Wonder

I run toward it, Tom behind me, but I still have a question I can’t keep for later. “So if the pills made you forget, how about the pills you fed me in the asylum?”

Tom shrugs again. I wonder what he is keeping from me. I reach for the truck’s door handle, climb up, and pull Tom with me. As I am about to get into the driver’s seat, I find the Pillar waiting inside, tapping the wheel and staring at his watch. “Seven minutes and thirty-nine seconds.” He pouts, staring at his watch. “With a triple belt in None Fu, you should do better than that.”

“Don’t make me punch you in the face.” I climb down and pace around to the other door. I push Tom up, squeeze him between me and the Pillar, then lock the door behind me.

“You haven’t answered my question, Tom.” I grab him by his sleeve as the Pillar guns down the road. “What about my pills?”

“They were Lullaby pills.” Tom chokes, glancing at the Pillar. I wonder why.

“Like Carolus?” I ask.

Tom nods, but the Pillar ignores his gaze.

“Are you saying I have an evil Alice doppelgänger?”

“I don’t…” He hesitates. “It’s complicated.”

“Talk or I swear I will kill you, Tom.”

One last gaze at the Pillar then he spits it out: “The Lullaby pills were meant for you to…”

And there, when I am about to hear a crucial truth about my past, I suddenly bleed from the nose, feeling disoriented and dizzy. My hands loosen up and my head falls on one shoulder.

“Alice?” The Pillar sounds worried. “What’s going on?”

“I — ” My eyes meet his. I’m most perplexed and confused. Did one of the Reds stab me? “I think I’m going to faint.”

The Pillar orders Tom to take the wheel. He scoots over and examines me. “No, Alice, it’s not that.”

“What is it, then?”

“You’re dying, Alice,” the Pillar says.

“What do you mean I’m dying? You said I’m not hit.”

“It’s not the Reds who attempted to kill you.” The Pillar’s jaw tenses. “It’s those who sent you to the future.”

“Mr. Tick and Mrs. Tock?” My eyes widen.

“I think they fooled us both,” the Pillar says. “They sent you here to die.”

Chapter 33

THE PRESENT: THE INKLINGS, OXFORD

“What a frabjous trick, Mrs. Tock,” Mr. Tick said, sipping his six o’clock tea — although it wasn’t six o’clock yet.

“I’m flattered you liked it, Mr. Tick,” said Mrs. Tock. “For a man who always ticks on time, a woman who tocks too late is most delighted.”

“She is suffering now, right?” He pointed at the spasming Alice on the bed in the back room of the Inklings.

“Beautifully.” Mrs. Tock snickered. “Soon she’ll spit blood.”

“It’s a remarkable achievement, I have to say,” Mr. Tick said. “Not since the invention of time have I been so impressed. Imagine her dying in both the future and the past at once.”

“Mind-boggling, right?” She whizzed a hand next to her head.

“I have to be honest with you,” Mr. Tick said. “Although I always arrive sharply on time, I never really understood time.”

“How so, Mr. Tick?”

“For example, what time is it right now?”

“It’s twelve thirty in the afternoon.”

“Is that the time now? Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“You just think so. That was the time when you checked your watch a few seconds ago,” Mr. Tick pointed out. “But between learning what the time is and telling it to me, you were already three or four seconds late. So you basically didn’t tell me the real time. Meaning no one can really arrive on time.”

“Aha.” Mrs. Tock had always been confused by the idea. No wonder she preferred to arrive later.

“Also, it’s around twelve thirty here in Oxford, but not so in Cambridge,” Mr. Tick said. “I very much believe time is an impostor.”

“I agree, Mr. Tick. Look at poor Alice here. She is dying in the now and in the later,” she said. “But wait a minute, aren’t we time?”

“No, Mrs. Tock.” He sipped his tea. “I’m Mr. Tick. You’re Mrs. Tock. We work for time. Remember?”

“I always forget. Forgive me. I prefer we skip this conversation,” Mrs. Tock said. “I think men like Einstein are an expert on time.”

“Really? Did you ever see his hair? Time drove him mad. He only fooled us into thinking he knew about it,” Mr. Tick said. “So tell me, what’s the plan from here on?” He pointed at Alice.

“She is dying because there is a limit for the time an individual stay in the future,” Mrs. Tock explained.

“Does she know that?”

“Of course not. We didn’t tell her. What’d be the fun in that?”

“And if she wants to come back, what does she have to do?”

“Two things. First, someone has to inject her with a Lullaby serum so she can make it back to our present time.”

“Which I suppose the Pillar has the resources to accomplish in the future, right?”

“Indeed. Or we wouldn’t have let him think that he managed to visit the future through the Tom Tower,” Mrs. Tock said. “The poor bastard doesn’t know that I secretly helped him do it.”

“And he has no idea Margaret intentionally made him listen to her conversation, either.” Mr. Tick sipped his tea. “Ingenious plan, Mrs. Tock.”

“Thank you, Mr. Tick.” Mrs. Tock blushed. Mr. Tick hadn’t flattered her since about two hundred years ago.

“But from what I know, it’s impossible to evade death after time-traveling,” Mr. Tick said. “I mean, even if she returns, she will die within a few hours in our time.”

“That’s true, Mr. Tick. That’s why there is only one way to save her life if she manages to make it to the past.”

“What is it, Mrs. Tock?” He put the tea aside. “I’m most punctually, accurately, and timingly curious.”

“Alice can only live if she finds her Wonder.”

Mr. Tick’s eyes shone brightly. The three hairies on his head bent like a banana peel. “You don’t say.”

“It’s true. The only way she can see another day is if she finds her Wonder.”

“Which we both know is almost impossible.”

“Yes, I know.” Mrs. Tock snickered, shrugging her broad shoulders. “But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s first watch her come back from the future.”

“If she ever manages to pull it off.” Mr. Tick sca

“Before we continue watching, Mr. Tick,” Mrs. Tock said, “what about her?” She pointed at Fabiola standing frozen like a statue beside them. Mr. Tick had stopped time in the Inklings a few minutes ago, so Fabiola wouldn’t bust them when she saw Alice dying. It actually added a lovely sense of quietness to the place. Mr. Tick and Mrs. Tock loved it when humans were quiet.

“I will unfreeze her later, Mrs. Tock.” Mr. Tick began sipping his tea again. “After I drink my six o’clock tea. Oh, I feel like we have all the time in the world.”

Chapter 34

THE FUTURE: OXFORD STREETS

“Did you just say Mr. Tick and Mrs. Tock?” Tom drives the truck now. “Are you saying you’re not the current Alice and the Pillar?”

“It depends on how you look at it,” the Pillar says. “But if you’re asking if we were sent from the past, then the answer is yes.”

“Oh, my.” Tom panics, turning the wheel. “This isn’t right.”

I can understand that as a Wonderlander Tom knows about the Tick and Tock couple. But why is he panicking? “What’s wrong, Turtle?”

“Nothing.” He shakes his head. “Not now. Let’s see if there is a way to save your life first.”

“I want to know what’s going on!” I demand, but then my head aches again.

“Calm down.” The Pillar wipes a trail of blood from my nose. “Or this is going to get worse.”

I stare at the blood, my heart weakening. I think I can’t hear it beat properly.

“There is only one way out of this,” the Pillar says. “A Lullaby pill.” He shifts his stare toward Tom.