THE RADCLIFFE LUNATIC ASYLUM, OXFORD
G oing back to the Radcliffe Asylum, I don't know what's worse: the mad people inside, or the mad people outside.
Dr. Tom Truckle taunts me for ten minutes for being late and jeopardizing his reputation by being a hero. He doesn't care at all about saving the girl. I feel better about the way the Pillar blackmails him. Also, I try to tell him to get over it. I shoved the girl out to the public and escaped through the window Jack used. No one saw me save her but the Pillar's chauffeur, and a few tourists who cannot prove anything but the existence of a mad girl who ate a block of cheese at the Great Hall. Then, of course, the media began showing the video of the mad girl who ate the block of cheese and began connecting me to saving the girl.
Tom permits me to see the Pillar one last time before I am shoved back to the ward underground. He has given my Tiger Lily to the Pillar, just to anger me. Now I will have to get it from the Pillar.
As I walk to the VIP lounge, I think about how I couldn't have done much without the Pillar, whom I have no idea what to think of. And Jack, who is a total mystery. The fact that every passing second brings me closer to the idea of the existence of a real Wonderland, that everyone I meet seems to be part of it, is both enchanting and maddening at the same time.
I sit on the chair facing the Pillar's bars, feeling super powerful.
"Some people say that Lewis Carroll must have been on drugs to write such a whimsical, nonsensical, and radical tale as Alice's Adventures Under Ground ." The Pillar shoots me one of his seemingly irrelevant remarks, like always. He doesn't even glance at me, treating the hookah as if he's fixing his new Porsche.
"In Wonderland, you mean." I fidget, caught in his mad reality again.
"It was called Under Ground until Lewis published his first draft in 1865," the Pillar says. "Two thousand copies were published before he came to his senses and collected them back from the market, to republish it again as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland ."
"Why did he do that?" I am astonished at the way he can change the conversation. I thought we were going to talk about what happened today.
"That's a big question." He wiggles his gloved finger. "I don't really have the answer. Historians will tell you that John Tenniel, his genius painter, wasn't satisfied with the pictures. The truth is, Lewis hid a lot of messages inside the book, which at first draft didn't seem that hidden to Tenniel. Lewis needed to rewrite it one last time."
"Did he succeed in pulling back the two thousand copies from the market?"
"All but fifty copies." The Pillar raises his copy as if he is holding the Olympic torch. "This is one of them."
"So, that's why you treat it like your personal Wonderland bible."
"I don't think I am a bible man, Alice—I love comics, though," he says "But I get your metaphor. There are chapters in here that have never been seen by human eyes." He steps to a brighter spot in the cell. For the first time, I notice that something is wrong with the Pillar's skin. It's why he probably wears too much clothing. It's like he has a mild allergy, and it looks like his skin is slightly peeling off.
"Why did the Cheshire tell Constance that a girl named Alice was going to save her?" I cut in. There are so many questions in my head. I need an answer to one or two, at least.
"Isn't it strange when you talk about Alice in the third person as if it's not you?"
I shrug. It's the question I have been escaping all day. "I am not Alice," I tell him, even though Constance made me think I must be her. But thinking it over on my way back, I found the idea unbelievable. "I can't be, not even logically. The Real Alice lived in the nineteenth century. We're in the twenty-first."
"When it comes to Wonderland, what's logic got to do with it?" he says. "You know what I think? I think you're afraid to be Alice."
"Why would you say that?"
"Because you think you're fragile. The craziness you've seen in the so-called sane world is too much for you." His eyes are unusually piercing. "I mean, just click your TV on and look at the madness in the world. Wars, killing, envy, hatred, and the whole nine yards. It doesn't look too encouraging, going out there and helping people, not when you could just spend your time in this cozy cell and bed downstairs. It's easy downstairs, isn't it?" He cranes his neck. "You're sure you have a place to sleep at night. You don't have worries about tomorrow. And in your case, you have no past to haunt you. And all you have to do in exchange for food is entertain the wardens with thirty minutes of shock therapy every now and then. Life is just so easy for the mad."
I find my hands laced together as I listen to his words. I hate how he sees right through me. I haven't thought about it like that exactly, but he hit the jackpot about the world outside. I wasn't comfortable with it and wished I could return to the crazy cell I was trying to escape all of the time. It's a horrible feeling. It feels inhuman and wrong. But so is my fear of the sane people out there. When I think of it, I haven't met a Mushroomer downstairs who is capable of trapping a girl in a dark crawlspace, like the Cheshire did.
"You know who mad people really are, Alice?" the Pillar says with his pipe between his lips. "Just lazy people who took the easier way out in life."
"Please give me some of that stuff you're smoking." I try to make it sound like a joke, hiding the fact that he is getting to me. "It seems very good."
"Beware of what you wish for, Alice," he says. "I'm one of the few Lewis wrote about accurately. I mean, without mushrooms, hookahs, and smoke, where would I be?" He stands up and starts tapping his feet in place. It's funny seeing him dance and enjoy himself. Whether he is a real killer or a hoax still puzzles me.
"May I ask why you're dancing now?"
"It's not a dance. It's a Caucus Race. You run so fast, still in the same place," he says, so into it. "It reminds me that we can't escape our fates. But enough about me, Alice. How did it feel to save Constance today?"
"It felt…" I shrug. "It felt really good. Heart-wrenching, but good. I feel like if I end up living in the sane world, I need to save a soul every day to cling to my sanity."
The Pillar smiles broadly.
"What's that smile on your face?"
"You said it yourself," the Pillar says. "The only way to stay sane in the world outside is to save a soul every day. How about we do it again? And then maybe again?"
"I thought I was getting out to prove my sanity. Is that what I am here for? To save people from mad people and Wonderland Monsters?"
"Questions. Questions. Questions. Don't you ever learn that questions don't ever get answered unless I ask them?" he says. "Questions are the lazy man's way to try to learn when the only way to learn is not to ask."
"Then, what is the only way to learn?"
"To live, of course." He tilts his head. "Look at me. Not really a role model, but I am a fine example of living. You'd think I'm stoned and lightheaded, but you know that the stuff I've learned is endless. That's because I allowed myself to live every moment of it."
"Whatever." I stand up. "I said it as a metaphor. I don't really want to save someone every day. The outside world is too mad for me." I let out an uncontrolled laugh. "I think I better stay here. I believe you promised me I'd get my Tiger Lily back." I see it next to the couch. Someone has been taking care of her. She looks fine.
"As you wish, Alice." He pushes the pot my way. "As you wish."
I take the pot and feel its warmth in my heart. I paid a great price to get my friend back.