T he Pillar paces toward the red curtain by the window and looks for something behind it. "There it is," he murmurs and looks back at me with a smile that soon shifts to a serious straight line again. "Now, before I show you how, you need to know what you're getting yourself into."
"I was waiting for you to say that."
"This time-travel method lasts for only fourteen minutes." He pulls out his pocket watch and tucks it in my hands. "It's very close to my heart. Use it with care and bring it back to me—along with you, of course. It's an old watch, so there is no timer. You have to memorize the fourteen minutes."
"What else should I know?"
"There are two possibilities where you won't come back and probably die." He has that piercing look again.
I pretend I am not afraid and hold a shrug.
"The first one is if something happens to you in the past: you get killed, set back, or simply stay there more than fourteen minutes. I can't help you if any of that happens."
"And the second?" I feel I can deal with the first one myself.
"If you're not the Real Alice," he says. "Which I believe you are."
"Believe or know?"
"Believing is knowing," he says. "It's up to you if you believe in yourself or not. You still can walk away from this."
"And stay for what?" I say. "The death of millions tomorrow?"
"I thought you'd say you could never live without me." He musters a sad face.
"I'd rather succeed, come back tomorrow, and find you gone," I tease.
"I'm hurt." He puts a hand on his heart and blinks twice. "Which reminds me." He pulls out a small piece of paper. It looks like it was an A4 size and folded repeatedly to become that small. "I've got a present for you." He doesn't hand it to me but squeezes it in my front jeans pocket.
The sincere look on his face worries me. "What is it?"
"It says who Jack really is."
The urge to pull the paper out and read it now tickles my finger. There is this burning sensation of anticipation in my chest.
"I thought if something happens to you there, or you're about to die, you get to know what you desire the most," the Pillar says, walking toward the red curtain before the balcony. "Not that I am fond of Jack, not one little bit."
"I think I should thank you," I say.
He shakes his head, lips pursed. "No, you don't," he says and peeks behind the curtain to check on something. "Because the only way to walk into Einstein's Blackboard isn't going to be pleasant." He turns back to me.
"I'm ready to know how." I straighten my back.
"No, you aren't." He is sure of himself. "Think of how no one else all these years was able to figure Carroll's time-traveling secret. I mean, the blackboard was here, right in front of them. Carroll and Einstein's writings fill the university's archives. Still, no one ever found out about the secret."
"Tell me how, Pillar," I say. I am both impatient and worried at the same time. "I'm not afraid."
"You can only time-travel through the one thing you're scared of the most."
I shriek immediately. There is no question about it. A lot of things scare me and intimidate me, but one is the one , and only that brings to my knees.
"A mirror," the Pillar says, confirming my fears. "I have one behind the curtain. If I lay it opposite to the blackboard, you will be able to step inside through the—"
"Looking Glass." It all starts to connect now. "Like Alice did in Lewis' book Through the Looking-Glass ." I remember clearly how in one chapter she entered Wonderland through a mirror. Lewis wasn't over-imagining or fictionalizing. This was true, except the mirror had to be entered while set opposite to Einstein's Blackboard.
"The book is called Through the Looking-Glass, and what Alice Found There ," the Pillar lectures me again. "Now it's more of an Einstein's Blackboard Looking Glass." He tries to sound funny, but he isn't. He knows the gravity of my fears.
"Is that why only the Real Alice can do it?"
He nods.
"But I am unimaginably afraid of mirrors," I say. "I will faint, like in the fitting room."
"You can close your eyes, Alice, and I can guide you inside, hold your hand until you step inside," he offers. "The problem will be on your way back."
"How am I supposed to come back?"
"The same mirror and blackboard should be in Carroll's studio on the roof of the university, next to the Tom Tower."
"But, there is no one to help there with closing my eyes."
"I know," he says. "Maybe Carroll could help."
"Why can't we just use the Tom Tower like last time?"
"The Tom Tower is the Bridge of Realities," the Pillar says. "It's like dreaming or crossing realms. Whatever you change there isn't going to change the future."
"But I gave Lewis the idea to write the Alice in Wonderland book last time."
"You might have, but it's not necessarily the real reason. Who knows why he wrote the book, really?" The Pillar pulls his hand back from behind the curtain. "Like I said, we still can go back to the asylum and be happy, insane people. You don't have to do it."
"If there is no one who can do it but me, then I have to do it." I rub the pocket in my jeans, right over the folded paper with Jack's identity. It's insane how safe it makes me feel.
I walk to the blackboard and write the date of January 14th, 1862, the place of Lewis' study—because I don't know how to reach the Muffin Man if not through him. With my back to the blackboard, I close my eyes and ask the Pillar to bring the mirror and guide me through it.
As he pulls it close, I feel the walls closing in on me, because how good am I at closing my eyes and making sure they won't disobey me by just opening up?