“This is when I usually disappear,” Nobody says and starts to frantically pedal away.
“You’re going to let him leave with the key?” the Pillar says.
It’s times like these when I don’t know what to do with him exactly. The kids shouting my name in the air distracts me from staring back at the Pillar. I turn and walk in their direction, smiling like a kid myself.
Again, it’s funny how little things, like a child’s smile, make all the sense in this world of continuous nonsense. Even the Keys to Wonderland don’t matter much all of a sudden.
“Hey, Nobody!” the Pillar yells. “You still have my key.”
“Who’re you talking to?” Nobody twists his head back, mocking the Pillar. “There is nobody on this bicycle.”
I actually admire this comeback as the chopper lands before me. The spiraling wind feels refreshing all of a sudden.
“Then I assume nobody is going to fall off the bicycle now.” I hear the Pillar suck on his cigar behind me, calling out for the man on a bicycle.
I hear Nobody’s bicycle swerve and fall to the ground.
“Ouch!” Nobody wails on the desert floor.
I turn to look.
“I think I heard nobody say ouch.” The Pillar strolls casually toward Nobody—which is a boggling sentence, in and of itself.
I suddenly realize the absurdness of a bicycle in the desert. But I am not going to stir my head around that. I’ve seen madder things in my short life.
The Pillar stands over Nobody and demands the key under the threat of the gun he is pointing at him.
I sense something bad is going to happen. I turn back to the kids and distract them so they don’t look.
When Nobody argues he won’t give it back, the Pillar shoots his leg. This search for the cure is getting bloodier by the minute.
But it works, and the Pillar gets the key back—my key!
“Don’t kill me, please,” Nobody begs.
“Only if you tell me the last missing piece of the puzzle,” the Pillar says. “Now that we know the plague was cooked by this Scientist, it’s time to tell us who ordered it in the first place.”
“I thought you were sure it was Lewis Carroll,” I interfere from the distance. “Isn’t he the Wonderland Monster who’s behind this?” Of course, I still have my doubts about Lewis being a monster, but I haven’t been sure of anything for a while.
“Who is it?” The Pillar lowers his gun toward Nobody, neglecting me.
“Carolus Ludovicus!” Nobody finally speaks.
This is the moment a whirlwind sweeps through the desert, almost knocking me off the earth.
When it slows down, I see the Pillar is still pointing his gun. Even from this far, I can see the worried look on his face.
Carolus Ludovicus?
The name sounds villainous. Another drug lord from around here? Then what about this Lewis Carroll walking the streets of London?
“You understand now when I told you the plague is incurable?” Nobody tells the Pillar.
The Pillar says nothing, turns around, shoots the man dead without looking, and walks toward me.
The look on his face is tense.
“You didn’t have to shoot him.” I talk to him as he gets on the chopper. “I know he was a bad man, but I’m fed up with all this killing.”
“Did I shoot someone?” The Pillar fakes an innocent face. The children laugh.
“Yes.” I get in. “You shot Nobody.”
The children laugh again, and now I get the joke.
“Exactly.” The Pillar signals for his chauffeur to take off. “I shot nobody.”
“Issue Plan-X now,” he ordered his guards, hugging his teenagers.
But Todd and Tania weren’t fond of their father. They never had been. Tom knew they’d only accepted his call to shelter themselves from the apocalypse outside.
Tom showed them to the underground ward and tucked them safely in the best cell possible.
“It’s not clean,” Tania protested.
“Horrible,” Todd followed. “Just like you, Dad.”
“How about a little patience?” Tom argued. “Once all is set, I’ll get Waltraud or Ogier to clean it for you.”
“Waltraud?” Tania raised her thick eyebrows.
“Ogier?” That was Tom.
Both of them laughed hysterically. Although boy and girl, sometimes when they laughed like this, he couldn’t tell who was who for a moment. All Tom knew was that his kids tended to be a little evil from time to time.
“Enough with that,” he said. “Look, why don’t you two play with that lovely Flamingo in there?”
Todd and Tania marched toward it, not lovingly but more like they were disgusted by it.
“Okay.” Tom pulled them back, realizing he cared for the Flamingo more than anything. “Just wait here. I know who can show you discipline around here. Waltraud!”
But Waltraud didn’t reply.
Tom called for her again.
And again.
