THE PRESENT: LONDON
T he Cheshire’s head was about to explode. Not that he’d found answers to what he wanted to know about Alice. But Jack’s continued thoughts, and caring, about the mad girl, began to escalate to another level. A level of something the Cheshire had never experienced before. He thought humans called them emotions.
“Holy meows and paws,” he mumbled, rubbing his chest. “In the name of my nine lives, what’s that I’m feeling?”
Jack’s thoughts weren’t based on logic. Not really. Not the way cats would calculate the speed, size, and distance of a scurrying rat. Jack’s thoughts were silver linen to a warm buzz that filled the Cheshire’s chest with light.
It was a good feeling, actually. A dash of anxiety, care, and total devotion to someone else other than the self. Something the Cheshire didn’t think he’d experienced before.
He sat down on a bank, opposite the Inklings.
He was supposed to be ready for when Alice woke up with the keys, deceive her with Jack’s looks, and take them from her, then bring them back to Margaret Kent.
But now the Cheshire doubted his capabilities. Not with Jack’s fuzzy and utterly silly feelings about Alice. Those weren’t the kinds of feelings of someone wanting to hurt another.
What in the name of paws and claws was that?
The thing that bothered him the most was that these were human feelings. The humans he’d hated all his life — and planned to hate for eternity.
How were they capable of this?
“Don’t fall for it,” he told himself. “It’s just a facade made by the hypocrite humans. They use it to pretend they love one another while they don’t. It’s a cliché. It’s cheesy, even more cheesy than Cheshire cheese itself. Jub Jub and slithy and full of rotten mushrooms.”
But still, he knew it wasn’t that. Because Jack was practically dead. And if not, the Cheshire had never possessed a soul that had the ability to mess with his brain.
These were Jack’s true feelings about a girl he met in school a few years ago. It was so weird that the Cheshire began seeing her picture before his cat’s eyes. Not the usual black and white, but very colorful this time.
The Cheshire heard his phone ring. It was Margaret. She was probably calling to ask about the progress of her plan. He picked up and said, “Jack speaking.”
“What did you say?” the Duchess roared.
The Cheshire hadn’t meant to say he was Jack. He realized that he was falling in love with Jack. Maybe Alice. Maybe both.
Because who the heck exuded so much emotion toward a person who’d killed them in a bus accident?