you need to go out on a date, but we’ll talk about that later. Right now, we don’t care if anyone knows. Besides, even if someone does? it’s not like we’re alone in this. A lot of people have got our back. Do you think this mirror is a bit foggy?” She wiped the mirror with the tips of her fingers.
Edith said nothing. She only stared at her younger sister. Outsiders usually considered Lorina the airhead, boyfriend-hungry sister, who’d trip wearing her heals in a party. Little did they know that Lorina was the cruelest creature in the world, even compared to Edith.
“So I shouldn’t worry?” Edith said.
“Damn this mirror.” Lorina plowed it against the wall. She looked like a maniac for a second, but then returned to her Barbie-like look again. She stood up, rubbed her middle finger gently onto her lower lip, and approached Edith. “Sis, you can count on me.” She rested her elbows on the kitchen table, facing Edith. “What we have done in the past stays in the past. We’ve done our part. Others will do theirs. Soon it will all be just fine.” She pulled Edith’s hand up and smoothly wiped the blood away. “Is that
“It’s a good knife,” Edith argued. She had no idea why she had kept this knife so long, sharpening it every few months. “You still keep the dress.”
“Ah.” Lorina looked at it. “The housemaid dress. But fair enough. Each of us is keeping a piece of the memory. Blood on the dress. Blood on the knife.” She snickered. “Which reminds me.” Lorina clicked her fingers. “Did you get rid of the girl’s body from last week? The girl from Drury Lane?”
“I did.” Edith snickered, influenced by her sister’s morbidity. Sometimes, Lorina’s ease at doing horrible things was the best way to bond the sisters together.
“Chopped her to pieces?” Lorina raised an eyebrow.
Edith nodded, eyes wide open.
“Good, sis.” Lorina patted her. “Sorry I couldn’t help with the chopping. I had just manicured my fingernails.”
“It’s okay.” Edith rammed her knife through the carrot again. “I love chopping.”
Both girls laughed and forgot about the message.
It was a short-lived moment of happiness, though.
Lorina’s face changed all of a sudden. “Did you hear that?” She cocked her head upward. “I think Mother dropped something upstairs.”
“Mother isn’t in the house, Lorina.” Edith’s face dimmed again.
Both girls stared at the ceiling until they heard something moving upstairs. They lowered their heads and glared at each other. “A stranger is in the house!”
The phone is on, and I message back:
The other phone beeps again. It’s an MP3 file. I click it open.
Playing the file, I realize I am listening to a conversation between my sisters. Strangely enough, I don’t recognize their voices immediately. Only when they start talking about me. What is this? I hear them talking about an “event.” A secret event no one’s supposed to know about? But that’s not the harsh part. I hear them talking about “what happened to me.”
What does that mean?
I feel the haze closing in on me again. My mind is spinning. Then the phone beeps one more time. A message from the Hatter:
On the other hand, the Pillar keeps buzzing my personal phone. Too many things happen at one. The clock on the wall says it’s 11:04 a.m. A surging sting rushes through my body. Hate. Anger. Insanity.
I tuck the gloves and fan in my back pockets of my jeans. I have a feeling I will need them later.
I open the door and dash down the stairs. Since the Hatter can see and record everything around me, I assume he is nearby. But I can’t waste time looking for him. I don’t even know what he looks like exactly. I do this to save the children—and to confront my sisters.
Without hesitation, Edith waves a glinting knife in my direction. It’s as if she has seen a ghost. The look in her eyes suggests she wouldn’t hesitate killing me. How is this possible? Isn’t she my sister?
Still stiffened by the heaviness of the moment, I turn and look at Lorina. Maybe my Barbie girl sister will be kinder to me. But she isn’t. She looks upon me with pursed lips, as if I am unworthy of her gesture.
Previously I knew my sister rather mocked my insanity and blamed me for killing my classmates. I have been thinking about it for many a night in my cell: what have I done to them that made them hate me this much?
“Look what the cat dragged in.” Lorina almost sings the words, as if she is Waltraud making fun of me in the asylum.
“I think we should get rid of her.” Edith’s face is a bubble of hatred and evil.
“Kill her, you mean?” Lorina asks.
“Chop her like carrots and then kill her.” Edith snickers.