Finally, one of the guards told him Waltraud had left the asylum.
“Why?” Tom questioned. “She loves it in here. She adores the Mush Room.”
“But she loves the world outside better now,” the guard said. “She took her baseball bat with her and told us she wouldn’t miss all those fights outside.”
Before Tom could comment, his twins, Todd and Tania, summoned him again, complaining about something else in the cell. No matter how hard he tried to please them he couldn’t, but he had to go grant them one more wish.
“Yes, Tweedles,” he said. “I’m coming over.”
Their mother used to call them Tweedledum and Tweedledee when they were younger.
But even so, I spend the time with the kids, showing them around and buying them clothes and candy. The Pillar provides the money for the clothes, but that doesn’t mean I want to talk to him.
Every time I remind myself that he was the real Mad Hatter, playing me around to get the key, I can’t bring myself to look him in his face. I truly regret going back for him in Columbia. I should have left him to get eaten by the Executioner’s men.
I am aware I still need him for this mission, so I won’t push it. But after this ends, the Pillar and I will part ways. I don’t care what his story is. It’s a sensitive issue when someone betrays me.
I will even talk again to Fabiola about the Inklings. We should find a way to pay the Pillar back—although I don’t see how it’s possible. Maybe that’s why he bought it for me; to use it to manipulate me, make me feel in debt, so I would never stand up to him.
Deep inside, I admit I feel he is a much better man than he seems to be. I mean he saved me from the Executioner. But every time I tell myself that, he turns the table on me in a blink of an eye.
My predicament is truly weakening me. I mean, even Lewis Carroll is some kind of a monster now. How am I going to live with that? Am I really supposed to not trust anyone but myself? Are these the rules of the game?
The kids try their clothes on. They seem to be fond of brightly colored dresses. I don’t blame them. They lived in a dim mushroom world for so long.
I make sure everyone gets what he wants, not knowing what I am going to do with them. I can’t take them back to the asylum. That would be like transporting them from one hell to another.
But I’ll figure it out.
Right now I have to send them back to the chopper, so the Pillar and I can get ready for the hookah festival that night.
Inspector Sherlock Dormouse was about to order a lockdown on the department when the Lewis Carroll man walked in.
Each and every one of the police officers stopped with their mouths open wide, staring at him. For one, he was scary as hell. And two, it made no sense for a criminal to walk into the department on his own.
Inspector Dormouse didn’t feel the need to fall asleep now. How could he with that monster walking in his office? He watched the lankly man stroll through, not saying a word. He seemed to be looking for something.
The man was tense, gripping his head and sweating like he had an intolerable headache. He was sweating and drooling. He was in dire pain.
But he kept on walking, stopping next to the room where they locked criminals in—well, they hadn’t used it for some time because they never caught anyone.
The Lewis Carroll man stood in front of the barred cell and turned to face the sweating Inspector.
“Keys,” he demanded.
“Keys?” Inspector Dormouse raised his eyebrows.
“Keys.”
“Keys?” the rest of the officers replied, eyes wide open with surprise.
“
One of them threw the cell’s keys on the Inspector’s desk. Sherlock Dormouse wished he was asleep now, so he wouldn’t have to hand them himself to the Lewis Carroll maniac.
Slowly, he reached for them then started tiptoeing his way toward the monster. “There is no need to lock us inside the cell,” the Inspector managed to say, his lips shivering and his belly flipping like jelly. “We can just leave and you can enjoy the department all alone. Right, officers?”
All the officers nodded in silence.
The Lewis Carroll man snatched the keys from the Inspector and opened the cell with it.
Then he did something unexplainable.
He entered the cell, locked himself inside, and gave the keys back to the Inspector.
“I love it!” The Pillar raises both arms in the air, welcoming the show.
“Of course you love it.” I roll my eyes. “All the hookahs you can smoke for a lifetime.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about, Alice. This is where imagination runs wild,” the Pillar says as we snake through the endless crowd. He inhales every flavor we come across as if it’s the battery of his soul. “Look at all this haze.”
“There is nothing to look at. I can barely see anything.”
“And that’s the point exactly.”
“The point is not to see what’s ahead of me?”
“The point is to see enough to get you going, and then keep the rest of it a mystery.”
“And why would I want whatever is in front of me to be a mystery?”
