Wonder

“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 co

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.