TOM QUAD GARDEN, CHRIST CHURCH, OXFORD UNIVERSITY, OXFORD
Listening to the girl on the phone, I nod a couple of times and thank her. I hang up and lean back in the bank I am sitting on, gazing at the Tom Tower at Oxford University. The sky above is a greyish blue. Rain is trickling like hesitant tears on my face. I take a long breath as I fiddle with the sleeves of the pullover I had exchanged with the girl on the phone. She gave it to me, along with her shoes and pants, in exchange for my bloodstained theatre dress. The dress is beautiful , I remember her saying. Blood can always be washed away.
The rain keeps drizzling in Christ Church.
The few students in the garden shade themselves under the safety of the university's halls, leaving me almost alone in the middle. I am not going to move. I like the feel of trickling water on my skull. It helps me contemplate the things the girl on the phone just told me.
"Sometimes, I ask myself, what if the door to Wonderland is hidden here inside the university?" The Pillar's voice resonates behind me. I didn't invite him, but he found me. "Imagine if the real rabbit hole were right beneath our feet." He sits next to me and leans forward. He rests his chin on his cane and stares at the Tom Tower like an obedient dog.
"How did you find me?" I ask.
"People tend to go to certain places when they feel lost," he says. "Places that resemble a god in many ways. Be it a father, a mother, a mentor, a lover, church, mosque, synagogue, or even a real god." He rubs his nose to resist sneezing, an aftereffect of the infinite amount of pepper we were exposed to in Drury Lane. Thank God we didn't sniff a lot of the pepper. "For a girl like you, who is in many ways a character in a book, your god is definitely the man who wrote it."
The Pillar is right, and I hate it when he is. I came here hoping I could meet Lewis through the small door in the Tom Tower. I came here to ask him about the meaning of the vision of Victorian England, and why he "couldn't save them. " And if possible, I'd like to know how he managed to stay whimsical and optimistic in hard times like these. Maybe I could use his advice to face the cruel world I live in now.
"How did we escape the theatre?" I break the silence without looking at him, still staring at the Tom Tower.
"It depends on the last thing you remember." He leans back, both hands on his cane.
"I remember sneezing, and then you puffed hookah smoke into my face. Then I think I..."
"Blacked out, that's right."
"What happened after I blacked out? How are we the only ones who managed to escape a locked theatre?"
"The same way I escape my locked cell in the asylum." I sense pride in his words.
"That's not an answer."
"It's not meant to be," he says. "The same way you weren't meant to escape my limousine after I saved you."
"I woke up in a dress stained with pig blood," I explain. "I felt awful and wanted to get away from everyone."
"Even me?"
"Especially you."
"Although I saved you from sneezing to death?"
"You're not doing it for me. There is some plan you have, and I don't care to know it anymore. I'd just like to know how I am still alive."
"Why is it so important to know how?"
"To make sure I am not insane." I shrug. "To make sure all of this is really happening."
"The way I escape closed rooms is meant to stay a secret," he says. "I can't help you with it."
Dr. Truckle's assumption about the Pillar and Houdini seems plausible now. "Are you a magician, Professor Pillar?" I can't help but turn around and face him, chuckling at my own nonsensical question.
"What's magic, but facts humans are oblivious to see?" He utters the words as if he were a poet quoting Shakespeare.
"Another one of your vague answers." I sigh, frustrated. "I should stop getting my answers from you. I know I will find them elsewhere if I ask the right person." I look back at the tower.
"Is that why you sent a girl to your mother's house to gather information about the bus incident?"
I am not surprised that he knows, but I don't care. I decide to keep silent.
"Did she find anything useful?"
"Photos of my friends, some of which she sent to my phone."
"Recognize anyone?"
"None. She also found endless scraps of paper with my handwriting."
"Special phrases?"
"'I can't go back to yesterday...'"
"'...because I was someone else then,'" he finishes.
"Over and over again. You want to tell me what that's about?"
He shakes his shoulders nonchalantly.
"What really bothers me is that she found no evidence of my Tiger Lily in my room," I say. "I mean, if I feel so attached to that flower, wouldn't she, at least, find a photo or a book about flowers?"
"Forget about your flower," he says. "Did she find any photos of Jack?"
"Yes. Very nice photos. We were in love." I hold a single tear back, pressing harder on the phone.
"How do you know you were in love?"
"The way we looked at each other. It's the way only lovers do."
"Just that?"
"You wouldn't understand," I say. "There is one photo where Jack and I are at an Alice in Wonderland event, somewhere in Oxford, I believe."
"It's called the Alice Day," he says. "Usually celebrated on the 7th of July for a week. People wear everything Alice and eat a lot of tarts. The parade starts right there by the Alice Shop you visited last time, down the street." He points beyond the gates of the university. "What about it?"
"I'm wearing an Alice outfit in the photo. Adam is wearing a"—I shrug—"Jack of Diamonds outfit, pretending to be one of the Queen's cards."
"I see." He drums his cane on the grass.
"Is that why I'm imagining Jack?" I turn back to face him. "Is the memory of that day so important to me that I imagined Adam resurrected as Jack? Is that true?"
"I thought you were sure he existed. A lot of other people saw him, too, didn't they?"
"But, you never admitted seeing him."
"I pointed at Jack in the theatre and asked the host to make him wear the Cheshire costume, didn't I?"
"You may have been bluffing." I am guessing. "To get rid of the Cheshire's costume. Even so, why did you pretend you didn't see him before? Why did you say I was going to be with Jack in a few minutes if I died in the theatre?"
"Knowing Jack's true identity isn't going to make your life easier, Alice," he says with all the confidence in the world.
"But you will tell me when this mission ends?"
"I can tell you now if you want." He turns and dares my eyes.
I don't stare back. I didn't expect him to say that. My jaw drops. I have too many mixed feelings orbiting in my chest.
"I thought so," the Pillar says. "You're not ready to know. It's typical of people to keep seeking answers they can't handle yet. Questions are easy. Everyone's got many. Answers are hard and usually unlikable."
Again, I hate it when the Pillar is right. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. Delaying the truth a day or two isn't going to kill me. I am so afraid Jack is a figment of my imagination. I can't handle it if he is. Who has their boyfriend return from the dead? It's such a blessing, I can't deny.
In the darkness of my closed eyes, I glimpse a faint image of the homeless children in Victorian England. It urges me to open my eyes again and ask, "Now, tell me why you're really here."
"I know who the Muffin Man is, and the reason behind his killings."
I lean forward and stare directly at him. "I'm listening."