ALICE WONDER’S HOUSE, 7 FOLLY BRIDGE, OXFORD
TIME REMAINING: 22 MINUTES
“I ’ve been waiting for this moment,” the Hatter says, although I can’t see his face—he wears a funny mask. Not so funny, really, since it’s a clown’s mask.
“Why show yourself now?” I grip my key harder, feeling his presence has something to do with it.
“Because you did like I planned,” he says. “To the letter.”
“I don’t understand,” I say. “You made me think I am chasing a rabbit, leading me from place to place so that I could remember my past. What’s in it for you?”
“A lot,” he says. “But first, let’s look into what happened. They call it the Rabbit Hole, a scientific term, I believe?”
The memory of me sitting in the psychiatry office in the asylum returns. That man in the dark with the smoking pipe telling me I am insane, that I am just a crippled girl living in my own imagination to escape the horrors that happened to me.
I remember he did tell me about the Rabbit Hole, one of the methods to push a patient’s imagination with their backs against the wall until they remember what they were trying to forget.
“I had to go through all these puzzles so I could tickle your memory,” the Hatter says. “You’d been in the asylum for so long and hadn’t remembered anything yet, Alice. Time was running out, and I needed you to at least remember one part of your past. A part that interests me the most.”
“My childhood?” I ask.
He says nothing. I think his clown mask is trying to forge a smile. A dark one.
“Ah,” I say. “I get it. You weren’t after my memories. Not really. You were after...”
“This.” He pulls my hand and snatches the key from it in one move. “The first key in six, so I can open the doors to Wonderland again.”
How foolish am I? Really!
“I don’t care about you at all,” the Hatter says. “I only care about the keys, which I believe Carroll hid with you, and then you hid them in separate places in this real world. Let’s say it wasn’t hard getting this one.”
I realize this Hatter is much stronger than me. I can’t get this key back. But I also realize he doesn’t know Lewis gave me a key before, in the Tom Tower dream. So, if it’s any consolation, and even if he finds the next four keys, I will always have one he doesn’t know exists.
“I am going to leave now,” he says. “Thank you for your cooperation.”
“What makes you think I won’t stop you?” I step forward.
“Because you still have a rabbit to catch.” He grins. “Haven’t you seen the TV? The world is in a panic because of a tiny rabbit.”
“Because you made them, and me, think there is a bomb inside.”
“Who said that isn’t true?” He pulls off his hat and then a rabbit from underneath, the one ticking with the bomb. “Please take it,” he says. “Figure out a way to stop the bomb. You have about eighteen minutes to do that.”
I hug the rabbit in my arms and pat it gently. Poor thing pushed into a mad world of Wonderlanders.
“And by the way,” the Hatter says. “I wanted to make this as exciting a finale as possible, so I called the police. They are surrounding the house. People are out there everywhere. They all demand the rabbit be killed—choked or drowned in the river to get rid of the bomb.”
“Why would you do that?” My mouth is agape.
“Why wouldn’t I? What’s the point of life if there isn’t enough madness?” he says. “See you later, Alice. For now, you’re stuck between exploding with the poor rabbit in your arms or giving it away to the people outside so they can kill it themselves. Talk about a paradox.”