T he two instruments in the Cheshire's hands are used in the most unusual way. I never expected it.
He waves them at the corpses, like a conductor guiding his musicians in an orchestra. On cue, the eight living-dead corpses on the table prepared to chant a melody of sorts.
I grimace, confused, perplexed, and overwhelmed as I watch the first headless corpse pick up its head. It adjusts it slightly off above the neck, and begins singing:
"Do you know the Muffin Man?"
It says it as if it's an obedient girl in school—she is actually one of the five kids. Then she tilts her loose head toward her friend on the table next to her. The other corpse fiddles with his chopped-off head, unable to place it correctly. So he decides to hold it out in both hands and let it do the singing:
"The Muffin Man, the Muffin Man?"
The corpse shakes its head to the left and right when it says "Muffin Man," like a happy kid in a school choir. The head in the hand swivels toward the next corpse, indicating its turn. The third corpse has its head placed upside down on its neck, still good enough for singing with upside-down lips:
"Do you know the Muffin Man?'
It repeats the phrase, arching an eyebrow at the fourth corpse—downward, of course. The fourth corpse doesn't belong to the Watermelon crimes. Some old lady with an intact head, almost seventy, dressed as a cook with a big white hat. Her face is burned—she must have died in an oven, my guess. The lady finishes the rhymes with a raspy but faint voice.
"Who lives on Drury Lane?"
This time, the old lady looks at me with no teeth.
I am not going to remove my head and sing a song!
The Cheshire gazes at me. So do the other four corpses on his right. "One more time." The Cheshire waves his forks. "With feeling!"
In unison they sing it all once more:
"Do you know the Muffin Man?
The Muffin Man, the Muffin Man?
Do you know the Muffin Man?
Who lives on Drury Lane?"
Following the Cheshire's conducting, they end the verse with a double clap from their dead, blood-stricken hands.
And then they repeat it. Louder.
I hold my head with both hands and consider screaming. Rarely does screaming solve any problems, I know.
If there is a clue, again, I don't get it. If the Cheshire's intention is to drive me insane, he has done an exceptional job. If none of this is really happening and I am just imagining it, I'd prefer shock therapy in the Mush Room over singing corpses in a morgue. I feel like Alice in the book, falling down an endless rabbit hole where the falling will never stop.
As they keep singing, the desire to hit the Cheshire grows inside me. I step forward and pick up the mallet, my hands trembling. I want to hit the Cheshire, so the madness stops. It's not like me, but I've lost it. The pressure is too much. And their voices too noisy. It's all become too much.
I raise the mallet in the air and plod closer to him. He doesn't move. His grin widens.
"Are you going to hit a fat, poor mortician woman, Alice?" he asks calmly, backed up with the maddening rhyme. "You don't know if she has children, takes care of a mother or a husband, Alice. You can't do that to her."
"I can!" I flip the mallet back to gain momentum. "The madness has to stop!"
I wave hard and then...
And then...
I stop, midair.
How am I supposed to hurt an innocent woman working in a morgue? She is annoying, smokes too much, and doesn't take care of her health, I know. But I can't kill her. She hasn't done anything bad to anyone. And I am no killer.
Even though I killed my friends on the bus.
Still, I am not a killer. This isn't how I see myself. If I hit this woman, the Cheshire will probably beat me and possess one of the many dead people in here. Not that I know how he does it, but I can't do it. He has me cornered in a way I can't react to properly.
"That's why you aren't the Alice." His eyes scan me thoroughly. "The Real Alice would hit and never blink. Because she knows that evil has to be chopped off by the roots and burned, so it never grows again. That was the whole point of Alice's madness. She was strong. Powerful. Never afraid." He says the words with as much admiration as resentment. "She was M-A-D. That was her trick. But you're not her." His voice saddens. He wants me to be her. God only knows why he needs her that much. Tears begin trickling down my cheeks. I don't know why. Am I disappointed I am not her? Am I disappointed I can't kill him and save the world? I don't know.
"The Pillar will tell you it doesn't matter who you are," he elaborates. "That it doesn't matter if you're mad or not. I'd say it matters a lot. How can you take sides when you don't know who you are? You know what the world's most common sin is, Alice?" He reaches for the mallet to snatch it from me. "It's indifference. Indecisiveness. Hesitation when it's time for swift justice."
He is about to pull the mallet away from my trembling hands when something inside me surfaces. Something I haven't met or thought of before. A strong urge to correct things, to stand for something, and to help as many people as I can. A strong urge to see behind the Cheshire's mask.
I can pretend it's not me as I bring down the mallet on the mortician's woman's legs, enough to hurt her but not kill her. I can pretend I am not that kind of girl.
But it's me. Truly me. Maybe not the Alice the Cheshire is looking for. But the Alice I want to be from now on.