I can’t believe my ears. I must be insane—
“What have you done to me?” The words escape my mouth ever so slowly. “I heard you talk about me. What is this event you’re talking about?”
Then I see the dress hung on the wall behind them. I shouldn’t be wasting my time asking about me now. I shouldn’t be this selfish. My priority should be to get the dress and stop the bomb. But I can’t help it.
“You heard us talk. About the Event? How?” Edith grimaces, and her chubby cheeks bubble out. I watch her face redden. Her anger leaves me paralyzed in my place. It’s so imminent I forget I need an answer to my question.
“How are you not in the asylum?” Edith says, as she hurries toward me with the knife, about to stab me.
It takes me a moment to realize that my sister is about to kill me. But it also helps that I don’t really remember her. We don’t have anything in common. No childhood memories. No secrets shared. Not even fights. In the back of my mind, she doesn’t mean anything to me.
I duck, and let Edith swing her knife and slice the thin air atop of me. Then I kick her sideways in the knees. Nonsensical jujitsu style. My fingers tighten together and my hand is straight as a rod.
Edith trips and falls on her face. Her head bangs against the foot of the stairs. She is aching. Cursing me. There is a moment when I want to lend her a hand and apologize, but I don’t do it. She tried to stab me. She tried to freakin’ stab me.
I close my eyes for a fraction of a second and breathe in. This is the first time my None Fu skills actually work. I read in the book that I should be yelling “yeehaa” or something while fighting. They call it an “anchor call.” A word so strong to you that it gives you strength. The only word that strong to me is “Jack.” But I can’t even begin thinking about him, or I’ll start crying. I figure I can do without that word.
With my eyes still closed, I see the book’s pages flap before me. Page 82. Line 12. It reads: “
”
Following the book’s instructions, opening my eyes, I kneel down and hit Edith with the back of my elbow, making sure her curses turn to moans then a hissing snore.
“You know about None Fu?” I grimace, waving my knife, eyes on the dress behind her. I don’t know why, but looking at the dress intensifies my dizziness. I look away, for now.
Lorina lifts her chin and chews on the strawberry. “Know about it?” She stretches her arms and knuckles her slim fingers. “I have a black belt in None Fu, little doll.” She suddenly runs across the hall like an acrobat in a circus. She runs backward then somersaults, landing on the couch. She arches her body in some martial arts position, stretching out her hands and calling the fight. “Let’s play.”
My eyes are so wide open they hurt. I can’t believe this is happening.
Knowing the Hatter must be watching me somehow, I dart into the open kitchen and pick up the housemaid’s dress. I wrap it around my waist then check the watch. It’s exactly 11:06 a.m. I’ve done it.
My phone beeps instantly. Another message:
I look around for some sort of camera or something. How does the Hatter see all of this?
But I have no time.
Lorina is already in my face. She kick-boxes me so hard my back hits the refrigerator. My head buzzes like a tuning fork. I feel like I want to just faint away from all this madness, sliding against the refrigerator door, down to the floor, deep into an ocean of numbness.
“Lorina one, Alice none!” My None Fu sister sets the score.
I arch my body, stretching my hands and legs into another position I have been training for in my cell. It looks silly, like in a badly dubbed seventies Asian movie. But it should work out. I stare Lorina in the eyes.
“
“Can you say
“Lorina two, Alice none!” Lorina rubs something off her dress. It’s ridiculous how much she is enjoying this.
“Look.” I stand up again. “I don’t need this. I came here to get something. I think I should leave now.”
“I’m you sister, Lorina,” I say. “Why would you want to do this to me? Please.”
“You shouldn’t have left the asylum.” She lashes out her other hand at me.
This time, I’ve had it.
I don’t duck, but face her instead. I crisscross my hand with hers as if they are swords, and then pull the pan from the table and swoosh it across her pretty face.
“If you don’t shut up, I will omelet your pretty Barbie face.” I don’t even know where these words come from.
Lorina glares in disbelief. I have the feeling she needs to check her face in the mirror, but I don’t wait that long before I swoosh her face with the pan in the other direction.
“The hell with None Fu,” I shout. “Let’s do this the stay-at-home mums style.” Then I kick her in the knees.