“Oh my, Alice. Can’t you see this festival is a metaphor for life? What good is it if you know what tomorrow holds for you? One hookah puff at a time, young girl.”
Instead of arguing, or actually considering his logic, I see him greeting all fellow hookah’s he passes by. At least I can see that far.
“Banana-flavored hookah!” The Pillar celebrates. “You have to try this one, Alice.”
“No, thanks. I’ve had my share of dizziness already.” Would I risk experiencing the mushrooms’ effect again?
“How about Blueberry?” he offices.
“Aren’t we supposed to find the Scientist?”
“But of course,” he burps. “Mr Scientist!” Spiral bubbles form out of his mouth when he speaks. “Not here.”
I don’t know if it’s funny or horrible when I see him act like a kid. Thank God I told the Columbian kids to wait in the chopper, or this would have turned into a kindergarten.
“How about this one?” He hands me a hookah that writes random words in the air when you blow out the smoke. How this is possible, I have no idea.
Who r u? The Pillar writes in the air, just like a 1951 Disney movie.
I have to admit. I am tempted to try it. But I realize I am just wasting time while I have a lot of questions.
“Pillar.” I pull him by his sleeve. “I had a vision where I saw Lewis Carroll in the bus accident.”
This stops him from having fun.
He faces me with a keen look in his eyes, but says nothing.
“Does that look mean you knew about this?”
“Not knew, but the assumption had crossed my mind,” the Pillar says. “Bear in mind I have no idea what happened on the bus. I only found you after that, when I got into the asylum.”
“So why did you assume Lewis Carroll was on the bus?” I say. “My brain is about to explode. It’s all so confusing. Why is Lewis a Wonderland Monster?”
“Because it’s not exactly Lewis who you saw on the bus. Nor is he the man who plagued the world with his hookahs.”
“Then who is that man looking so much like Lewis?”
“Didn’t you hear nobody say his name? Carolus Ludovicus.”
“I’m not following. Who is Carolus Ludovicus?”
“The hardest Wonderland Monster to kill,” the Pillar says. “Because he is also Lewis Carroll.”
Now my head spins even more.
“You remember when I told you Lewis Carroll’s real name?” he asks me.
“Of course I do. This is the second time you’ve asked me this. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.”
“Charles was looking for a pen name to use for his book, Alice in Wonderland,” the Pillar begins. “Let’s skip why he needed a pen name for the book for now. What matters is that he spent weeks looking for a special name. One of his ideas was to try to translate his real name to Latin. Charles in Latin is Carolus.”
“I’ve never heard this before.”
“Because people are usually obsessed with books, not their authors.” The Pillar walks next to me in the haze.
“And Lutwidge is Ludovicus?”
“Now you get it,” the Pillar says. Fireworks play all around us. “But then you realize how villainous the name sounds. Interesting but villainous. So he decided to play with it a little. First move was to try Ludovicus Carolus.
“And then?”
“With a little word play, it became Louis Carol, and finally Lewis Carroll.”
“I understand. But it doesn’t explain him becoming a Wonderland Monster, or is he?”
“Let’s put it this way. Lewis took drugs like any other Victorian authors in a time when it was a common and legal practice. And like most artists, they’re usually stimulated by pain or euphoric substances. Don’t make count the endless names in history who’d prove my theory.”
“I don’t agree with you, but continue anyway.”
“Lewis’ headaches were the main reason for his addiction. A drug, or rather a cure, called Lullaby, a Wonderlastic invention,” the Pillar says. “The drug helped with his migraines, which he had explained as splitting his head in two. There is a famous scribbled drawing of him with a split brain found in his diaries.”
“An image he drew himself?”
“Yes. Lewis used to beat the migraines with art, poetry and masterpieces, until he desperately needed Lullaby.”
“Which I assume the Executioner and his people provided back in Wonderland.”
“Exactly, and the tricky part is that Lewis still lived in Oxford at the time. He had found a way to move between the two worlds and get his fix.”
“Still, this doesn’t explain...”
“Just bear with me. So the drug worked for a while, until the Queen of Heart found out about Carroll’s need. Since this was at the peak of conflicts in Wonderland, the Queen ruling with an iron fist and Carroll trying to create the Inklings to oppose her, she made sure the drug disappeared from the face of Wonderland.”